Why are luxury car brands suddenly building skyscrapers?

 

Laurence Grigorov, as director of a residential property development company, finds ideas and inspiration from international architectural designs for residential development projects that the company is involved in. Laurence Grigorov has been developing luxury residential projects in Johannesburg, South Africa for over 20 years.

The past 18 months has seen a flurry of skyscrapers unveiled by luxury car makers including Bentley, Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin. Nat Barker reports on the growing phenomenon of car-branded architecture.

"Fans of the brand should not just be able to drive a Porsche, they should be able to live in one," said Porsche Lifestyle Group CEO Stefan Buescher of the brand's decision to move into real estate.

While real estate itself is clearly lucrative, the car companies have other motivations for building the residences.

Pull up outside Aston Martin Residences – a 66-storey skyscraper in Miami completed this month – and you will be greeted by the marque's famous winged logo.

"Entering the real estate sector is a showcase of design mastery, tapping into a profound understanding of our customer lifestyle and personal preferences," Bentley Motors director of product and marketing Steven De Ploey told Dezeen, echoing the sentiments of its peers.

The key word here is "lifestyle". Luxury automotive brands make no secret of the fact that they increasingly want to be much more to their customers than mere vehicle manufacturers.

"It's about creating a 360-degree brand experience," added Porsche's Buescher.

Porsche kicked off the trend with Porsche Design Tower Miami, completed in 2017. Photo courtesy of Porsche

Porsche can make a strong claim to have started the trend, unveiling plans for the 198-metre-tall Porsche Design Tower – complete with car elevators – in 2013 and completing the Miami project in 2017. A second project has just completed in Stuttgart.

Part of its motivation was a realisation that demand for "luxury" design is becoming more about status than a desire for top-quality products.

"Modern luxury is defined less by the product itself, the brand name or the price, but by the overall product and brand experience," Buescher said.

"The Porsche Design Tower Miami is therefore not only a symbol of architectural excellence, but also a testimony to our commitment to offering our customers ultra-exclusive experiences."

Luxury brands of all kinds are diversifying, but this idea of being the defining aspect of the consumer's life carries particular weight among car makers, according to industry expert Andrew Graves.

"Customer retention is really important to this industry," he told Dezeen.

"They try to make a 'Bentley-ness' about the lifestyle so you don't decide to buy a Bugatti instead. And if you have your apartment in Miami, you'll stay with them for life."

Luxury car brands have been using design to sell a lifestyle to their customers for some time. Lifestyle brand Porsche Design, for example, was founded more than 50 years ago.

Fashion and accessories have been a particular focus, though interiors are another trend, with Bentley and Bugatti both exhibiting new furniture collections at Milan design week last month.

Moving into architecture, then, may be a natural progression. And there are other reasons that residential real estate makes sense for luxury car brands.

For one thing, sports cars have a way of provoking astonishing enthusiasm among owners.

"You have incredibly fanatical owners," said Aston Martin chief creative officer Marek Reichman. "Many Aston Martin owners are collectors – some have more than 10 cars."

For these kinds of customers, Aston Martin launched an architecture service for homes designed to show off their cars in 2019 – and is currently close to completing its first project in upstate New York, with another two in the works in Tokyo.

Aston Martin offers an architecture service to design homes around owners' prized automobiles. Image by S3 Architecture, courtesy of Corcoran Country Living

Real-estate investing is often a passion among those wealthy enough to have a luxury car collection numbering in the double digits, as Bentley's De Ploey acknowledges.

"It's an exciting area of the luxury market and the number-one passion for both our existing as well as our future prospects," he said.

Such fierce brand loyalty is a valuable asset in the property marke and the majority of developers can only dream of having such a high profile.

For instance, Reichman explained, an Aston Martin buyer will commonly put down a hefty deposit around five years before receiving their car.

"If you're a car buyer of exclusive, limited edition cars, then actually you're quite used to the process of buying off-plan," he explained.

Miami has emerged as the epicentre of branded residences. Photo by Aston Martin

That is music to a property developer's ears – and according to Reichman, Aston Martin Residences was in the extremely rare position of being almost entirely sold out before it opened.

Meanwhile, it was reported that 22 billionaires had purchased apartments in Porsche Design Tower by the time the project was made public in 2013.

