Making a Splash: Designed by MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects, a public aquatic center, surrounded by a park in a mixed-income city housing development, proves public recreational facilities needn't skimp on high-concept design.
Winning Playbook: HNTB Architecture and STUDIOS Architecture team up to give a 1920s-era stadium at the University of California, Berkeley, a seismic retrofit and expansion that respects its history.
Of the many neoclassical buildings that architect John Galen Howard designed for the University of California, Berkeley, in the early twentieth century, California Memorial Stadium was perhaps the most breathtaking and the most imperiled: from its perch at the base of the Berkeley foothills, the concrete structure—part coliseum, part amphitheater dug into the hillside—offered 73,000 Golden Bears fans sweeping views of San Francisco Bay to the west, but on a site straddling the Hayward Fault.
Though it isn't quite all tumbleweed and Longhorns on the 20-minute drive from downtown Austin to the Circuit of the Americas (COTA)—the only facility in the United States specifically built to host the Formula 1 Grand Prix auto race—the barren landscape looks and feels like rural Texas.
Machine for Viewing: The renovation of the top floors of a 1960s apartment building created in an airy triplex with breathtaking panoramic views of Rio de Janeiro.
“In Rio, the landscape comes to you,” Brazilian architect Arthur Casas says about his commission to renovate a penthouse apartment in Rio de Janeiro's Urca neighborhood. Casas, who has an office in São Paulo, plus one in New York City, had quite a landscape to work with.
Beyond Boundaries: The Belgian firm C.T. Architects' solution for a client who uses a wheelchair shows a keen sense of spatial relationships and materials with universal appeal.
Asian Fusion: East meets West—and past meets present—at the top of a historic Shanghai building, where a rustic Italian restaurant treats diners to a seasonal menu, amidst layers of time and richly applied materials.
Enter Mercato and your first impression is its rawness. The rough concrete, weathered steel, and exposed ductwork might seem out of place in Shanghai, a city where fine-dining interiors tend to be blingy.
For the Relojería Alemana, a watch and jewelry boutique in Majorca’s new Puerto Adriano marina, the Madrid-based studio OHLAB redefines the traditional jewelry store, dissolving barriers between inside and out, as well as between customers and sales staff, to create a gleaming glass-walled salon.
Inserting a precisely detailed retreat for art into a high-rise building in the middle of bustling Hong Kong required some extraordinary measures. In a city like Hong Kong that's largely shaped by its density—where space is tight and often has to be improvised—you can wind up with surreal results.