CATEGORIES
فئات
Beyond The Punch List
Post-occupancy evaluations are still not common practice. What might accelerate their adoption?
A Tough Stance
At 50 years old, Boston City Hall is one of the most polarizing buildings in America. Building upgrades and revitalization plans hope to change that, but they mistake what the architecture stood for.
Don't Fight The Building
Andrew Zobler, CEO of developer Sydell Group, sees value in investing in history.
How The Happiness Industry Has Hijacked Virtually Every Facet Of Contemporary Life
The Architecture of Happiness was a trite book published in the mid-2000s and mercifully forgotten. Our Happy Life: Architecture and Well-Being in the Age of Emotional Capitalism, a new exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, isn’t nearly as snappily titled, but as an enterprise, it is far more probing and curious. Curated by Francesco Garutti, the show explores how, after the 2008 financial crash, the “happiness industry”—comprising government initiatives, economic indices, and city rankings— hijacked virtually every facet of contemporary life.Metropolis’s Samuel Medina spoke to Garutti about happiness as a social project, the “cold intimacy” of Instagram, and architecture’s new spaces of meaning.
Anatomy - A View From The Switch
The designer of the Noon Smart Lighting System reveals the thinking behind the unit’s streamlined, DIY-friendly design.
Materials Spontaneous Construction
The Bouroullec brothers’ new rug benefits from a special technique that ensures beauty and durability—and a bit of randomness.
Hospitality - Creative Quarters
For its newest property in Chicago’s booming downtown, Ace Hotel makes art central to its design.
Development - High And Tight
Cornell Tech’s towering 352-unit apartment building on Roosevelt Island sets a Passive House record.
Back To Basics
Everlane’s new Soho flagship, the e-tailer’s first brick-and-mortar store, embraces its ethos of transparency.
Retail - Lighting The Beacon
Edina, Minnesota, is home to a massive—yet somehow nondescript—living relic of architectural history: the first modern mall, Victor Gruen’s 1956 Southdale Center. Innovative at the time, the mall is inward facing, with stores contributing to a new kind of communal plaza. But today, at the Galleria Edina, another mall just across the street, a new Design Within Reach (DWR) store aims to break away from this inward-focused architecture.
Architecture In A New Light
Built in 1986, New York’s 599 Lexington Avenue has been widely regarded as one of the famed architect Edward Larrabee Barnes’s greatest skyscrapers.
Materials A Solid Refresh
DuPont Corian builds on a legacy of innovation with its biggest release of new colors.
Rapid Response
Cultural institutions can often be imperious, even aloof. But the current “regime” change has galvanized them to pursue quick action.
Piling It Up?
The blob ostensibly obliterated the culture of tectonics within architecture, but it was a short-lived fad. Interest has shifted again toward a loosely “aformal” approach —the pile. What are the consequences of architects
Character
Architecture can be funny, eliciting a laugh or a smirk. It can have a backstory. It can be a in an urban drama.But how far do you push it?
Back To Basics
At this year’s NeoCon, textile companies looked forward by returning to the roots of making textiles. Traditional and modern weaving techniques, the return of pure color, and solid basics (with a twist) were all jumping-off points for collections tailored to the needs of today’s contract settings. “Resimercial”—the crossover influence of the residential look and feel on commercial interiors—continued in full force. As we celebrate New York Textile Month, the citywide festival designed to highlight textile creativity and promote textile awareness, we showcase a range of offerings from our industry favorites.
Tokyo
Ahead of its hosting duties for the 2020 olympic games, japan’s capital is endeavoring to shift its reputation from megacity to one that’s more human-focused.
Melbourne
Australia’s creative capital is galvanizing its citizens to help make its future a more livable one.
The Build Up
After a period of concepts and temporary installations, a rising generation of practitioners tackles spaces for art and culture.
Design Is The World
Despite its dazzling, hyperbolic rhetoric, the third Istanbul Design Biennial largely delivers on its assertions.
Development Auto Motives
Los Angeles’s slow but visible transition to “carless living” helped shape LOHA’s pedestrian-friendly Sunset Strip housing.
Spectrum
An essential survey of architecture and design today
Festival
Northern Exposure
In Production - Flying Tiger
In Production - Flying Tiger
Building Details A Balcony For All Seasons
Where open space is a hot commodity, NanaWall brings the outside in.
Mise-En-Scene
For Ste. Marie’s Craig Stanghetta, the creator of some of Vancouver’s best-known interiors, design is never far removed from local culture—or personal history.
Development Room For Growth
A focus on flexibility is meant to foster an environment that helps patients and welcomes community members—both today and for years to come.
Anna Puigjaner
Few spaces of the home are as coveted as the kitchen. But this architect is showing the way out of these wasteful private cooking boxes toward more efficient “shared” alternatives.
Doreen Toutikian
Through Beirut Design Week and other initiatives, this young mover and shaker has restored Beirut to its rightful spot as a leader in design and architecture in the Middle East and North Africa.
Hospitality Vaulted Over
A new restaurant for a retirement community in England experiments with materials and typological precedents despite its small budget.