So there appears to be demand among the super-rich for car-branded skyscrapers – though Graves believes there is an even simpler reason for the rapid uptake of the trend.

"There is this thing that happens in the car industry called the herd effect," he said. "When one does something the rest panic and think 'we don't want to be left out'."

In keeping with Graves' copycat theory, Miami has emerged as the undisputed world capital of car-branded skyscrapers – with Porsche, Aston Martin, Bentley, Mercedes and Pagani all choosing the city for their projects.

"Miami is most certainly, I'd say, the birthplace of branded residences," agreed Mikael Hamaoui, founder and CEO of Riviera Horizons – the Floridian developer building Pagani Residences.

"When you think about places to live, Miami of all cities is a lifestyle – you move to Miami for the lifestyle," he told Dezeen. "And so, being a lifestyle city, having lifestyle brands is a natural connection, it just makes perfect sense."

Despite the obvious similarities, those behind car-branded residences are keen to emphasise the uniqueness of their own project.

Each has sought to describe how the architecture reflects the design ethos of the corresponding cars, often using indistinct terms like "performance", "craftsmanship" and "DNA".

Some design decisions do stand out however – most notably (and controversially) a car elevator in Porsche Design Tower and the upcoming Bentley Residences.

Named "the Dezervator" after Dezer Development boss Gil Dezer, the partner on both projects, it enables residents to park right inside their apartments high up from street level.

"In keeping with our identity, we have [...] consciously decided against design elements that have no function other than pure showmanship," Buescher nevertheless declared of the Porsche tower.

At Aston Martin Residences, for example, developed by G&G Business Developments and designed by architecture studio Bodus Mian Anger in collaboration with Reichman, the parking ramp is angled specially to avoid scraping the front of a low-lying sports car.

"The car parking is incredible," said Reichman. "But we wanted to concentrate more on the home than the car in this instance – it was more about the drama of living."

That manifests itself chiefly in the form of a cantilevered pool deck on the 55th floor.

A cantilevered swimming pool deck juts out near the top of Aston Martin Residences. Photo by Aston Martin

Similarly, while Pagani Residences will feature "preferred parking" and a private lounge for Pagani owners, the building's main gesture to the Italian brand is its relatively modest size, in a display of hyper-exclusivity deemed fitting for a company that manufactures only around 40 cars a year.

"All the other branded residences out there are 150 to 800-unit buildings," said Hamaoui. "That's not Pagani. We didn't want to build a mega-building, we want to build a very hand-curated and crafted, very special product."

In addition to the Dezervator, Bentley has selected other visual nods to its vehicles – with Sieger Suarez Architects' glass facade bearing diamond-shaped panels that reference Bentley car interiors.

The ambitions of the car brands making the move into real estate go well beyond the average luxury residential tower.

Pagani says its more modestly sized building is a reflection of the hypercar brand's extreme exclusivity. Image by We Are Visuals

"It was about changing the landscape of Miami," said Aston Martin's Reichman.

"We didn't want to build just another building, we wanted to create a technical and architectural masterpiece that would set new standards in the luxury housing market," said Porsche's Buescher.

"To date, there is probably no other building that has such an innovative concept at the highest level of quality."

The question now is whether other marques can sustain the momentum, and whether car-branded residences become a long-term trend or a passing fad.

"The problem is once everyone is doing this it's a zero-sum game," said Graves. "What can they offer you next? It opens up the possibility of aircraft and ships."

The facade of Bentley Residences will bear the diamond shapes commonly found in the interiors of the brand's cars. Image courtesy of Bentley

Pagani has already designed a plane interior, while Aston Martin unveiled plans for a submarine in 2017 and Porsche recently collaborated on a speed boat, as well as offering design consultation services for yachts and jets.

Meanwhile, the car-branded residences phenomenon shows little sign of slowing down – with Porsche and Aston Martin both eager for more.

"We see great potential in this field and are in promising talks for projects in top locations in various major international cities," said Buescher.

"If someone calls tomorrow and says we have an amazing space right on the edge of Central Park and we're going to do this, then we'd say absolutely let's do it," echoed Reichman. "If it's the right partner, right position and the right mentality, then yes, for sure."

