Articles by Lindsey Leardi

Within a week of its successor being awarded the Silver Lion at the 2016 Venice Biennale, the original Makoko Floating School collapsed. Designed by Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi of NLÉ Architects, the school was located in the Lagos Lagoon in Nigeria. Now, almost two years later, Lagos-based writer Allyn Gaestel has investigated the vulnerable coastal community and architect behind the project in a remarkable narrative nonfiction piece, “Things Fall Apart.”

Ancient ruins, like the Parthenon and Luxor Temple, can teach us about the past in a unique way. Through architectural remains, we can gather what building techniques and civilizations were like long ago. Even so, ruins can’t compare to the real deal, and historical reconstructions of these architectural wonders are key to a fuller understanding of the cultures that created them. In these GIFs made by Expedia, seven architectural wonders are reconstructed into their original form, allowing us to see how the ruins visible today developed from the initial structures in all their glory.

After countless late nights designing in studio, facing the critics, laying out (and re-laying out) your portfolio, finally convincing someone to hire you, and working 50+ hour weeks… you’re still not an architect. Welcome to the examination portion of your professional journey, folks.

Guangzhou-based multidisciplinary firm O-office Architects specializes in refurbishment projects. Founders Jianxiang He and Ying Jiang are known for exploring what architecture can do within the contemporary Chinese context, including a recent project in which they transformed an abandoned Shenzhen factory into a dynamic cultural and community center.

In this video, architecture vloggers #donotsettle take us inside Ateliers Jean Nouvel’s “museum city” in the sea: the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Filmed one month after the museum’s opening in November, Kris Provoost winds his way through the galleries to the much-talked-about mega-dome—with a diagrammatic key plan in the bottom corner of the video helping us to follow his path.

Architecture photographer Marc Goodwin is continually adding to his world atlas of architecture offices. While photographing studios in Barcelona, Goodwin spent a little extra time at the post-World War I cement factory Ricardo Bofill transformed into his studio, gardens, and residence. After the cement-filled silos were uncovered, Bofill defined a new structure and program for his architectural fortress.

Fosun Group hired Woods Bagot to transform commercial planning of Dahua, an 82-year-old historic textile mill, into China’s next retail and entertainment district. Located in Xi’an’s urban center, the site sits next to Daming Palace, the Tang Dynasty’s royal residence and a national heritage site which attracts thousands of tourists each year. 

Fosun Group hired Woods Bagot to transform commercial planning of Dahua, an 82-year-old historic textile mill, into China’s next retail and entertainment district. Located in Xi’an’s urban center, the site sits next to Daming Palace, the Tang Dynasty’s royal residence and a national heritage site which attracts thousands of tourists each year. 

In the Lujiazui financial district in Pudong, Shanghai, Kengo Kuma has reimagined a 1972 shipyard into a new 9,000-square-meter multi-use complex, named Shipyard 1862. Behind original, rugged brick walls, the old shipyard was once defined by a 12 by 30-meter grid, which allowed for massive interior spaces to hold ships. In this industrial-style adaptive reuse project, Kuma was careful to preserve the building’s structural and material integrity. These photographs provided by Julien Lanoo show how the industrial shell has been transformed by the refurbishment project.

Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin captures the unique workspaces of architects around the world. So far, Goodwin’s photography has helped us imagine what office life might be like as an architect in London, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, the Nordic countries, and now, Barcelona. Read on to see the spaces where architects from Ricardo Bofill to Fermin Vazquez design solutions that impact our world.