WOHA Architects   United Arab Emirates   An exuberant jungle shows how it is possible for architecture to embrace nature in combating the effects of climate change in cities and creating pleasurable ecosystems. The pavilion is powered by solar energy alone, and the dense vegetation lining t

LOLA Landscape Architects Taller architects L+CC   China   Faced with the unrelenting growth of Shenzhen – half a century ago a simple fishing village but now a cutting-edge megalopolis – a rigorous environmental policy was implemented, unprecedented in the country, to regulate the proliferating industrial a

ArchStudio    China   A sanctuary is buried under a mound, preserving the beautiful riverside scenery around it and creating an intimate atmosphere conducive to meditating in harmony with nature. With the objective of not felling any of the trees on the site, the project

Archwerk Formafatal   Costa Rica   Overlooking Hermosa Beach from a Costa Rican jungle slope, five small shelters adapt to the site by levitating over the ground. Designed by the Czech firms Archwerk (Martin Kloda and Hana Procházková) and Formafatal (Dagmar Štěpánová), they are part

Florian Busch   Japan   Not far from Niseko, the winter destination famous for its world-class ski slopes, in the same league as Aspen or St. Moritz, a home for a large family rises in the middle of a three-hectare land of virgin forest, safe from the bustle of the tourist

Gradolí & Sanz arquitectes   Spain   The building lies on the edge of the Valterna residential area, on a stretch of land located between the dwellings and the En Dolça ravine, which separates Valterna from the expansion area of La Pinada, of the same property as the school. The first d

Zuloark Santiago Pradilla   Colombia   Nocaima is a remote community of just twenty families scattered along a mountain path that negotiates its way amongst dense forests and sugar cane and coffee plantations. The villagers tend to form terraces when building their homes, following the to

Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter - RRA ASP Architecture   France   Raised high over the Swiss village of Breitenbach, near the German border, this hotel is designed as a reinterpretation of a traditional Scandinavian place of retreat in nature. Wooden volumes dot the hillside and are diluted in the Alsatian landscap

Smiljan Radic   Chile   Raised on a platform that negotiates the slope of the terrain, the house is envisioned as a shelter amid nature in Conguillío National park, in Chile’s La Araucanía region. From the terrace one can contemplate the dead river of lava that is a reminde

José María Sánchez García   Spain   Less than an hour’s drive from the Spanish capital, in an area of great historical and natural importance marked by the presence of the Monastery of El Escorial and the landscape protected by the south slope of Mount Abantos, the house complies with

Guillermo Hevia Catalina Poblete   Chile   In Chile’s Los Ríos Region, along the shore of what is one of the South American country’s largest lakes, stands this vacation home designed for a big family. Its construction system – composed of a frame of timber beams and pillars on props – is rem

Ryue Nishizawa   Chile   Spreading like a membrane of concrete that evokes the form of a wave, the house seeks to engage in dialogue, through contrast and metaphor, with the powerful context of the location. The residence is part of an initiative taken in the wake of Chile’s

María Mallo   Morocco   Created from generative algorithms and oyster mushroom mycelium on straw, Breeding Space is alive, grows, is harvested, and generates edible subproducts; from the inside it reveals the endoskeleton of welded iron rods and the timber formwork. Of the

Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter - RRA   France   The project involved converting old train tracks between Rosheim and Saint Nabor into a walkway equipped with open-air facilities and pavilions. Besides transporting commuters, the railway served industry. This duality was maintained in the conversio

Diller Scofidio + Renfro   Russia   Beside the Moskva River and a minute’s walk from the Kremlin and Red Square, the Zaryadye was an over 50,000-square-meter urban void between Moscow’s tourist zone and the Kitay-Gorod business district. This area, inhabited in the past, has a troubled

Ryue Nishizawa   China   Jining, a city in China’s Shandong province, is home to this museum by the Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa – co-founder, with Kazuyo Sejima, of the firm SANAA. The sinuous one-level volumes blur their boundaries between interior and exterior throug

Kengo Kuma   Italy   Art and nature come together at Arte Sella, an outdoor museum in the Province of Trento, where the spherical Kodoma Pavilion is assembled with solid larch wood pieces and no metal fittings or glue.

Kengo Kuma   Taiwan   Assembled with larch wood pieces, Tsumiki Pavilion – designed for World Flora Exposition 2018 – is set out as a prototype of democratic architecture, where anyone can participate in the building process.

Kengo Kuma   Germany   By stacking fir tree strips, the Wood/Pile meditation space recreates the komorebi effect produced by sunrays when they are filtered through the trees, in a forest near Krün in Bavaria.

