architecture

A Hospital Design That Helps Heal

Architecture obviously can't cure patients--but it's naive to think that good design can't at least aid in well-being. And well-being, surely, is the start point in restoring anyone's health. That simple insight helped NORD ...READ»

Exhibition Design Questions Our Love of the Precious Objects It Displays

There's a whiff of social satire in Kristin Jarmund Architects' design for Norway's Bergen Silver Collection.READ»

Hideous Chic: The World's Ugliest Buildings

Travel & Leisure finds 15 of the ugliest buildings in the world. What on earth were these architects thinking?READ»

Making Candyland Look Bland: Eight Blinding Buildings

Colorwise, even the greatest contemporary architecture can seem like a long drive through a gray, wintry rain. Flashes of color are rare, while gray, black, and silver are the norm. But things are changing. These last couple years have produced a surplus of technicolor treats. Here are eight recent projects that caught our eye. READ»

Royal Honors for Starchitect I.M. Pei

Cheeky modernist I.M. Pei adds to his list of accolades with Britain's top architecture prize, the Royal Gold Medal. READ»

Eco Building Rebuilds Itself Using Robotic Arms and Eco Power

We've seen every kind of architectural concept related to green design, but here's an exciting new one that may also be the oddest. It seems to borrow from a NASA design concept; it constantly re-builds itself and grows biofuel on its ...READ»

Art and Commerce Meet on Buildings' Interactive Media Facades

The main strips of Las Vegas, Hong Kong, and Times Square are on the cutting-edge of illuminated media façades--emblazoned with hyper-animated, neon advertising. But there's a parallel movement to harness the technology for ...READ»

Tokyo Makes a Sun-Powered Bid for the 2016 Olympics

The world's largest city throws its hat in the ring for the 2016 Olympics by promoting its green technology and architecture.READ»

Vintage Bohemia: Small Hotels Take On the Dark Side of Interior Design

A new book extolling the design trend of the past several years--a recreated, embellished vintage look incorporating brick, iron, wood, velvet, and fur--at last christens a genre of interior design seen from New York to Paris. Dark ...READ»

Design with a Conscience: Columbia Team Wins Curry Stone Design Prize

Medillin, Colombia, was once known as the drug capital of the world. But thanks to a massive urban and architectural renewal project helmed by Sergio Farjado and Alejandro Echeverri, Medillin's former mayor and director of ...READ»

Floating Cruise Ship Terminal Slated for 2014

Waterstudios already wowed us with its plans for Europe's first floating apartment building. Among its future plans is an even more amazing project: A floating dock for three of the world's largest cruise liners.Check out their ...READ»

The Future of Sustainability, Shaped by Bamboo

Vo Trong Nghia's bamboo architecture injects sustainable building techniques into Vietnam's vernacular tradition.READ»

A Posh Resort With a Wicked Wicker Playroom

A children's center at a resort in Thailand that was inspired by a mantra ray, and built using woven rattan.READ»

Beyond the High Line: Five Bridges You'll Want to Stroll Across

Five upcoming projects that will remake bridges into houses, shops, and parks.READ»

AMD Tries to End the Gigahertz Wars

AMD recently announced that it would cease to market its chips based on technical specs like speed ratings and cache, effectively withdrawing it from the arms race that has been dominated by Intel since time immemorial. AMD will opt ...READ»

A Rube Goldberg Amusement Park for Sustainable Living

Tjep, a Dutch design firm, has released a creaky, funhouse vision for a sustainable community that feeds 1000.READ»

Glenn Beck, Art Critic

The tearful, reality-challenged Fox News host decries NBC's 30 Rock headquarters for its Facist design inspirations--which he also happens to have completely made up.READ»

What if the Bering Strait Were Walkable, Once Again?

A fanciful architectural proposal, for a massive bridge between Alaska and Russia--in which you'd see whales swimming overhead.READ»

Extreme Upcycling: Shanghai Corporate Pavilion Is Made Out of Used CD Cases

Upcycling plastic bottles into t-shirts and billboards into backpacks is innovative, to be sure. But Shanghai's Corporate Pavilion takes the upcycling trend to extremes: The entire exterior of the 4,949 square meter structure is ...READ»

A Teepee for Suburban Design Geeks

One of the beats we stay on top of is temporary architecture--also known as hobo design. So it's with great enthusiasm that we bring you John Paananen's suburban teepee. // Granted, it's not hobo design at its purest. But ...READ»

Is OMA's Chinese Masterpiece Pornographic?

Chinese media is ablaze with rumors that the CCTV annex and headquarters were meant to look like a penis, next to a bent-over woman--and that exposes some truths about Chinese culture.READ»

Dictator Chic: BIG Wins Competition to Build National Library of Kazakhstan

BIG beat out Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid in a competition to architect the National Library of Kazakhstan--which happens to be a notoriously corrupt regime. Should we care?READ»

Ziba Design's New HQ Is a Sustainable Pillar of the Community

The Portland-based strategic innovation and design consultancy builds a new office that also builds their neighborhood.READ»

• Designers Accord Case Studies

Palm Pre Goes Pre-Fab

To promote its smart phone, Palm deploys a well-known prefab house in L.A. shopping malls.READ»

First Look: Heathrow's $1.6 Billion Terminal 2 Will Be Brighter, Greener, Less Ugly

London's Heathrow is the world's third-busiest airport, a hub for some 67 million passengers every year. (Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago's O'Hare are tops, with 90 million and 69 million, respectively.) To help ease ...READ»