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At first sight, when approaching CDMX from the sky, is overwhelming. A sea of buildings indicates an arrival to the fifth most populated capital in the world. The size of the city, makes it difficult to recognize its limits, so it is inevitable to use urban and suburban landmarks such as the Zócalo square (downtown), Tamayo Museum in Chapultepec Park (West), University City, the Frida Kahlo Museum (Coyoacán), and Ciudad Satélite (north exit), to orient yourself.

Located in a strategic geographical position within the traditional routes of design, the city benefits from the connections and close interactions with North America and Europe. Fortunately, these external tendencies are refined within the "local" filter; the vast history and tradition of indigenous Mexican cultures permeate foreign influences making them unique creations, with a marked interest in native materials and working techniques.

The history of Venice’s architecture, as seen today, is a semblance of styles centuries old. A destination rich in culture, many of Venice’s existing buildings, from homes alongside the thin interior canals to the grand domed churches of Palladio, have remained stagnant in their overall design and layout since the 16th century. Once a hub of Byzantine and European trade, the city now thrives on a steady stream of tourism and a foundational group of local residents.

The structures that make up the city’s compact matrix, once integral to its function as a commercial empire, have come to take on new functions through architectural intervention; notably, architects such as Carlo Scarpa, OMA, and Tadao Ando have had a large hand in this process.

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The tale began with a simple idea - a toy that every child, regardless of age and ability, can play, dream, and learn with. But things turned out less than simple. Fights, lawsuits, and even a death all mark the road it took to make a now-ubiquitous toy a reality. The object in question? Lego.  

It’s tales such as this one that Alexandra Lange explores in her new book, The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids. Some may scoff at the seemingly trivial subject matter. Surely children, with their boundless imaginations and appetite for play, can discover ways to find fun in anything.

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This article was originally published on September 28, 2013. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

Hospital buildings, with their high standards of hygiene and efficiency, are a restrictive brief for architects, who all too often end up designing uninspiring corridors of patient rooms constructed from a limited palette of materials. However, this was not the case in Bertrand Goldberg's 1975 Prentice Women's Hospital. The hospital is the best example of a series of Goldberg-designed medical facilities, which all adhere to a similar form: a tower containing rooms for patient care, placed atop a rectilinear plinth containing the hospital's other functions.

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Read on for more about this masterwork of humanist brutalism...

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Videos

The mastery of stone is one of the most impressive features of Portuguese architecture. From the precise cut in fittings to beautiful floor designs, Portuguese architecture carries in its womb an almost born talent to manipulate one of -- if not the oldest material used in the history of construction.

In celebration of this material, experimentadesign, a research project focused on design and architecture founded in Lisbon, developed Primeira Pedra, or First Stone. This multimedia platform explores the characteristics and qualities of Portuguese stone.

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In the next chapter of his ongoing Urban Geometry project, self-taught Spanish photographer Andres Gallardo captures the elements of color, form, and materiality of post-war architecture in Berlin. This photo series, with installments featuring the modern marvels of Beijing, Seoul, Copenhagen, and Tallinn, among other cities, has become representative of Gallardo's personal growth from his humble start in his career as a professional photographer.

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The unfinished Tripoli International Fair, designed by Oscar Niemeyer for the Lebanese capital, could become a UNESCO's World Heritage Site. Conceived in the 1960s at the request of the then President Fouad Chéhab, the fair remained a symbol of projected modernity for the country.

Voyage Le Corbusier, by Jacob Brillhart, collects for the first time a compendium of sketchbook drawings and watercolors of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret—a young student who would go onto become the singularly influential modernist architect, Le Corbusier. Between 1907 and 1911, he traveled throughout Europe and the Mediterranean carrying an array of drawing supplies and documenting all that he saw: classical ruins, details of interiors, vibrant landscapes, and the people and objects that populated them.

Le Corbusier was a deeply radical progressive architect, a futurist who was equally and fundamentally rooted in history and tradition. He was intensely curious, constantly traveling, drawing, painting, and writing, all in the pursuit of becoming a better designer. As a result, he found intellectual ways to connect his historical foundations with what he learned from his contemporaries. He grew from drawing nature to copying fourteenth-century Italian painting to leading the Purist movement that greatly influenced French painting and architecture in the early 1920s. All the while, he was making connections between nature, art, culture, and architecture that eventually gave him a foundation for thinking about design.

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Hot on the heels of its lavish breakthrough Milan store, Starbucks has opened yet another striking and innovatively-designed coffee house. However, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma's design associates an entirely different mood with the company's coffee beverages.

Starbucks Taiwan the company’s first location in the Asia Pacific, consists of 29 white shipping containers, shifted and stacked in a grid-like formation. Within the containers’ 3,444 sqft (320 sqm) of space are a variety of intimate and comfortable spaces. A drive-thru is also incorporated into the design to maximize the store’s convenience to its customers.

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