Magazine

Stuttgart-based architects h4a have completed the new sports hall for the Kepler- and Humboldt-Gymnasiums in Ulm, a boxy building stacked with three gyms one above the other. The interior is elegantly blurred by a sculptural facade of twisting aluminum fins. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The motto of Expo 2015 in Milan, "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life," was translated in the French pavilion into a built landscape designed by Parisian architecture firm XTU, with lighting design by Bonn's Licht Kunst Licht. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The campus of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is known best for SANAA's Rolex Learning Center built in 2010. Dominique Perrault has just completed an adjacent building whose facade dissolves through the use of a custom, movable aluminum mesh. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Strasbourg's Urbane Kultur has renovated one of France's "1,000 Pools" from 40 years ago, a distinctive dome set in the townscape. The dark exterior gives way to a light and bright interior covered partially with HI-MACS® acrylic stone. John Hill

March Studio’s dynamic entry stair and lobby for Hotel Hotel in Canberra, Australia was named the World Interior of the Year at the Inside Festival held recently in Singapore. John Hill

The Centre Pompidou's new "pop-up" museum, which opened in March 2015 in Málaga, Spain (the birthplace of Picasso) includes a 120-seat multipurpose auditorium with retractable seats by Figueras. John Hill

The shopping mall at Brookfield Place in New York's Battery Park City, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, features two new highly transparent entrance façades supported by glass fins supplied by Sedak. John Hill

A facade with calligraphic letters set into light emitting concrete, designed and produced by LUCEM Lichtbeton, was recently completed at the Al Aziz Mosque in Abu Dhabi, UAE. John Hill

The recently completed Ryerson University Student Learning Centre in Toronto, designed by Snøhetta with Zeidler Partnership Architects, has a crystalline form accentuated by faceted panels with a prismatic finish at the building's entrance on Yonge Street. John Hill

Stone supplier SolidNature collaborated with architect Rem Koolhaas and designer Petra Blaisse to display 600 types of onyx, marbles, travertines, and other stones for the Maison & Objet trade fair in Paris. John Hill

Buenos Aires's new Centro Cultural Kirchner is commonly known as Ballena Azul (Blue Whale) due to its whale-like concert hall designed by B4FS Arquitectos that is covered in metallic fabric from GKD. John Hill

At Expo Milano 2015, Spain's Zorrozua y Asociados's colorful box expresses the four geographical and culinary regions of Ecuador in the country's first pavilion at an international exposition. John Hill

In Münster, Germany, HPP Architects have realized, together with Duk-Kyu Ryang, an office building for LVM that adds character to the city's skyline. Inside, employees can look forward to seasonal moods of color that emanate from the flooring. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

The S-Bahn-Station Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz in Leipzig, Germany, is a wonderous space of concrete, glass block and light, the product of a collaboration between architect Max Dudler and lighting designer Andreas Schulz. John Hill

The ETH Zurich Pavilion at the IDEAS CITY Festival in New York City (28-30 May 2015) is built of boards made from discarded beverage cartons, an example of turning waste into a resource, the "matter from which to construct or configure new cities." John Hill

Architects flocking to Atlanta last week for the AIA National Convention were treated to a new ground-floor headquarters designed by 5G Studio Collaborative for the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects. John Hill

China's presence at the recently opened Expo Milano 2015 is threefold, with a national pavilion, the China Corporate United Pavilion, and the Vanke Pavilion. The last, designed by Daniel Libeskind, is covered in ruby red ceramic tiles developed with Casalgrande Padana. John Hill

As part of Milano Design Week 2015, the Cosentino Group commissioned Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and Partners to design an installation completely made from the company's Dekton® surfaces. John Hill

A large oculus designed by James Carpenter Design Associates, Grimshaw, and Arup reflects sunlight into the subterranean spaces of the Fulton Center subway station in Lower Manhattan. John Hill

The facade of SEHW Architektur's design for the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT) in Darmstadt, Germany, appears to form some kind of secret code, appropriate given the site's history. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Hascher Jehle Architektur and artist Burghard Müller-Dannhausen treated the exterior and interior, respectively, of the new Rems-Murr-Klinikum hospital in Winnenden, Germany, with a range of colors to create a strong building identity. John Hill

Late last month WoodWorks, an initiative of the Wood Products Council, announced the winners of its 2015 Wood Design Awards. Here we present a few of the winners to highlight the versatile ways architects are building with the product. John Hill

A. Zahner Co., the go-to engineering and fabrication company based in Kansas City, Missouri, has worked with Thom Mayne and Morphosis on a number of projects, including the L.A. outpost of Boston's Emerson College, completed last year. John Hill

Since 2012, Wolf-Gordon has created an annual site-specific installation for NeoCon as a means of highlighting the company’s products and adding an exclamation point to the “heart” of Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. John Hill

Two walls of Danish brand Vipp's new two-story Vipp Shelter feature large sliding windows, specifically the PanoramAH! sliding windows supplied by Malmö, Sweden's Architectural Solutions. John Hill

For the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, Studio Gang Architects uses a traditional yet obscure masonry technique to give the trefoil-shaped building its distinctive appearance. John Hill

At the end of 2013 the Mariners Harbor Library, a branch of the New York Public Library system, opened its doors to the public on Staten Island. A key feature of A*PT Architecture's design is a long glass skylight over the central circulation spine. John Hill

As part of Davis Brody Bond's modernization of the Embassy of South Africa, the architects inserted a glass addition between the Dutch Cape-style buildings, using Cambridge Architectural mesh to shade the interior and express a "New South Africa." John Hill

Good architecture takes its environment into account, particularly surrounding buildings. In Frankfurt am Main, Franken Architekten has taken a literal approach through a digitally drawn façade for a new home and studio in old town Sachsenhausen. John Hill, Thomas Geuder

Two side-by-side buildings – the CUNY Advanced Science & Research Center and the City College Center for Discovery & Innovation – recently opened on City College's Harlem campus. Bendheim's channel and dichroic glass defines much of the interiors. John Hill

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's design for The New School's University Center in New York City places classrooms, studios, labs, a library, a dormitory, a cafe, and an auditorium behind a façade of 5,277 hand-finished brass panels. John Hill

For London's Clerkenwell Design Week in May of this year, Studio Weave created the Smith pavilion, which showcased the innovative use of tools in making things – books, clocks, even coffee – but also fiber cement panels from Equitone. John Hill

A porous skin of copper panels shields the fluid interior of the Louisiana State Museum and Sports Hall of Fame in Natchitoches. Over one thousand cast stone panels, provided by Advanced Architectural Stone, sculpt the multi-level foyer. John Hill

PAD Architectes' (Periot Architecture Durable) design for the headquarters of Beneteau in Givrand, France, is wrapped in a perforated facade made from HI-MACS acrylic stone. John Hill

An apartment building designed by Elenberg Fraser in St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, incorporates solar protection through bronze-colored mesh from GKD woven around the exterior. John Hill

LUCEM's light-transmitting concrete finds its first Berlin application at the Prenzlauer Berg development by Wolf Architekten. Current lighting technology allows the street-level façade to change colors on demand. John Hill