American architecture

Designer Harry Allen revives his upstate New York cottage with subtle modernist makeover

When diehard modernists dream about country life, they tend to conjure images of Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House outside Chicago and Philip Johnson’s iconic house of glass in Connecticut. Harry Allen, a multidisciplinary New York-based designer, appreciates the allure...

Architecture / 12 days ago

Brutalist icon Boston City Hall celebrates 50th anniversary

Few buildings have been more controversial than those belonging to the brutalist genre; and Boston City Hall is no exception. When its concrete block volumes were unveiled on the 10 February 1969, the launch was underscored by as much fanfare as criticism...

Architecture / 7 Feb 2019

Desert Palisades guardhouse embodies modern Palm Springs living

Nothing says Palm Springs more than the desert views, glazed expanses, striking cantilever and low-rise, linear forms of this steel and concrete Guardhouse in the city’s Desert Palisades neighbourhood. Designed by California’s prolific contemporary architect Sean Lockyer of Studio AR&...

Architecture / 4 Feb 2019

Foster + Partners’ Norton Museum expansion rediscovers its West Palm Beach identity

The mood is light and optimistic in West Palm Beach despite Trump’s arrival to Mar-a-Lago; the Norton Museum has reopened to the public with a new design by Foster + Partners. Respectful of site and context, Norman Foster has artfully reworked...

John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects koi pond

Architecture / 2 Feb 2019

This Santa Monica retreat is the ultimate exercise in sustainable Californian living

When Craig Ehrlich decided to build a dream home in his native Southern California as a respite from his crowded digs in urban Hong Kong, his priorities were to maximise garden space and blur the division between exterior and interior...

Architecture Research Office Martha's Vineyard house

Architecture / 27 Jan 2019

This airy Martha’s Vineyard retreat by Architecture Research Office is a home for all seasons

It can be hard to stand out on Martha’s Vineyard. Overstatement – exemplified by, for instance, the actor Larry David’s 70-acre spread, complete with stainless-steel outdoor kitchen – is one way to go about making a dent on this deluxe...

Architecture / 25 Jan 2019

Indiana’s Exhibit Columbus festival promises to celebrate women in architecture

Last weekend a group of designers got together in Columbus, Indiana – a microcosm of extraordinary civic engagement and even more extraordinary architecture – to discuss their plans for the forthcoming Exhibit Columbus, opening in August and running through December of...

Architecture / 23 Jan 2019

The Hood Museum of Art reopens following renovation by Tod Williams Billie Tsien

The carefully renovated and expanded Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire, US is gearing up to throw open its doors to the public. The refreshed institution, which is owned and operated by Dartmouth College, has been given a two-year-long makeover...

Architecture / 23 Jan 2019

Long Island City explodes architecturally ahead of Amazon’s arrival

With Amazon’s announcement that it is building half of its new corporate headquarters – AKA HQ2 – in Long Island City, Queens, the world’s spotlight has focused squarely on this once low-key, low-scale industrial section of New York. But Amazon...

Architecture / 21 Jan 2019

Our first look inside Fifteen Hudson Yards by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group

One of New York’s most highly anticipated new neighbourhoods, Hudson Yards has been in frenzied construction for a few years now; and results are slowly starting to show. Ahead of the opening of some of the area’s key publicly accessed...

Architecture / 16 Jan 2019

A concrete retreat in California designed by Mork-Ulnes Architects is equipped for climate change

Husband-and-wife team Casper and Lexie Mork-Ulnes, an architect and designer respectively, work together at San Francisco- and Oslo-based practice Mork-Ulnes Architects. One of their latest projects is a compact concrete guest house in California’s Sonoma Valley, for which they have...

Architecture / 9 Jan 2019

What’s next for Studio Gang?

Jeanne Gang, architect and founder of Studio Gang, is the queen of the smart façade. The Chicago-based practice, which hosts bee-hives on the office roof, has extensively researched the solar carving process in relation to the design and construction of towers. A...