It's been a busy year for architects around the world, and plenty of high-profile projects — some dazzling, some goofy, some controversial — welcomed their first guests and residents in 2017. From the long list of completed buildings featured in the Archinect news this year, we have selected a number of noteworthy projects, including a 'hot potato' bunker museum, a couple of former grain silos, and a disc-shaped roof that seems to defy gravity.

Zaha Hadid Architects’ 520 West 28th Street

ZHA's long anticipated 520 West 28th Street residential complex opened in Manhattan this year. Designed in collaboration with Ismael Leyva Architects, the luxury condo tower brings swooping lines to this West Chelsea site sitting right adjacent to The High Line. It remains debatable though who enjoys more stunning views: deep-pocketed residents looking outside to the world's most prominent elevated park — or strolling tourists catching a glimpse of ritzy life inside the glass box.

Renzo Piano’s Centro Botín

Raised on four-meter pillars to preserve the precious waterfront views and clad in camouflaging, light-diffusing tiles, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop-designed Centro Botín contemporary art center treads very sensitively in its city of Santander context — in stark contrast to its geographic neighbor on Spain's north coast, the city of Bilbao and its namesake effect.

BIG’s Tirpitz Bunker Museum

This year's "freshly sliced hot potato" award goes to the Tirpitz Museum in the Danish coastal town of Blåvand. Designed by fellow Dane Bjarke Ingels (with an accompanying exhibition created by Tinker Imagineers), the museum building is dug into the dune landscape and remembers the history behind the neighboring WWII Tirpitz bunker.

Studio KO’s YSL Museum

Honoring the legacy of iconic fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, the 43,000-square-foot museum by Paris-based firm Studio KO opened this October in Marrakesh — the city which YSL adored and blessed him with inspiration — and incorporates both modern and traditional Moroccan influences.

COBE’s Silo in Copenhagen

A former grain silo, now a slick 17-story residential apartment building, "The Silo" in Copenhagen's North Harbor is an impressive example of adaptive reuse. Danish architects COBE were in charge of the building's redevelopment.

MAD’s Chaoyang Park Plaza

MAD Architects designed Chaoyang Park Plaza as an ensemble of 10 buildings in Beijing's central business district, seemingly randomly arranged within an urban landscape of pine trees, bamboo, rocks, and ponds to give the towers the impression of "mountain rocks that eroded over time." 

Heatherwick Studio’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa

Another town, another silo, another revamp: the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa was Studio Heatherwick's grand September opening in Cape Town — and it's a real stunner. During the original grain silos' construction nine decades ago, they were the tallest building in South Africa. Now they're home to the world's largest museum of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora

BIG’s LEGO House

BIG & LEGO go together like peanut butter & jelly. And so it came as no surprise when it was first announced that the Bjarke Ingels team was tasked to imagine a museum/entertainment/retail space centered around the colorful plastic blocks. This October, LEGO House was finally completed in Billund, Denmark, and even the kingdom's royal family came to officially swing the doors open.

Jean Nouvel’s Louvre Abu Dhabi

Shielded from the desert sun with a 7,000-tonne, multi-layered translucent dome, the Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre Abu Dhabi finally celebrated its grand opening on the city's Saadiyat Island, a growing jewel box of high-profile projects by high-profile architects. Accusations of exploitation and abuse of the migrant workers building these projects have been rejected so far.

Zaha Hadid’s Napoli Afragola Station

Designed by the late Dame Zaha Hadid, the Napoli Afragola Station adds a much needed transit hub to the notoriously congested rail system of Naples and hopes to promote economic development in Italy's south (says the prime minister).

Foster + Partners' Steve Jobs Theater on the new Apple campus

With the new Steve Jobs Theater and its 'floating' carbon fiber roof, Foster + Partners show what a successful symbiosis of design and engineering (and money) can look like. Though not the main, much hyped "spaceship" building on Apple's new Cupertino campus, this auxiliary structure impresses with meticulously crafted details and cutting-edge features.

Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie

Astonishingly overdue and painfully over budget, Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie is open at last: Herzog & de Meuron transformed a derelict industrial warehouse in the HafenCity district into a gleaming landmark of culture and commerce. Now ROI, please!

Morphosis’ new Bloomberg Center at Cornell Tech campus

The new Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center in Roosevelt Island, New York is designed as Cornell Tech's "home base", and Morphosis equipped the non-fossil fuel center with a multitude of sustainable features to become New York's first net-zero university building.

Find more 2017 in Review wrap-ups here.