Zehnder   Zehnder presents ComfoAir Flex, a compactly designed ventilation unit for multi-family homes that can be installed in a false ceiling, thus saving living space. With minimum measurements – 1068 x 868 x 299 mm (L x W x H) – installation is simple and

Kengo Kuma   France   The building rises from the ground as a continuation of the metropolitan park, creating an observation platform over the garden and the road. Inside it will house a conference center and two hotels that aim to connect people and revitalize the new di

OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture   Netherlands   Upon its completion in 1992, Rijnstraat 8 represented both an innovative office typology – its atriums served as conservatories – and a leading example of sustainability. Over time, the building no longer offered the flexibility required of a contemp

Snøhetta   Norway   The Oslo firm Snøhetta – in collaboration with R8 Property, Skanska, and Asplan Viak – has completed this office building that will consume little energy and produce more than it will need over its lifespan (estimated at 60 years), including in const

Barceló Balanzó Arquitectes Gustau Gili Galfetti AIA Activitats Arquitectòniques   Spain   Given the huge volume of the functional program – three sports tracks – in regards to the reduced dimension of the plot and the high urban density in the area, an important part of the sports complex is partially buried. By working on the section of

heltwerk architekten   Germany   The local fim heltwerk architekten, headed by Henrike Elsner and Lucas Fernández-Trapa, has restored a house in Caan, a community of 700 inhabitants located between Frankfurt and Cologne, in the Westerwaldkreis district of the German state of Rhinela

CSO Arquitectura   Spain   Designed by CSO Arquitectura, headed by Antón Freile, this expansion of the elderly residence which the same Madrid firm built in 2005 in Camarzana de Tera (Zamora), at kilometer 127 of the road linking Benavente to Vigo, has been shortlisted in the

straddle3 Yaiza Terré Eulia Arkitektura   Spain   The aprop program for provisional housing launched by the City of Barcelona is designed to offer a swift, efficient, and pragmatic response to emergency situations caused by shortage of housing, keeping neighbors from having to leave gentrified distr

Luis Vidal   Spain   On an elongated plot parallel to the Avenida de las Universidades, in Dos Hermanas, Seville, the new campus is, along with that of Córdoba, the second largest of Loyola University in Seville. Because of very extreme temperatures in the region, the p

Calderon-Folch Arquitectes Pol Sarsanedas   Spain   The project for the CMCiB Building (Comparative Medicine and Bioimage Center) seeks addressing complex technical and functional issues in a way that is sustainable and sensitive to context and achieves high comfort levels (visual, hygrothermal, and a

Codina Prat Valls i Arquitectes Associats SLP   Spain   The center for the elderly is located on an island of municipal facilities, next to a nursery and a civic center at the foot of Palaudàries highway. It has a single floor of 490 square meters, including a main hall with access from the road and a lar

Coll-Leclerc   Spain   This residential development is located close to the transportation hub of Les Glòries – currently under construction and set to become a space for people, as well as a large green lung for the city of Barcelona. Coll-Leclerc’s project proposes an in

AAN (Arquitectura Anna Noguera) J2J architects   Spain   Anna Noguera and José Javier Fernández Ponce carried out this project that involved building a new multisport center for Barcelona’s Turó de la Peira neighborhood and fitting out the interior of one of its city blocks. The facilities are housed in a

SUMO Arquitectes Yolanda Olmo   Spain   Villa Urania is a small residence from the  late 19th century – home of the astronomer Josep Comas i Solà (1868-1937) –, the last example of the garden-city of El Farró in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district. The redensification of the neighborhood left

Harquitectes   Spain   This public facility houses an adult education center, a language standardization consortium, and a hotel on a triangular plot in the Les Corts district. Two of the three sides of the site are defined by the heritage-listed frontage of the former Pla

dataAE Harquitectes   Spain   Located in the UAB campus in Cerdanyola del Vallès, the ICTA-ICP building is a research center in environmental science and paleontology. In tune with its function, from the beginning the building was designed according to sustainability criteria. Th

Harquitectes   Spain   Flanked by party walls on a lot that stretches deep inward from the front border, this house is composed of a succession of volumes that have been deliberately set back to obtain the best possible light and views, and are arranged amid small courtyar

Zaha Hadid Architects   China   Composed of three towers which vary in height, the complex generates public space in the interior and uses its lines to create areas connected by green zones.

Lacaton & Vassal   France   The project for the construction of 14 housing units is part of a larger scheme involving 61 residential buildings carried out by five architectural teams, extending the city of Mulhouse. The objective was to produce quality dwellings that, at the sa

Harquitectes   Spain   On the same plot where the Vallès School of Architecture goes up, the project won a competition in which three challenges were posed: to provide accommodation for architecture students, to achieve the Minergie Swiss energy certification (staying belo

Foster + Partners   Germany   The foundation of the Free University in 1948 marked the rebirth of liberal education in Berlin after the war; since then it has occupied a central role in the intellectual life of the city. Today, with more than 39,000 students, it is the largest of

Foster + Partners Norman Foster   United Kingdom   Suavemente ondulada, y definida por el ritmo horizontal de su piel de lamas, la volumetría del edificio da cuenta de la altura de cornisa de los edificios que lo rodean.

