Laura Raskin

Image courtesy Perkins + Will Shanghai Natural History Museum, Shanghai, China, Perkins + Will When it is completed at the end of 2012, Perkins + Will’s nautilus-shell-shaped Shanghai Natural History Museum will emerge from a proposed sculpture park and provide views of the surrounding city. Perkins + Will won the international competition in 2007 to design the museum, which will replace an existing natural history museum. The architects were inspired by the classical gardens in Suzhou with their water features, rock formations, and screened walls, which they abstracted in their design. “It’s important that the museum is in the old

Photo by Paul Warchol © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Click on the slideshow button to see more images. Amidst a cacophony of truck brakes, street sweepers, and ambulance sirens in Manhattan’s East Village, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and BMW launched the first BMW Guggenheim Lab on Tuesday, which will open to the public on Wednesday, August 3rd. The minimalist open-air structure designed by Tokyo-based Atelier Bow-Wow is a pop-up think tank, event space, and pavilion that will offer free movie screenings, lectures, and workshops relating to the theme of “Confronting Comfort” through October 16. Constructed on a 25-by-100-foot site

Evoking the creations of a brilliant, futuristic insect, architect Michael Hansmeyer’s fantastical extrapolation of classical columns leaves no smooth surface untouched.

The organization will open the doors to its renovated facility this fall, marking the end of a long, troubled saga. Image courtesy of Platt Byard Dovell White Architects Click on the slide show button to view more images of New-York Historical Society Renovation. Related Links: NY Historical Society Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture Completed in 1908 by York and Sawyer, the New-York Historical Society’s classical, Roman Eclectic style building, on Central Park West, has long been known as a “bunker”—its elegant yet severe granite façade fails to extend a warm welcome to visitors and passersby.

Employees on their lunch break at the Center for Global Conservation (CGC) recently paused to observe wild turkeys roaming in front of the building.

' [Cannon Design Staff] are now living in a world where they can talk with each other and share ideas, and it makes our projects stronger and our team stronger.' ' Thomas Bergmann, Cannon Design Architect Thomas Bergmann, managing principal of the Cannon Design St. Louis office, had walked past the Power House many times. The 1928 Revival-style building was a derelict landmark, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, just off the interstate — a sign of different and more prosperous times. The building began its life as a courthouse. Then the city turned it into a coal-fired

'We thought, it would be great if a corporation tried to reach out to the public. Roca wants to erase this detachment that companies have from society.' ' Borja Ferrater, Office of Architecture in Barcelona The Barcelona-based Roca, one of the world’s top producers of bath furnishings and tile, wanted to increase its visibility. So the company approached Carlos Ferrater’s Office of Architecture in Barcelona (OAB) in 2008 to transform a small 1960s office building it occupied into a brand showroom. Although the timing was precarious — right when the financial crisis hit — design architect Borja Ferrater developed a

'We had to . . . figure out ways to make the merchandise look like art. Now many people walk into the lobby and think the store is the first gallery.' ' Jeff Sheppard, Roth + Sheppard Architects Established more than 26 years ago, Roth + Sheppard Architects have a bunch of retail projects in their portfolio — “just cool spaces that seemed to work,” says Jeff Sheppard, coprincipal of the Denver-based firm. His design of the gift shop at Daniel Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum wasn’t based on a gut sensibility, though. Instead, he and his team took a scientific

'Now, the early guys got it. Schindler, Neutra, Wright,' says Barton Myers, sitting on a ledge of the terrace outside of his most recent steel and glass house in Montecito, California, completed in 2009.