Text & images courtesy of Dezeen.com

THE MEDIAN IN ROSEBANK

As director at a residential property development company based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Laurence Grigorov keeps abreast of development news and information. Current and upcoming commercial and residential projects offer Laurence Grigorov an insight into market trends both in South Africa and internationally.

Messaris Wapenaar Cole Architects was commissioned at the end of 2014 to design what was intended to be a 14-floor apartment building. With its prime position in the heart of the busy hub of Rosebank, The Median was envisaged by the client as a building which was to be the icon of nouveau apartment living in Rosebank. This was already a tall order, given that in most cases a building of this nature, complexity and size would only feasibly be completed about five years later. The design would thus have to be at least five years ahead of its time. What the brief required was a world-class response.

The site is on the corner of Tyrwhitt and Cradock Avenue, the gateway to the pedestrianised upper Tyrwhitt Avenue, where it intersects the north / south pedestrian artery from the Mall of Rosebank to the taxi rank at Jellicoe Avenue. The site, as with most urban sites, is compact and consequently the footprint of the building is small. Access and egress for both vehicles and pedestrians are on Tyrwhitt Avenue, occupying most of the south façade at street level. 

To accommodate the required level of parking as well as the services required, the building extends five levels below the street, making the total height of the final building 21 storeys. The excavation required to accommodate this was possibly the deepest hole in Rosebank at the time. This required careful planning and precision engineering to achieve without compromising surrounding structures and services.

The basements and the ground floor are occupied by services and parking with the exception of a small retail offering addressing the building’s contribution to the Rosebank retail precinct, vehicular access and a small entrance lobby for pedestrian access to and from the street.

Above the street, the 140 private apartments surround a 15-storey covered atrium away from the busy streets. The apartments are ultra-modern, mostly two-bedroom apartments, with a pocket of one-bedroom units catering for ‘semigrators’ who commute to and from Rosebank, and four luxurious penthouses on the 14th and 15th floors.

The finishings are elegantly pared back to allow the purchasers to decorate their apartments in any colour and style. The apartments face outward, with views directed diagonally from the building to secure a feeling of space in what will ultimately become a totally high rise environment. 

As The Median finds itself in the centre of the action in Rosebank, it was decided not to add communal facilities other than the pocket park in the atrium. The building surrounds abound with activities and nightlife.

A project realised over many years, with many iterations, The Median now stands as the forward looking, modern building the architects envisaged from the start in 2014.

Text & images courtesy of Architect & Builder Magazine

 

Artificial island Lynetteholm to be built in Copenhagen harbour

Laurence Grigorov, as director of a residential property development company, finds ideas and inspiration from international architectural designs for projects that the company is involved in. Laurence Grigorov has been developing luxury residential projects in Johannesburg, South Africa for nearly 15 years. He is highly influenced by modern design trends and attempts to instill these inspirations in the upcoming projects.

The Danish parliament has approved the building of Lynetteholm, an artificial island off the coast of Copenhagen that will house 35,000 people and protect the city's harbour from rising water.

The 275-hectare Lynetteholm project was designed by COWI, Arkitema and Tredje Natur as a housing and business district that will also become a bulwark against climate-change induced storms.

Lynetteholm will be built by development company By & Havn (City & Port) using soil from construction projects in Copenhagen and the surrounding area.

The artificial island will be located between Nordhavn and Refshaleøen and will protect the city from "more frequent storm surges and rising water masses," said Tredje Natur.

In total homes for 35,000 people will be built on the peninsular that will partially enclose the harbour to act as "climate and storm surge protection".

After winning approval in the Danish parliament, where it was voted in by 85 votes to 12, Lynetteholm is set to be built over the next 50 years. However, it has met resistance from environmental groups, according to the BBC.

This is partly because construction of the island requires transporting 80 million tonnes of soil through the city, which has been estimated to result in 350 lorry journeys per day through the Danish capital during the construction period.

It has also been criticised by the Coalition Clean Baltic, which has "grave concerns" about the project. It says Lynetteholm could have "disastrous consequences" for the Baltic Sea environment.

By & Havn has stated that it will monitor the project's environmental impact.

"The project has been environmentally assessed and qualified in consultation with the country's leading experts and in dialogue with Copenhageners, and therefore the Folketing [parliament] has today been able to adopt Lynetteholm on a well-documented and informed basis," said By & Havn CEO Anne Skovbro.

