The Gaia House is a 3D-printed prototype made of biodegradable materials

WASP, a 3D printing studio based out of Italy, recently produced a full-scale residential prototype out of soil, rice products, and hydraulic lime. Measuring approximately 320-square-feet in plan, the project was completed in 10 days and was built in the town of Massa Lombarda in the region of Emilia-Romagna. The project, named Gaia House, aims

An Israeli airport rises from the desert with a contorted aluminum facade

In Israel’s Negev Desert, a faceted mass has risen in the shroud of the Eilat Mountains. Designed by Amir Mann / Ami Shinar Architects and Planners, and Moshe Zur Architects, the Ramon International Airport is clad in large aluminum composite panels. Opened in January 2019, the principal terminal building of the airport measures nearly 500,000 square feet and replaces

Hand-crafted bricks add visual depth to this French music school

Located on a prominent site within the town of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 20 miles from the center of Paris, the Elancourt Music School is a weighty two-story structure clad in hand-made bricks that stagger to create a series of apertures to illuminate interior spaces. The nearly 10,000-square-foot project was designed by Paris-based Opus 5 Architectes and completed in October 2018. Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines is

This Berlin house stays dry under a cork skin

Timber is an increasingly common building and cladding material, but rarer is the use of timber byproducts. But the Cork Screw House, a three-story residential commission in a Berlin suburb designed by rundzwei Architekten, is clad and roofed with one of the most renewable tree-derived materials: cork. The project is located on a fairly modest lot within a suburban area.

Hong Kong’s newest opera house makes waves with an aluminum fin facade

The Xiqu Cultural Center, located in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district, was developed as a regional hub for traditional Chinese opera. The project, designed by Vancouver and Hong Kong–based architecture firm Revery Architecture, was inspired by the diaphanous theater curtains. About 13,000 curved aluminum fins, arranged as a series of waves, clad all of the structure’s elevations. The project rises as

Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas discuss their work at Facades+ New York

At this week’s Facades+ New York Conference, Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas delivered the keynote address, giving a description of how their firm designs and conceives their innovative building skins. The Architect’s Newspaper sat down with them after the talk to get more in-depth insights about their approach. Check out what they had to say, and why they don’t like the

1100 Architect blends the new and old with the sensitive use of fiber-cement boards

1100 Architect’s East Side Lofts is located in the Osthafen, or East Harbor district, of Frankfurt, Germany. Heavily damaged during World War II, the district is composed of historical vestiges and contemporary infill. The East Side Lofts effectively combines the two with a restoration of the landmarked Lencoryt Building and a six-story addition clad in fiber-cement boards.

This Arizona medical school blends into the desert with a folded copper facade

Located on the northern border of Downtown Phoenix, Arizona, sits a new medical research building for the University of Arizona. The 10-story Phoenix Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building (BSPB), designed by CO Architects, joins their preexisting structure on the Biomedical Campus to combine lecture halls, research facilities, and public functions. The design of the building’s facade is intended

This Swiss cancer institute keeps out the sun with a continuous aluminum screen

Behnisch Architekten’s AGORA Pôle de Recherche Sur le Cancer in Lausanne, Switzerland, overlooks the historic core of the centuries-old city from a prominent ridgeline within the city center, contorting itself into multiple planes of curtain wall shaded by a continuous band of aluminum apertures. As an approximately 240,000-square-foot cancer research institute, the complex’s program calls for easily navigable and well-illuminated

Bernard Tschumi Architects’ Exploratorium Museum bulges with cones of perforated aluminum panels

With an imposing set of towers rising from a tabula rasa-like setting, one could at first mistake Bernard Tschumi Architects (BTA)’s Tianjin Binhai Exploratorium as a contemporary take on medieval fortifications. Designed between 2013 and 2014, and completed in the fall of 2019, the museum houses artifacts from Tianjin’s heavy industrial past and displays of

Atlas Roofing

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This office building in Mexico City filters sunlight through a flowing steel veil

Since 1997, California’s Belzberg Architects has consistently delivered forward-thinking facade systems across North America. Profiles is a six-story commercial building draped in a diaphanous and perforated carbon-steel veil that partially resembling a stylish extraterrestrial ship landed in the heart of Mexico City. Profiles is located mid-block, surrounded by rows of predominantly three-to-five-story structures. The south elevation of the project

Eero Saarinen’s Bell Labs stays bright with the largest photovoltaic skylight in the U.S.

