YALE'S GREEN ARK

Every so often, an exceptional work of architecture emerges from an opportune convergence of just the right client working with just the right team of architects, engineers, and consultants on a building that is just right for the times. Kroon Hall at Yale University is one of these.

BAR HOUSE IN ASPEN

The simple and strong geometric shape of the Bar House near Aspen, Colorado — which is a bar set boldly across, rather than nestling along, the valley floor — stands up to the rugged and majestic mountains that surround it. Despite its strength, this house by Peter Gluck and Partners is partly submerged in the ground, as if to lock it into the landscape. The views up and down the valley dominate the interior spaces, but they are tempered in different ways by the varied size and placement of the windows and the shape of the rooms.

PUGH + SCARPA STEP UP

Walking or driving past the new Step Up on Fifth project in downtown Santa Monica, California, one could mistake the colorful building — with its front facade of yellow, white, and purple metal panels — for a contemporary art center or a fashionable condominium. The mixed-use residential building in the heart of this affluent, picturesque city was actually built to serve people suffering from mental illness and homelessness.

FIVE WORKS BY ZAHA HADID

Zaha Hadid was asked to design the BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany (2005), described as the "nerve center of the whole factory complex," subsequent to an April 2002 competition she won, when the layout of adjacent manufacturing buildings had already been decided. Suppliers chosen for the rest of the factory provided many prefabricated elements, in harmony with the "industrial approach to office spaces" decided by BMW.

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