Modern Architecture

Artists Subway, With Trees

The Starn Brothers, every 1989 college student’s favorite artists, are back! They are finishing up construction on a large installation in the South Ferry Station of the New York City Subway called See It Split, See It Change. Their focus on unnerving closeups of nature has not changed, nor has their geeky obsession with new materials. In this case a curved, fused glass printing technique that will last a century and took a year to develop.

NRGi’s Headquarters – SHL Architects

NRGi’s new corporate headquarters is situated in an area marked by a number of freestanding buildings. NRGi stands out from its neighbours in the surrounding area in virtue of its visually light, metallically gleaming built volume. Distinguished by an angular and distinctive façade, the building forms a crisp contrast to the mellow, scenic context. Moreover, the building is situated and oriented so as to accommodate the path of the sun, and set at an angle so that it provides sun shading – hence, energy efficiency is built into construction design.The interior echoes the dynamic tone of the facade.

Inside out – outside in by Rocker-lange architects

Boston- and Hong Kong-based Rocker-Lange Architects have designed a villa called Inside Out – Outside In for the Ordos 100 project in Inner Mongolia, China. The house is one of 100 private residences, all designed by different architects selected by architects Herzog & de Meuron for the Ordos 100 project, which is master planned by artist Ai Wei Wei.By creating an architecture which is interwoven with its surroundings, we allow the climate to work with the inhabitants, rather than against them.â€�

Waiting room

Jeffrey Inaba of Inaba Projects has a new pavilion on display now in Rome, sponsored by Enel, Italy’s largest utilities provider. Because of that sponsorship, Inaba “wanted to use numerous forms of alternative energy applications,” but decided, in the end, to apply “just one that was highly productive and cost effective.” The pavilion is thus solar-powered – Inaba describes it as an “Alice in Wonderland mushroom meets solar-ray chomping Pac-Man.”