Taking his inspiration from a Chestnut Street shoe store designed by architectural pioneers Oskar Stonorov and Louis Kahn, Martin produced a diaphanous glass jewel box, two stories tall and 35 feet wide. Large shop windows separated by the thinnest possible aluminum strips offered passersby views of the library’s bookshelves and clusters of comfortable reading chairs. — philly.com
Sydney E. Martin's Mercantile Library was awarded the gold medal in 1954 by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Inspired by modern retail buildings, Martin designed the library with a transparent glass facade to display the books as merchandise. This innovative design is hailed as one of... View full entry
Tucked away in the dense network of narrow streets in Kyoto's central Gojo Karasuma district, an old house has come back to life and—after a thorough, yet thoughtful, makeover—enjoys now a refreshed existence as a boutique guest house for tourists visiting the area. In charge of the redesign... View full entry
There is a persistent risk of doing harm, dashing hopes, and eroding trust with trial and error, no matter how virtuous the objectives. It is the duty of the powerful to minimize that risk as much as possible. “It was supposed to be innovation, but now we’re being told it was experimentation,” Papa Omotayo, a Lagos-based architect and friend of Adeyemi’s, said of the floating school a few days after the collapse. “The issue is, can you experiment in a community like [Makoko] [...] ?” — magazine.atavist.com
Kunlé Adeyemi's floating school was built in 2013 and collapsed in 2016. The structured was meant to served 100 elementary students in Makoko, a heavily populated slum on Lagos' waterfront. Classes were only held for about 4 months in the 3 years it stood. Now two years later, Allyn... View full entry
In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles. (Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)... View full entry
Why focus on Wright, American architecture’s equivalent of Abraham Lincoln, the giant who casts a shadow over his field big enough to blot out smaller and underrepresented figures?
[...] Because the architect’s brilliant if forbidding Southern California houses, the most important of which were designed in a burst of creative energy during the first few months of 1923, remain mysterious, their meaning and inspiration as opaque as their heavy, richly patterned concrete-block facades.
— latimes.com
Christopher Hawthorne's documentary, “That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles”, focuses on aspects of the infamous architect's work which remain enigmatic. Filming inside eight Wright buildings, the project interviews around 20 people to present new insights around these... View full entry
Dominique Coulon & Associés, based in the east of France, is famous for its masterful use of color. The firm recently completed a sports hall, a performing arts center, and a media library all in France. Check out these stunning public projects below: 'Human Rights' Sports Center, located... View full entry
London gets a major new contemporary art gallery this autumn with the launch of the long-awaited Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art on 8 September. [...]
Assemble, the London-based architects who won the Turner Prize in 2015, were selected in 2014 to convert former public baths and Victorian water tanks on the south London campus into the new 1,000 sq. m centre housing eight gallery spaces.
— The Art Newspaper
Goldsmiths CCA under construction. Photo via the school's website.Previously: Goldsmiths to Build Public Art Gallery View full entry
A new tour group fusing Soviet architecture with the latest Russian electronica is launching a series of outdoor parties amid the historic courtyards of central Moscow.
Culture group MosKultProg will be holding two events in March, mixing historian Sergey Niktin's historical tour along Moscow's legendary Kutuzovsky Prospekt with sets from St Peterburg-based DJ Egor Holkin.
— Calvert Journal
Moscow keeps expanding its options for exploring the city's mesmerizing architecture: if you've done the virtual/augmented reality tours of never-realized icons of Soviet architecture and already 'Pokémon Go-caught' all the famous figures of Russian history via the Know Moscow.Photo. app, you... View full entry
Danish architectural firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects has completed the first phase of NIO House, an unconventional showroom for electric car company NIO in Shanghai. NIO House by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects located in Shanghai. Image: Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects.NIO House by... View full entry
Beijing-based practice META-Project designed this stage-like, triangular lookout built on a forest hillside at the Songhua Lake Resort in Ji Lin, China. Completed in 2017, the structure also functions as a flexible public space where exhibitions, meetings, workshops, and other events can take... View full entry
After breaking ground on its first-ever real estate project last fall (the aptly named Aston Martin Residences in downtown Miami), British automaker Aston Martin has unveiled never-before-seen renderings of the building’s amenity spaces. — Robb Report
Aston Martin's first venture into branded luxury real estate broke ground in Downtown Miami last fall and is expected to welcome its deep-pocketed residents in 2021. Until then, check out these new renderings of some of the amenities at the Aston Martin Residences tower. Aston Martin... View full entry
Fifteen Hudson Yards, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group, has now topped out and stands over 900 feet tall. This is the first tower within the 28-acre NYC site with for-sale residencies. Sales for the 285 condominiums have now surpassed 50%, with the... View full entry
[...] Richard Meier designed a house on a rocky site on Long Island Sound that exhibited many of the moves that would come to define his career. From the front, the Smith House—located in Darien, Connecticut, and completed in 1967—is a narrow, three-story white box. — Surface
Completed in 1967, Smith House was one of Richard Meier's earliest commissions and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Judging by a new set of images shot by photographer Mike Schwartz, the building with its light-flooded interior and floor-to-ceiling windows enabling stunning vistas of the... View full entry
French firm LAN (Local Architecture Network) won the competition of restructuring the iconic Grand Palais back in 2014. Updates have been released on the firm's plans for this historic Paris venue, a space which was built in 1900 for the World's Fair. Grand Palais, Mediation space simulation... View full entry
In our most recent episode of Archinect Sessions, we briefly discussed the (hilarious) news of people running into glass walls and dodging deadly icicles at Apple-designed buildings. It was also mentioned, however, that Apple is one of the few mega-corps that are truly pushing excellence in... View full entry