The global reference for architecture

To be certain, architecture students are required to perform a wide variety of skills to complete a project. But thanks to some guys named Gates and Jobs (among many others), we are now able to execute nearly all of our tasks on one magical machine: the computer. While things like sketching and model making will always be fundamental parts of our profession, the laborious task of hand drafting has already become the "walk to school uphill both ways" of architecture – that is, something most of us are happy to have moved on from.

Check out more of then vs. now below:

In 1994, with the third millennium fast approaching, the British announced a national festival to mark the year 2000. Amid a new sense of optimism, the year-long festival, which became known as the Millennium Experience, would take the form of an exhibition celebrating “who we are, what we do, and where we live.” Under the project direction of Mike Davies, a partner of Richard Rogers’ practice (known today as RSHP) designed the Millennium Dome to house this exhibition.

In an extraordinary feat of architecture and engineering, the vast dome, whose canopy encompasses a volume of 2.2million cubic meters, sped from initial concept design to topping out in only two years. Although the Millennium Experience closed its doors as the year 2000, the building which housed it has since been put to a variety of uses, its durability largely due to Richard Rogers’ characteristically flexible design.

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Eleven Magazine has announced the winners of the international design competition “Moontopia,” which asked architects to imagine a self-sufficient lunar colony designed for living, working, researching and space tourism.

From a pool of proposals from hundreds of applicants worldwide, 9 schemes were selected by an expert jury including space-architects, academics and NASA designers as the winners of the competition. Check out the winning projects below.

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In this latest photoseries, architectural photographer Danica O. Kus takes her lens inside New York City’s SeaGlass Carousel, designed by WXY Architecture + Urban Design with artist George Tsypin. Completed in summer 2015, the 2,575 square foot nautilus-shaped pavilion has become a new attraction within a Piet Oudolf-designed landscape in Battery Park, drawing in visitors with an immersive LED and audio experience inspired by bioluminescent organisms found deep within the ocean.

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Videos

Architecture, I believe, changes your life. It changes the way you can live life – the way you can see, the way you can feel. Like Winston Churchill says, ‘First we shape our buildings, and then they shape us.’ I think this house has that shaping ability.

In this video by directors Spirit of Space, architects Steven Holl & Dimitra Tsachrelia explain the core concepts and exploratory mission driving the architecture of the firm’s recently completed Ex of IN House. Watch as the architects lead you through the home's unique layout and construction, describing how the house “explores a language of space, aimed at inner spatial energy strongly bound to the ecology of the place - questioning current clichés of architectural language and commercial practice.”

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