Magazine

Can a work of architecture reveal something about its creator? Or does a building only tell stories about its occupants? In Skin of Glass, filmmaker Denise Zmekhol attempts to learn more about her father, who died when she was just fourteen, by visiting his masterpiece, the 24-story... John Hill

Skin of Glass, a film by Denise Zmekhol that follows her journey to a modernist skyscraper in São Paulo that was designed by her later father and subsequently occupied by hundreds of homeless families, won Best Documentary Feature Film at the BARQ Festival. John Hill

From the street, this ranch house looks much the same as when it was completed in the 1970s, but the recent addition by emerymcclure architecture makes a statement in the backyard through its textured shingle skin. Inside, walls were removed to create an open living space. The architects... emerymcclure architecture

The archetypal gable form has provided fodder for contemporary architects for decades, often used as a shorthand expression of the idea of “home.” The repeated gables of the M-shaped Bungalows are appropriate, because the multi-family project is offered up as an alternative to single-family... Sin Hei Kwok

Near the commune of Bonfol in the Swiss canton of Jura, 114,000 tons of hazardous waste were buried in the 1960s and 70s. A land art installation by Mario Botta was intended to remind visitors of this environmental sin, but there is a lack of money for the project. John Hill, Manuel Pestalozzi

The National Museum of the United States Army opened last month, on November 11, better known as Veterans Day. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the building is wrapped in a... Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Dearborn Homes is a public housing development on Chicago's South Side, just north of the Illinois Institute of Technology. The homes sit astride Williams Park, which has a new fieldhouse with an iridescent skin courtesy of STL Architects. The architects answered a few questions about the... STL Architects

The Geneva headquarters of the Swiss property company SPG gained a new "second skin" of light and vertical offset glass fins as part of an extensive refurbishment. During the day the fins shade the building and create high visual comfort and a good indoor climate for the workstations.... Kristina Raderschad

In the midst of typical narrow-walled facades in Berlin, Richter Musikowski has built an exhibition and event building that breaks with this monotony, creates urban spaces through its massing, and stands out from its neighbors through a carefully detailed glass skin. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

...the Guggenheim Bilbao opened its doors for the first time. The museum celebrated the 20th anniversary of its Frank Gehry-designed building with a light show gracing the building's titanium skin. John Hill

Y House opens a dialogue with its existing context through the rhythm of building skin layering. It brings about the perception of the flow of spaces from the context to living spaces of the house. The relationship creates enclosed spaces and environment that provides privacy, while connects... Kanokwan Trakulyingcharoen

The new European Council and Council of the European Union features a glazed double facade made from an outer skin of crystal clear single glazing with a patchwork of recycled old oak windows from demolition sites all over Europe and an inner skin of crystal clear double glazing. SAMYN and PARTNERS

Not many architects are given the opportunity to design two buildings whose close proximity can create a dialogue over time. Steven Holl Architects had the chance with the recent Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa, just steps away from its decade-old Arts Building...

Through the simplest of means, Barcelona-based street artist Pejac has been leaving his distinctive imprint on the buildings of Al Hussein, a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. John Hill

A house which means to be a shelter, a boat, a hut, a wooden box in a glass box. A core of cross-laminated timber hidden under a smooth white skin. The spiral staircase is a sculpture, the feminine which breaks and reconnects the simple grid of the system. corde architetti associati

As opposed to a heterogeneous environment, we conceive a neutral aesthetically building. A homogeneous white skin covers exterior of the building; only where it bends inward appear yellow interstices of inner, a reflection of light and warmth. Comas-Pont Arquitectes slp

Vaulted Willow is an architectural folly exploring lightweight, ultra-thin, self-supported shells through the development of custom computational protocols of structural form-finding and descriptive geometry. The project's aim is to resolve and delineate structure, skin and ornamentation into... MARC FORNES/THEVERYMANY

Santa Monica, California's Brooks + Scarpa headed south of the border to carry out an industrial building with the firm's signature emphasis on sustainability and bold design. Most striking are the perforated skin and jagged roofline, which filter light and views, bring in plenty of...

‘Self-Ornamentalize’ is a multidisciplinary installation​, challenging the resources limitation and experimenting on material manipulation, through a custom computational design of structure, skin and ornamentation. VINN PATARARIN, FAHPAV

A porous skin of copper panels shields the fluid interior of the Louisiana State Museum and Sports Hall of Fame in Natchitoches. Over one thousand cast stone panels, provided by Advanced Architectural Stone, sculpt the multi-level foyer. John Hill

A theater whose skin was designed to meet different performance requirements; it is made by steel-frame dome that can be rotated, opened and closed. Dushe Architectural Design

One of the highlights of the 2014 Venice Biennale's Elements of Architecture exhibition is Barkow Leibinger's Kinetic Wall, appropriately found in the Wall Room and signaling the way forward through its moving parts and elastic skin. John Hill

In the Elements of Architecture portion of the Venice Biennale, Rem Koolhaas has defined 15 fundamental elements, such as ceilings, floors, stairs, and walls. The latter has a particularly impressive kinetic skin wall by Germany's Barkow Leibinger. John Hill

Think of the areas in and around Boston and most likely institutions of higher education come to mind: Harvard University, MIT, Boston University, to name a few. Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) is relatively small in comparison but a new 20-story tower gives the college...

Circles at various scales predominate in the new Fletcher Hotel situated near the A2 highway southeast of central Amsterdam. Octatube worked with Benthem Crouwel Architects to realize the outer glass skin but also its structure and the inner layer, creating an integrated façade system. John Hill

On September 19, 2012, the new Folkwang Library opened on the Essen-Werden campus of the Folkwang University of the Arts. The boxy building, designed in a 2006 competition by Max Dudler, holds a 200,000-strong musicological collection behind a translucent skin that looks like stone but is in fact... John Hill

Located on the 185,000-square-meter site of a former ranch in Taikicho, Hokkaido, Même Meadows is a unique research facility for studying design responses to the region’s harsh climate. The environmental technology research institute based at the Meadows focuses on the collaborative...

Architecture may result in buildings, but it is as much process as stable forms. This fact is evident in this house in Upstate New York designed by New York City's Grzywinski + Pons; what looks to be a design strongly determined by its skin is actually a result of factors beyond the...

The University of Toronto Mississauga campus was founded in 1965 as Erindale College. The largest building back then was the megalithic concrete South Building by architect Raymond Moriyama. The satellite campus now includes multiple architecturally significant buildings by Kohn Shnier,...

While the SCI-Arc/CalTech team finished sixth (out of 19 teams) in the 2011 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, they created a house whose form and skin belie our assumptions about green building today. By wrapping the angular house in insulation pillows, it puts on display what is...