The New Campus at the Illinois Institute of Technology

The McCormick Tribune Campus Center, IIT is designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, he was chosen for the project as a result of an international design competition. The design includes a concrete and stainless steel tube that encloses a 530-foot stretch of the Green Line elevated commuter rail (“L”) tracks, passing directly over the one-story campus center building. The tube dampens the sound of trains overhead as students enjoy food courts, student organization offices, retail shops, a recreational facility and campus events.
Spot the portrait of Mies van der Rohe.

Photography for Domus d’autore, a signature issue of Domus magazine by AMO/Rem Koolhaas. 
Photos by Iwan Baan

Zakin Residence by Stanley Saitowitz

Situated on a site above the Silverado Trail with a broad panorama of the Napa Valley, this house is composed of one long bar with two wings projecting to the North. The sliding doors make the house is open to the landscape on both sides, with inviting views, from courtyard to valley.

Zakin Residence, Napa Valley, California, USA by Stanley Saitowitz Natoma Architects

Szirtes House by Chenchow Little

A small house in a residential neighbourhood, with a inner courtyard that allows openness and privacy at the same time.

Szirtes House, Australia, by Chenchow Little

Sagaponac House Inspired by Mies Van der Rohe

Shigeru Ban and Dean Maltz have designed and furnished a house for Houses of Sagaponac, a development of 34 summer homes designed by internationally recognized architects on a 65-acre site. Based on an unbuilt Mies Van der Rohe brick country house.

Sagaponac House, Sagaponac, NY, USA, by Shigeru Ban and Dean Maltz
Via: Below the Clouds

1925 Lithuanian Banknote on Building Façade

An image of a 1925 Lithuanian LTL 1000 banknote is applied to this 10-story building using special enamel paint. During the process the paint turns into a ceramic print that lasts forever. This particular banknote came out between the two devastating world wars during a period that Lithuania was independent. The façade consists of 4500 glass panels in different shapes, manufactured by Saint-Gobain. Two major banks have rented office space in the banknote building, SEB and Lithuania’s Snoras Bankas.

“At around the same time we were assessing some of the design projects for a new office building [...] we happened to come across a very elegant banknote dating from 1925, and decided to use it as our overall theme.”
Architect, RA Studija in The Baltic Times.

Banknote Building, Kaunas, Lithuania, by RA Studija
via: Eikongraphia

moomoo presents…

A great idea for a summer house designed for Polish photographer Szymon Szcześniak. The house is open except for a billowing curtain. We have a few lingering doubts about locating this house in continental Europe.

moomoo presents…, by moomoo
via: Design East

Travel: Spain, Hotel Puerta América

While the facade is the work of the French architect Jean Nouvel, each of the Hotel Puerta América’s 12 floors – from the elevator lobbies down to the blankets and bathrobes – has been conceived by powerhouse architects and design studios, among them Arata Isozaki, Norman Foster, Marc Newson, Ron Arad, Richard Gluckman, Javier Mariscal, Victorio & Lucchino and Zaha Hadid. With public spaces like the Black Tears restaurant designed by Christian Liaigre and the underground garage by Teresa Sapey, the Puerta América can bill itself as “12 floors with 19 stars.”

Hotel Puerta América, Madrid, Spain, $250 to between $1,500 and $3,900 for the suites, designed by Starchitects.

A Very Spacial House in Japan

House in Japan, by Aoki Jun

Rustic Mountain Holiday Home by Fearon Hay

The new Mountain Retreat has to deal with quite different terrain. Located in New Zealand’s Southern Lakes, a mountainous landscape of snow-capped peaks and dense beech forest, this is a low impact second home designed as a place to get away from everything. The aesthetic approach is subdued, with a minimal palette of hard-wearing materials. The stone exterior, concrete floors and dark wood give the Retreat the feeling of a cave, embedded in the hillside.

Mountain Retreat, New Zealand, by Tim Hay and Jeff Fearon, for Fearon Hay
via: Wallpaper*

Xi Gallery by Mass Studies

This building was constructed for the purpose of promoting Xi, a brand of apartments. In addition to the standard type of a showroom apartment unit, a larger share of the floor area is allocated as a variable cultural space for the local residents, which as a result creates a brand-new building typology: a housing cultural center. As economic forces and cultural activities seem to form complex interrelationships causing our private and public spheres to merge and invade each other, this building comes as a product of these current phenomena.

Xi gallery, Yeonsan-dong, Pusan, Korea, by Minsuk Cho, Kisu Park, Seoul, South Korea for Mass Studies