Each year, thousands of students enrol in architecture programs across the world. These students will eventually design the spaces in which we work and live. Today more than ever, there is a spirited debate in the industry on how to educate these future architects; in...
Reinhold Messner is a superstar, period! He has climbed every mountain above 8 000 metres without bottled oxygen; and was the first person to summit Mt. Everest, solo! The Messner Mountain Museum Corones located on the peak of Mt. Kronplatz (2 275 meters above sea...
A ring-shaped school by Architect Francis Kéré grounds its site in the outskirts of Burkina Faso’s third largest city, Koudougou. Following a ring-like arrangement, the architect used this school to yet again illustrate that vernacular architecture can be very contemporary, with sufficient use of local...
On 22nd July 2011, on this very site, 13 people were killed, leaving several others physically and physiologically traumatized. This was part of Norway’s Utøya Massacre in 2011 characterized by politically instigated attacks by terrorists. The Island, being a destination for Norway's Labour Youth Party...
The standard 90 degree angle rarely occurs naturally in nature. In architecture, it seems to be the convention. It is easier to fabricate and stack things at right angles, especially when those "things" are floors and walls. Ideally, going by the rule of the plumb-bob,...
Forming a barrier between the northern and southern parts of Norway is Dovrefjell – a scenic mountain range that holds an indispensable place in Norwegian consciousness. It is here, at Hjerkinn, located within the outskirts of the Dovrefjell National Park; that Snøhetta was commissioned by the...
Deep inside a village in Burkina Faso, the sun scorches the earth, dust flies into the air at will as strong winds ravage the calm. A brick library stands amidst all the forces of nature. It is a beautiful building and an amazing landscape to...
The Getty Center is a modern design by Richard Meier in a picturesque hilly site in Santa Monica Mountains in California. It is a composition of buildings brought together in coherent unity in a language that flows, contrasts itself and further regenerates into fantastic forms...
Mass Design Group teamed up with a charity organisation from the UK, A Partner In Education (APIE), to design Umubano primary school in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in a neighbourhood called Kabeza as part of the organisation’s mission to boost education in Africa. The school, which...
Herzog and de Meuron has unveiled a new building for the Oxford University’s new school of government. The building whose construction was completed in 2015, was entered by students in late 2015 and is set to be officially unveiled in the next few months by...
There was a time when books were high up the ranks insofar as pastime favourites were concerned. Long before the invention of the television and radio, people would turn to books to be woven into the lives of fictional characters. But then came the advent of the...
Admittedly, my opinions of the Northwest Corner building at first were not exactly the best; this is not what I would expect from Rafael Moneo who is well known for his handling with such aplomb of the brick and stone materials that he won the...
An interesting fold and twist to the London School of Economics campus, is the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre by O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects. It entails polygonal marvels and exploits the richness of red brick on its facade. London is a city of bricks. The street...
One of the most prevalent challenges in designing for an art school is to impress. It’s no mean feat when you know that there are student artists and teaching artists all of whom are eagerly waiting for something that beats their imagination. Toyo Ito is...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Hall at Cornell University has a commanding figure in the rather quiet parts of the Cornell Campus in Ithaca, New York. Morphosis Architects were commissioned to design this somewhat dramatic building with an intention by the owners to spack some...
Where do people organising a protest meet? In a forlorn church basement? In a student's hall in the wee hours of the night? Around an aggravated member's kitchen island? From the days of Martin Luther Jr. until now, social justice conversations have always occurred in hushed tones. Addressing...
Santiago Calatrava is one architect who seems to breathe and ooze controversy with everything he designs. A structural engineer as well, he has been criticized of designing projects that are almost impossible to build leading to cost overruns and technical flaws. However, for this particular project,...
Herzog & de Meuron is one of the world's most respected architectural firms. The practice has over the years developed a reputation for conjuring up some of the planet's most original building solutions. In 2006, with Miami seeking to inspire life to the downtown waterfront of...
Not so far from Dallas City's concrete jungle, shimmering lights and labyrinthine expressways is the Trinity River Audubon Centre, located in the largest urban hardwood forest in the United States. Antoine Predock Zanher Designed by 2006 AIA Gold Medalist Antoine Predock and BRW Architects, the center is a...
The Sleuk Rith Institute, a new institute and genocide memorial in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, brings together a museum, research centre, graduate school, document archives and research library. As a vision of Youk Chhang, a human rights activist and investigator of the Khmer...
Behnisch Architekten has built an ideal home for children in the Schwetzinger Terrasse public plaza as one of the first buildings to be realized in Heidelberg’s new city district known as "Bahnstadt“ in Germany. In the new district it was important to have a place...
This has to be one of the best places for any architects, planners, ecologists and landscape architects to learn and teach their arts. Melbourne Design school in the University of Melbourne has long been lacking an ideal space to learn and teach architecture and planning...
One of the concepts I would have loved to see come to life in Africa was a finalist in an architectural competition back in 2009. The competition was the 2009 incarnation of Architecture for Humanity’s Open Architecture Challenge and saw architects team up with schools around...
Makoko is a cluster of communities living on water in Nigeria's most populous city, Lagos, at the heart of a lagoon that's existed for the past 100 years. The settlement now has 100,000 residents but it lacks roads, land and other modernized resources. Nonetheless, it is...
Nanyang Technological University was looking to undertake the university's first ever redevelopment in twenty years. They sought a design that would transform the campus and be a landmark to which each student could relate. In their quest for a university-transforming design, they got starstruck by...
Vietnam, historically an agricultural country is facing changes as it moves to a manufacturing based economy. This has taken a huge toll on the environment. Increased droughts, floods and salinization jeopardize food supplies, while numerous motorbikes cause daily congestion and air pollution in the cities....
