Contained Resonances – Between the silence of concrete and the echo of wood, a new building discreetly emerges on the campus of the University of the Andes. The Music Box is a piece that contains more than it shows: an architecture that seeks not to impose itself, but to resonate.
Opened in 1976, the SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center was a professional performing arts center in dire need of transformation. The aging brutalist structure stood closed off from view and separated from the surrounding urban fabric. With aging infrastructure, the building needed a comprehensive modernization to meet the escalating requirements of contemporary performance and to present a new face to the public.
The Ong Ang Canal Bridge transforms a historic waterway into a piece of contemporary urban infrastructure that connects heritage and innovation. Flowing through the historic core of Bangkok, the Ong Ang Canal once served as the city’s defensive moat and later became a thriving artery of trade and daily life. Over centuries, this waterway has shaped the rhythm of the communities along its banks. The new pedestrian bridge reinterprets that living heritage through the language of water itself, capturing the canal’s continuous motion in architectural form.
Urban renewal is inherently fraught—financially complex, politically exposed, stakeholder-dense, and almost guaranteed to leave someone dissatisfied. Precisely for these reasons, many cities default to inertia rather than risk the upheaval that comes with reworking entrenched urban fabrics, their residences, and their dynamics; once the “sleeping bear” is prodded, unexpected complications tend to multiply.
Concrete Villa is conceived as an L-shaped composition that embraces the landscape and defines a private outdoor courtyard with a swimming pool at its center. The architecture is guided by clarity and restraint: long horizontal volumes in exposed concrete are balanced by transparent glass facades, creating a constant dialogue between solidity and openness.
“As Stephen Hawking stated, humanity’s greatest achievements have been obtained in encounters, and its greatest failures in non-encounters or, worse, in clashes. Today, this is more true than ever, and it is necessary and urgent to foster the birth of collaborations because we have enormous potential in terms of expertise and technology to be used, especially for the sake of Life. Architecture, through the creation of pleasant, reassuring, and stimulating environments and a conscious distribution of functions, is a tool to make human contact and the consequent transfer of knowledge more accessible and immediate.” Michele De Lucchi
Located 100 meters above sea level, in the Caboclo neighborhood of Paraty, the house is immersed in a natural incline of Atlantic forest that extends to form the Serra da Bocaina.
A Tale of Two NABs. In Sydney, there’s a red staircase that connects two workplaces located 24 kilometers apart. NAB 3 Parramatta Square (3PS) and NAB 2 Carrington St (2CS) are Woods Bagot’s fraternal twin workplace tenancies. Known by NAB as their “Sydney campus”, together these buildings accommodate over 6,000 desks, providing a rare opportunity to boldly transform the bank’s workplace experience in locations highly connected to both its established and emerging customer base.
Stretching along the Atlantic coast at the southern tip of Florida, Miami is often introduced through postcard views of beaches, palm trees, and glass towers facing the water. Yet, behind this familiar image lies a city shaped by migration, tourism, and real estate cycles, where architecture has repeatedly been used to project new identities and reinvent the urban landscape. From early resort hotels and the Art Deco façades of South Beach to experimental high-rises and cultural institutions on the bay, the built environment offers a way to read how Miami negotiates climate, economy, and everyday life.
Situated on a flat lot in a quiet residential neighborhood near the Apple headquarters, the site is close to the Cupertino Eichler district but directly adjacent to homes in the Spanish Colonial and Mission styles mandated by zoning regulations. The opportunity was embraced to adapt the shared lineage of these local precedents while adhering to strict style requirements to design a new contemporary dwelling.