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Plan B for Colombia: Rural schools in Antioquia, Colombia by Plan:b arquitectosSubscription

By Paula Mesa

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

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Elephant House at Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark by Foster + PartnersSubscription

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    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

  • Lon35766

    Typology: Bathhouse

    Since time immemorial, and from continent to continent, saunas or bathhouses have played a community role, stripping their users of social distinctions and affording a rich seam for architects

  • Hull

    Typology: Public toilet

    From the pissoir to the sanisette, from the communal to the stand-alone pod, from male to female provision, a rich seam of history runs through toilets

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    Typology: Shop

    Sacred lair of the commodity, its mysteries veiled by plate glass: who can resist the lure of the shop? 

  • Gursky© shanghai

    Typology: Hotels

    Anonymous rooms for anonymous and rootless lives, the hotel has long been a giant metaphor for modernity

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    Typology: Dams

    The control of nature promised a world transformed for the benefit of humans, but have gigantic dams drowned such hopes?

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    Typology: Airport

    Once glamorous gateways to freedom, airports have become zones of consumerist tedium and state terror – but the emotional intensity of the departure gate endures

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    Typology: Public Square

    When human particles collide in the accelerator of the square, the public comes into being – as evanescent as an unstable element

  • Typologycremindex

    Typology: Crematorium

    Our final encounter with architecture increasingly takes place in crematoria but, despite an association with modern bureaucratic society, the type has a long history

  • Typologyindex

    Typology: Pub

    Idealised as a comforting refuge and a site of warm conviviality, the public house can also be divisive

  • Typology estate renaudie ivry

    Typology: Housing Estate

    From the green quadrangles of medieval almshouses to towering banlieues, the history of mass housing represents architecture at its most high-minded – which makes its failures all the more painful

  • Lucio Costas plan for Brasilia

    Typology: New towns

    Creating new urban areas from scratch may appear to be a utopian exercise, but more frequently it entrenches existing systems of power

  • Infosys Bengaluru India 2005 Hafeez Contractor2

    Typology: Corporate campus

    With the 1940s came a compulsion to move headquarters from the inner-city sprawl to more tranquil environs out of town. Is the resurgent migration a retreat to a natural idyll or a calculated isolation?

  • Rothko Chapel

    Typology: Multifaith

    Religious belief systems remain powerful and distinct but, alongside the differences, comes a call for greater tolerance and cohesion. Can the worship of different gods take place under one roof?

  • JV Wall Fire Station Gloucester

    Typology: Fire Stations

    The fire station is a unique blend of domesticity and workplace, with the engines brought as close as possible to the living quarters in search of the world’s briefest commute (preferably via pole)

  • Marseille cinema gorska montaut

    Typology: Cinemas

    Gloriously kitsch picture palaces engulfed the masses in darkness, while opening virtual space through the screen

  • Ford___s_River_Rouge_plant_Alamy_Index_Old

    Typology: Factories

    Commodities flowed from them, along with money for their owners - but the factory also produced new ways of living, of thinking, and of designing

  • Lomonsov_university

    Typology: Universities

    The university is one of the oldest surviving institutions in the western world. It has colonised the globe, its architecture reflecting the prevailing ideology – of which it is the reproductive machinery

  • tomb of Rene de Chalon

    Typology: Tombs

    A sealed volume, the tomb has no interior – or if it does, you really don’t want to go there. The exterior, by contrast, is a screen onto which we project our hopes and fears about the other side of life

  • Typologyindex

    Typology: Skyscraper

    Soaring expression of the individualistic spirit of capitalism, logical extrusion of land values or irrational, anti-urban monster?

