Huang Wenjing and Li Hu came of age as architects in New York, after they graduated from Beijing’s Tsinghua University in the 1990s. It was there – while Li was at Steven Holl Architects and Huang at Pei Cobb Freed & Partners – that they had the idea of starting their own practice. Having gained more experience and a clearer understanding of architecture, the pair eventually opened their Beijing office in 2008, the year of the Beijing Summer Olympics, on one of the capital’s distinctive hutongs; their office is still there today.
The name Open Architecture was inspired by the type of open-source computer hardware or software that allows a simple, free and customizable interchange of components. One of the pair’s earlier projects, Beehive Dorm, a 2009 modular building system made from prefabricated steel-framed hexagonal cells, could be seen as a direct architectural realization of this principle.
The practice’s breakthrough project was the Beijing No.4 High School Fangshan Campus (widely known as the ‘Garden School’) in 2014. At the time, local authorities were aiming to move away from standard inner-city schools – a big block adjacent to a vast, usually empty field – and build schools with more natural outdoor environments. ‘There is a huge demand for better education as the population is getting more affluent, and we wanted to create a new typology for schools,’ says Li. Open’s design placed communal facilities, such as the canteen, auditorium and gymnasium, underground, while covering the site with gardens that reached over the rooftops, giving a view of nature to the students and staff in the classrooms, laboratories and offices.
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Role Models - Elmgreen & Dragset's subversive take on the classical form at Paris' Musée d'Orsay explores contemporary masculinities in a heteronormative world
As Elmgreen & Dragset, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset bring a smart subversion to their large-scale installations. Over the last three decades, they have taken a sideways look at social and political systems by recontextualising mainstream motifs: works have included a full-scale replica of a Prada boutique in the Texan desert and a vast, vertical swimming pool, now installed in Hong Kong.
Flask Force - A limited-edition perfume collaboration between two Spanish craft masters says it with flowers
Loewe and Lladró are two brands with a lot in common. They're both Spanish, they're both born out of an obsessive desire to master a particular material (Loewe with leather and Lladró with porcelain), and they're both exemplars of luxury design. So it seems fitting, then, that the two maisons have finally come together for an exceptional collaboration, launching this autumn: a limited-edition run of porcelain flask toppers for three of Loewe Perfumes' classic scents.
Bloom Service - A flower-shaped brutalist beauty in Geneva gets a refresh
Tucked between the extensive campus of Geneva's University Hospital and a huddle of associated medical institutions, laboratories and surgeries, the Avenue de la Roseraie is trod by few casual visitors to the Swiss city. And yet here - out of sight in a small car park is an extraordinary structure that, situated elsewhere, would surely draw the attention of architectural students like bees to a nectar-rich flower. Horticulturalists, too, perhaps, for whom a building nicknamed La Tulipe might well incite curiosity.
Second Nature -A remodelled museum in Lisbon, by Kengo Kuma & Associates, meshes Japanese and Portuguese influences to create a space that sits in harmony with its surroundings
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's complex in Lisbon has been one of the city's best-loved landmarks since it opened in the 1960s. The foundation aims to improve quality of life through art, charity, science and education, and its Lisbon campus encompasses a main office, library, scientific research centre and contemporary art museum, Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM), which reopens this month following an extensive four-year renovation by Japanese studio Kengo Kuma & Associates. Designed in collaboration with landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, the update cleverly reconfigures the space and extends the foundation's gardens to craft a more cohesive relationship between the existing structures.
Cane and Able- Fusing traditional craftsmanship with contemporary vision, design studio Ibuku demonstrates the versatility of bamboo at a serene Bali villa
Over the last decade, Bali-based studio Ibuku, headed up by designer Elora Hardy, has become a leading expert in bamboo architecture, its output encompassing everything from a traditional Sumbanese house and a yoga and meditation space to playful treehouses and a riverside café at an eco-friendly jungle retreat in Ubud. In 2021, the studio completed The Arc sports hall at the Green School in Bali (founded by Elora's father, designer John Hardy). Made from a series of arches spanning an impressive 19m, it was a pioneering feat of bamboo engineering.
Guest Editor Marcio Kogan - Marcio Kogan has been prolific since setting up his namesake studio in São Paulo in 1978 (it was renamed Studio MK27 at the turn of the century).
Marcio Kogan has been prolific since setting up his namesake studio in São Paulo in 1978 (it was renamed Studio MK27 at the turn of the century). The 72-year-old architect has since become synonymous with contemporary Brazilian chic, offering a sumptuous blend of raw, textured materials; clean geometric forms; effortless functionality; vernacular design features; and a deep knowledge and appreciation of the rich, tropical modernist architecture legacy of his home country.
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We conjure up public spaces that look and feel good, taking our design cues from the domestic landscape
LINES OF BEAUTY
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Cloud pleaser
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