Concrete

The Sand Hill Road bought the Prahran Hotel in early 2011, and will reopen it after eight months of hefty reconstruction. At the Prahran Hotel, they had city-based architects Techne design the space, utilising concrete irrigation pipes, each about 2.5 metres in diameter, sitting four pipes high…

Casa Corallo in Guatemala City. The luxurious home, which was designed by Paz Arquitectura, was built into a lush hillside in Guatemala City’s Santa Rosalía area. The house isn’t just surrounded by trees; it actually has mature trees growing right through the living room. Working with a site that was full of dozens of big trees, the design team and builders chose to integrate the modern home into the existing landscape, laying the foundation around the growth…

Frida Escobedo’s intervention in the Tallera Siqueiros creates a relationship which combines a museum-workshop surrounding areas from a simple gesture: open the museum courtyard adjacent to a square turning a series of murals from its original position. It is a space built in 1965 that became the home and studio of muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros in the last years of his life…

The Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM)-designed Zhengzhou Greenland Plaza has opened its doors to its office users. The circular 60-story tower takes its place as the tallest building in the central Chinese city. Located in the northeast portion of Zhengzhou, the 919-feet (280-meter) tall tower’s circular form is a response to the surrounding development’s shape that centers on a manmade lake…

The Met designed by WOHA & Tandem Architects, currently Thailand’s fourth tallest building at 228 meters in height, demonstrates creative ideas for high-rise, high-density living in the tropics. The project explores how aspects of low-rise tropical housing can be adapted to provide high amenity through indoor-outdoor spaces in the sky…

The X-House sits atop a steep hill in Cabrils, Barcelona, with impressive views over a valley. Fashioned in the shape of its namesake, albeit in giant concrete form, the house is the handiwork of young Mexico City and Barcelona-based architects, Cadaval & Sola-Morales, known for bold, formal gestures and modern lines…

A little home designed by Tokyo-based architectural unit onishimaki+hyakudayuki architects (o+h). Maki Onishi narrates their concept for this small house in Tokyo: their design responds to the penned in character of the site – only accessed by two narrow alleys…

The private club Haesley Nine Bridges designed by Shigeru Ban Architects & KACI International, located in Yeoju in Gyeonggi Province, opened in 2009. On the strength of the best facilities & service and the brand synergy, it has become Korea’s most luxurious golf course brand. Haesley provides the best course condition thanks to the installation of the world’s first 18-hole SubAir & Hydronics system. With its unique wooden column timber structure, Haesley’s clubhouse won three prestigious global architecture awards…

Superkilen is a half a mile long urban space wedging through one of the most ethnically diverse and socially challenged neighborhoods in Denmark. A collage of stories and urban situations from around the world: Bjarke Ingels Group, Topotek1 and SUPERFLEX’s response to Copenhagen’s most multi-cultural district…

Designed by Beijing-based MAD Architects, These two 56- and 50-storey towers feature elliptical-shaped slabs that are twisted around a central vertical axis resulting in a curvaceous shape that has prompted the Marilyn Monroe nickname. The rotating slabs presented two key structural challenges. The rotation of every floor meant that the engineers had to calculate the maximum load on every structural element…