La Nube, El Paso’s new children’s museum, designed by Snøhetta, Exigo, and Gyroscope, features a playful, cloudlike facade.
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Project: Kizik Stores
Architect: MG2 Corporation
Photography: Spacecrafting Photography
Arsham Landshapes Collection, designed by Daniel Arsham for Kohler, brings expressive, nature-inspired forms to
Crafted with Purpose®
Barbara Buser’s firm, Baubüro in Situ, transformed a former distribution center into Elys, a mixed-use hub in Basel, using reclaimed materials to avoid over 7,000 tons of carbon emissions.
86 Alloy Aims to Decarbonize Real Estate
The developer behind New York City’s first all-electric skyscraper and first Passive House public school shows us what the building industry could be.
96 Barbara Buser’s Reuse Revolution
After three decades of perfecting how to reclaim and reuse building components, the Swiss architect is changing the rules of construction in Basel and its surroundings.
108 Justin Garrett Moore Connects Place and Memory
The Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place grant-making program is transforming communities through storytelling, conservation, and design.
116 Ken De Cooman is a New Kind of Architect
BC Architects, Studies, and Materials challenge conventional architecture practice models by using local materials, hands-on experimentation, and a collaborative approach to reshape the industry.
128 Four Creatives Harnessing the Energy of the Sun
Designers Shani Nahum, Pauline van Dongen, Yvonne Mak, and Mireille Steinhage are imagining a future where solar textiles are the norm. 134 Sources
ON THE COVERS: Top: New York City’s first Passive House–certified school, developed by Alloy (photo courtesy James Ewing); bottom: Swiss engineering and planning company Zirkular focuses on material reuse (photo courtesy Martin Zeller)
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AKIVA BLANDER
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Akiva Blander is a writer, researcher, and trained urban planner. He was an editor at METROPOLIS for four years before leaving New York City to study at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Now based in Brooklyn, he researches urban infrastructure, economics, and climate. For this issue, Blander covers Canadian firm Pelletier de Fontenay’s transformation of a century-old home in Quebec (p. 32).
LINDA JUST
Linda Just is an architect, educator, and researcher whose work reflects on the intersections between materials, sensory perception, and narrative within the details of design. To explore an active curiosity in the communicative capacity of design, as well as its dynamic social facets and cultural meanings, she has occasionally written for MAS Context, On Site Review, feeeels, and PAIRS She is a senior associate at Boston-based firm Perry Dean Rogers and an adjunct faculty member at Boston Architectural College. Just covered Payette’s design of The Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts (p. 54), for this issue.
SHEILA KIM
Sheila Kim earned her B.A. in journalism from New York University in 1998 and has since focused on writing about interior design, architecture, building materials, and commercial and residential products. Previously an editor at Interior Design and Architectural Record, she now contributes to both consumer and trade publications, including the Wall Street Journal, The Spruce, and Dwell In this issue, Kim rounds up offerings from B Corp Certified companies in “B Corps Are Creating Residential Products for a More Equitable Planet” (p. 42)
VERA SACCHETTI
Vera Sacchetti is a Basel, Switzerland–based design critic and curator. She specializes in contemporary design and architecture and serves in a variety of curatorial, research, and editorial roles. Recently, she cofounded Fazer, a design magazine in Portugal; co-initiated Design & Democracy, a platform that maps the intersections and overlaps between design and democratic systems and practices; and served as program coordinator of the multidisciplinary research initiative Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-Social Renewal. She teaches at Design Academy Eindhoven and, in 2020, joined the Federal Design Commission of Switzerland. In “Barbara Buser’s Reuse Revolution,” (p. 96), Sacchetti explores how the Swiss architect is changing the rules of construction.
While renovating a 19th century train depot in France, BC Architects developed a whole host of materials from regional resources, including compressed earth blocks, acoustical plaster from sunflower waste, and plaster with algae. An exhibit at the site during construction shows the models and samples of the new materials.
Going the Extra Mile
THIS MAY, NEARLY HALF OF NEW YORK CITY’S BUILDINGS will have to start reporting their operating carbon emissions with the Department of Buildings to comply with Local Law 97, the ambitious legislation aimed at getting buildings to Net Zero by 2050. When the law was passed in 2019, Brooklyn-based developer Alloy was just beginning to design its 505 Street project, and that motivated the team to think differently about what they could build on-site.
“When it was clear everybody was going to use fiber optic cable lines, you wouldn’t put copper telephone wires in your building,” Alloy president AJ Pires told our writer Diana Budds. “That’s backwards.” Instead, Alloy forged forward, developing both New York’s first all-electric skyscraper and the city’s first Passive House–certified public school (“Alloy Aims to Decarbonize Real Estate,” p. 86). This spirit of leapfrogging over business-as-usual drives all the changemakers profiled in this issue. In Switzerland, Barbara Buser is radically reusing buildings and materials to show the city of Basel how it can continue to develop, slash carbon emissions, and deal with construction waste all at once (“Barbara Buser’s Reuse Revolution,” p. 96). At the Mellon Foundation, Justin Garrett Moore is providing funding to cities and community organizations that
want to use the power of place and space to preserve memories, heal relationships, and imagine a better future (“Justin Garrett Moore Connects Place and Memory,” p. 108). Meanwhile, in Brussels, Ken De Cooman is bringing valuable lessons learned from builders in Burundi, Ethiopia, and Morocco to help European architects transition to a less resource-intensive and renewable form of construction (“Ken De Cooman Is a New Kind of Architect,” p. 116).
The impulse to push for a better impact in the world is evident everywhere in this issue. Our new Specify section, which will bring you the latest information on sustainable product selection in every issue, is focused on ceramic tiles, solid surfaces, and engineered and natural stone (p. 70). For each of these product categories, we show how manufacturers and suppliers have made improvements in materials, sourcing, and data transparency for real impact that you can leverage for your projects.
As we make our way through 2025, I hope the stories in this issue remind you to celebrate and applaud yourself for every time you go the extra mile on your own projects. It’s going to take all of us, pushing ahead even in the smallest of ways, to bring positive change in the lives of people, in society, and on this planet.
—Avinash Rajagopal, editor in chief
Sustainability News Updates for Q1 2025
Local laws, easy-to-access tools, and global initiatives keep the momentum on green building going.
By Avinash Rajagopal
01 Local Laws
Abide
As federal support wanes, states and cities forge ahead.
THE FATE OF FEDERAL SUPPORT for environmentally friendly design and construction hangs in the balance at the time of writing, with the U.S. government’s Buy Clean initiative rescinded by the current administration. The disbursal of the $160 million awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency to develop environmental product declarations and create a label program for low-carbon construction materials also remains uncertain.
However, a host of policies adopted by states and cities across the country promise to keep the focus on energy efficient, lowcarbon, healthy buildings in their jurisdictions. Recent and upcoming milestones include:
THE UNITED STATES CLIMATE ALLIANCE is a coalition of 22 states and two territories (not pictured: Guam and Puerto Rico) committed to lowering the country’s carbon emissions.
U.S. Climate Alliance members
Former members
BOSTON’S NET ZERO CARBON RULE
On January 29, Boston became the first city in the country to adopt Net Zero Carbon zoning. Any projects above a certain size that file for zoning after July 1, 2025, will have to comply with a net zero emissions standard. Additionally, certain projects will have to report on embodied carbon.
WASHINGTON’S CLEAN BUILDINGS PERFORMANCE STANDARD
Buildings in Washington state sized more than 220,000 square feet will have to start complying with this standard for energy efficiency beginning June 1, 2026, with other tiers of buildings given their own deadlines in upcoming years. Early adopters will receive an incentive of $0.85 per square foot to improve the performance of their buildings.
CONNECTED BY COMFORT
With a commitment to exploring contemporary ways of living in furniture design, Carl Hansen & Søn presents the Sideways Series by Rikke Frost. The series includes a sofa, lounge chair, footstool, and coffee table made from natural and long-lasting materials. Its unified design language exudes modern elegance, inviting a sense of retreat whilst feeling open to welcome conversation.
With a commitment to exploring contemporary ways of living in furniture design, Carl Hansen & Søn presents the Series Rikke Frost. The series includes sofa, lounge chair, footstool, and coffee table made from natural and long-lasting materials. Its unified exudes modern inviting a sense of retreat whilst open to welcome conversation.
02 Material News
New resources for sustainable specification
BETTER MATERIAL CHOICES are the most powerful way for architects and designers to make a positive impact in the world, so it’s vitally important for peers to share resources and information that can inform and empower the entire industry.
• Gensler has released a draft of the second version of its Product Sustainability Standards (GPS), which will be implemented starting in June 2025. The first version of GPS, activated in January 2024, provided sustainable specification criteria for 12 product categories. The new version has added requirements and metrics for additional product types in the U.S market, including access flooring, broadloom carpet, hollow metal doors and frames, textiles, tile, and wallcoverings.
• Beginning in July 2025, Washington’s Buy Clean Buy Fair legislation requires all new state buildings over 100,000 square feet to collect EPDs and data on carbon emissions for certain construction materials. A team at the University of Washington and the Carbon Leadership Forum developed model specifications covering 19 product types to support the state in implementing this legislation. However, since the specifications could be useful as criteria for low-carbon materials across geographies and product types, the authors have released them as “Model Embodied Carbon Specifications” that design teams anywhere can adapt and use.
The Gensler draft v 2.0 standards can be accessed here.
03 International Updates
Global cooperation to face looming threats
THIS JANUARY, the World Economic Forum released its 2025 Global Risks Report, representing insights from over 900 experts worldwide. Based on the Global Risks Perception Survey 2024–2025, the report analyzes perceived risks in the immediate, short-to-medium, and long terms.
Younger people identified extreme weather events as the most critical risk of the immediate future, while all stakeholder groups reported it as the top risk of the next decade. Pollution was seen as a more pressing shortterm risk, while biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse were perceived as a greater threat in the longer term.
The United Nations formalized its focus on the built environment as a key lever in combating climate change with the convening of the first Buildings and Climate Global Forum in March 2024. Then, at COP29, the UN Climate Summit held last November, the organization established the Intergovernmental Council for Buildings and Climate at a meeting of ministers, mayors, and other officials from around the world. The council is meant to align progress toward a more sustainable built environment, with broader global goals set by the United Nations to stave off the catastrophic outcomes of climate change.
TOP 10 GLOBAL RISKS
Source: World Economic Forum, Global Risks Perception Survey 2024–2025
State-based armed conflict
Extreme weather events
Geoeconomic confrontation
Misinformation and disinformation
Societal polarization
Economic downturn
Critical change to Earth systems
Lack of economic opportunity or unemployment
Find the Model Embodied Carbon Specifications here.
