In Boston’s Kendall Square, where dense research programs and repetitive building types define much of the streetscape, the facade of the Ragon Institute manages to make a statement. After years spread across multiple campuses, the institute—dedicated to advancing immunology and vaccine research—now occupies a unified biomedical research center, bringing together scientists from Harvard, MIT, and Mass General Brigham. Designed by Payette, the new facility features an eye-catching facade of tapered aluminum fins that create variation and depth while enhancing energy performance. Integrated with a high-efficiency, unitized curtain wall system, the fins filter light, shape views, and hide mechanical equipment. Their variation in spacing and profile, driven by internal programs and solar exposure, brings a shifting sense of enclosure to the uniform glass between them; depending on the angle, the building appears as solid, transparent, or somewhere between.
Today, we might think of sewage containment as a problem of the 19th century, when urban areas developed robust infrastructure to properly collect and dispose of human waste. However, in Arklow, a coastal town on Ireland’s eastern seaboard, this problem was never fully addressed. For close to a century, the municipality pumped raw sewage directly into the River Avoca, where it traveled out to the Irish Sea, severely contaminating the water and nearby beaches.
For those who don’t know, there are actually two North American cities named Vancouver. The lesser-known Vancouver is in Washington State, along the Columbia River, a large, navigable waterway that forms the border with Oregon. The city began its life as a colonial fur trading outpost, and maintains a busy commercial port to this day because of
Like many postindustrial port cities, Baltimore has long struggled to reclaim its waterfront, which is interrupted and obscured by a series of derelict sites once devoted to shipping and manufacturing. One of the largest redevelopment projects addressing this underutilized space is an effort to remake Harbor Point, a 27-acre promontory that juts out into the Patapsco River.
On July 22, the Facades+ conference series will be held in Kansas City at the Kansas City Marriott. The event offers a full day of programming developed in collaboration with BNIM principals Joyce Raybuck and James Pfeiffer. Attendees are also encouraged to visit the Methods + Materials gallery, which features 18 exhibiting building product companies.
To the northwest of Downtown Nashville and the Tennessee State Capitol sits Germantown, a formerly working class enclave with a large stock of historic masonry architecture. Though the neighborhood is situated along the Cumberland River, visitors might hardly notice, as a freight line and series of industrial buildings severed Germantown’s residential districts from the waterfront long ago.
AN’s Facades+ conference series has traveled to cities across North America for 13 years, highlighting developments in building envelope design through engaging presentations from industry-leading professionals. AN Senior Program Associate Trevor Schillaci works on up to 15 of these conferences annually, and has noticed a thing or two about what is trending. For 2025, he has pinpointed aesthetic fads,
One aspect of Milan that makes it an enjoyable city is the scale of its seemingly endless blocks of midrise apartment buildings, many of which were built as infill after the city was heavily bombed during World War II. Ranging from 5 to 8 stories in height, the residential units are typically pressed against the front facade,
In the human cardiovascular system blood, oxygen, and the heart can’t function without one another. At LifeServe Blood Center, a laboratory and blood donation center in Iowa, the building’s integrated design operates the same way: If you take away any component, it doesn’t work as it should. BNIM Architects designed the facility in Johnston, Iowa, to account for privacy, where needed, while also delivering a building that puts its life-saving vocation front and center.
Mass timber construction is gradually taking hold on the East Coast. Following D2 Groups’ completion of a timber office building just outside of Philadelphia, Lake Flato—an award-winning practice based in Texas—has delivered the first such project within city limits at the University of Pennsylvania. The new building is designed for Penn Engineering’s growing data science and artificial intelligence program, delivering sleek
KWK Promes, a Polish firm known for its austere and modern residential work, has demonstrated a capacity for humor and kitsch with its latest project. Tasked with designing a new facility for a pipe distribution company in Gliwice, Poland, the firm’s approach evokes the postmodern principles of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas.
