A topography sculpted of folded, skewed metal planes, the Vail House by California based Brooks +Scarpa (formerly Pugh + Scarpa Architects), seems to enter into a love affair with the hill, blurring the boundaries between the natural and the artificial.


The design of the Vail House was generated by the integration of two disparate forces: the mundane requirements of the regulations imposed by zoning codes, economic constraints and the technical challenge of building on a steep hillside, and on the other hand the careful attention to the very specific condition of the site itself and to its surroundings. This made the architecture of the project a unique expression of the generic and the specific.

French Architect Paul Andreu imagined China’s National Grand-Theater as a cultural Island rising from its surrounding water.

The project is located at the heart of Beijing along the Chang’An Avenue neighboring the people’s assembly at around 1500 ft. (500m) from the Forbidden City. The decision to build this project in a location that gathers numerous historic and symbolic buildings demonstrates the emphasis that the authorities allocate to culture and the performance Art and their importance to the image of Modern China.

A major concert hall space in Porto, Portugal designed by  Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas  and the Office of Metropolitan Architecture. It is located on a plaza between a historic area of Porto, the Rotunda da Boavista and a newer working-class neighborhood.

As a result of Porto being selected as one of the two cultural capitals of Europe in 2001, the Minister of Culture and the city of Porto founded Porto 2001, an organization which was to initiate and prepare different urban and cultural interventions for the city of Porto. In this context five international architectural practices, amongst which was OMA, were invited to participate in a restricted competition for a new concert hall to be positioned in the historical centre of Porto, the Rotunda da Boavista.

Image courtesy of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)

3XN wins the architecture competition for a combined Theatre and Jazz-house in Molde, Norway. Molde, at the Romsdalsfjord south of Trondheim, is renowned for its international jazz festival attracting both famous jazz-musicians and a wide audience every summer in July.

3XN has designed a building that quite literally grabs the site, Gørvellplassen. Like a paper cut, the 3XN project cuts and folds the square to let the surface of the square and the roof of the building merge. In this way, the different stages, the gallery and the café of the inside are opened up to a free flow between the interior and the exterior of the building.

When owners Geoffrey Moore and Genie Gable commissioned Architects Shubin + Donaldson to design this three-level Residence located in ‘The Riviera’ area of Santa-Barbara in California, they had searched for more than a year to find a site that met their exacting and almost contradictory requirements.

Geoffrey Moore is an international businessman and writer who, when not traveling, splits his work time between a home office in Santa Barbara and a corporate office 85 miles south in Santa Monica.  He wanted a shaded, quiet office space filled with cutting-edge technology for global communication where he could write without distraction.  His wife is the principal of Genie Gable Interior Design, and a graduate of the Professional Design Program at UCLA. She sought sun-filled spaces with unimpeded views of the nearby Pacific Ocean and, at night, the city lights of Santa Barbara.

Andrade Morettin Associates, Architects designed this  summerhouse located at a short distance from the sea, in Itamambuca on the north coast of the State of São Paulo, in Brazil. The environment is hot and humid and the landscape includes exuberant vegetation.


What Andrade Morettin architects wanted to create in the RR House was a big shelter. A sort of a “shell”, that protects from the intense sun and the frequent rain, without blocking the natural cross ventilation that cools the house.

All Photos by Nelson Kon

Japanese Architect, Katsuhiro Miyamoto brings us a  smart and well integrated project called the Clover House. With a total built area of 76m2 proves that beautiful things can come in small sizes.

The house is made of two levels; a basement and a first floor. It is spatially defined by three elements, the rectilinear retaining wall in the basement, the external wall of the ground floor, shaped as a square glass box, and most importantly, at the center of the house, curvilinear wall shaped like a cloverleaf 4.6m (15ft) high that emerges from basement to the first floor and help define the different spaces in the house.