Magazine

One refreshing trend this century is libraries being recognized not just as repositories of books, but as important civic spaces. In turn, the design of libraries is improving in many ways: usability, flexibility, and quality of space, to name but a few. In some cases, such as with the Scituate... Oudens Ello Architecture

The name of this house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is an apt one, referring to the 125-foot-long skylight that casts shadows upon the adjacent board-formed concrete wall. The wall also serves to divide the parts of the house in plan: living spaces, bedrooms and porch on the skylight side; kitchen,... Specht Architects

Manhattan's pervasive grid logically leads to rectilinear buildings. Exceptions exist where Broadway intersects the grid, creating Flatiron-shaped buildings, and instances like Frederick Douglass Circle, at the northwest corner of Central Park. Here sits Circa Central Park, whose southwest... FXCollaborative

Brooklyn Bridge Park is a successful waterfront open space with recreational amenities on formerly industrial piers, only one ferry ride from Lower Manhattan. To pay for its annual operations and maintenance budget, the park contains commercial and residential development sites. Marvel Architects... Marvel Architects

The International Living Building Institute’s Living Building Challenge is billed as "the world's most rigorous proven performance standard for buildings." Since its inception in 2006, fewer than twenty buildings have earned the stringent LBC Certification. The seventeenth and... Bruner/Cott

Kennedy & Violich Architecture's Tozzer Anthropology Building at Harvard University, featured last year, includes an angled "digital brick wall" over the entrance. The... Kennedy & Violich Architecture

In this first-of-a-kind case, the Shenzhen government has leased 35 handshake towers in an urban village from the former farmers, with the aim of converting them into affordable housing. During the planning phase, six owners of residential towers withdrew, making the situation more... Eduard Kögel

Famed Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto founded the Odawara Art Foundation in 2009 to "foster the advancement of Japanese culture while adopting an international perspective." He sited the Foundation's Enoura Observatory overlooking Sagami Bay and designed the buildings and... Ulf Meyer

Lichen prevalent on the Oaks on an 8.5-acre site in Glen Ellen, north of San Francisco, inspired the design of the aptly named Lichen House. Schwartz and Architecture (S^A) designed a T-shaped plan to fit the site and roof overhangs with metal fins that create lichen-like shadows. The architects... Schwartz and Architecture

The transformation of a disused elevated railway on Manhattan's West Side into the popular High Line has sparked development in the form of attention-getting architecture by the likes of Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Jean Nouvel. But relatively sedate gems also parallel the park, such as 860... James Carpenter Design Associates

Since its founding in 2001, the I-Park Foundation has hosted over 850 artists-in-residence on its more than 400 acres of rolling hillside in East Haddam, Connecticut, about two hours north of New York City. Fiedler Marciano Architecture recently completed two visual arts studios for I-Park, part... Fiedler Marciano Architecture

The Voxman Music Building is one of three recently completed arts buildings at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Of the three, it is the only one situated downtown rather than on campus. This situation gives the building a public face, and the architects responded with a design that links the... LMN Architects

A bold cantilever​ is the standout feature of The Clearwater, a vacation home on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido designed by Seshimo Architects + Peter Hahn Associates. The architects answered a few questions about the project. Seshimo Architects + Peter Hahn Associates

The Murphy Arts District is a multi-phase project that includes a number of performance venues, outdoor spaces, and renovations of old buildings for the small town of El Dorado, Arkansas. The first phase was completed in September 2017, the same month DLR Group acquired Westlake Reed Leskosky.... DLR Group|Westlake Reed Leskosky

Songyang is a county dominated by mountains and the Songyin River, with more than 400 villages in the southeast of Zhejiang Province. Circa 240,000 inhabitants live here and the provincial capital of Hangzhou is located 270 kilometres away. Eduard Kögel

Brick outside and wood inside, the Filson Historical Society's Owsley Brown II History Center narrates the history of the Ohio River Valley in a manner that is local yet contemporary. Nominated recently for the de Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop

Buffalo Bayou Park consists of waterfront parks, bike trails, pedestrian bridges, and other features that make it a Houston destination. The Cistern is a found treasure that sits within the park and gives people another reason to visit. Transformed subtly yet dramatically by Page (Page... Page (Page Southerland Page, Inc.)

