Located about 15 kilometres outside of Beijing’s core, this first landmark tower for a new central business district recalls a Chinese paper lantern. Its diagrid, faceted facade is both exoskeleton and the building’s primary structure. Two layers of windows address air quality and temperature extremes. At each end of the building’s footprint, the floor plates […]

This school concept beautifully illustrates how the Arctic’s extreme climate can be a generator of great design rather than an obstacle to it. Clad in charred cedar, the 1,800-square-metre ensemble of formal and informal educational spaces, including classrooms and an indoor basketball court, is imagined as a series of spatial layers, or thresholds, connected to […]

Moment Factory brought new life - and new lights - to a Montreal mainstay with their mesmerizing Jacques Cartier Bridge Interactive Illumination. The project won the 2018 AZ Award in the Lighting Installation category.

In the Duke University Water Reclamation Pond, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects designed a five-hectare, multi-purpose project that reduced the school's reliance on potable water. The project won a 2018 AZ Award for Environmental Leadership.

An extension to a public administrative institution that archives documents for both the Bibliothèque nationale de France and Paris’ universities and research centres provided Antonini Darmon an applied opportunity to perfect the cube. Instead of building a single monolith, the firm chose to break the program into two identical volumes connected by a narrow, glass […]

With its slanted roof and viewfinder windows, the 2017 Jim Vlock First Year Building Project is a triumph of smart single-family residential design. It’s also much more than that. The project is the result of a partnership – called Homeless:Housed – between the Yale School of Architecture and non-profit Columbus House, which team up to […]

Located in a refurbished armory, Loft Panzerhalle features a ribbon-like mezzanine and a theatrical floating staircase - and it's a visionary architectonic masterpiece. The Smartvoll project is the 2018 AZ Awards Winner for Residential Interiors.

Cila is a born performer. The contract-ready chair is highly adaptable: Five base options include everything from wooden legs to steel sled runners and aluminum swivels, while the durable plastic seat and back can be customized in one of five colourways or upholstered in a wide range of matching or contrasting fabrics. But it’s the […]

There are currently over 1,100 boil-water advisories across Canada, with First Nations communities the most affected. Ben Kaufmann realized the most efficient way to provide clean water to these remote areas, rather than flying or trucking in bottles, would be to distill it on-site. His BIO modular distiller was engineered for maximum efficiency, especially when […]

Since oral traditions are at the heart of Maasai culture, this thoughtful design for a cultural centre for the Maasai Mara tribe of Kenya places the open-air storytelling hub at the core of a butterfly-shaped plan. The encircling wings accommodate curatorial activities, crafts studios and conferences; the welcoming nature of the entire design is underlined […]