Articles by Joann Gonchar, FAIA

Architects from the global firm NBBJ have designed what they call a “No Shadow Tower” for a site along the Thames River in London. The hypothetical scheme, developed in response to a call for ideas from the architecture think tank New London Architecture (NLA), offers one way to lessen the impact of tall buildings on the urban fabric surrounding them.

At 121 stories and 2,073 feet, the Shanghai Tower will be the world's second-tallest skyscraper when completed later this year.

Architect William Rawn is often asked about the 85-foot-long undulating glass facade at his recently completed Ruth Caplin Theatre on the campus of the University of Virginia (UVA), in Charlottesville. People wonder, he says, if it was inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s serpentine brick walls that are part of the so-called Lawn—the complex of 18th-century structures and grounds at the university’s historic heart.

A renovation and expansion of a midcentury academic tower restores a master's legacy. Preservation and Modernism might seem to have contradictory goals, but not for architects Bruner/Cott. The Cambridge, Massachusetts'based firm is renovating and restoring Boston University's Law Tower and has just completed a 93,000-square-foot addition at its base.

On October 31st, the Wood Innovation and Design Centre (WIDC)—a 96-foot-tall, 51,000 square foot structure built almost entirely out of engineered wood components—opened in Prince George, British Columbia.