Category: Architecture

It’s a sunny evening on the bonny banks of Loch Awe, deep in the Scottish Highlands, and something is sparkling behind the trees. Up a winding dirt track, past acres of densely planted pines, we come to a clearing where a huddle of chiselled gray blocks rise out of the landscape like a rocky outcrop, their abrasive sides glittering in the light, as if hewn from some crystalline mineral .

“It’s clad in crushed TV screens,” says Murray Kerr, the architect of one of the most unusual castles to be built in Argyll since the 1600s. “We were thinking of using greenish slate chips, so the building would look like a country gent in tweeds standing on the hill. But then we learned how much our client hates televisions, so this seemed like the perfect material.”

The location is, in a word, dreamy. Set on a hillside promotion high atop St. Barts in the French West Indies, the home of Kathrin Bruss, owner of Hamburg’s high-fashion emporium Petra Teufel, and her husband, automotive executive Oliver Bruss, commands seriously seductive views of the island pleasure dome. From one side, the house looks out to the venerable Eden Rock hotel and the cerulean waters of St. Jean Bay. From the other, it affords sweeping vistas of Saline beach.

The views in and between the various pavilions that comprise the Bruss compound aren’t bad either. Designed by Vanessa Alexander of Los Angeles–based Alexander Design, the home presents an idiosyncratic vision of classic St. Barts chic, with pitched roofs and exposed beams, peppered with glamorous accents and a few hints of flash. “It’s really my style seen through her eyes, and vice versa. Kathrin brings a lot of

What Happens When Public Spaces are Without Public Restrooms?

In the realm of design, we often talk about ensuring that there are enough public spaces to serve a community. We discuss the need for public parks so that people have access to outdoor spaces. We think about public transportation, and how our dwindling reliance on cars will help to ensure that we have a healthier planet. But what about the public spaces we lack? What happens when we don’t have enough public restrooms?

New York City is home to over nine million residents, with millions more visiting each year. There are only 1,103 public restrooms in the entire five-borough area. Only two of these are open

the “world’s factory” is slowing production, a victim of drought that has forced much of China to shut down. Global heat waves don’t respect authoritarian authority, and the drought hitting southern China has left rivers dry—and a hydropower-dependent country struggling to keep the lights on. China’s misfortune put an urgent issue into sharp relief: How can countries climate-proof their architecture and infrastructure? In an era of sudden shocks and climate disasters, economies can’t survive with the old norms—and adapting for resilience could help them reduce their carbon dioxide emissions too.

This month, a relentless drought on the British Isles caused water companies to impose hosepipe bans on large parts of the country. That’s bad news for gardeners and somewhat good news for farmers, who had been facing a devastating harvest loss. As I pointed out in a previous Foreign Policy piece, a continental drought has caused the Rhine’s

Green Valley Art Center / Scenic Architecture Office

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Text description provided by the architects. The Green Valley Art Center sits at the northeast end of the Xuhui CBD Central Park which is located to the east of Shanghai South Railway Station. It is designed with the vision to explore a dynamic experience of multiple interactions for public art activities. This mega-truss structure landmark provides continuous and transparent indoor and outdoor ground spaces for the park. The elevated ramp gallery links different functional areas at various heights, stimulating autonomous participation and dynamic communication across events.

The building is situated on the east side of the site to keep away from the area occupied by Metro Line One and the elevated highway. From a technical perspective, this layout reduces