Kengo Kuma   Japan   Yusuhara, a small town on the border of the mountainous province of Kochi, in the southwest of Japan, is often described as a ‘village above the clouds.’ Over the past years, the studio of Kengo Kuma has developed a compound of buildings there, such

Undurraga Devés arquitectos   Chile   Since early times religion has been a rich and constant source of inspiration for art and architecture. Interpreting the sense and form of the sacred spaces is a hard task to take forward in today’s secular context. This chapel, conceived in 21st-cen

Undurraga Devés arquitectos   Chile   The Araucanía region, in southern Chile, is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. It is an area of unique geographical features, filled with forests, rivers, mountains and lakes that create extraordinary landscapes. The Lake House project p

Snøhetta   China   The new opera house of Shanghai, with its sculptural roof of spiraling steps leading down to a square beside the Huangpu River, will contain three auditoriums seating 2,000, 1,200, and 1,000.

The photographs in the ‘Memento Mori’ series capture the beauty of solitude in places of lost grandeur where nature has reclaimed its space, keeping the memory of what they once were for when there is nobody left to remember...

Harvard University   Leah Burrows   In a new paper published in Nature Materials, the researchers showed that the diagonally-reinforced square lattice-like skeletal structure of Euplectella aspergillum, a deep-water marine sponge, has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than the traditio

Olafur Eliasson   The Danish artist reflects on the role of art in the Anthropocene world as his retrospective exhibition titled ‘In Real Life’ views at Tate Modern.

Nirmal Kishnani   In a context of rapid urban growth, Vo Trong Nghia defends an architecture based on local knowledge, communion with nature, and social commitment. 

The idea that architecture is a form of nature has become a maxim that the firm Junya Ishigami + Associates faithfully follows in its work, an oeuvre now enriched by the Botanical Garden Art Biotop: Water Garden in Tochigi, Japan. The singularity of

Luis Fernández-Galiano   There are closed-door and open-air architectures. But there should be no opposition between ‘huis clos’ and ‘plein air’ construction: building and landscape merge in seamlessly connected sequences of spaces. There is no gap either between architects

Stan Allen   Either merging with the landscape or in themselves becoming landscapes, topographical buildings suggest altogether new ways of shaping the flows of cities and territories.

María Mallo   Biomimicry imitates nature to solve human problems. Before the surge of parametric design and digital fabrication, architecture sought inspiration from nature, and it did so in different ways: through the study of specific natural forms, by reproduci

Los madrileños Juan Elvira y Clara Murado son los autores de una vivienda ubicada en una dehesa de Badajoz, cuya forma responde a dos requerimientos del cliente: disfrutar del sol de poniente y disponer de una casa inexpugnable cuando no se use, pero

El matemático polaco Benoît Mandelbrot (Varsovia, 1924) convenció al mundo científico de que la geometría euclidiana no servía para describir la naturaleza, y propuso el uso de una nueva geometría: la fractal, que describe mejor la complejidad de las

El Centro de Tecnificación Deportiva en Guijo de Granadilla, en Cáceres, diseñado por el madrileño José María Sánchez García, ha abierto sus puertas. Emplazado en un entorno privilegiado, en la cuenca del Tajo, plantea dos círculos concéntricos de do

Los madrileños José Selgas y Lucía Cano coinciden como autores y clientes de la pequeña nave que alberga su despacho, incrustada en un jardín particular y rodeada de árboles. Siguiendo una tipología de vagón, el espacio se divide longitudinalmente en

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Sooner or later, this magazine was bound to focus on the architecture of life. In the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th of the Publication of The Origin of Species –, Arquitectura Viva has wanted to join the celebration, which by the

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Nothing is more natural than artifice. On the one hand, and no matter how much they may appear opposed, nature and artifact need and strengthen one another through their mutual presence: the natural landscape is enhanced by contrast with the geometry

Yuko Yokoyama   La Expo Aichi 2005 ha sido la quinta Exposición Universal celebrada en Japón y la segunda dedicada a un tema de carácter general en vez de a uno específico. Al tratarse de la primera Exposición Universal de este siglo, Aichi ha centrado la atención d

Bjarne Mastenbroek   Building Bound to the Ground

Fernando Quesada   Ensayos y proyectos en torno a la Arcadia tecnificada

Javier Pioz   Principios

Byung-Chul Han   Barcelona  2019  
Herder   - 180 Pages 

Alberto T. Estévez   Barcelona   2015  
Bubok Publishing   - 295 Pages