Erosion of human rights and/or civic freedoms
BATHROOM - JARDIN EMERALD
Ronald Rael’s Solution to the Housing Crisis?
Muddy Robots
The Berkeley, California–based architect’s new venture blends ancestral and artificial intelligence to create 3D-printed houses out of earth.
By Jaxson Stone
RONALD RAEL HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN for pushing the boundaries of design by combining technology with social and environmental critique—whether that be through his ongoing research on architecture at the U.S.–Mexico border or his 17 years of experimentation with 3D-printed architecture and objects. An expert in earth construction, the architect and UC Berkeley Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture continues this trajectory with his newest project, Muddy Robots, exploring building solutions that combine robotic additive construction and humankind’s oldest building material—earth.
Having grown up in an adobe house built by his great-grandfather in La Florida, Colorado, Rael notes, “I come from a long tradition of earthen architecture. It’s a heritage practice for me. And so, I’m really interested in how that heritage practice is dying. We can talk about the politics, we can talk about codes, we can talk about the challenges of a dying craft, but ultimately, for me, it’s
connected to culture.” Muddy Robots is a testament to how earth can be reintroduced into contemporary architecture culture through additive manufacturing, “not only for those who have been disconnected from their heritage practice, but for everyone, whether you’re from the U.K., France, Africa, or Latin America.”
For Rael, mobility and accessibility are key. Partnering with Twente Additive Manufacturing and 3D Potter, Muddy Robots features building technology that makes printing homes in challenging terrains easier, enabling the companty to build “with the land and of the land” in any location. Rael has also printed the world’s first on-site 3D-printed mud roof, using ancient Nubian vault technology. The ultimate goal of Muddy Robots is to build sustainable solutions to address the country’s housing crises rather than being a tool for individuals to self-build homes.
Muddy Robots aims to address America’s housing crises by 3-D printing mud homes like the one depicted in this visualization. Rael envisions his company as a land-centered practice that can provide solutions for global climate challenges.
“Thinking about it through the lens of self-building is not the solution to the problem, as there’s a need for thousands of houses,” he explains. “The largest home builder in the United States produces 100,000 homes a year. And that problem compounds when they’re building 100,000 houses covered in latex paints, foams, and high-VOC materials that don’t biodegrade or are flammable. I think there’s a new way and a new approach— or, I should say, a very old approach.”
Looking forward, Rael says, “I think funding is the only thing that I need to do, because [the process] is acknowledged by building code, it’s structurally sound, the design can be great, and it works. I’m just really passionate and committed to believing that this is possible. And in some ways, it might be my last project. [We’re] just trying to make it happen.” M
Fractal Findings
Stress-reductive flooring powered by fractal science and design.
Studio ThusThat Gives Industrial By-products a Second Life
The Amsterdam-based designers create furniture and objects that explore industrial production and waste narratives.
By Sheila Kim
STRADDLING A LINE somewhere between design and material science, Amsterdambased designers Kevin Rouff and Paco Böeckelmann of Studio ThusThat found themselves in the limelight in 2019 when they fashioned bauxite—also known as “red mud,” a by-product of aluminum production— into stunning ceramic vessels. Their more recent project and its resulting collection, One Side Sawn (or Crust), also demonstrates how industrial by-products can be transformed into beautiful objects.
Defined by jagged-edged panels with imperfect textured surfaces, the One Side Sawn furniture series features pieces laser cut from an aluminum “crust,” material trimmed from cast aluminum blocks during production. “We wanted to show this gnarly, raw, and brute side to aluminum to remind people that this went through an immense
amount of energy and processes,” says Rouff.
The studio carefully planned the cuts to ensure that every single part of the crust was used, resulting in 11 irregularly shaped furniture pieces—ranging from side tables and shelves to a sideboard and mirrors. The larger pieces were designed like flat-pack products, easy to assemble using screws, with some implementing a three-way contact-point system or a small support bracket to ensure stability. “The pieces have a bizarre aesthetic loaded with a lot of backstory and research—statement pieces that challenge what we expect of materials around us,” says Rouff.
Today, the studio continues exploring and revisiting other materials. Currently on the boards: new architectural products composed of slag and mirrors made from recycled silver poured onto glass. M
is a design practice that focuses on “uncommon materials” and alternative making processes. The studio is currently exploring industrial wastes from mining and metallurgy. It's furniture collection, One Side Sawn is a result of it's research into aluminum crusts.
Founded by designers Kevin Rouff and Paco Böckelmann, Studio ThusThat
Study Architects Designs a Water-Saving Desert Retreat
The studio’s Tucson home combines Modernist aesthetics with innovative rainwater collection to tackle resource scarcity.
By Will Speros
CONCERNS OVER DWINDLING RESOURCES are mounting in arid locales like Tucson, where residents who rely on well water can no longer depend on accessing new sources. In collaboration with their client, Daniel Yoder and Joseph DiNapoli of San Francisco–based firm Study Architects are confronting this dilemma with a design for a one-bedroom desert getaway.
Local ordinances require drilling 800 to 1,200 feet deep, at an average rate of $50 per foot. The cost pinched Tucsonians’ pockets far less in the early aughts, when drillers often hit water at just 20 feet. “Neighbors said they drilled wells 20 years ago but now need new ones,” says Yoder. “But if they drill again, will it be reliable in the future?”
With wells becoming less viable, Study Architects considered simpler solutions for their client, imagining a contemporary design to supply the house with rainwater for ancillary needs. “When it rains, there’s a lot of rain in a short period of time,” Yoder says. “A flat roof is a great opportunity to collect the water.”
Like a shower, the home’s roof will feature a low slope and a central drain connected to an onsite tank, guaranteeing 100 percent collection. Stored water will serve as supply for the toilet,
shower, laundry, and irrigation. “Maintenance requirements allow you to use rainwater without converting it to potable or even graywater,” DiNapoli adds.
The design’s simple materiality includes abundant glass and Corten steel, complementing its desert backdrop as it weathers into a patina. An extended roofline as well as an external shading system will also deflect heat gain and seal up the structure when vacant.
Adaptable at a variety of scales, the mechanics of the design are also being employed in a Study Architects project in Alpine Montana to collect snowmelt. “The biggest challenge we have is getting people more attuned or in line with the thinking of our Tucson client,” DiNapoli says. “While it’s very much a contemporary style of architecture, it’s somewhat primitive and minimalist in terms of its draw on the land and utilities.”
For Yoder and DiNapoli, the Tucson house embodies a shift toward more mindful consumption in any climate. “If we can use architecture as a way to inform or even educate our clients, or others, in terms of how we can do things better, that’s definitely something of value.” M
The home will sit on ten acres abutting Saguaro National Park.
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A Sustainable Expansion Revitalizes
a Century-Old Quebec Retreat
In its extension to a family’s country residence, Pelletier de Fontenay sought to cohere parts and climate-sensitive approaches, old and new.
By Akiva Blander
RENOVATION AND ADDITION PROJECTS tend to either emphasize the contrast between the old and new—sometimes rather fussily and didactically—or conceal the architect’s parti, presenting a new, temporally and spatially seamless whole. Opting out of this binary, a residential project in Quebec instead advances a more “ambiguous dialogue” between past and present, balancing continuities and novelties. Similarly, it incorporates highly modern climate and energy efficiency elements while maximizing the impact of older, existing strategies.
Montreal-based architecture firm Pelletier de Fontenay took an almost scientific approach to understanding and adjusting the materiality of the existing house, located on a family’s grounds in the Eastern Townships outside of the city, a region characterized by rolling farmland and quiet country retreats. The original 1908 house was built with heavy, deep walls of mismatched stone—recalling a common building material found around Quebec—but with cement as mortar. The “logic” of the house’s structure “was sheer mass and weight,” says Yves de Fontenay, one of the firm’s founders, with the stone-as-aggregate structure essentially functioning as concrete walls “in terms of physics and engineering.” In the 1950s, the house was augmented with a new, boxy front porch addition—made of superficially contextual stone that mimicked the first house—that muddled the layout and turned its back on the surrounding farmland, woods, and pond.
Pelletier de Fontenay’s renovation of this 1908 Quebec home fosters an ambiguous dialogue between past and present, preserving the original structure while introducing modern sustainability strategies.
Full-height windows and sliding doors reconnect the home to its surroundings, framing views of the pond, farmland, and forest.
While working within the existing structures, the architects were guided by two overriding goals: Preserve as much as possible, and create an architecturally unique extension better connected to the landscape and sized for a large family. They wanted the project to operate within the context of the original house’s heft, materiality, and color without resorting to mimicry or excessive opposition. Heating and cooling costs were “astronomical,” de Fontenay recalls, so they’d have to use more passive strategies to increase its thermal performance and overall energy efficiency. “The most logical approach to blend everything together was to rework the surfaces,” de Fontenay says, and as for the durable, deep stone walls, “preserving this was an obvious choice.”
The result, a low-slung, parged-over addition with ample glazing, exhibits both a sharp formal break from the existing structures, and uniformity with the house’s two volumes. Its horizontal form, institutional aesthetic, and smooth, contemporary surfaces are foils to the original structure’s messy stone composition, domesticity, and verticality. Beyond mere formal and aesthetic distinctiveness, de Fontenay says, the relatively shallow cantilever is calibrated to help limit thermal gain in the summer, while maximizing what natural warmth the sun does provide in the winter.
Inside, preserved oak floors and local limestone create a serene, minimalist palette.
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A continuous parged finish inside and outside unifies old and new, while hemp insulation and INTELLO membranes regulate temperature and humidity, ensuring breathability and comfort.
The low-slung, parged-over addition with expansive glazing contrasts the original home’s stone while maintaining a shared sense of weight and presence.
The addition is unified with the existing parts through a shared feeling of weightiness and a similar protective surface treatment: “Parging everywhere, inside, outside,” says de Fontenay. The firm worked with local artisans to develop a cement and lime parge that covers all structures, old and new, and tested it over the course of the year, ensuring it would bind properly and observing how it responded to the damp summers and severe winters. This treatment—an adaptation of the traditional technique—works in tandem with INTELLO membranes and locally sourced hemp in the interior walls, providing insulation against extreme temperatures and moisture while allowing breathability. “Humidity is a big component of comfort,” de Fontenay says, explaining that the wall liners ensure the house doesn’t function like a “closed bag.”
The parging is also troweled on in the interior, where partially preserved oak wood floors and local limestone in the kitchen make for a spare, serene palette. The ’50s addition—envisioned then as a
porch—was laid out a step below the original house’s floor-plate, so the architects decided to also set the new addition a few steps lower. One departure from the horizontal and sharp proportions characterizing the interior is a sinuous stair—also parged over, naturally—that collects and ventilates warm air in the summer. It distributes heat throughout the house in the winter, with the help of a mechanical heat recovery system.