Marine feasibility studies, archaeological studies and tender for contracts is due to take place later this year and By & Havn expect Lynetteholm to be completed in approximately 30 years.

Words & image courtesy of www.dezeen.com

Leeza SOHO by Zaha Hadid Architects

Laurence Grigorov, as director of a residential property development company, constantly looks for inspiration from international architectural designs and trends in order to keep the development projects that the company is involved in, relevant and modern. Laurence Grigorov has long admired the work of famed architect Zaha Hadid and the work that the studio continues to produce is both exciting and forward-thinking.

Located on Lize Road in southwest Beijing, Leeza SOHO tower anchors the new Fengtai business district - a growing financial and transport hub between the city centre and the recently opened Beijing Daxing International Airport to the south. The new business district is integral to Beijing’s multi-modal urban plan to accommodate growth without impacting existing infrastructure networks in the centre of the city. 

This 45-story 172,800m² tower responds to demand from small and medium-sized businesses in Beijing for flexible and efficient Grade A office space.

Adjacent to the business district’s rail station at the intersection of five new lines currently under construction on Beijing’s Subway network, Leeza SOHO’s site is diagonally dissected by an underground subway service tunnel.

Straddling this tunnel, the tower’s design divides its volume into two halves enclosed by a single facade shell. The emerging space between these two halves extends the full height of the tower, creating the world’s tallest atrium at 194.15m which rotates through the building as the tower rises to realign the upper floors with Lize road to the north. 

Leeza SOHO’s atrium acts as a public square for the new business district, linking all spaces within the tower and providing varying views due to its twisting, sculptural form; creating a fantastic new civic space for Beijing that is directly connected to the city’s transport network.

Leeza SOHO’s double-insulated, unitised glass curtain wall system steps the glazing units on each floor at an angle, providing narrow ventilating registers to draw outside air through operable cavities where required; creating extremely efficient environmental control for each floor.

At the forefront of 3D Building Information Modelling (BIM) in design, construction management and building operations, Zaha Hadid Architects and SOHO China have implemented proven technologies to reduce the energy consumption and emissions at each of their four collaborations, totalling 15 million square feet (1.4 million sq. m) of mixed-use urban space in Beijing and Shanghai.

Designed to achieve LEED Gold certification by the US Green Building Council, Leeza SOHO’s advanced 3D BIM energy management system monitors real-time environmental control and energy efficiency. These systems also include heat recovery from exhaust air and high-efficiency pumps, fans, chillers boilers, lighting and controls. The tower incorporates water-collection, low-flow rate fixtures and grey water flushing as well as an insulating green roof with photovoltaic array to harvest solar energy.

2,680 bicycle parking spaces, with lockers, shower facilities and dedicated charging spaces for electric and hybrid cars are located below ground; while low volatile organic compound materials are installed throughout Leeza SOHO to minimise interior pollutants and high efficiency filters remove particulates via the air-handling system.

Words and image courtesy of www.architectmagazine.com

The Quarter in Green Point, Cape Town

 

Laurence Grigorov, as director of a leading property development firm based in Johannesburg, South Africa, looks for inspiration and insight from current architectural designs and developments. Laurence Grigorov has been developing luxury residential projects for over 15 years.

A new development by Signatura, known as The Quarter, will set new benchmarks for accommodation and easy living in one of the city’s most appealing areas.

Located on the corner of Somerset and De Smit Streets, it will be a natural extension to the acclaimed Media Quarter building, home to M&C Saatchi Abel and other creative practitioners.

“We are delighted at the opportunity to bring our expertise to work on this wonderful location,” said Signatura MD David Cohen.

A total of 69 apartments are planned, starting at 39m² at a cost of R2.1 million. There are also five penthouse units (86m² to 168m²) each with lush garden roof terraces and plunge pools. Parking is available for every unit. Floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors and windows in the units will make the most of the light and views of the city, mountains and harbour. Multiple features will include airconditioning, underfloor heating, LED lighting and provision for fibre connectivity. An impressive lobby with 24-hour concierge service, top end fittings that include engineered stone tops, SMEG stainless steel ovens and Ceran hobs are all included.