  • Vermeertypology

    Typology: Artist Studio

    The studio reflects the changing status of artists through time, from the humble workspace of art workers to the hallowed ground of masters

  • JC Prestwich & Sons, Mounts Baths, Northampton, 1936

    Typology: Swimming Pools

    Sites of ablution, illicit heavy petting, athleticism, surveillance, leisure, racism and death: pools bring people together stripped of status symbols, but in ways profoundly marked by wider social conditions

  • typology

    Typology: The semi-detached house

    Symbol of middle-class aspiration, conservatism and compromised individualism, the semi-detached house is England’s modern domestic type par excellence

  • Opera Index

    Typology: Opera Houses

    Since its birth in the Renaissance, opera has been claimed as a reincarnation of community-forming Greek drama, while being used to represent the power of the state − whether feudal, dictatorial or democratic

  • Wunderkammern

    Typology: Museums

    Museums arrange the world according to the changing way we see it: from Renaissance memory theatres and Baroque cabinets of curiosity, via Enlightenment typologies, to Modernist teleologies and the current vogue for environmental contextualism

  • LARKINEDIT

    Typology: Offices

    Conceived in an era of command and control, the traditional fixed and stratified office is evolving to embrace more fluid and intuitive ways of working

  • Patients at St Bartholomew's Hospital, Lodnon in 1929 being wheeled out in their beds

    Typology: Hospitals

    Ancient civilisation advocated letting the wider world’s healing power flow through the body and mind, but the industrialisation of healthcare isolated patients from these larger contexts. From city centres to sylvan settings, today’s hospitals must reintegrate the public realm into the healing process

  • INDEX

    Typology: Schools

    In the industrial era, schools developed as highly controlled environments to instil the discipline to thrive in a machine age. Now, to prepare pupils for success in a knowledge economy, the evolving typology is more fluidly conceived to provide flexibility, connectivity, and spaces for social and educational encounters

  • Robert Smirke’s much loved 1857 British Library is one of the most famous examples of the radial plan, which was introduced into library design to enable the efficient monitoring of readers by librarians

    Typology: Libraries

    In this piece from November 2011, Oriel Prizeman examines six recent public library projects in the first of a major new quarterly series on typology

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    Library of Birmingham by Mecanoo

    Oriel Prizeman examines six recent libraries in the first of a new quarterly series on typology

  • The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture designed by Snøhetta takes the form of a knot in the desert that holds resources which have fuelled the global economy. A cluster inspired by striped pebbles contains a children's 'discovery zone' and a l.mir.no

    King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture by Snøhetta

    Oriel Prizeman examines six recent libraries in the first of a new quarterly series on typology

  • The National Library of China is the third largest in the world. It is divided into three layers: an earthbound historic base, translucent central portion and digital roof layer

    National Library of China by KSP Jurgen Engel Architekten

    Oriel Prizeman examines six recent libraries in the first of a new quarterly series on typology

Typology Studies

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Cowshed in Lignières, Switzerland by localarchitectureSubscription

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

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Down to earth: Woodland research and construction near Bath, UK, by Invisible studioSubscription

By Laura Mark

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Poised for flight: Visitor centre in Denmark by Dorte MandrupSubscription

By Oliver Lowenstein

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Park at Rectory Farm, London, by Carmody Groarke and Vogt Landscape ArchitectsSubscription

By Lucy Bullivant

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Field study centre in Tone-gun, Japan, by Sakakura AssociatesSubscription

By Peter Davey

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Breaking the mould: Gloria Cabral, Gabinete de Arquitectura, ParaguaySubscription

More Films

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Field study centre in Tone-gun, Japan, by Sakakura AssociatesSubscription

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Houses of Isfahan: Zariy Baf house and Mosaver-al-Molk houseSubscription

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‘A thoughtful synthesis of Western Modernism with what is essential in Indian traditional building’Subscription

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Antonio Sant'Elia: ‘one of the least understood pioneers of the modern movement’Subscription

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Horai Onsen by Kengo Kuma, Atami-shi, Japan, 2003Subscription

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House of Toilet on Ibukijima Island, Japan by Daigo Ishii + Future-scape ArchitectsSubscription

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Into the woods: Cowan Court, University of Cambridge, UK by 6a ArchitectsSubscription

By Eleanor Beaumont