Outside are more examples of the theme of continuity, with new flower beds and walls of local stone connecting to the landscape. The original basement level was bermed underground, which had previously jutted up awkwardly, further reorienting the complex toward horizontality and its surroundings. Full-height windows and sliding doors enable new visual connections to an adjacent, previously neglected pond and to some newly added vegetation, opening up the house to all the elements that typify this southeastern wedge of Quebec: farmland, forest, and countryside. M
solid surface sinktop in matte white custom ADA-compliant vanity in weathered oak standard and custom mirror with matte black frame electronic faucet in matte black
CREATING BEAUTIFUL BATHROOMS
B Corps Are Creating Residential Products a More Equitable Planet
B Corps Are for a More Planet
The third-party is putting on par with
By Sheila Kim
THERE WAS A TIME when conscientious consumers felt satisfied knowing that their recent furniture purchase was made with rapidly renewable materials in a place that used environmentally responsible processes. But today, there’s much more to consider than just energy use and carbon footprint, whether it’s how the manufacturer treats its workers or if the company practices fair trade in the region where it operates. Fortunately, there’s a certification that makes looking for brands that check all the right boxes simpler. B Corp–certified companies are missiondriven businesses that balance purpose with profit. To achieve this third-party designation, manufacturers provide full disclosure of equitable practices on every front, from social to environmental. Here is a handful of residential products from some of our favorite B Corp design brands. M
The third-party designation is transforming design by putting people on par with pro
01 GIO LN14-LN15 &TRADITION
Inspired by Gio Ponti’s pared-down yet vibrantly hued Murano-glass chandelier and the glass craftsmanship the Venetian island is renowned for, Luca Nichetto created this modern reinterpretation for &Tradition. Gio takes cues from its namesake by stripping away ornamentation to form a minimal three-tiered luminaire with each component powder-coated a different color. As a subtle nod to Murano glassmaking processes, the conical discs making up the tiers are spun aluminum. The design is offered in two sizes and two color schemes. andtradition.com
02 PANORAMA ARMADILLO
As its name hints, this rug collection from Armadillo captures five different types of sweeping landscapes through thoughtfully orchestrated texture-and-pile combinations. Crest, for example, evokes tree-lined horizons with a handknotted herringbone pattern combining a high pile with a low weave, while Thatch conjures a more urban setting with precise Persian knots and a uniform light pile. armadillo-co.com
03 VALENCIA STOOL ANDREU WORLD
Following the DANA storms that ravaged Valencia, Spain, last fall, Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola partnered with Andreu World, one of the region’s leading furniture manufacturers, to launch this hauntingly beautiful piece. The stool, which is 3D-printed using a biodegradable and compostable material, has a trunk-like form that appears as though it were hit by a force, evoking resilience and community with its interwoven texture. All proceeds from its sales benefit the affected communities and individuals. andreuworld.com
04
NATURAL PRESS CERAMIC TILE
FIRECLAY TILE
To reduce both cost and carbon emissions, Fireclay Tile introduced this affordable single-fired tile series, offered in a selection of 32 curated colors ranging from vibrant hues to subdued and classic neutrals. The line comprises 15 shapes and sizes, such as standard subway tiles, large-format squares, and elongated hexagons. What’s more, Fireclay donates 1 percent of the profits on each square foot produced to a variety of charitable organizations. fireclaytile.com
05
LINCOLN DESK COLLECTION ROOM & BOARD
Recognized for its extensive research in human-centered design, architecture firm Gensler has developed an elegant sit-to-stand desk for Room & Board with a multitude of user- and tech-friendly bells and whistles. Think touchscreen controls, concealed cord organization, and an integrated hinged-lid power hatch, to name a few. Designed to suit both residential and workplace settings, the collection, which includes desk and console configurations, is available in seven wood finishes and three hardware options. roomandboard.com
06 CREPE RBW
A collaboration between RBW and Studio & Projects founder and principal Little Wing Lee, also the founder of Black Folks in Design, this sconce plays on the translucency of glass, layering an opalescent globe diffuser onto a blush-toned or frosted cast-glass plate, resulting in a sculptural yet airy lamp. It’s available in three white-color temperatures and three sizes: 7.5 by 8.8 inches or 12.6 by 14.9 with a 5.4-inch globe, or 15.7 by 18.6 inches with a 7.9-inch globe. rbw.com
HDR Wraps Mayo Clinic Lab in a Dynamic DoubleLayered Facade
The building’s striking exterior reduces solar gain, while its "risk-based" interior zoning ensures efficiency in research.
By Kate Mazade
STANDING ON THE CORNER OF THIRD AND FOURTH STREETS in Rochester, Minnesota, the 174,000-square-foot Mayo Clinic Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Building serves as a dynamic “symbol of the hope that the research within brings to life,” Scott Elofson, HDR design principal, says.
The building holds the southwestern edge of the research district, with an undulating, high-profile facade rising 11 stories in curtain wall glazing and aluminum scrim. Featuring a perforation pattern inspired by a tessellation of Mayo Clinic’s three-shield logo, the double-layered facade opens the interiors to light and views, while reducing mechanical loads through strategic shading.
“The carefully placed, large circular cutouts in the scrim, or oculi, correspond to collaboration zones throughout the building and deliver visual connectivity, putting research on display and allowing the building to pulsate with life well after the sun goes down,” Elofson says.
The wavelike scrim filters light into dappled patterns throughout corridors and shared work areas and creates unity across the building’s eight prototypical and three specialty floors, which form a rectangular plan with gently rounded corners.
In Minnesota, Mayo Clinic’s HDR-designed Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Building features a high performance facade that reduces daylight glare and energy use. For this integrated research facility for cancer biology, HDR designed spaces that help bridge the gaps between research, clinical practice, and education in order to foster cooperation across departments and disciplines.
Elegance in motion.
new double-glazed telescoping door system by ALUR
Understated yet unparalleled in quality, the Duo Motion telescoping door system introduces an air of refined sophistication to any office setting. Its double-glazed doors provide superior acoustics while showcasing a sleek, modern aesthetic that remains ahead of the curve. The result is a space that feels bright, elegant and vibrant, setting the perfect tone for a forward-thinking, adaptable workplace.
The building’s design looks toward the future of laboratory workspaces, diverging from traditional laboratory classifications of “wet” and “dry.” Instead, risk-based zoning allows for flexibility between lab zones and anticipates changes in research programming while optimizing building energy performance.
The floors employ a programmatic strategy known as risk-based zoning, in which each floor plate forms its own unified research environment with a once-through air system, rather than relying on traditional wet and dry lab classifications.
“By minimizing the risk of contaminant circulation, a once-through air system plays a crucial role in safeguarding occupant health,” says Anisha Kothari, HDR principal of laboratory planning.
The research floor plates are segregated into three zones. Low-risk zones house computational and collaborative areas, as well as ideation spaces along the perimeter; moderate-risk zones contain traditional open lab space for research; and high-risk zones are enclosed at the core for heightened safety and environmental control. The high-risk zones can accommodate elevated heat output, noise levels, and containment within a compact footprint.
The mechanical system introduces outside air at a low flow rate in the lower zones and cascades it to the higher zones, supplementing as needed and contributing to energy efficiency across work areas. Combined with the solar heat gain reduction of the facade, the risk-based zoning works to address the the Clinic’s goal of reducing the building’s energy use intensity by 30 percent compared with baseline buildings of the same size. M
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Studio De Zwarte Hond Delivers a Circular Renovation and Expansion for Leiden University
The Herta Mohr building showcases how resourceful reuse can transform a legacy structure into a sustainability paradigm.
By Petra Loho
ESTABLISHED IN 1575 , the Dutch Leiden University is a public research institution with two campuses, seven faculties, and five science clusters. Ranked 17th on the global UI Green Metric sustainability index, the university aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
As part of a bold, 12-year vision to transform the Humanities Campus, Leiden University is reshaping over 462,500 square feet with redevelopment, renovations, and new construction. The renovation of the Herta Mohr building renovation, formerly the Cluster Zuid school, represents just one phase of this initiative.
“The biggest challenge was transforming the building while honoring its monumental status,” says Bart van Kampen, partner at De Zwarte Hond, the architecture studio in charge, reflecting on the late 1970s design by structuralist architect Joop van Stigt, under whom van Kampen studied.
Architect Joop van Stigt designed Cluster Zuid for the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University in the late 1970s. The extension was reinaugurated in 2024 as Herta Mohr.
Since van Stigt's original structure is historically listed, the architects implemented minimal facade changes as part of the expansion (far left), including leaving the prefabricated concrete columns with conical tops fully visible (left).
As a listed building within a protected campus, Herta Mohr has a facade on which changes were kept minimal, preserving striking features like its prefabricated concrete columns with conical capitals and round balconies, now fully visible in the renovated structure.
De Zwarte Hond reimagined the fragmented layout of seven disconnected “houses” into a unified building around a spacious, light-filled atrium to inspire interaction and knowledge sharing. Previously, dark ceilings, narrow corridors, and small windows with wired glass cast a gloomy atmosphere that made navigation difficult.
The second floor of Cluster Zuid underwent a complete transformation, while an “eighth house” with an anodized aluminum facade was added. This fulfilled an element of van Stigt’s original design
that was never realized and extended the building by over 32,000 square feet.
BREEAM Excellent certified, the Herta Mohr building now offers 172,332 square feet of space, including more than 700 teaching spaces, two lecture theaters, libraries, work and meeting rooms, and common areas.
“About half of the building costs went towards new installations, with the other half allocated to structural changes,” says van Kampen, adding that around 70 percent of the original building materials were reused to minimize environmental impact.
The concrete columns, made in situ in the late ’70s from the demolished central house, found new life in the extension. “We cut them loose from the floors and moved them to the new extension without any problem. The concrete tested flawlessly, with no rusted steel inside. Its quality is
METROPOLIS’s Planet Positive Awards recognize the most creative projects and products from around the world that benefit people and planet, as well as firms and professionals leading the way to a better built environment.
Explore the winners of the 2024 awards, and get ready to submit your entry for the 2025 program this spring!
DISCOVER THE WINNERS
outstanding—I’m confident it’ll last another 150 years,” says van Kampen, highlighting how repurposed materials align with the university’s future-proofing strategy.
The Sequoia redwood ceiling panels were repurposed as wall cladding in the atrium. They were carefully milled in collaboration with BWRI, a social development organization supporting individuals with disabilities and other employment barriers. The slats’ specific pattern allowed for prefabrication and installation, minimizing waste.