Architecture and art are aligned in this renovation and expansion of an old warehouse for Magazzino Italian Art in New York's Hudson Valley. Sparse materials and simple components house the art space's Arte Povera collection. Magazzino Italian Art, which won an honor award in the MQ Architecture

The White Oak Music Hall (WOMH) is a three-stage music complex that sits on seven acres just north of downtown Houston. In addition to the Main Hall and Small Room in the Main Venue, the complex includes The Lawn for outdoor performances and a bar in the repurposed Raven Tower. SCHAUM/SHIEH... SCHAUM/SHIEH

Hyde Park is a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side that is anchored by the University of Chicago. Although the school has been in the midst of a building boom this century, other parts of the neighborhood are also flourishing. Vue53, a mixed-used building designed by Valerio Dewalt Train... Valerio Dewalt Train Associates

This cabin, perched on a granite outcropping in New Hampshire's White Mountains, is shaped by the landscape. A faceted form bends to the terrain and distant views, and conceals a simple rectangular plan that later accommodates the client's family of four on their weekend outings. I-Kanda... I-Kanda Architects

Described as the "dorm built for engineers" on the website of Arizona State University, Tooker House combines student housing and dining with spaces geared to engineering students, such as digital classrooms and a makers lab. Housing nearly 1,600 beds, in rooms shaded from the hot... SCB

The city of Tianjin, with a population of over 15 million, is located at the Bohai Sea close to Beijing. Together with Tangshan, Beijing and the Xiong’an New Area (established in April 2017), Tianjin is part of a regionally scaled urbanized zone in northern China (Bohai Economic... Eduard Kögel

Architect Mell Lawrence is no stranger to designing structures for parks: in 2011 he completed the Cotillion Pavilion in Dallas, a rain shelter, sunshade, and weather vane that we featured as a... Mell Lawrence Architects

One of the best recent buildings in Chicago isn't located in the Loop or one of the city's neighborhoods – it's in Hoffman Estates, a northwest suburb near O'Hare International Airport. The area is known for big box stores, large malls, and unexceptional office parks. Barkow... Barkow Leibinger

More than a dozen years in the making, the Elmhurst Branch Library in New York City's borough of Queens is an important civic space that caters to the highly diverse community. Open since the last month of 2016, the library is a bustling space that uses color to orient patrons, landscape to... Marpillero Pollak Architects

Central City Concern’s Letty Owings Center treats mothers for drug addiction and alcoholism, while also teaching them essential parenting skills. Laura's Place serves women who have "graduated" from Letty Owings, giving them a place to translate those skills to everyday... Architecture Building Culture

Nine years from commission to completion is not unheralded for a work of architecture, but it is an exceptionally long timeframe for a 3,000-square-foot expansion of a small branch library in Queens, New York. Design and construction of the Kew Gardens Hills Library were so far apart that WORK... WORK Architecture Company

Although Barefoot Lakes, located between Denver and Fort Collins, is graced by some fairly typical ranch-style home designs, the residential development is graced by a network of nature trails and a contemporary pavilion geared toward views of the Rocky Mountains and the setting sun. Designed by... Tomecek Studio Architecture

Inspired by the ubiquitous board and batten siding prevalent in the region, this house in Vermont looks like a contemporary rendition of vernacular buildings. Dark and mirrored panels alternate with slender windows to create a rhythm broken up by expanses of glass that take advantage of the... Birdseye Design

With a pool house larger than the average American home, Timberidge is not a modest residence. But its large footprint is balanced by a preference for on-site and local materials and the use of local craftsmen and manufacturers. Located in Eugene, Oregon, the house taps into its regional context... 2fORM Architecture

The Indianapolis Zoo first opened to the public in 1964 in the city's George Washington Park. In 1988 the Zoo moved to a larger site in White River State Park, its home ever since. Earlier this year the Zoo completed its Bicentennial Pavilion, an outdoor structure intended to host various Zoo... RATIO Architects

The city of Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian province, and home to more than six million inhabitants. It has a humid subtropical climate and is also susceptible to typhoons in summer or early autumn. In the northeast of the city, on the Huangqi Peninsula, there is an area of dense urban... Eduard Kögel

Duke University is in the midst of a building boom, with a dozen buildings and renovations completed in the last two years and about ten more underway. One of the recently completed projects is the Student Wellness Center, which includes departmental spaces such as offices, therapy rooms, exam... Duda|Paine Architects

Countering a trend in Japanese residential architecture where "the outer shell becomes ever more fortified for insulation and earthquake safety," ikmo has designed a house in Nagareyama that incorporates a number of traditional techniques while providing modern spaces for its... ikmo

Although modern houses on Long Island are in the minority, when compared with oversized McMansions, most of them tend to congregate in the various Hamptons clustered about 100 miles east of Manhattan. Not so with this modern gem in Bellport, a small village on the island's south shore quite a... Toshihiro Oki Architect