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ESHERICK'S CARY HOUSE
The Cary House in Mill Valley, California (1961) was a pivotal project for Joseph Esherick, gathering in the experience and the formal explorations of the gable and chalet manners and looking forward to the single-slope roofs that became the icon of the Sea Ranch style. Published 2010.0203
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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. Published 2010.0120
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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. Published 2009.1216
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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. Published 2009.1202
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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. Published 2009.1111
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CONNECTICUT SCIENCE CENTER BY PELLI
The Connecticut Science Center is a new architectural showpiece in the city of Hartford, Connecticut, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. The design expresses themes that have been part of Cesar Pelli's oeuvre for many years: the importance of public space and its role in the city. Published 2009.1028
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NAGASAKI ART MUSEUM
The Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum in Nagasaki, Japan, is one of Kengo Kuma's most successful designs in an urban setting.
In this project, a small canal with flanking pedestrian promenades runs between two interconnected sections of the complex, bringing a part of the nearby sea, the port area, and the public realm of the city into the domain of the museum. Published 2009.1014
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COLLEGE IN COPENHAGEN
From the outside, Ørestad College in Copenhagen, Denmark, is a simple five-story cuboid. But the conventional exterior form conceals a radical open-plan interior.
Designed by Danish architects 3XN, the experimental secondary school seems to embody all kinds of things that a school typically isn't. Published 2009.0930
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CHURCH OF BOOKS
Though surely not as great a source of significant contemporary architecture as cultural institutions, places of worship — in one form or another — continue to generate invention and cutting-edge design. The reuse of places of religion for other purposes sometimes poses the problem of deconsecration, with the reticence some users may have when asked to dine or party in a former church. Published 2009.0916
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PARISH CHURCH IN LECCE
The city of Lecce, located in the southern heel of the Italian peninsula, is associated with highly ornate baroque palaces and churches, their facades overlaid with elaborate decorative carvings in the local limestone. Published 2009.0902
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