Best of 2020: 8 urban stories from China to the Italian Alps

Top 8 urban stories of 2020: Stockholm’s underground art trail, transparent Tokyo public toilets and a sport campus hidden under a green hilly landscape in China.
Top 8 urban stories of 2020: Stockholm’s underground art trail, transparent Tokyo public toilets and a sport campus hidden under a green hilly landscape in China.
2020 Best Architecture: an Arctic whale watching facility, a pitched-roof garden house in Beverly Hills and a sustainable micro-library in Indonesia are among our favourite architectures of the year.
The BIODIVERCITY masterplan for Penang south islands aims to become a sustainable destination where cultural, ecological and economic growth is secured and where people and nature co-exist in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.
Tucked in the heart of the Norwegian forest, The Plus factory by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group for urban furniture manufacturer Vestre was “envisioned as a village for a community dedicated to the cleanest, carbon neutral fabrication of urban and social furniture.”
10 museums inaugurating in 2020: from Tadao Ando’s Pinault Collection in Paris to Foster+Partners’ museum in China but also Grimshaw Architects’ pavilon at Dubai Expo, Frank O. Gehry’s expansion of Philadelphia Museum of Art and more…
2019 Best Architecture. Zaha Hadid Architects’ giant starfish-shaped airport in Beijing and Thomas Heatherwick’s architectural sculpture in New York, but also a former locomotive hangar turned into an indoor urban plaza and an inclusive LGBT Center in L.A. are among our favourite architectures of the year.
Traversing the winding Randselva river, The Twist museum designed by Bjarke Ingels Group opens as an inhabitable bridge torqued at its center, forming a new journey and an architectural art piece.
Nordic architects are showing the way to build a sustainable future. BIG completes the cleanest waste-to-energy plant topped with a ski slope, Snøhetta has inaugurated the the world’s northernmost energy-positive building. Dorte Mandrup’s Icefjord Centre breaks ground to offer breathtaking views of a melting UNESCO World Heritage Site, new sustainable cultural venues thrive in Helsinki and a sinking arctic Swedish city is being relocated…
BIG and FREAKS freearchitects have inaugurated MÉCA, a new art-filled public space and innovative urban room overlooking Bordeaux’ waterfront.
BIG’s new ‘retail laboratory’ for Galeries Lafayette was conceived as an urban room for the Parisians. A grand staircase doubles as an auditorium, a golden ring of perforated metal creates a series alcoves embracing the atrium, and more…
At 3 Days of Design 2019 Nordic workplaces become flexible, design crafts are ‘not-necessarily’ functional, chairs protect the ocean while art injects irreverence into design.
Artemide launches LA LINEA, a modular and flexible ‘thread of light’ designed by BIG which allows to “interact with the environment in new and unpredicatable ways,” says Bjarke Ingels.
From Herzog & de Meuron’s M+ in Hong Kong to Jean Nouvel’s desert rose-inspired Qatar National Museum but also Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s expandable art centre on New York’s Highline and Dessau Bauhaus museum celebrating the centenary anniversary of the iconic architecture movement. 8 cultural architectures worthy a trip in 2019!
An Art-Deco carriage on the Orient Express a molecular pharmacy, a LEGO house and upside-down interlooping escalators… 10 of the best projects at 2018 INSIDE World Festival of Interiors.
3D-modeled galactic temples, anti-consumerist architectures made of shopping trolleys and blooming aircrafts. Burning Man 2018, the most surreal event of the planet, reflects on how new technology effect our lives.
Bjarke Ingels and Jacob Lange of studio BIG launched a crowdfunding campaign to build THE ORB, a huge reflective sphere raising in Black Rock City, the iconic temporary city rising from its ashes every year for the Burning Man festival.
Bjarke Ingels’ architecture firm conceived a prismatic architecture open the city for the National Theatre of Albania in the country’s capital. The design arches up from the ground creating a public space for impromptu performances or other cultural events.
Suspended green oases, energy-consumption extensions and wooden high-rises. Sou Fujimoto, Stefano Boeri, Stephan Malka, Big and Carlo Ratti designed verdant skyscrapers for a greener urban future.
With the LEGO House, BIG scales up classic LEGO bricks to compose an architecture made of overlapping volumes hosting playful galleries and terraces with dinosaurs, giant trees, a submarine and a shark.
WAF 2017: Projects by Amanda Levete, BIG, Zaha Hadid Architects and Grimshaw have been shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival Awards. Completed and Future projects based across 68 countries span from chapels to equestrian centers, exotic resorts and students housing.
From Abu Dhabi to Dubai in just 12 minutes: BIG and Hyperloop One reveal joint vision for future mobility at airplane speed.
BIG’s Urban Rigger is the first floating housing solution for students in search of a cozy and an affordable place not far from Copenhagen’s city centre.
A layered trefoil-shaped building, a garden nested under an upside-down architecture and a bloom of solar-powered towers: BIG, Foster+Partners and Grimshaw Architects unveiled winning designs for major pavilions at Dubai Expo 2020.
Artist Olafur Eliasson presented The Collectivity Project, a participative exhibition on New York City HighLine that engaged Renzo Piano, OMA, Steven Holl and other influential architects to create an imaginary cityscape made with two tons of LEGO© bricks.