MAKI'S MIT MEDIA LAB

For an academic unit that produces such forward-thinking projects as electronic ink, humanoid robots, and a digital opera, one might expect an edgy, geometrically wild building by Zaha Hadid or Coop Himmelb(l)au. But for the new building for the MIT Media Lab, Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki designed a serene example of classic modernism — a glass-and-steel form wrapped in an elegant aluminum screen.

FOSTER'S NEW OPERA

The extroverted Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House by Norman Foster has sprung up in Dallas, Texas, across the street from the internally dynamic Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre by REX and OMA.

BEHNISCH DOUBLE-WALL FACADE

The twelve-story Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, located at the University of Toronto's St. George campus, is a high-performance building that achieves impressive levels of energy efficiency and — with airy, light-filled spaces throughout — attention to occupant comfort. The building responds intelligently to its climate and orientation with an enclosure system that presents an open face to the campus and adapts to changing environmental conditions. At the same time, it strikes a balance between automated and individually controlled devices.

BURJ KHALIFA

In 2007, several records fell as the Burj Dubai skyscraper climbed above that city-state's skyline. In May 2007, the Burj surpassed the height of the tallest building in the United States, the Sears Tower (recently renamed the Willis Tower), designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in the 1970s. SOM's Adrian Smith designed the Burj in the early years of the new millennium, but by the time the new skyscraper zoomed past Sears (at 1,450 feet, or 442 meters), Smith had left SOM to start his own firm.

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