Patkau Architects   Canada   Un patio central, situado en el eje del paseo más importante del campus, organiza un conjunto riguroso y discreto, diseñado a partir de criterios medioambientales.

David Chipperfield Architects   United States   The library forms an integral part of the new Des Moines Western Gateway Park. This area of the city is currently undergoing extensive redevelopment and the new library and park will become a centrepiece for the urban renewal of Des Moines. Located a

Iñaki Ábalos   There are major parallelisms between the generic 27ºC ceiling imposed by the Spanish government and the current Technical Building Code that regulates energy use (as against regulating temperature) in constructions, much of which echoes Germany’s Pas

A sensitive interpretation of the genius loci: this is how one could describe the social housing developent that the studio Oliver, Reina, Martín, Moyà & Garcías has executed in Son Gotleu, one of the poorest, most vulnnerable among the neighborhoods

Eduardo Prieto   Energy has become one of the big themes of architecture. Not only because laws, directives, and regulations are increasingly demanding in what concerns standards of comfort and reducing consumption, but also because energy has gone from being a matte

It seems natural to associate the term ‘sustainable’ with the image of greenery, although the connection is not at all inevitable. With regard to the links that buildings establish with the environment (evoking the idea of the planet as a vulnerable

William W. Braham   The measurement of architecture’s energetic and enviromental impact depends on complex analyses having to do with thermodynamics, but also with economics.

Iñaki Ábalos   Harquitectes is a collective that represents well a way of doing in today’s context. A small collective with a clear focus on an issue at once broad and narrow, and that we could sum up in two words: matter and air. Their work includes an interesting

Cristina Pardal   Ignacio Paricio   A well-known Barcelona architect, when introducing Harquitectes during a recent seminar, referred to the new aesthetic proposed by “that school of Vallès.” That “vallesana” imagery is not coincidental, but in fact emerges from an approximation to for

Kiel Moe   What is the significance of energy for architecture? What might an architectural agenda for energy be? Unfortunately, these are difficult questions for architects because, in architectural discourse, energy is a vague term with imprecise denotations.

Albert Cuchí   Buildings use up 30% of the total energy consumed in Spain, which is not bad. Considering this, any approach to the country’s energy model must take construction as an essential part of it, just as the International Energy Agency (IAE) does when it d

Everyone knows that it is difficult to integrate wind energy production systems in buildings, so the proposal by the Swedish studio Belatchew Architecture Lab – though still within the realm of science fiction – is impressive. They propose a skyscrap

In 2009 the Swabian studio Wittfoht Architekten won the international competition for the extension of the William Rappard Center in Geneva. Located across from Lake Leman, the building, which has just been inaugurated, addresses its environment by o

Consuelo Acha   Anna Moll   On June 1 a new certificate of energy efficiency in buildings comes into force, complementing other measures intended to make the real estate market more flexible.

Organic materials are renewable and have excellent hygrothermal properties, and in the medium-term are bound to become an alternative to traditional composites. Today there is an increasing interest in agricultural residues or those spontaneously gen

Consuelo Acha   S. Melero   Javier Neila   Although it is more and more present in the architectural field, the language of sustainability is used with scant rigor. This brief dictionary collects some of its terms. 

Eduardo Prieto   ¿Es posible medir la cantidad de ‘sostenibilidad’ de un edificio? ¿Cómo se puede traducir la responsabilidad medioambiental en términos numéricos? ¿Qué impactos son los más relevantes en dicha cuantificación y con qué unidades se pueden valorar? Esta

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Solar time is not the time of the solar house: it is the time of the slow city. Indeed, solar houses as those gathered in Madrid for the first Solar Decathlon in Europe are useful platforms for innovation, and fertile grounds for technological compet

Margarita de Luxán   A principios de los 90, Peter Cook visitó Madrid y pronunció varias conferencias, una de ellas en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura. Al final de la misma se abrió un coloquio y, ante la gran concurrencia de alumnos y profesores que llenaban

Justo Isasi   La ciencia de la construcción, que es la física, y la ciencia del cálculo matemático parecen haber avanzado hasta hacer posibles proyectos que no pasaban de ser utopías sobre el papel en el siglo XX, pero paradójicamente pocos creen hoy que la constr

Luis Fernández-Galiano   The cost of the black fuel boosts the value of the green tag. After two decades of reasonably cheap oil, the spectacular increase of the barrel price in the past years has strongly reactivated the political and professional interest in the energy beh