“We had around 65,000 square feet of ceiling wood available, but we used only around 43,000 square feet. Some of it is stored on-site, and we’re planning to repurpose it for our next project,” says van Kampen, whose firm is also tasked with revitalizing two buildings adjacent to Herta Mohr.
Over 430 solar panels, green roofs, and a ground-based thermal storage system drive the building’s energy efficiency, making it the university’s first fully gas-free structure. This system alone will cut carbon emissions by 150,000 kilograms annually.
Biodiversity was also a key consideration. The design blends indoor and outdoor spaces with a butterfly garden, bird nesting spots, and insect habitats. The climateadaptive front square mitigates heat and absorbs rainwater, promoting both social interaction and environmental well-being.
This balanced focus on long-term sustainability mirrors van Kampen’s approach to architecture. Despite the challenges posed by Cluster Zuid’s protected status, he advocates stricter preservation to minimize unnecessary demolitions, emphasizing that buildings should be valued as long-term assets.
Van Kampen concludes, “We should protect more buildings to prevent their demolition too quickly. Buildings aren’t disposable products to be discarded after a few decades.” M
A new atrium was carved out within the existing structure to improve daylight and spatial orientation.
Payette’s Ragon Building Redefines Biomedical Research Spaces
A collaboration between MIT, Harvard, and Mass General Hospital, the new institute advances vaccine development—including efforts toward an HIV cure.
By Linda Just
OF LATE, the endgame in aesthetic-driven architecture appears to be the pursuit of effortlessness. But it is a paradoxical condition: Achieving that appearance requires considerable time and resources, near-encyclopedic knowledge of the subject in question, and the confidence to land the metaphorical plane. That procedure, the deft transformation of countless assembled variables into a single, legible amalgam, is demonstrated aptly in the Ragon Institute, Payette’s most recent addition to Kendall Square, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Main Street facade has a canopy punctuated by an oculus and a landscape resembling a public front porch. Its positioning and scale establish a dialogue with a small quad across the street and offers sufficient space to host a small farmers market in warmer weather.
The building's crenulated exterior veil features a continuous vertical arrangement of scalloped aluminum sunshades that envelop its high-performance facade. These sunshades dynamically adjust their openings, tapering in response to the program use and shifts in climatic orientation.
This LEED Gold Certified and LBC Red List Free project, which was completed in fall 2024, serves as the home for its namesake institution, including the research facilities for collaborating partners from Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. The Ragon Institute, founded in 2009, draws from this consortium of field leaders in its focused mission to study human immune systems and aid in the prevention and cure of infectious diseases, particularly HIV-AIDS and SARS-CoV 2.
Though the fluted facade detailing of its headquarters nods to the neoclassical vernacular of other notable medical buildings of its institutional partners, Ragon does not feel overly monumental. The V-shaped primary volume occupies its tricky
corner lot comfortably, with a triptych of orthogonal elevations designed to match the heights of directly adjacent neighbors.
The fluting is achieved with 12 aluminum profile modules arranged variously over a triple-glazed curtain wall. The flutes are also not merely decorative; their patterning is a product of comprehensive solar studies, and the gradation patterns are both informed and related to the spatial arrangement of each floor plate. They also integrate ventilating grilles for the substantial mechanical systems where the air handlers are concealed within a roof-level well.
Kevin Sullivan, Payette’s president and CEO, notes that “when we first started having building science as part of our day-to-day design strategies—in terms of considering glazing ratios, for example,
which would have been seen as an encumbrance on design—we began to recognize beauty differently. You’re no longer seeing solar mitigation on a south-facing wall as a troublesome issue to resolve, but instead as a beautiful, integral feature.”
The complete effect of this draped volume maintains a dynamic, weightless quality, held aloft on a plinth of Vals quartzite coursework, copper screens, and curtain wall that steps back from the sidewalk.
The building features sophisticated and compartmentalized mechanical systems for high degrees of air exchange; heroic structural engineering to minimize vibration that would disturb the calibration of sensitive lab instruments; and hygienic material selections. But it is the humancentered, social inflections that shine most brightly as innovation.
Since Payette is a prominent forerunner in the design sectors of biomedicine and laboratory research—known for its integrated practice methodologies and technically performative, detail-oriented design across scales—it was approached to assist in the preliminary stages of the project’s program, tailoring it from a synthesis of extensive postoccupancy feedback archives and observations of Ragon’s researcher habits.
Each office floor’s layout reflects a deliberate and expert interpretation: Based on Payette’s prior user surveys, growing institutional understandings of different effective working modalities, and inclusive perspectives on focus, the building occupants have options for group and individual work.
Thoughtful spatial curation is also evident in the labs, which are the most active programmatic elements of the project. Within Ragon, three discrete but related activities occur at any given point in the day: writing, benchwork, and tissue culture work. Each activity has its own associated equipment, furniture, spatial parameters, and utility requirements. During their observation exercises, designers at Payette noticed that tissue culture lab work—typically relegated to insular, contained spaces—was surprisingly social and collaborative, despite its attention-focused nature.
Recognizing the well-documented, biophilic benefits of daylight and external views on concentration and alertness, Payette proposed locating the Tissue Culture Labs along the building’s exterior wall. The facade’s triple-paned glazing and solar shades ensure this area is still fully climate-controlled, but they offer the benefit of direct access to view and daylight for user well-being in the space the lab team most commonly uses.
That public-facing character extends from the landscape into the first floor of the building, with seminar rooms of varying sizes, reception area, and childcare
The building’s sectional design acts as its own filter, as spaces above the first floor become more private—a logical decision, as infectious disease work must be contained and secure.
MOBILE SURVEILLANCE
Invisible Security
Security Design is currently based on restricting access and protecting perimeters. Invisible security in contrast foresees free access.
Invisible security uses data, technology and design to secure places. Everywhere and at any point in time.
While putting security at its core, it respects public acceptance, privacy and convenience, in order to make physical spaces not only safe, but also frictionless, trustworthy, and liveable.
CONTINUOUS AUTHENTICATION
VIRTUAL PERIMETER
BEHAVIORAL ANALYTICS
CONSENT-BASED IDENTITY MANAGEMENT
A system of public spaces creates a climate-resilient landscape, covering the roof and underground garage to form a type of urban forest. Key features include a public park, the oculus garden, a daycare garden, and the Cantilever Terrace, facing Technology Square.
facilities—in addition to loading and trial patient intake, which are adjacent but accessed by separate entrances. These auxiliary spaces support the institution’s staff (on-site childcare in particular makes a life-changing impact for scientist-parents grappling with the profession’s unpredictable extended hours in the lab), but they also host community functions and public events during off-hours. The daycare also maintains open spots for neighborhood families to enroll.
Even so, a strong sense of culture and community is a benefit inside an organization, as it is beyond the institutional walls. With both the executive conference room and canteen, the Ragon Institute’s leadership wanted to provide spaces for collective debriefing and to stimulate and support collegial exchange. These are further enhanced by access to outdoor terraces that bring in nature but also remind the institution’s faculty to reflect on their broader social connection to the neighborhood seen below and in the distance.
“It’s become part of the commonplace rigor of doing architecture. I think Ragon is a particular example of the building functioning as a singular organism, inside and out. There’s this dynamic relationship between the skin and the floor plate—it’s telling a story that unfolds as you navigate the site: of the shape and social geometry of the building and the purposeful position it holds in the community regarding what it’s making,” adds Sullivan.
Such instances, though seemingly mundane and intangible, reaffirm faith in the impact and importance of thoughtful design gestures at any scale. M
Snøhetta Designs an Inclusive Children’s Museum in El Paso
La Nube is a playful museum that welcomes learners of all ages and abilities.
By Lauren Jones
WITH ITS CLOUDLIKE FORM, twinkling exterior lighting, and 77,000 square feet of imaginative, inclusive learning space, the El Paso Children’s Museum, known as La Nube, stands as both awe-inspiring and iconic for residents of the border city. Opened in August 2024, the museum was designed through a collaboration between the global studio Snøhetta, local firm Exigo, and exhibit design firm Gyroscope. Its playful exhibits span four stories, each addressing themes like sustainability, regional identity, and the concept of “blue sky learning,” which emerged from a yearlong public engagement process, according to Snøhetta partner and managing director Elaine Molinar. La Nube aims to inspire boundless exploration for people of all ages and abilities, while fostering cross-cultural connections with the children’s museum in neighboring Juarez.
Selected through an architectural design competition, La Nube’s dynamic vernacular and materials reflect its desert surroundings
The 70,000-square-foot museum sits in the
core of El Paso’s Downtown Arts district, close to the popular San Jacinto plaza and less than half a mile from El Paso del Norte, a major border-crossing station.
At the eastern side of the museum, a terraced garden forms a series of outdoor rooms. Together with the Gyroscope and Exigo Architecture teams, Snøhetta aims for the museum to become a civic classroom for the regions families, designed to maximize open-ended, imaginative play and exploration. and commitment to whimsical design. “We thought it was imperative that the museum look like it was designed for young people first and foremost,” Molinar says. Aluminum panels in three shades subtly shift under varying lighting conditions, embedded fiber-optic lights create a twinkling effect at night, and high-performance glazing with ceramic frit enhances thermal comfort while contributing to the building’s “cloudlike” appearance, says Exigo associate principal Paulina Lagos. Although the building is not LEED certified, La Nube embraces sustainability with features like an on-site desalination plant, misting
poles that provide cooling and play opportunities, and drought-resistant native plantings, Molinar adds.
The museum’s nine themed learning zones deliver immersive, STEAM-focused experiences with bilingual, nonhierarchical signage in English and Spanish. “El Paso is a predominantly Hispanic community, yet we don’t often see buildings that place Spanish on equal footing with English,” Lagos notes. “It’s a thoughtful touch for our community.”
The Desert Bloom section caters to children ages zero to three. It showcases the flora and fauna of the Chihuahuan
Desert, alongside a mural by local artist Kristin Apodaca. Meanwhile, the Fly High level highlights El Paso’s contributions to the aerospace industry. Visitors to La Nube can experiment with water currents, predict natural disasters, and design sustainable cities. The museum’s centerpiece, the 50-foot Anything’s Possible Climber—Texas’s largest accessible climber—is part art installation, part jungle gym, and features a wheelchair challenge course at the top.
Beyond its engaging features, La Nube exceeds ADA compliance to ensure accessibility for all. The museum offers Braille and audio tours, sensory friendly hours with light levels set to prevent over-simulation, and accommodations for neurodivergent guests such as quiet rooms, weighted blankets, and sensory backpacks available for checkout. Molinar emphasizes that these thoughtful choices make La Nube a model for accessibility in children’s museums worldwide.