To protect the existing cobblestones in the vicinity, these will be lifted and stored for safeguarding during building, then re-laid. There will be a retail outlet on the ground floor adjacent to the building entrance.

Renato Graca, EHH Architects director, said The Quarter would form a natural, flowing extension to the Media Quarter which was designed by the same firm. The Quarter will draw inspiration from its well established neighbour, speaking a language of glass, aluminium and natural stone. The external palette has been purposefully left neutral, allowing the vibrancy of the neighbourhood and existing vernacular to be left unrivalled whilst complementing its context.”

Signatura’s partners on this project are Nedbank Corporate and Investment Banking, Quenet Property Management company, and Folkes, which has commercial property interests in the UK and South Africa. The Quarter occupation is scheduled for mid-2020.

Laurence Grigorov enjoys keeping abreast of current development projects.



Words & image courtesy of Architect & Builder magazine – June/July 2019

Zaha Hadid Airport Opens in Beijing

Laurence Grigorov is the director and founder of a residential property development company based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Laurence Grigorov keeps abreast of international trends in order to keep the products offered by his company relevant and up to date and the company is constantly evolving the architectural products it provides to its customers.

Zaha Hadid Architects has completed its five-pronged terminal building at Beijing Daxing International Airport, which is one of the largest airports in the world. Designed by the late Zaha Hadid and current studio principal Patrik Schumacher, along with airport specialist ADPI, the 700,000-square-metre terminal to serve Beijing has been designed to be as compact as possible.

The airport is arranged around a central "grand courtyard" with five aircraft piers radiating directly out to give the building the appearance of a starfish from above. The four-storey airport is arranged around this central space, which is naturally lit with a glass roof that the studio refers to as a "central orientation space dome". The airport's check-in island, international and domestic security desks and domestic retail area are all arranged on different levels within this central area.



"Echoing principles within traditional Chinese architecture that organise interconnected spaces around a 

central courtyard, the terminal's design guides all passengers seamlessly through the relevant departure, arrival or transfer zones towards the grand courtyard at its centre – a multi- layered meeting space at the heart of the terminal," explained the studio.

From the central space, passengers can board planes from the 79 gates, which each have airbridges connecting directly to the terminal, arranged around the five aircraft piers. According to the studio, this is the most efficient arrangement to quickly allow large numbers of passengers to quickly reach their planes.

"The compact radial design of the terminal allows a maximum number of aircraft to be parked directly at the terminal with minimum distances from the centre of the building, providing exceptional convenience for passengers and flexibility in operations," said the studio.

"This radial configuration ensures the farthest boarding gate can be accessed in a walking time of less than eighth minutes."

Arranged around the main courtyard space, Zaha Hadid Architects has created a series of flowing forms that support the roof and act as skylights to bring light into the space. Further light is brought into the building by linear skylights that stretch the length of each of the five aircraft piers. A sixth radiating arm contains the 80,000 square-metre transportation hub, which contains a high-speed and local rail stations, as well as a hotel and offices.

Zaha Hadid Architects was founded in in 1980 by Hadid. The studio has been led by Schumacher, who is one of the speakers at Dezeen Day, since Hadid passed away in 2016.

Words & image courtesy of http://www.dezeen.com/

Jewel City in Johannesburg

As director at a residential property development company based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Laurence Grigorov has a keen interest in local and international architectural and development news and information, keeping abreast of the latest trends and designs in the these fields.

A new project which Laurence Grigorov is excited for has recently been unveiled in the CBD of Johannesburg. It is the R1.2bn redevelopment of the Jewel City precinct by Divercity Urban Property Fund and GASS Architecture Studios.

This massive urban redevelopment project on the outskirts of the Maboneng Precinct in Johannesburg’s eastern CBD will breathe new life into the previously walled-off former centre of the diamond and precious metals trade in Johannesburg. The complex consists of six city blocks of industrial buildings, some dating back to the 1930s. The entire area was closed off to the public in the mid-90s and has remained an isolated and forgotten node for decades. Jewel City involves the reinvention of this pre-existing industrial complex as an open, vibrant mixed-use precinct that will introduce a socially and economically more sustainable dimension and new diversity to early inner-city rejuvenation projects such as the Maboneng Precinct.

