Luis Fernández-Galiano   Spanish children of the fifties were denied all whims with a bold sentence, ‘this is not America!’, which was often followed by another that said more or less the same, ‘we are not millionaires!’ Half a century later, these kinds of exclamations are

Sondra Fein   Zaha Hadid’s Mobile Art Pavilion, commissioned by Chanel, sits in Hong Kong Harbor, its smooth, curving white form filled with contemporary artist’s musings on the fashion house’s iconic quilted clutches. The mobile pavilion – ready to bring its show

Arkitema   Denmark   Comprising 28 apartments, the complex is protected from the street traffic by a row of buildings, and open westwards to a cemetery with lush vegetation and good views, and whose presence has been essential in the design of the scheme. The location of

Baumschlager Eberle Architekten   Switzerland   Consisting of hundreds of glass panels, the bright and homogeneous exterior shell is the main feature of the Eichgut building. The skin that covers the whole L-shaped volume protects the 90 units from the nearby presence of railway tracks, and at the

Bevk Perović arhitekti   Slovenia   Located right on the boundary of the city, the complex of six blocks faces on one side the open field, the urban fabric on another side and the busy railway track on the third side. The existing scheme – a series of buildings placed symetrically on a

Brendeland & Kristoffersen   Norway   In the 19th century Svartlamoen was a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Trondheim. It was categorized for industrial use in 1947, but local opposition halted the plans, and the area began to decay until the 1970s, when alternative groups

DKV Architecten   Netherlands   The apartment building in Sloterplas lake is part of a renewal plan for the area, which includes the extension of the existing boulevard, applying different urbanistic criteria to either side of the street: towards the west the original structure of

OAB   Spain   Located on the new Diagonal Avenue, across from the park designed by Jean Nouvel in the north stretch of the urban block, the building, which includes retail and parking areas and 68 apartments, addresses a double condition: it acts as facade of an o

Fink+Jocher   Germany   The aim of the project is the construction of 52 housing units accommodated in five buildings within a vast urban plan comprising several urban blocks and developed by different architects south of the olympic grounds of Munich, very close to the fam

Édouard François   France   Located amid the trees of a small park, in the Norman town of Louviers, 100 kilometers from Paris, the project aims to preserve the quiet and delicate character of the place, paying heed to the quality and comfort of the dwellings, as well as to the

Manuelle Gautrand Architecture   France   Developer by a private building company, the project is part of a municipal program of Rennes aimed at promoting the construction of buildings complying with the High Environmental Quality (HQE) standards of France. The objective is to raise a ‘green

Junquera arquitectos   Spain   Located in Isla Chamartín, by the extension of the Paseo de la Castellana, this residential project is part of a special plan, designed by the same architects, which opts for high-rise construction to free up as much surface as possible for garden sp

MaccreanorLavington Architects   United Kingdom   Located in a decaying area by the city center, the Accordia development, which includes this project, is part of the national plan to densify the existing urban areas. The terraced dwellings have two fronts: one towards the tree-lined avenue that con

Níall McLaughlin Architects   United Kingdom   The project was the winner of a competition organized in 2002 for the construction of low-cost housing in Silvertown, a post-industrial area east of London. With the history and geology of the place as starting points, the design focussed on four the

Rafael Moneo, Alberto Nicolau   Netherlands   The urban condition of the plot – in a square next to the Town Hall that is part of a void in the center of the city –, a brick church of the 17th century, and the tall trees that grow in the square are elements that determine the general outline of

Morphosis, Begoña Diaz-Urgorri   Spain   The insertion of landscapes as building element, in both a literal and a figurative sense, prompts to explore different hierarchies and social models during the design process, taking the medieval town as point of reference rather than the modern cit

MVRDV   Netherlands   Built in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, the Garden Cities of Amsterdam are large residential complexes whose greatest asset are the spatious parks surrounding them. The Parkrand project consists in the remodelation of one of these complexes, sub

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos   Netherlands   The terrains of an old timber factory in the city of Groningen are becoming an important area of growth. One of the several interventions under way there is the De Linie plan, a scheme for the construction of single-family dwellings for which sixteen

OFIS Architects   Slovenia   The project was designated winner in a competition for the construction of two blocks of low-cost apartments – never more than 600 euros per square meter – for young families. Located on a hill with views onto Izola bay on one side and the mountainou

Sadar + Vuga   Slovenia   With its own garden, underground parking with 110 spaces, a striking facade with balconies and French windows, and penthouses with terraces in the attic, House Zvezda is an innovative project amid the residential structures that prevail in the urban

Álvaro Siza   Portugal   Designed and partially built in the decade of the 1970s as part of the program of the organization known as SAAL (Servicio de Apoio Ambulatorio Local), the project’s objective is to provide housing for an established community on an adjacent site. Cr

Cino Zucchi   Italy   Included in the transformation process under way in the area, the intervention opens up for public use an old industrial precinct of the Fira by way of paths that connect it with the urban fabric. A new plaza generates a pedestrian diagonal street th