La Nube redefines what a children’s museum can be: a space that nurtures creativity while addressing critical concerns like climate adaptation, cultural representation, and inclusive design. Its success provides a blueprint for similar projects across the region and beyond. “Seeing the profound impact La Nube has on the community—how it changes young lives and brings joy to visitors of all ages—is incredibly rewarding,” Molinar concludes. M
La Nube aspires to serve as a dynamic community hub for families in the region, fostering open-ended, imaginative play and exploration while ensuring fully inclusive access to education.
Circular Future Hackathon
METROPOLIS brought together the brightest minds from across the building industry for the Circular Future Hackathon a groundbreaking initiative to rethink how we design and build in alignment with circular design principles. Over the past few months, these visionaries have collaborated on seven bold ideas that could transform the way we approach construction and sustainability. Explore the seven forward-thinking solutions for a more sustainable and circular future in the built environment:
Stone, Tiles, and Surfaces
The latest information and offerings in this category to help you make beautiful sustainable choices on your next project
The Offset ADU in Los Angeles, designed by Byben, features an Ipe rainscreen facade.
The William T. Cannady Hall for Architecture is a 22,000-square-foot addition to the Rice School of Architecture, designed to support architectural production, research, and exhibition.
Rice School of Architecture’s Cannady Hall Features a Multifunctional Ceramic Rain Screen
Swiss firm Karamuk Kuo completes its first U.S. project, with a focus on research and fabrication.
By Lauren Jones
THE RECENT POPULARITY of the ceramic rain screen illustrates how a tried-and-true architectural material‚ terra-cotta, is “able to respond to the ambitions of architects,” says Jeannette Kuo, cofounder of Karamuk Kuo. The Zurich-based firm recently completed the William T. Cannady Hall for Architecture, a 22,000-squarefoot multipurpose addition to the Rice School of Architecture, located within the university’s historic quad in Houston. Cannady Hall's steel frame, industrial sawtooth roofline, and glazed terra-cotta facade complement the adjacent brick masonry of MD Anderson Hall, which the new addition connects to via a skyway.
“Handmade, kiln-fired St. Joe’s brick and Spanish tile roofs are the language of the campus,” Kuo remarks. Rather than build in the school’s typical Gothic Revival style, Kuo and team were challenged to combine the classic and contemporary, creating a building that would have “greater impact in the coming years and adapt their pedagogy to the 21st century,” she adds.
The design process was driven by extensive research and interviews. “There was no initial brief,” she says. “I camped out there for an entire week…and came back with a huge transcript of conversations.” Short-listed with four other foreign firms, Karamuk Kuo was selected to create a space that addressed the campus’s desire for adaptable infrastructure. The resulting design incorporates a public gallery, flexible collaboration spaces, and a state-ofthe-art fabrication shop, all within an airy, multiuse volume clad in an eco-friendly ceramic rain screen.
The custom-designed facade, fabricated by Boston Valley Terra Cotta, extends the roofline with more than 5,000 square feet of panels and louvers. The system is ideal for Houston’s hot and humid
BIG AND STRONG
These large-format facade options offer durability and material richness
climate, as it prevents condensation from building up, reduces solar heat gain, and allows for dappled, glare-free sunlight. “For a university, ease of repair and durability are also major advantages,” Kuo says of the material.
The open and covered spaces on the second floor integrate with the rain screen, creating dynamic thresholds between indoors and outdoors, while those interacting with the building are offered their own unique experiences. Kuo believes the recent renaissance of ceramic facades is tied to its historical significance but also its sustainable properties. Widely used in early 20th-century architecture, particularly in high-rises by architects like Louis Sullivan, terra-cotta fell out of favor as fully glazed glass dominated midcentury design. “Terra-cotta was almost a lost art form,” Kuo says.
Today, Boston Valley Terra Cotta is one of a few American-based terra-cotta companies, its product chosen by the university not only for quicker shipping amid the pandemic but also for reducing the carbon footprint of such a project. Although the quarrying, production, and transportation of architectural terra-cotta have environmental implications, its exceptional longevity, minimal upkeep, and reduced emissions compared with popular building materials like concrete, glass, and aluminum help offset its impact. Additionally, Boston Valley Terra Cotta sources within 500 miles of its New York plant and utilizes recycled materials in each run.
Cannady Hall’s design serves as a case study for contextually driven architecture, its central positioning providing an open courtyard for both students and Houston residents to enjoy. By merging traditional craftsmanship with contemporary performance requirements, the project highlights how innovative, recyclable materials can address pressing sustainability requirements while respecting and challenging the school’s distinct identity. M
IPE RAIN-SCREEN FACADE
The Offset ADU in Los Angeles, designed by Byben, features a meticulously crafted Ipe rain-screen facade, wrapping two sides of the home in rich wood tones. Paired with smooth stucco, the rain screen enhances durability while creating a striking contrast. byben.com
GAMMASTONE GRES AIR
Gres Air is a large-format rain-screen ceramic panel that is highly resistant to water, scratches, UV rays, and mold. The line features monolithic panels that are fully customizable and ideal for interior and exterior cladding, grill covers, ceilings, architectural fins, and column covers. gammastone.com
The project exemplifies sustainable design with recyclable materials, a flexible structure, and a bolted steel frame for easy disassembly and reuse, including its terra-cotta facade.
How to Specify Stone Sustainably
Essential considerations and resources for selecting stone that meets environmental standards without compromising design.
By Will Speros
A GOOD SPECIFICATION can never be too specific, and now more than ever, the right product is likely the most sustainable. Considerations for responsibly sourcing stone are vast and varied, but stringent requirements need not hamper design possibilities. Materials verified by third-party standards improve the baseline for the environmental performance of natural stone. In addition to providing detailed standards, the Natural Stone Institute’s Sustainability Standard verifies key aspects of natural stone production, while the Green Building Alliance lists stone materials meeting its own criteria. However, new materials are not always certified at the time of specification, so manufacturer transparency
Cornell Tech’s Roosevelt Island campus is a boon for sustainable innovation in New York, reflecting environmentalist principles down to the smallest details. ABC Stone’s sleek Grey Smoke granite spans 35,000 square feet of the 12-acre campus, exhibiting durability and a timeless, high-quality finish complementary to both the natural and urban landscapes surrounding it.
is key. Requesting life cycle assessment info and disclosures like Declare labels or Health Product Declarations provides insight into material composition. Additives like cement, fly ash, plastic, or asphalt are best avoided.
Accounting for the scale of mineral extraction is also an environmentally responsible step when working with a nonrenewable resource. While using local minerals is possible, the impact of mining local ecologies—from biodiversity loss to water contamination—must be accounted for as well. In addition to a list of natural stone sustainability resources, the Natural Stone Institute aggregates an exhaustive breakdown of sourcing and verifying quarries. If ethical supply chain and fair labor practices are of value, consider requiring a chain of custody to elevate process standards and verify that stone travels as sustainably as possible.
With durability and life cycle included as end goals for the project, designing for disassembly is a dynamic solution. Minerals that sequester carbon, like lime, or upcycled minerals, like gypsum, are ideal for recyclability and more flexible application and customization. For greater insight, the Parsons School of Design’s Healthy Materials Lab maintains a list of recommended minerals that meet its rigorous evaluations across its many material collections. M
Offered by Stone Source, La Pietra Compattata Cromie demonstrates that sustainable design need not compromise the uniqueness of human taste. The versatile range of is born from quartz, granite, and porphyry crushed into stone powder and cold-pressed with cement into a new, low-energy composition. The series is suitable for indoor-outdoor applications in 20 original bold colors and numerous sizes.
Sustainable designer Ruchika Grover expands her Borrowed Earth Collaborative family of sculptural stonework with Crackle. Drawing upon the raw unpredictability of Earth’s fractures, the new panel design celebrates the uniqueness in every natural face, further promoting a tactile bond with the planet through material honesty and the inherent elegance of stone. Organic textures and patterns can be highlighted in eight different colorways.
3 Key Considerations for Specifying Sustainable Ceramic Tiles
Ceramic-based materials remain optimal for hightraffic spaces—not just for their durability but also for their benefits to well-being. Antimicrobial, allergen-free, and resistant to fire and chemical abrasion, ceramic tiles are an obvious choice for holistic good, though there is still much to consider when specifying. Keep these three simple tenets in mind on your next project.
By Will Speros
01 THINK HEALTHY
While ceramic tiles are free of plastic, formaldehyde, and other volatile organic compounds, they can contain recycled materials, so it’s imperative to watch out for added lead or other harmful elements when sourcing. More than 85 percent of North American ceramic tiles are covered by an industry-wide environmental product declaration (EPD), and all are cited by the Tile Council of North America in reports including the Ceramic Tile Green Guide and the Material Ingredient Guide. Internationally, the Spanish Ceramic Manufacturers’ Association outlines global EPD standards and insights into ceramics’ impact on indoor air quality.
02 THINK LONG TERM
Not only can tiles be converted back into raw material for new products, but they also boast a useful lifespan estimated to be up to 50 years. Long-term sustainability goals should be clearly defined in a specification’s goals and objectives section, with a focus on durability and life cycle as key outcomes. To strengthen these goals, consider specifying requirements that go beyond the standard recommendations of ASTM International.
