Magnusson Architecture delivers high-design affordable housing to the Bronx

The design and construction of affordable housing in New York is a formidable task; between labor and material costs, and the hurdles of municipal zoning and housing regulation, even the grandest of projects are budget engineered into imitations of the original concept. Magnusson Architecture and Planning’s (MAP) St. Augustine Terrace, a low-income residential tower located in the Bronx, challenges

KPF’s One Vanderbilt soars with terra-cotta and glass

One Vanderbilt, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), is not a subtle project; the tower topped out in September 2019 and rises from an entire city block with a behemoth massing to a height of just over 1,400 feet. The tower is visible across the metropolitan region, from the New Jersey Meadows to the Bronx-Queens

The International Spy Museum is veiled in cantilevered glass megapanels

The International Spy Museum presents a striking figure in the relatively staid streetscape of Washington, D.C. The building opened in May 2019 and was designed by London-based Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) in collaboration with architect-of-record Hickok Cole, and replaced the original home of the Spy Musem that was constructed in 2002. The project is a demonstration of high-tech

The Pavilion at Great Northern Way revolves with CNC-milled timber and aluminum composite panels

The Pavilion at Great Northern Way, a florid timber, steel, and glass structure designed by Perkins and Will and fabricated by Canadian timber specialist Spearhead, anchors a new public plaza in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. The 2,000-square-foot space, which was completed in 2019 and will be home to a coffee shop, abuts the Perkins and Will–designed

Thomas Phifer and Partners’s Glenstone Museum rises from the landscape with subtle monumental tectonics

With an extensive private collection of contemporary art ranging from the large-scale sculptural work of Michael Heizer to the oil-on-canvas abstracts of Mark Rothko, the new Glenstone Museum addition—opened in Fall 2018 and located in suburban Potomac, Maryland, just 15 miles from the city center of Washington, D.C.—is a testament to the role of placemaking as a

UN Studio enlivens a storefront in Amsterdam with flowing glass

Completed in December 2019, The Looking Glass is a four-story mixed-use renovation for developer Warenar Real Estate that offers a thoughtful solution for merging contemporary design within the centuries-old Museum Quarter of Amsterdam. Designed by Dutch architectural practice UN Studio, the approach addresses both the contextual and use demands of the site with finely curved glass panels and well-crafted

RAMSA’s American Water headquarters brings detailed aluminum to the Camden waterfront

Opened in December 2018, the American Water Headquarters is the most recent significant addition to Camden, New Jersey’s, Delaware River waterfront and sits directly across from Philadelphia’s Center City. Designed by New York’s Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), the corporate project articulates the former industrial character of the Rust Belt with an aluminum composite facade

Glass panels with the sky reflected

REX and Front’s 2050 M Street stands lightly with fluted glass

Set to open in mid-March, 2050 M Street is a novel commercial project located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. REX, an architecture and design firm based in New York, is the design architect for the project. In contrast to the imposing massing of Beaux-Arts, Brutalist, and droll mid-century Miesian bootlegs that dominate the capital,

Omgivning and Spectra return L.A.’s Broadway Trade Center to turn-of-the-century splendor

Los Angeles’s Broadway is home to one of the finest assemblies of Commercial Style buildings in the country, consisting of steel structures with box-like massing, clad with richly ornamented terra-cotta or cast-iron, and lightened with large rectangular and divided windows. Constructed over several phases starting in 1908, the Broadway Trade Center, initially known as Hamburger’s

Studio Gang’s MIRA Tower twists with alternating window bays

Located just south of San Francisco’s Financial District and blocks away from the bay, MIRA Tower is a housing development that grabs your attention with a highly detailed geometric form. The project joins a spate of recently completed and under construction towers in the Transbay Development Zone, including Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects’ Salesforce Tower and the Heller Manus Architects’ 181

Hickok Cole and Facades+ will spotlight D.C. architectural design and technology

As the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., is home to a thriving architectural culture, grounded in both historic and contemporary design. The upcoming Facades+ AM conference on February 20 will provide a forum for the city’s design community to dive into the intricacies of some of the region’s most significant architectural projects. The conference is co-chaired by Hickok Cole, a local

MVRDV’s Depot houses a national archive behind mirror glass

The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (MBVB), located in Rotterdam’s 10-acre Museumpark, is receiving a striking new addition designed by MVRDV. Depot will house up to 125,000 of the museum’s artworks not currently used for exhibitions, with over 70,000 of the pieces being made accessible to the public in a semi-curated format. In response to the site and the

EHDD discusses Facades+ and industry trends in the Bay Area

On January 31, The Architect’s Newspaper’s Facades+ conference series is returning to San Francisco. The conference co-chair is EHDD, a Bay Area firm with particular expertise in sustainable design. The morning is split into three panels discussing the resilient design features of 181 Fremont and The Exchange; the complex facade assemblies of Mira Tower and 950 Market Street; and

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s maintenance facility rises from the earth with sculpted concrete

The Cleveland Museum of Art, constructed of white Georgian marble in 1913, is a remarkable demonstration of Neoclassicism in America and serves as the lynchpin of surrounding Wade Park. Servicing the museum and the surrounding grounds requires extensive upkeep, and over the years a haphazard assembly of buildings was erected to service those needs.  These have been

Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects’ Centrale nods to the Jazz Age with chevrons of terra-cotta

Midtown East is a competitive Manhattan neighborhood to design a new tower; the skyline is crowded with an assembly of jostling skyscrapers and landmarks constructed over the last century. Completed in 2019, The Centrale is an 803-foot-tall residential tower designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and developed by Ceruzzi Properties. The building strikes a middle ground between the