In presenting their work, a number of speakers at the ninth Mundaneum conference on architecture charted personal journeys of finding their professional voices. These tales included moments of doubt and self-criticism, along with humor and discovery.
When Michel Rojkind calls Highpark “extroverted,” you might think, “It takes one to know one.” An exuberant character, the Mexico City–based architect is rarely at a loss for words or enthusiasm. His new housing project in Monterrey, a major industrial and business center in northeast Mexico, shares his outgoing personality—engaging its urban context and striking an animated profile on the street.
Surface Tension: A progression of materials from rough poplar bark to smooth bronze panels takes clients through a storefront shop to the inner sanctum of a dermatologist and a plastic surgeon.
Beauty may be skin-deep, but David Jameson's design for the offices of a dermatologist and a plastic surgeon reaches beneath the surface, peeling back layers of intrigue. Inspired by the structure of a tree'with its rough bark on the outside and smoother rings closer to the core' the Washington, D.C.'based architect organized the 3,770-square-foot facility as a progression of spaces wrapped in increasingly refined materials.
A symposium and exhibition in China explore ways of rethinking the countryside. Nan Xiao, Qingyun Ma, and Gary Paige at the symposium. Every year about a million people in China move from rural villages and towns to big cities. Lots of planning efforts—both good and bad—have focused on fast-growing cities, but very little work has looked at the countryside where depopulation and the changing economics of farming threaten the very existence of many villages. With that as a backdrop, the University of Southern California’s American Academy in China (AAC) and its School of Architecture addressed the urban-rural divide in
New projects by Sou Fujimoto and Hiroshi Sambuichi add to the cultural attractions on Naoshima Island. Sou Fujimoto's new waterfront pavilion. On Naoshima, the 3.15-square-mile island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea that Tadao Ando and other architects have turned into a popular station on the art-world pilgrimage route, the projects keep coming. In March, Sou Fujimoto completed a metal-mesh pavilion on the waterfront that lures visitors and local residents to climb inside its faceted form, while Hiroshi Sambuichi has designed a community center that will serve as a venue for Bunraku, a traditional form of Japanese puppetry, when it opens
When news that Norman Foster’s design for 2 World Trade Center would be swapped in favor of a more eccentric scheme by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), speculation as to the reasons stacked up as high as the glazed volumes in the elected design.