The Bell Labs Holmdel Complex, completed by Eero Saarinen in 1962, is a sprawling former research building clad in reflective glass and topped with a quarter-mile-long roof. After approximately a decade of real estate juggling, the property was purchased by New Jersey’sSomerset Development in 2013, which began an extensive renovation of the property, including the replacement of the

MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY splashes this parking garage with swirling colors

The parking garage is a starkly utilitarian typology that has been an unlikely subject for some of the world’s highest-profile architects; everyone from Frank Gehry to Herzog and de Meuron has tried their hands at a high-design car park. Now, New York–based computational design and digital fabrication studio MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY has brought a designer parking garage to Charlotte, North Carolina, with Wanderwall, an

This Colombian conference center uses a glazed skin to stay cool

Convention centers owe their flexibility to their large, open floor plans. However, cladding and design often relegate these spaces into artificially illuminated and difficult to navigate venues for users. Estudio Herreros and Consorcio Bermudez Arquitectos’s Ágora-Bogotá, located in Colombia’s capital, responds to this stylistic quagmire with a multifaceted glass facade consisting of ten different treatments and electronically-controlled gills. Facade

Land Rover’s Shanghai Offices keeps the sun out with a diaphanous ceramic frit

The district of Pudong in Shanghai has exploded over the last two decades with approximately 10 percent annual population growth, while the city’s skyline has soared eastward to the East China Sea. FGP Atelier, a Chicago-based firm founded by Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido, has imprinted its distinctive style in the district with the Land Rover tower-and-retail complex featuring a ceramic fritted

5G Studio brightens up a mid-century bank with a ceramic tile recladding

Downtowns across the United States are littered with mid-century concrete office buildings reaching the end of their lifespans; the question facing cities is how to repurpose these aging assets while enlivening their public-facing street walls. Located in the center of Dallas, 5G Studio Collaborative’s 1217 Main Street breathes new life into a former bank with a

These rock-like Norwegian cabins keep hikers warm under timber panels

In 2015, the Norwegian Trekking Association announced a decision to construct two warming huts along the mountains that ring the town of Hammerfest to encourage hiking for both residents and tourists. The project brief called for a straightforward structure with a working wood-burning stove, an excellent view of the surrounding landscape, and suitability for the mountainous terrain. Norwegian-based practice

Deborah Berke Partners splits this dormitory with a zinc-and-stone facade

College dormitories are sometimes drab affairs, utilitarian in their design and timid in their expression. But Deborah Berke Partners’s (DBP) Dickinson College High Street Residence, completed in September 2018, uses a limestone masonry and paneled-zinc facade to create a bright and confident presence on campus. Facade Manufacturer Rheinzink Knight Wall Rolling Rock Building Stone Duratherm ArchitectsDeborah Berke Partners

Facades+ San Francisco will dive into the Bay Area’s exciting technological trends

The San Francisco Bay Area is nourishing one of the country’s most active architecture scenes. Fueled by a booming technology sector, rapid population and commercial growth are delivering exciting new projects to the region. On February 7, The Architect’s Newspaper is gathering leading local and California-based design practices for Facades+ San Francisco, a conference on innovative enclosure projects across the

C. F. Møller Architects wrapped this Danish school with thousands of solar panels

Solar panels are increasingly ubiquitous across a broad range of recent and ongoing projects. For the most part, this technology is applied along rooflines or as standalone installations supplying the energy demands of an adjacent complex. Completed in 2017, C.F. Møller’s Copenhagen International School bucks this trend with a facade composed of thousands of solar panels.

The Pacific Visions Aquarium lands ashore with a triple-laminated glass facade

In California’s Long Beach, a new biomorphic mass has surfaced along the waterfront. The semi-reflective blue structure is not a beached endangered species, but the Esherick Homsey Dodge and Davis (EHDD)–designed Pacific Visions wing of the Aquarium of the Pacific. The 29,000-square-foot project, which is set for a May 2019 public opening, features a triple-laminated glass facade