The University of Arkansas is expanding its campus south into the surrounding college town of Fayetteville, Arkansas, to accommodate new programs and a growing student population. Along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a block-sized development known as the Windgate Arts and Design District is taking shape, providing much-needed facilities for the school’s art department. This new academic district is
In the Exchange District, the post-industrial core of Downtown Winnipeg, local practice 5468796 Architecture has revived the James Avenue Pumping Station, a facility that once moved water across the city. Maintaining the station’s now dormant machinery, the firm suspended office space and a restaurant from a platform within the historic structure, while also adding two new apartment buildings to the
A new facility for retail giant Shinsegae marks the first completed project in South Korea for Robert A. M. Stern Architects (RAMSA). Located in the heart of Seoul, the new building serves as a training center for the corporations employees and also features office space, ground floor retail, and a large auditorium. The structure’s exterior is wrapped in complex brick bond
“Architecture is frozen music,” a quotation attributed to Goethe, might be one of the profession’s worst cliches. However, at a new school in Upper Manhattan, the analogy applies literally. Building above an existing parking garage, GLUCK+, a New York City–based practice, has created an 8-story tower to house the WHIN Music Community Charter School. To reflect the centrality of
Facelift may be the appropriate term for a recent expansion to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where a 58,000-square-foot addition has transformed the exterior of the institution. Designed by DLR Group, the project adds new exhibition space as well as two acres of landscaping around the perimeter of the building. Previously housed within an inconspicuous brick structure, the museum’s new facade is a radical departure, featuring large spans of glazing and a sweeping glass-fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) roofline that was inspired by the region’s geology.
Mass timber construction has arrived in Morgan Hill, California, a small city located south of San Jose. A new structure known as the Edes Building has risen near the center of town, housing a contemporary art gallery and a wine bar that draws from the region’s plentiful vineyards. Eager to showcase the building’s use of wood, design architect KTGY exposed glulam
In a dense city like Philadelphia, residential architecture maintains a precarious relationship with privacy, which is often difficult to achieve. On a site in Center City, local office Moto Designshop faced this challenge head on, designing a new row house across the street from a busy and unsightly gas station. To conceal the home and obscure the eyesore
Expectations are always immense when adding to a famous work of architecture. This was certainly the case at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), where Metro Arquitetos Associados was tasked with complementing the institution’s original building, designed by Lina Bo Bardi. To avoid competing for visual attention with the existing structure, Metro Arquitetos wrapped the
At Fanshawe College—one of Ontario’s largest public institutions of higher education—Diamond Schmitt has sutured a new building, known as the Innovation Village, into the center of the campus. Surrounded by the school’s existing brick buildings, the new structure is distinguished by its size and bold blue color. Diamond Schmitt’s intervention also boasts a number of high-performance features,
In Universal City—the neighborhood-sized home of Universal Pictures’s corporate campus, production lots, and theme park—LEVER Architecture has designed two new buildings: The Commons and One Universal. The former, an employee amenity space, evokes early moving picture technology through its circular structure and lenticular shade screen of thin aluminum tubes. Its companion, One Universal, is a more conventional
In New Westminster, British Columbia, a new aquatic center by hcma architecture + design has redefined notions of progressive design. Known as the təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Center, the building was planned in close collaboration with First Nations communities while also targeting ambitious sustainability goals. Through a tightly insulated envelope of standing-seam metal, intentionally-oriented glazing, and precast
In Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, local practice Range Architecture & Design has created a new showroom for Nothing Design Co., a boutique furniture studio. Working with an existing 1-story brick building, the architects added a double-height second floor and implemented a screen of terra-cotta pavers in front of the building to shade large window openings. The expansion also relied heavily
Illuminated at night, the Kiewit Luminarium is a symbol of the revitalization of Omaha, Nebraska’s Missouri River waterfront. The new science museum is named after its largest donor, the Kiewit Corporation, a locally based general contractor. On the other hand, the term “luminarium” reflects the illumination of the structure, while also evoking associations with curiosity and wonder. Inspired
