OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture   Netherlands   Upon its completion in 1992, Rijnstraat 8 represented both an innovative office typology – its atriums served as conservatories – and a leading example of sustainability. Over time, the building no longer offered the flexibility required of a contemp

Snøhetta   Norway   The Oslo firm Snøhetta – in collaboration with R8 Property, Skanska, and Asplan Viak – has completed this office building that will consume little energy and produce more than it will need over its lifespan (estimated at 60 years), including in const

Barceló Balanzó Arquitectes   Spain   Given the huge volume of the functional program – three sports tracks – in regards to the reduced dimension of the plot and the high urban density in the area, an important part of the sports complex is partially buried. By working on the section of

CSO Arquitectura   Spain   Designed by CSO Arquitectura, headed by Antón Freile, this expansion of the elderly residence which the same Madrid firm built in 2005 in Camarzana de Tera (Zamora), at kilometer 127 of the road linking Benavente to Vigo, has been shortlisted in the

straddle3 Yaiza Terré Eulia Arkitektura   Spain   The aprop program for provisional housing launched by the City of Barcelona is designed to offer a swift, efficient, and pragmatic response to emergency situations caused by shortage of housing, keeping neighbors from having to leave gentrified distr

Luis Vidal   Spain   On an elongated plot parallel to the Avenida de las Universidades, in Dos Hermanas, Seville, the new campus is, along with that of Córdoba, the second largest of Loyola University in Seville. Because of very extreme temperatures in the region, the p

Codina Prat Valls i Arquitectes Associats SLP   Spain   The center for the elderly is located on an island of municipal facilities, next to a nursery and a civic center at the foot of Palaudàries highway. It has a single floor of 490 square meters, including a main hall with access from the road and a lar

Calderon-Folch Arquitectes Pol Sarsanedas   Spain   The project for the CMCiB Building (Comparative Medicine and Bioimage Center) seeks addressing complex technical and functional issues in a way that is sustainable and sensitive to context and achieves high comfort levels (visual, hygrothermal, and a

Coll-Leclerc   Spain   This residential development is located close to the transportation hub of Les Glòries – currently under construction and set to become a space for people, as well as a large green lung for the city of Barcelona. Coll-Leclerc’s project proposes an in

AAN (Arquitectura Anna Noguera) J2J architects   Spain   Anna Noguera and José Javier Fernández Ponce carried out this project that involved building a new multisport center for Barcelona’s Turó de la Peira neighborhood and fitting out the interior of one of its city blocks. The facilities are housed in a

SUMO arquitectes Yolanda Olmo   Spain   Villa Urania is a small residence from the  late 19th century – home of the astronomer Josep Comas i Solà (1868-1937) –, the last example of the garden-city of El Farró in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district. The redensification of the neighborhood left

A sensitive interpretation of the genius loci: this is how one could describe the social housing developent that the studio Oliver, Reina, Martín, Moyà & Garcías has executed in Son Gotleu, one of the poorest, most vulnnerable among the neighborhoods

It seems natural to associate the term ‘sustainable’ with the image of greenery, although the connection is not at all inevitable. With regard to the links that buildings establish with the environment (evoking the idea of the planet as a vulnerable

Eduardo Prieto   Energy has become one of the big themes of architecture. Not only because laws, directives, and regulations are increasingly demanding in what concerns standards of comfort and reducing consumption, but also because energy has gone from being a matte

William W. Braham   The measurement of architecture’s energetic and enviromental impact depends on complex analyses having to do with thermodynamics, but also with economics.

Cristina Pardal   Ignacio Paricio   A well-known Barcelona architect, when introducing Harquitectes during a recent seminar, referred to the new aesthetic proposed by “that school of Vallès.” That “vallesana” imagery is not coincidental, but in fact emerges from an approximation to for

Iñaki Ábalos   Harquitectes is a collective that represents well a way of doing in today’s context. A small collective with a clear focus on an issue at once broad and narrow, and that we could sum up in two words: matter and air. Their work includes an interesting

Kiel Moe   What is the significance of energy for architecture? What might an architectural agenda for energy be? Unfortunately, these are difficult questions for architects because, in architectural discourse, energy is a vague term with imprecise denotations.

Albert Cuchí   Buildings use up 30% of the total energy consumed in Spain, which is not bad. Considering this, any approach to the country’s energy model must take construction as an essential part of it, just as the International Energy Agency (IAE) does when it d

In 2009 the Swabian studio Wittfoht Architekten won the international competition for the extension of the William Rappard Center in Geneva. Located across from Lake Leman, the building, which has just been inaugurated, addresses its environment by o

Everyone knows that it is difficult to integrate wind energy production systems in buildings, so the proposal by the Swedish studio Belatchew Architecture Lab – though still within the realm of science fiction – is impressive. They propose a skyscrap

Consuelo Acha   Anna Moll   On June 1 a new certificate of energy efficiency in buildings comes into force, complementing other measures intended to make the real estate market more flexible.