The success of a building is not often measured in quantifiable terms. But when Aaron Miscenich, the executive director of the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, embarked on a new building laden with energy-intensive labs on a former brownfield site in a depopulated area of the city's downtown, he needed hard numbers to make the gamble pay off. Begun in 2007—two years after Hurricane Katrina—the center was conceived as an incubator for biotechnology start-ups. “There was a stigma to the city,” says Mark Ripple, partner at New Orleans–based Eskew+Dumez+Ripple. “It was seen as contaminated goods, both literally and figuratively. Graduates from

Asked to describe what his company was like 15 years ago, Marc Jacobs International president Robert Duffy says breezily, “It was teeny.” Today the fashion powerhouse is heading toward $1 billion in annual sales, with two flagship stores and an IPO. “I just say the most important thing is that everybody remain calm,” says Duffy. Remaining calm in an industry where “in” can be “out” in a blink involves partnerships—partnerships that Duffy and designer Marc Jacobs have carefully cultivated for years. Back in the late 1990s, when the company was just a 10-person team and beginning its first foray into

Despite legend, the orange drink Tang is not among NASA innovations that benefit life on earth. But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has pioneered such technologies as high-efficiency solar cells to support life in space. So when its Ames Research Center received a grant to build a new facility, NASA seized the opportunity to showcase its state-of-the-art sustainability achievements. “We wanted to build the greenest building in the federal government and create a unique demonstration of NASA technology in the built environment,” says Steve Zornetzer, NASA Ames's associate director. The Center, located in the San Francisco Bay area, found

How does a building improve the life of a whole neighborhood? This was the challenge for the architects of Daniels Spectrum, a 58,000-square-foot cultural center at the heart of the Regent Park district in Toronto. The area, a previously blighted late 1940s public housing complex, is in the middle of a revitalization: Toronto Community Housing and Daniels Corporation, a private developer, are replacing the old apartment buildings for the tenants, and adding market-rate housing and community facilities. Diamond Schmitt Architects designed the Spectrum, which is run by Artscape, a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization, to house seven local performing and visual arts

In 2007 the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto launched an architectural competition for an addition. It had outgrown its 1995 home located alongside historic houses, churches, and academic buildings on the university's downtown campus. The winning submission, by Toronto-based KPMB Architects, represents the school's ideals of community and integrative thinking in physical form. The 150,000-square-foot, LEED Silver'certified vertical facility doubles the size of the school. It adds an event hall, classrooms, offices, and a library, as well as conference and hospitality areas, in a glazed four-story slab structure topped by a five-story tower. Architects

In Prague, global business is largely conducted in the central historic district of Nove Mesto, but a superblock in nearby Pankrác Plain has long promised to become its modern high-rise counterpart—the Czech equivalent of Pudong or Canary Wharf. Skanska's $10.8 million purchase of the City Green Court project from the real estate investor ECM in 2010 was a milestone in the Pankrác Plain transformation. As part of the sale, ECM included a schematic design and zoning permissions for the eight-story office building it had commissioned from Richard Meier & Partners (RMP). Yet Skanska's vision, which embraced sustainability, was in marked

With a build-it-and-they-will-come zeal, Millennial entrepreneurs Christopher Kelly and Ryan Simonetti developed a new kind of conference center in 2009—one based on a full-service hospitality model (think boutique hotel). The goal, says Kelly: to support the needs and aesthetics of both young start-ups and traditional businesses “from Google to Goldman.” Three years later, with three Manhattan locations—all retrofits of existing office space—the New York–based venture (at the time called Sentry Centers) reported a growth rate of 3,463 percent, with revenues exceeding $15 million in 2012. Poised to expand after securing $10 million in financing last year, the partners renamed the

The dallas Arts District—a 68-acre area in the city's downtown masterplanned by Sasaki Associates—is dense with architectural gems devoted to the visual and performing arts. Its anchor is Edward Larrabee Barnes's Dallas Museum of Art, completed in 1984. Over the next 20 years, up went I.M. Pei's Symphony Center (1989), Renzo Piano's Nasher Sculpture Center (2003), and Allied Works' expansion of the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (2008), among other new buildings and renovations. A Foster + Partners performing arts center followed in 2009, as did the REX/OMA Wyly Theatre. James Burnett's Klyde Warren

Many plans for reviving the neglected centers of America's small and medium-size cities involve building new museums, restaurants, and hotels to bring life to deserted sidewalks, but the architects and hoteliers behind the 21c Museum Hotel group found a winning formula in combining all three in one venue.

Walking into a Camper shoe store, one never knows what to expect. The family-run manufacturer and retailer of casual footwear, based in Majorca, Spain, and now in its third generation, has commissioned more than 20 designers to realize a startling range of concepts for its 360-odd outlets worldwide. A furry canopy of shaggy red fringe arches over the ceiling of a store in São Paulo designed by Marko Brajovic. The walls of a New York shop by Nendo's Oki Sato are covered with a grid of projecting cast resin shoes, with a few real shoes on display among them. Konstantin