HOLL'S LINKED HYBRID

China's recent willinginess to be an architectural testing ground has left it with a fair share of question marks dotting urban horizons, but in Linked Hybrid the gamble may have paid off. The bold, high-end residential complex in Beijing, by Steven Holl Architects, offers a more pervasive and open sense of neighborhood than most other modern high-rise housing in the city.

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.

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