urban design

The observation tower emerges from Targówek, the postindustrial district of Warsaw.

The re-planning of the Dorotheen Quartier not only creates new areas for public use, it also offers a unique opportunity to reassess the relationship with the Karlsplatz arcade. This thoroughfare has, until now, always been perceived as the less important “back” of the site, situated behind the Breuninger Department Store, and leading towards Sporerstraße and Karlstraße. With this project, which includes three mixed-use buildings with offices, small-scale retail and urban living, the highly valuable central city core is now infused with a new identity and vitality – complete with a broad range of user activities. Thus, the new area augments Stuttgart’s existing, thriving network of lively pedestrian areas.

This article was originally published on January 2, 2015. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

At the Expo ’98 Portuguese National Pavilion, structure and architectural form work in graceful harmony. Situated at the mouth of the Tagus River in Lisbon, Portugal, the heart of the design is an enormous and impossibly thin concrete canopy, draped effortlessly between two mighty porticoes and framing a commanding view of the water. The simple, gestural move is both weightless and mighty, a bold architectural solution to the common problem of the covered public plaza. Under the graceful touch of Álvaro Siza Vieira, physics and physical form theatrically engage one another, and simplicity and clarity elevate the pavilion to the height of modern sophistication.

Originally developed in the 1970s, Miller Park spans two acres and is located in the center of the city, next to the Solomon building and one block from City Hall and the Chattanooga Public Library. As the heart of Chattanooga’s Innovation District, the design challenge was to completely overhaul the space because its sunken plaza created a barrier and sense of disconnection from the city. “By elevating the sunken plaza and bringing the entire park up to street level, we have made the park both more accessible and more inviting,” said Wes Michaels, Principal of Spackman Mossop Michaels.

A small surgical operation to connect metropolitan territory.

On August 15, 1947, on the eve of India’s independence from the United Kingdom, came a directive which would transform the subcontinent for the next six decades. In order to safeguard the country’s Muslim population from the Hindu majority, the departing colonial leaders set aside the northwestern and eastern portions of the territory for their use. Many of the approximately 100 million Muslims living scattered throughout India were given little more than 73 days to relocate to these territories, the modern-day nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh. As the borders for the new countries were drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe (an Englishman whose ignorance of Indian history and culture was perceived, by the colonial government, as an assurance of his impartiality), the state of Punjab was bisected between India and Pakistan, the latter of which retained ownership of the state capital of Lahore.[1] It was in the wake of this loss that Punjab would found a new state capital: one which would not only serve the logistical requirements of the state, but make an unequivocal statement to the entire world that a new India—modernized, prosperous, and independent—had arrived.