03 THINK LOCAL
The use of ceramic materials like terra-cotta for cladding dates back to the Babylonian era. Today, naturally occurring clays can still be sourced within 500 miles of manufacturing sites, making local sourcing a smart choice for reducing energy consumption. Manufacturers can provide key data on production locations, raw material sources, and transportation methods, helping architects and designers make informed, sustainable decisions. M
REMATCH
LIVDEN
A trio of designs in the Rematch collection leaves dynamic signatures upon Ivory Porcelain tiles. Vibrant Wishbone adds a dynamic layer to midcentury environments in three effervescent tones. Curved lines and dual colors distinguish Roundabout, whose segmented pathways are animated across four color combinations. Three rich tones elevate Magnolia’s Moroccan style into an impactful focal point for kitchens or bathrooms as well. livden.com
WAVES
Cevica
Waves joins the Cevica collection with refreshing versatility, depth, and texture. Produced from high-quality white body wall tile, the Waves Crest style is distinguished by a unique triangular line relief accentuated through a diverse color palette as well as a glossy finish. The design invokes a contemporary air apt for both residential and commercial spaces. cevica.es
MARVEL DIVA
Atlas Concorde
Available through Ceramics of Italy, Atlas Concorde expands its Marvel series with Marvel Diva, an extensive large-format range. The LEED-compliant and EPDcertified porcelain slabs exude timeless elegance with a rectified polish finish and ten striking, sophisticated shades. Ideal for bathrooms, the series promises strong performance in wall and custom furnishing applications. atlasconcorde.com
BLACK & CREAM
Arcana Cerámica
The latest addition to the Arcana Cerámica line, Black & Cream, offers a contemporary reinterpretation of classic expressions. Suitable for both walls and floors, the porcelain collection honors traditional color palettes while enlivening them with modernist forms. Simple materiality and earthy colorways effortlessly infuse tranquility with a dose of sophistication. arcanatiles.com
GEMINI
Crossville
Gemini porcelain tile panels celebrate the symbiosis of humans and nature through a sustainable, modern lens. Drawing inspiration from the life cycle of natural materials, from creation to application, Gemini comprises natural materials, recycled content, and a reduced weight. The collection is also produced using hybrid kilns that reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent. crossvilleinc.com
NAGOMI
Mirage
Also available through Ceramics of Italy, Mirage unveils a visionary collaboration with architect Hadi Teherani. Nagomi incorporates glass recycled from cathode ray tubes and features five exclusive patterns inspired by the five elements. Customizable in nine colors and three mixes, Nagomi is thinly composed and installed without nets, further enriching architectural spaces with sustainable ceramic innovation. mirage.it
SOVRAN
Daltile
Luxury and durability dovetail in Sovran, a practical new ColorBody porcelain design that demonstrates the timeless appeal of black-and-white marble. Featuring rectified edges and a 3D satin-polished finish, each tile is distinguished by its unique veining. Eight eye-catching art deco patterns evoke grandeur on floors, walls, and countertops. daltile.com
4 Manufacturers Lead the Way in Sustainable Surfaces
3form, Corian, Cosentino, and Wilsonart offer some of the most transparent surfacing products on the market.
By Jaxson Stone
01 LE CHIC BOHÈME BY SILESTONE XM COSENTINO
Cosentino reduces negative environmental impact across its value chain by committing to eco-conscious practices across all operations. The company runs on 100 percent renewable energy and recirculates 99 percent of the water it uses, with none of it being discharged into local waterways. It has committed to using up to 50 percent recycled materials—including quartz and glass—in its products such as Silestone® and Dekton®. Cosentino’s manufacturing plants are ISO 14001 certified, and it has set ambitious goals for carbon neutrality by 2050, alongside maintaining a closed-loop waste management system to minimize landfill contributions. cosentino.com
02 THINSCAPE WILSONART
Wilsonart’s THINSCAPE Performance Tops combine sustainable design, elegance, and durability. With an ultrathin, half-inch composite surface, THINSCAPE is designed for countertops, vanities, tables, and more. These surfaces resist the effects of impact, abrasions, scratches, stains, and moisture without ever requiring sealing. Available in 16 designs, THINSCAPE meets rigorous emissions standards, earning UL GREENGUARD Gold certification and the ILFI Declare label with Red List Approved status. In addition, all Wilsonart Adhesives are free of urea-formaldehyde and methylene chloride. wilsonart.com
03 ARTISTA CORIAN
Corian’s Artista Collection blends tranquil aesthetics with material transparency, featuring hues inspired by mist, herbs, and flora. Containing a minimum of six percent preconsumer recycled acrylic content, the collection exemplifies Corian’s commitment to reducing environmental impact while delivering durable that support healthier indoor air quality. The collection allows for easy repairs, extending product lifespan and reducing the need for replacement, which minimizes waste over time. Corian products meet stringent certifications such as GREENGUARD Gold. Additionally, Corian discloses its ingredients and impacts through environmental product declarations and health product declarations. corian.com
04 2025 COLOR COLLECTION 3FORM
Drawing on color psychology, 3form’s 2025 Color Collection explores the connection between color, texture, and human emotion, offering architects and designers tools to create spaces that resonate on a deeper level. Available ten colors, the collection is available in 3form's Varia, Glass, and Chroma materials, as well as its 100 percent Recycled Textures line. Whereas Varia is made with 40 percent recycled materials through mechanical recycling, the Recycled Textures collection utilizes molecular recycling technology to produce a 100 percent recycled material. These innovative manufacturing techniques reduce plastic waste, conserve resources, and support a circular economy. 3-form.com
Form Meets Function in Kitchen and Bath
By Nigel Maynard
THE LATEST KITCHEN AND BATH INNOVATIONS are all about blending aesthetics with performance, reflecting a growing preference for textured and nature-inspired materials, expanded customization options, and advancements in durability and sustainability. These products, shown at the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show as part of Design & Construction Week in Las Vegas, represent some of the best offerings from the show’s approximately 700 exhibitors. M
ARSHAM LANDSHAPES COLLECTION KOHLER
The Arsham Landshapes Collection marks the second collaboration between Kohler and contemporary artist and sculptor Daniel Arsham. This full suite of bath products features Arsham’s signature expressive shapes with curving lines and nature-inspired details. The collection includes vanities, lighting, a vessel sink, a freestanding tub, mirrors, and faucet handles. kohler.com
LX HAUSYS
Quartz continues to be the darling of the countertop surfacing business partly because it can take the appearance of natural stone. The five new introductions from Viatera by LX Hausys offer the look of marble with warm veining. Each is made in Georgia with up to 93 percent quartz, so they are stain-resistant and nonporous. lxhausys.com
DISCO-RECTANGLE LINEAR DRAIN INFINITY DRAIN
Once limited to commercial applications, linear drains are now used in sophisticated residential projects. The Disco-Rectangle Tile Insert Linear Drain’s soft, rounded corners draw inspiration from midcentury modern design. Offered in ten designer finishes, the product is available in three installation options: fixed length, fixed flange, and flange with Schluter-KERDI. infinitydrain.com
VIATERA
MATERIA
ABKSTONE
Materia is ABKSTONE’s new brand specializing in large-format porcelain slabs with marble-effect surfaces. Designed for both interior and exterior applications, the surfacing replicates natural stone, but it can also take the appearance of concrete and different metals. Slabs measure approximately 1,635 by 3,230 centimeters and come in three thicknesses: 6, 12, and 20 millimeters. materiaslab.com
ALTADO BATH COLLECTION DELTA FAUCET
Exclusive to trade professionals, the Altado Bath Collection brings the contemporary vibe with slim handles and a delicate profile. Each faucet features Delta’s Diamond Seal Technology valves, designed for long-lasting, leak-free performance. Available in four finishes, the line comes in a range of options, including lavatory faucets, tub trim, shower diverters, and matching accessories. deltafaucet.com
IGNEA NEOLITH
Part of the Fusion Collection, Ignea evokes the sophistication of volcanic landscapes and textures. Drawing inspiration from the depths of the earth and its magmatic cycles, the dark-hued surfacing has a River Washed texture for a more realistic look. It is made with up to 98 percent recycled materials. neolith.com
7 Products for Better Building
By Nigel Maynard
THE NAHB INTERNATIONAL BUILDERS’ SHOW may not look like other design fairs and festivals, but it’s just as crucial—if not more so—because it focuses on buildings’ essential, often-unseen components. These include behind-the-wall systems, HVAC, electrical, structural elements, and siding—like Nakamoto’s Gendai heat-treated cedar cladding, shown on this page. Here are some standout innovations from this year’s show, held February 25 to 27 in Las Vegas. M
01 GENDAI NAKAMOTO FORESTRY
Nakamoto Forestry heat-treats its Gendai cedar cladding using shou sugi ban. The traditional Japanese technique enhances the wood’s durability and resistance to rot, insects, and fire. Gendai is now available in an Acrylic Black finish, providing homeowners with a low-maintenance siding solution that ensures the color remains vibrant. nakamotoforestry.com
02
SOLSTICE SHINGLE
CERTAINTEED
Solstice is one of the most technologically advanced solar solutions on the market, according to the company. These panels integrate with any asphalt shingles so they disappear from the street, producing energy at levels comparable to conventional rack-mounted solar panels without the bulky appearance. certainteed.com/solar
03 THERMO CLEAR RADIATA
MAXIMO WOOD
A thermal modification process that increases wood’s dimensional stability and durability and an OPX antitermite treatment make Maximo’s Thermo Clear Radiata wood durable and weather-resistant for applications inside or outside. Available in 6- to 16-foot lengths, this clear, knot-free wood is ideal for walls, ceilings, and decking. maximowood.com
04
SMARTSIDE TRIM & SIDING
LP BUILDING SOLUTIONS
LP SmartSide Trim & Siding offers the look of wood without the maintenance drawbacks. Available in a brushed look that resembles natural wood, it features zinc borate for termite resistance, resins to combat freeze/thaw cycles, and waxes to resist moisture. It’s available in 16-foot lengths. lpcorp.com
05
LEVELUP
BISON INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS
The LevelUp adjustable deck pedestal system eliminates the need for digging, pouring, and leveling concrete footers and posts. Ideal for building ground-level decks, the pedestals attach to wood joists to form the structure and can be installed over existing stable concrete slabs or pavers, as well as over compact soil or gravel. Each deck pedestal can adjust from 2½ inches to 5½ inches in height. level-updecking.com
06 BULLNOSE PAVERS ASPIRE
Aspire’s Bullnose Paver seamlessly integrates with its paver line, eliminating the need for miter cuts when creating corners. Corner pavers are designed to form a 90-degree angle, providing a finished border with a rounded edge that conceals the grid below. aspirepavers.com
07 LASERCUT COLLECTION
FEENEY
A collaboration with interior designer Kerrie Kelly, the Feeney LaserCut Collection is a series of design-forward metal panels with nine intricate designs inspired by architectural icons, global textures, and timeless patterns. Designed for indoor and outdoor applications, the panels can be used as decorative accents, privacy screens, or partitions. feeneyinc.com
Alloy Aims to Decarbonize Real Estate
The developer behind New York City’s first all-electric skyscraper and first Passive House public school shows us what the building industry could be.
By Diana Budds
AJ Pires, president of Alloy, a Brooklynbased development company he started with Jared Della Valle and Katherine McConvey in 2006
505 State Street, rising 484 feet over 44 stories, is an all-electric mixed-use development featuring 440 homes—both affordable and marketrate—along with 30,000 square feet of retail space. Resident amenities include a fitness center, flexible workspace, and a rooftop pool.
Over the past decade, downtown Brooklyn has stretched skyward, with new residential high-rises by celebrity architects and the borough’s first supertall tower entering the cityscape. It’s also the site of another milestone: New York City’s first all-electric skyscraper, 505 State Street. Completed in 2024, it’s elegant with a flatiron footprint, gridded glass facade articulated with aluminum, and shallow wedding cake–like setbacks. It’s also carbon neutral, with all its energy coming from solar utilities.
Designed and built by the local developer Alloy, the 44-story building, which features commercial space on the ground floor and affordable and marketrate rentals above, anchors the Alloy
Block, a site where some of the city’s most ambitious experiments in real estate and decarbonization are happening.
