BRIDGE TO EDUCATION

The Bridge Academy, a secondary school in a low-income area of Hackney, London, will be a complex seven-story, terraced building, fitted into a relatively small site. Site constraints meant the firm Building Design Partnership had to coordinate unusually carefully among the disciplines, with wiring and pipework running through hollow steel beams, for instance. To pull off the difficult design process, the entire design team worked simultaneously on the same building information model. Next week, writer Susan Smith will described how software from Bentley Systems helped them do this.

HOUSE ABOVE THE TREES

An American caricature of a ski chalet has an A-frame roof, enough timber to build a dozen houses, and a trophy elk head over the fireplace. Defying this stereotype is the "Stal Tre Hus" by architect Joel Sherman. In response to an annual snowfall of 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 meters) and a steep, narrow site near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, he has crafted a sturdy, flat-roofed, amply glazed, steel-frame house that perches on pillars over the undisturbed ground below. Next week, writer Lisa Ashmore will show us other ways the house defies convention.