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One of the principal tactics that underlies the work of Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis is the inverting of the value of constraints, by recasting the limitations of a project as the trigger for design invention. By maneuvering imaginatively within operational boundaries, the latent potentials of the project can be teased out of the very restrictions that would seem to weigh it down.

OSLO OPERA

The new Oslo Opera House is a monumental architectural statement for Norway, providing a glamorous new home for the National Opera and Ballet and a striking public plaza overlooking the Oslofjord.

Instantly shedding opera's snooty, high-art image, the new building by Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta slopes down from the roof to the water's edge. The gleaming-white marble threshold between land and water welcomes hundreds of people on a sunny day.

DESIGNING FABRIC STRUCTURES

The first step in designing a fabric structure is to create a form with sufficient pre-stress, or tension, to prevent it from fluttering like a flag or sail. Lightweight structures with minimal surfaces optimally should have double curvature — a surface that possesses a high-point (positive) curvature along one principal axis and a low-point (negative) curvature along the other principal axis.

NEWSEUM BY POLSHEK

The Newseum building by Polshek Partnership Architects adds vitality and a sense of time and place to Pennsylvania Avenue, a street that, like so many important streets in Washington, D.C., had been devoid of movement and three-dimensionality in massing.

A museum about news, the aptly named Newseum moved from across the Potomac River, in Arlington, Virginia, where it had outgrown its space. Its parent organization, the Freedom Forum, sought a location more heavily frequented by tourists.

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