Adjacent to 505 State are two new public schools—the English-Arabic Khalil Gibran International Academy and the SpanishEnglish Elizabeth Jennings School for Bold Explorers—co-located in a structure designed to Passive House standards (also a first for the city), and a soon-to-be-built Passive residential tower will complete the development.
While 505 State represents the future of real estate in the city—by 2029, all new buildings will be prohibited from using fossil fuels—“there’s nothing that technologically innovative here,” says AJ Pires, the president of Alloy. He notes that the main difference between the building and every other well-appointed residential
high-rise is that the boiler providing heat and hot water to the units is electric, and the cooktops are all induction. The innovation was more conceptual: to build to ambitious energy standards and show other developers what’s possible by taking informed risks.
Alloy is the rare architect-developer, a business model that has enabled the company to hold true to a “very narrow and provincial mission,” Pires says, “which is to make Brooklyn beautiful, sustainable, and equitable.” Since its founding in 2006, Alloy has had ambitions that grew from affordable infill residential duplexes in East New York to a mixed-use building in Brooklyn Bridge Park that won an AIA COTE Award for its energy efficiency to several high-end multifamily projects and now to an entire city block. The company
New York City's first all-electric skyscraper will run entirely on renewable energy, setting a new standard for carbon-free buildings. With no car parking, to promote sustainable transit, it offers 224 bike spaces.
Designed by ARO, the city's first Passive House–certified public school reduces energy use while enhancing indoor learning environments. Sustainable features include green roofs, triple-pane windows, and highly insulated, well-oriented classrooms.
hopes that its decarbonization efforts will have ripple effects citywide.
Since Alloy can control every step of its projects—from obtaining financing and purchasing land to design, engineering, and construction—it is able to pursue ideas that the industry as a whole might consider to be risky. “We pick a couple of things that feel like the most durable and the most accurate to the time, and we invest in those,” Pires says. “It’s about finding the one or two things that are achievable.”
Alloy bought its block in 2015 and began designing 505 State in 2019 when conversations about climate change and real estate were heating up. The city council began laying the groundwork for what would become L ocal Law 97, a plan enacted in 2019 that calls for a 40 percent reduction in building emissions (which
account for over two-thirds of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions) by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050. Meanwhile, the gas utilities Con Ed and National Grid said (in what was widely viewed as a politically motivated threat) that they would no longer be able to install new gas connections in the area unless a new pipeline was approved. The confluence of these factors led Alloy to conduct a thought experiment: What would it take to decarbonize the building? It posed this question to its mechanical engineers, who concluded that a high-performing envelope, heat exchange system, energy recovery units, and an electric boiler would do the trick—all of which are widely used in buildings in Europe.
“When it was clear everybody was going to use fiber optic cable lines, you
wouldn’t put copper telephone wires in your building,” Pires says. “That’s backwards. We got to a point where we believed we’re going to get to a renewable grid, we’re going to be all-electric, and the city’s going to incentivize us to get there.”
At the same time, the environmental credentials helped Alloy receive public approval for the project. The Passive House school—a seven-story brick-clad building designed by Architecture Research Office (ARO) and developed in partnership with the New York City School Construction Authority (NYCSCA), which had final approval and sign-off rights—was a key part of this. Because Alloy had publicly promised to build a Passive House school, it was able to help ARO push NYCSCA out of its comfort zone.
Clad in brick to reflect Brooklyn’s classic schoolhouse style, the new buildings feature independent outdoor spaces for each school, a shared cafeteria, and a rooftop playground. The elementary school’s gym and auditorium are also accessible to the community.
“Alloy helped us decide when we needed to go back and say, ‘I know your standards are this, but we really think it’s worth questioning those in the case of the school,’” says Stephen Cassell, a principal at ARO, who notes that the irregularly shaped site required a creative footprint and layouts that deviated from how most schools are built. “It’s really exciting to contribute to an exemplar of where we should be heading.”
Now, with energy consumption addressed, Alloy is turning to the next decarbonization challenge: embodied carbon, an indicator of how much carbon is emitted for the construction of a building. While this is a growing area of concern for the building industry, there are a lot of unknowns, namely what the actual levels are. While European countries, like Denmark, have embodied carbon targets, the United States does not. Alloy plans to measure the embodied carbon of the second tower it builds on its block as precisely as possible. Perhaps this work will lead to the next green building policy in the city.
“Sustainability has always been a core ethos of ours,” Pires says. “We have always thought of our work as being the mouthpiece under which we could communicate our values and indicate where we think the industry could be.” M
Alloy's next project, a 725-foot-tall building also aiming for Passive House certification, will have 583 apartments—152 of which will be affordable— along with six floors of office space. The project includes the conservation and adaptive reuse of two historic 19th-century buildings to incorporate street-level retail.
Barbara Buser’s firm, Baubüro in Situ, added three floors to an old industrial building in Winterthur, Switzerland, with 70 percent reclaimed materials, cutting the potential embodied carbon emissions of the project by nearly two-thirds. Completed in 2021, the project, K.118, served as a case study in material reuse and won a Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction.
Barbara Buser’s Reuse Revolution
After three decades of perfecting how to reclaim and reuse building components, the Swiss architect is changing the rules of construction in Basel and its surroundings.
By Vera Sacchetti
Swiss architect Barbara Buser cofounded Basel’s first exchange for reclaimed building materials in 1996 and launched Zirkular, an engineering and planning consultancy rooted in circular-economy principles, in 2021. She also heads the Basel-based architecture firm Baubüro in Situ alongside Eric Honegger.
Seventy-year-old architect, urban planner, and fierce reuse advocate Barbara Buser is a well-known figure in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, but not many have heard of her outside her native country. Perhaps it’s because she stands in stark opposition to the typical conception of what a Swiss architect is: male and dressed in Prada head to toe. Or perhaps because the alternative she advocates for is infinitely more interesting: reusing existing buildings and materials to find new architectural expressions.
Following her architecture studies at the prestigious ETH Zurich, Buser worked for ten years in Sudan and Tanzania, first with an aid organization and then with the Swiss Agency for Development and C ooperation. By the time she returned, she had lost contact with her generation of practitioners and was intensely shocked by the “luxury and waste” she encountered all around her. “I felt already then that we can live very well off the remainders of this society,” she told me this past January. “I’m not against luxury, but I’m against waste. So, my whole professional life has been fighting waste in all kinds of ways.”
As part of this effort, Buser founded the Bauteilbörse Basel, or the Building Parts Exchange, in 1996. The first of its kind in Switzerland, the Bauteilbörse offered secondhand building components for reuse, from window frames to structural beams. While today it operates in 16 citie s, Buser notes that Bauteilbörse never became “mainstream” and was shunned by the architectural scene. She was, however, undeterred, and she started her architectural office, Baubüro in Situ, with partner Eric Honegger in a former industrial building, putting in place an uncommon and curious methodology. In 1998, they converted a large, derelict bank in the center of Basel into a café and community center. In the following years, old factory sites became infused with new life; an old market hall became the city’s most diverse pop-up food court; and at the time of writing, the former Franck mustard factory is being converted into a dance hall and community center.
Zirkular’s services include building analysis and component hunting— studying existing buildings for reuse potential and locating architectural and structural elements that can be reemployed on the same site or on other projects. Designing with these found materials requires careful planning and constant evaluation to ensure that every piece is installed in the most appropriate way and will function in the new building.
Baubüro augments reclaimed components with renewable materials like wood panels and straw insulation (opposite page) in an effort to keep the embodied carbon footprint as low as possible. Concrete is used only when necessary for structural reasons or fire and sound protection—in the floor slabs, foundations, and chamber sound supports. Disparate materials dovetail and overlap in the interiors (this page).
Zirkular is educating the next generation of practitioners through studios and guest professorships at architecture schools. At the ETH in Zurich, students were immersed in circular design, harvesting building components and creating to-scale mock-ups for the Hexis building in Winterthur (opposite page). At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, students participated in deconstruction workshops, learning how they might design buildings for future disassembly (this page).
These are not mere architectural interventions. Buser sets up new companies—each a network of funders and supporters—to effectively manage or acquire the sites, giving her team full agency on what can happen there. The primary goal is not profit, but shared ownership and pragmatic management. Once things are up and running, Buser usually exits and starts the next venture.
Her approach is remarkable. “She is very politically engaged but also has incredible business savvy,” says Chrissie Muhr, who codirects Berlin’s Experimental Foundation. “In Basel, she has been extremely influential, working alongside the city and various stakeholders in large transformational projects that will shape the city for years to come. She combines an entrepreneurial approach with political positioning that shines through her commitment to sustainability, ecology, and participation.”
Begun in 2020, the K.118 reconversion project in Winterthur, commissioned by the Abendrot Foundation, served as Buser’s watershed opportunity to study the real potential of reuse in architecture. Baubüro and a team from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences tested a methodology that inverted the conventional building process, beginning with an inventory of available materials for reuse, and allowing that to determine the final shape and form of the building. The external steel staircase was originally in an office building in Zurich; steel beams in the main hall once structurally supported a supermarket distribution center in Basel. Alongside these elements, the K. 118 features natural materials, such as wood, straw, and clay. The university team evaluated the process upon its completion and concluded that the reuse strategy saved 60 percent of the typical CO2 emissions in a regular planning and construction process.
“That’s when I started to get really nervous,” Buser tells me, explaining both how excited and apprehensive she was to share these findings as far and wide as possible. She embarked on a tour that included more than 100 lectures worldwide while also founding Zirkular, or Circular,
In Basel’s Lysbüchel district, Baubüro in Situ converted a former coop distribution center into Elys, a mixed-use cultural and commercial building, using mostly reclaimed materials and avoiding an estimated 7,000 tons of carbon emissions through the reuse of the building and an additional 91 tons of carbon emissions in building materials (opposite page). Zirkular sourced all 200 of the building’s windows from within a 62-mile radius, and the architects celebrated the mix of shapes and sizes in the design (this page).
an engineering and planning company that has changed the attitude toward reuse in Switzerland. Zirkular employs 100 people and sources material for reuse from buildings, demolition sites, and donors all over the country, matching supply with demand while also supporting architecture offices, urban planners, and policymakers in their reuse planning journeys and leading both small-scale workshops and higher education programs.
Three decades into her reuse crusade, public opinion has changed, Buser says, and now, “everybody wants to [do reuse], but they don’t know how.” Zirkular has found itself advising large companies with a lot of real estate. “The advice we give is: Keep your own stuff for your future construction,” Buser tells me, while simultaneously pushing that anyone who is seriously invested in reuse should be ready to prefinance the dismantling of building components. “Sometimes I say we should stop construction for ten years,” she notes, “and develop other ways to go about it, namely how to find material; how to classify it; how to check, test, and so on.” And is there enough supply of existing materials to meet the demand of
construction projects? Buser points out that “the problem was never to get the material, but always to get it into use again.”