The developers see Jewel City as a catalytic project that will enhance the eastern CBD’s urban potential, introducing crucial facilities that include new affordable residential space, a school, healthcare and retail facilities such as pharmacies and a supermarket, a gym and other recreational facilities that help to sustain an inclusive, prosperous and wholesome urban social, economic and cultural life in the inner city. Jewel City has been envisioned as an opportunity to undo apartheid-era spatial divides and transform the inner city in a way that also addresses much needed access to resources and economic opportunities in the face of a dire need for housing.

The industrial heritage of the buildings will be honoured not just through the lightness of the architectural interventions to the façades and by exposing the expressive minimalism of their industrial materiality – off-shutter concrete, brickwork and steel – but also through the naming of each building, which includes refence to their former incarnations as a centre of the diamond and gold trade, but reframed as more inclusive and representative of South Africa’s broader history.

The quality of the public space and the broader architectural character of the precinct is designed not only to catalyse and support a greater diversity of people within the precinct, but also to invite and encourage further investment into the CBD. More broadly, the development opens up the potential for other key nodes of urban development such as Maboneng, the planned Absa Precinct and further developments along Fox Street to merge and form an integrated walkable city.

Sustained by a belief in the transformative potential of urban design and architecture to catalyse economic and social energy, dignity and prosperity, GASS Architecture Studios has re-envisioned this all-but-defunct industrial complex into a series of thoughtful interventions that breathe new life into Johannesburg’s CBD, while remaining respectful of its heritage.

Words and image courtesy of Architect & Builder magazine.

Eight Frank Lloyd Wright Sites Named to UNESCO World Heritage List

Laurence Grigorov, who is director of a Johannesburg-based property development company, often looks for inspiration from international architectural design trends. This allows Laurence Grigorov to continually keep the development projects evolving.

An architect who Laurence Grigorov has always admired is American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The World Heritage Committee, meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, has officially inscribed The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, which includes eight major works spanning 50 years of Wright’s career, on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The sites in the group inscription span Wright’s influential career. They include Unity Temple (constructed 1906-1909, Oak Park, Illinois), the Frederick C. Robie House (constructed 1910, Chicago, Illinois), Taliesin (begun 1911, Spring Green, Wisconsin), Hollyhock House (constructed 1918-1921, Los Angeles, California), Fallingwater (constructed 1936-1939, Mill Run, Pennsylvania), the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs House (constructed 1936-1937, Madison, Wisconsin), Taliesin West (begun 1938, Scottsdale, Arizona) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (constructed 1956-1959, New York, New York).

There are more than 1,000 World Heritage sites around the world, and the group of Wright sites is now among only 24 sites in the U.S. The collection represents the first modern architecture designation in the country on the prestigious list.

“This recognition by UNESCO is a significant way for us to reconfirm how important Frank Lloyd Wright was to the development of modern architecture around the world,” says Barbara Gordon, executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. “There are nearly 400 remaining structures designed by Wright. Our hope is that the inscription of these eight major works also brings awareness to the importance of preserving all of his buildings as a vital part of our artistic, cultural and architectural heritage. All communities where a Wright building stands should appreciate what they have and share in the responsibility to protect their local—and world—heritage.”

The eight inscribed sites have played a prominent role in the development and evolution of Modern architecture during the first half of the 20th century and continuing to the present. UNESCO considers the international importance of a potential World Heritage Site based on its “Outstanding Universal Value,” which in the Wright series is manifested in three attributes. First, it is an architecture responsive to functional and emotional needs, achieved through geometric abstraction and spatial manipulation. Second, the design of the buildings in this series is fundamentally rooted in nature’s forms and principles. Third, the series represents an architecture conceived to be responsive to the evolving American experience, but which is universal in its appeal.

In 2015, the U.S. nominated a series of 10 Wright-designed sites to the World Heritage List. At its meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, in July 2016, the World Heritage Committee decided to “refer” the nomination for revisions. Over the past two years, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy worked with the council of sites and leading scholars to revise the nomination and rework the justification for inscription.

Laurence Grigorov is often influenced by both contemporary and classical design trends and ideas and uses these as inspiration in the company’s architectural style.

Words & image courtesy of www.architectmagazine.com