Buildings | Architectural Review

United States Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon by Morphosis

Like US diplomatic buildings worldwide, this facility currently under construction in Beirut is subject to increased fortification, following two bombings of the previous embassy

Swiss Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya by Roeoesli & Maeder Architekten

The new embassy complex turns is back to the street, begging the question of what buildings of this type owe to the context in which they sit

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Franco-German Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh by SPA Design

Completed in 2017, the double-occupancy of the embassy shared between France and Germany in Dhaka is expressed in the very fabric of the building

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Egyptian Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal by Promontorio, 2018

The patterns of Lisbon’s Egyptian embassy deal with an expression of its home country’s architectural heritage, without becoming a replica of a traditional building, alien to its new, foreign context

Typology: Embassy

Redolent of the geopolitical climate, embassy design has shifted to create symbols of protection as well as power

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Beginning with the simple table from which they take their name, banks developed into one of the most splendid urban building types as they sought to reassure depositors. Today they are on the verge of disappearing altogether

Typology: Palace

Big houses for feudal rulers advertised the right to power of those within, while protecting them from the people they exploited to build them – today, the tradition continues in the hands of oligarchs

Remodelling of St Pete Pier in St Petersburg, USA, by ASD Architects and Rogers Partners

The pedestrianisation of the pier creates a new kind of seafront, that re-envisages and reinvigorates the traditional archetype

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Harbour Bath in Aarhus, Denmark, by Bjarke Ingels Group

Aarhus’s new baths extend the public realm into the water, revitalising a former industrial area

Pier 2, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco, USA, by Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects

The remodelling of the former military port for San Francisco Art Institute combines drama and intimacy, lending itself surprisingly well to its new role

Cruise Terminal in Salerno, Italy, by Zaha Hadid Architects

Zaha Hadid’s cruise terminal reframes the role of the pier as indeterminate terrain, mediating between land, sea and sky

Typology: Pier

Devised by pleasure-seeking Victorians but now undermined by social change and physical neglect, does the building that defined the seaside have a future?

Gasholders in London, UK, by Wilkinson Eyre

Is the solution to obsolescent gasholders demolition, building housing developments within them or, perhaps best yet, parks?

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Irving Street Brewery plant in Sydney, Australia, by Tzannes

Parasitic orchids of zinc mesh shroud the cooling towers of this brewery conversion in central Sydney

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Energiebunker in Hamburg, Germany, by Hegger Hegger Schleiff Architekten

Inventive reuse of a German Second World War bunker provides energy, and public space and amenities, in Hamburg

Amager Bakke Waste-to-Energy Plant in Copenhagen, Denmark, by BIG and SLA

The sloping ‘hill’ design of this waste-to-energy plant, naturally, features a ski slope and requires more waste than the city produces to run at profit

Typology: Power station

Faced with planetary catastrophe, does the future of energy generation lie in a return to its historical origins?

Market in Niigata, Japan, by Takuya Hosokai

This woodland pavilion in blackened timber provides a collection of amenities for the local community and its visitors, bundled together in three distinct but linked volumes

Municipal Market, Abrantes, Portugal, by ARX Portugal

Staggered cubic volumes in white-painted concrete link two streets that are separated by a steep incline

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Foodmet Abattoir, Brussels, Belgium, by ORG Architecture

This new market hall joins an imposing 19th-century hall in iron and glass – in use as an abattoir until the 1990s – and a large open-air market

Baltic Station Market in Talinn, Estonia, by KOKO Architects

Baltic Station Market, Talinn, Estonia, by KOKO Architects

The Modernist motif of the floating roof, whether cantilevered or supported on impossibly spindly legs, found its ideal functions in the factory and the market

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Typology: Market hall

The market hall shelters a cornucopia of delights, but the traffic and mess it generates presents a challenge to planners

Law Court Offices, Venice, Italy, by C+S Architects

This extraordinary looming monolith on the Piazzale Roma provides offices and a grandly scaled public entrance for the Venetian law courts

Kununurra Couthouse, Kununurra, Australia, by TAG Architects + Iredale Pederson Hook Architects

An undulating grey roof shelters the courthouse, announcing the building’s presence without admonishment

District Court Extension, Alingsås, Sweden, by Tengbom

The courtrooms occupy the upper storey up to the roofline, giving these spaces impressive volume

Court of Justice, Hasselt, Belgium, by Jürgen Mayer H Architects

The building takes the form of a blob erupting from a rectangular podium, and, with its somewhat 1970s orange and brown colour scheme, is wilfully ungainly

Typology: Law Court

From Kafkaesque labyrinths of columns and arches to the abstraction of Modernist towers: the representation of justice in a world ruled by its absence is an intractable task

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New Correctional Facility in Nuuk, Greenland, by Schmidt Hammer Lassen architects

This jail is currently under construction outside Nuuk, in one of the world’s most dramatic locations for such a facility

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Mas d’Enric Penitentiary in Tarragona, Spain, by AiB estudi d’arquitectes and Estudi PSP Arquitectura

The undulating green roof echoes the canopy of the surrounding woodland bridging an otherwise insuperable divide between inside and out

Hólmsheiði Prison in Reykjavik, Iceland, by Arkís

The recurring prison cell extrusions connect the inmates to the surrounding landscape while isolating them from one another

Typology: Prison

To confine, secure, rehabilitate or punish: the prison has several, sometimes contradictory aims, but however humane its approach, penal architecture is essentially cruel

Typology: Buildings for animals

Designing buildings for animals has prompted an extraordinary range of responses, from palace to cat flap, which say more about humans than the residents

Elephant House at Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark by Foster + Partners

Buildings for elephants necessarily curtail the inhabitants’ freedom, as they usually roam around six miles a day across the savannah. However, these animals are also accustomed to a certain degree of warmth and dryness, and so when transplanted to colder climes they need a roof over their heads. This problem was addressed by Virgilio Cestari, who created a fantastic Hindu temple for the elephants at Buenos Aires Zoo in 1904, and more recently by Hugh Casson, who completed the corduroy ...

Equestrian Centre in Melbourne, Australia by Seth Stein Architects and Watson Architecture + Design

The horse is a noble beast, and as such has sometimes been treated to luxurious quarters, for example by architects as distinguished as Jules Hardouin-Mansart and Johann Fischer von Erlach. (Sometimes, but not always, as those who have seen the film Maîtresse, with its scene set in a horse abattoir, can attest.) Seth Stein and Watson Architecture + Design’s Equestrian Centre Merricks on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula is an impressive addition to this tradition, with its elegantly curved ...

Cowshed in Lignières, Switzerland by localarchitecture

Constructed in the Jura hills of Switzerland, the timber beams traditionally used in local barns are employed here to create an unusually complex roof form

Bat Tower in East Otto, New York, USA by Joyce Hwang

Thanks to human-caused climate change, many scientists argue that the world is entering the sixth mass extinction in its history. Bats are among the species under threat. Over a million have died in the USA, where they have succumbed to a fungal infection, and in the UK, bats are vanishing as they lose their habitats and food supply thanks to non-porous buildings, pollution and pesticides, despite being protected by law. One way to mitigate these problems is to provide roosts that compensate ...