Buser’s efforts have paved the way for what Charlotte Malterre-Barthes calls “more virtuous architectures.” MalterreBarthes, who is an assistant professor of architectural and urban design at Swiss research university EPFL, has in recent years argued for a moratorium on new construction. She told me that, despite her reservations about reuse itself, given the difficulty of scaling up “due to its demands for perseverance and access to specific networks and legal-financial frameworks,” as well as “the risks of both greenwashing and the cannibalistic nature of reuse,” the momentum generated by Buser’s work is undeniable. “Her practice has tremendously influenced young practitioners who challenge the current demolition/new construction model, showing a way beyond both the climate and imagination crisis.”
When asked about the source of her seemingly inexhaustible energy, the seventy-year-old Buser is pragmatic, stating that for every success story that kept her afloat, there were many unsuccessful ones along the road. She also acknowledges her family and her health as important factors. Undeterred, she keeps going forward, lighting the way for the rest of us. Activism, as we know, is work that never really ends. M
At Elys, wood from dismantled buildings in the area (opposite page) were repurposed for the facade’s timber frame, sheet metal panels taken off the roof of the existing building were reused on the outer walls (right, top), and windows were assessed for energy efficiency before being integrated into the building (right).
Justin Garrett Moore Connects Place and Memory
The
Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place grant-making program is transforming communities through storytelling, conservation, and design.
By Laura Raskin
The Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place team (from left): Alex Whittaker, Salem Tsegaye, Mammotsa Makhene, Achille Tenkiang, Zuri Phelps, Justin Garrett Moore, Julissa Peña, Angel Langumas, and M Constantine.
In the past four years, the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place grant-making program has given more than $200 million for 263 grants, mainly in the United States.
It was a grant from Humanities in Place that helped reopen the playwright August Wilson’s home in Pittsburgh, turning the backyard into an ADA-accessible public performance and gathering space and adding to an ongoing fellowship for early-career artists and playwrights. Another grantee, Ekvn-Yefolecv, an intentional community of Indigenous Maskoke people in Alabama, is building a new eco-lodge, or Vlahoke. The lodge will be a center for linguistic revitalization, cultural expression, ecological design, and regenerative agriculture, reconnecting the Maskoke people to their Alabama home, from which they were forcibly removed 180 years ago.
Practically speaking, Humanities in Place funding is directed to capital projects, advancing social justice at cultural sites or in public places and increasing engagement in and around civic spaces. Philosophically, Mellon seems to understand that place and memory are inextricably intertwined; built and natural places hold the potential to reflect complex, sometimes painful histories, as well as support racially, economically, and socially just futures.
The buoying of projects such as the August Wilson house and Ekvn-Yefolecv’s eco-lodge—and, in many cases, their very realization—is in large part thanks to Justin Garrett Moore, the inaugural program director for Humanities in Place, an architect and urban planner by training, and a former executive director for the New York City Public Design Commission.
Mellon’s president, Elizabeth Alexander, established Humanities in Place in 2020, launching it in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. She handpicked Moore to lead the grant-making arm. A Pulitzer Prize–nominated poet and former English professor, Alexander used her way with words to convince Moore to make the leap from the public to the private sector. “The way to work for the people is to
In August 2022, the August Wilson House reopened in Pittsburgh as a community arts center after a 17-year effort. Since 2024, Wilson’s childhood home has been hosting public programs and artist residencies honoring the renowned playwright.
work for the people—that was my attitude,” says Moore, who spent 15 years working for the city’s planning department. “And [Mellon] is big philanthropy.”
But Alexander understood that if the foundation was to be committed to social justice work, place—specifically public, community, and civic space—was “an essential tool.” And that resonated deeply with Moore, who grew up observing his predominantly Black, working-class Indianapolis neighborhood from his front porch. His community didn’t have parks, and kids played in the coal storage yard. But his mother worked in the Madam C. J. Walker Building, a converted multipurpose theater adorned with African motifs, and his father worked at the engine manufacturer Cummins in a modern office building designed by Kevin Roche and
commissioned by Cummins CEO J. Irwin Miller—“[It was about the] early exposure and early experiences,” Moore says.
During his time with the city’s planning commission, Moore led massive projects, including the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront, Hunter’s Point South in Queens, and the Brooklyn Cultural District. As an architecture student at the University of Florida and later Columbia University, he was exposed by professors such as Paul Kariouk, Mabel Wilson, and Mojdeh “Moji” Baratloo, to the layers and complexities of urbanism and urban design, cuing him up for a career that transcended design.
Working for city government, “you learn how important places are, the impact that they have on people—good or bad—in so many diff erent ways,” says
Ekvn-Yefolecv, an Indigenous Maskoke community in Atmore, Alabama, recently built a 4,500-square-foot timber-frame community center. Language restoration is key to the Maskoke’s cultural and ecological goals, which emphasize regenerative agriculture as vital to preserving their traditions.
Moore. “Obviously, as a designer and planner, there’s so much work and effort placed on what you are creating. And what I learned in city government is that it’s great to make something, but it’s more important to keep it.” Moore observed how the legacies of care or neglect in public housing and spaces directly affected people’s ability to imagine what they could or should be.
Maintaining, reimagining, and caring for the public realm has served as a kind of tentpole that Moore has brought with him to his work at Mellon. His day-to-day involves intense research, site visits, evaluation, and storytelling as he guides current grantees and selects new ones, att empting a “360-degree understanding of a place, context, and story” for each project. At Angel Island in San Francisco— a former immigration station and detention center for Asian immigrants in the first half of the 20th century—a humanities grant in 2021 helped transform outdoor visitors’ areas and enhanced the Angel Island Immigration Museum’s digital storytelling–related technology infrastructure and programming, making a geographically isolated site accessible to many more people.
In Buffalo, a $150,000 grant from Mellon helped architects Albert Chao and Omar Khan create a strategic plan for the 1961 Coles House, a midcentury symbol of Black Modernism designed by prolific Buffalo architect Robert Traynham Coles. The Coles House will continue to serve as a home, gathering space, and classroom, telling a crucial piece of Buffalo’s history in the process.
“All this work we’re doing—the objective of it is to build just communities,” says Moore. “Humans are amazing, and Americans are amazing, and we can make incredible things happen. We can have innovation and have caring in mind.” M
Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, once home to a military fort, a quarantine station, and an immigration detention center, received funding for better visitors’ areas and digital storytelling. From 1910 to 1940, over 300,000 people, mostly from China and Japan, were detained there, just offshore from their hoped-for new home.
Robert T. Coles, the first Black chancellor of the American Institute of Architects, founded New York state’s first Black-owned architectural firm. In 1961, he designed his Buffalo home and studio, using prefabricated units within a garden. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011 and will continue to be a gathering place and educational facility thanks to a Mellon grant.
Ken De Cooman Is a New Kind of Architect
BC Architects, Studies, and Materials challenge conventional architecture practice models by using local materials, hands-on experimentation, and a collaborative approach to reshape the industry.
By Florian Heilmeyer
Ken De Cooman, cofounder of BC Architects & Studies and BC Materials
The Lot 8 project, transforms the 21,000-square-foot Magasin Electrique, a 19th-century train depot in France, into a workspace for Atelier LUMA’s design and research lab.
Nicolas Coeckelberghs, Ken De Cooman, Laurens Bekemans, and Wes Degreef officially founded Brussels Cooperation (BC) as a nonprofit organization. Their turning point came when SATIMO, a Belgian nongovernmental organization (NGO), approached them with an ambitious challenge: designing a school for deaf children in Burundi. Partnering with the local NGO ODEDIM, the four traveled to Muyinga, a northeastern Burundian city, eager to test their skills.
“Luckily,” says De Cooman, “we met Salvator Nshimirimana, a foreman and master builder with over forty years of experience designing and constructing community infrastructure such as churches and schools.”
Through Nshimirimana, they built connections with local craftsmen, builders, and the wider community. Most importantly, they li stened deeply. “We learned from regional typologies, where industrial materials are not yet prevalent. Our perception of Burundi’s predominantly vernacular construction culture, combined with a low, self-funded budget, encouraged us to adopt and adapt local materials, spatial typologies, and bioclimatic principles.” Together with Nshimirimana and a team of 20 to 30 local workers, the young designers managed the project from fundraising to
Lot 8 for Atelier LUMA, LUMA Foundation’s design research program in Arles, France, explores local resources and expertise to foster ecological, economic, and social transitions.
Focused on bioregional design, Lot 8 showcases sustainable material practices by drawing on regional expertise. For Atelier Luma, the team utilized sunflower fibers (left) to reinforce acoustic earth plaster (blelow) and incorporated algae processing waste to impart color to plaster (right).
hands-on construction. For over two years, at least one of the four partners was always present on the construction site in Muyinga.
To manage the funds properly, they created BC Studies as a nonprofit legal entity. This later evolved under the BC umbrella to include BC Architects.
They organized BC in a highly pragmatic way. To be able to “sign off” on building permits in Europe, they founded BC Architects as an architectural office parallel to BC Studies. As their projects grew, other architects and companies took an interest in their materials and products, leading them to establish their third branch: BC Materials, a production cooperative. This initiative primarily repurposed excavated earth from other construction sites.
“There was no set of finished plans to be checked by specialized engineers and handed to a contractor for execution, as we would do in Europe,” recalls De Cooman. “Instead, the design evolved with the construction, with everyone permanently involved in discussions. It was messy, it was intense, it was intuitive, it was imperfect—and that was not a problem.” They called this approach “architecture as prototyping” and had the sense that they were onto something, even if they didn’t yet know exactly what.
Subsequent projects for NGOs and foundations followed. They designed and built a community guesthouse and a hospital in Ethiopia for children with cancer, using adobe and local stones. Later, they completed three preschools in Moroccan villages in collaboration with the Good
Planet Foundation. “For us,” says De Cooman, “a narrow definition of the professional architect no longer sufficed.” When the four partners gradually returned to Europe after years of working in Africa, they wanted to bring this direct and spontaneous way of building with them. But how could they translate these “acts of building” into Europe’s highly regulated construction industry? Their solution was to blend the collective, hands-on approach of African building traditions with the possibilities of European industry. They focused on natural materials such as earth, hemp, and vegetal fibers, developing a method based on workshops and constant prototyping. These materials are largely unpopular in the European design industry, but the architects found that engaging craftsmen and contractors
Usquare Feder transformed a former gendarmerie barracks in Elsene, Belgium, into a vibrant, multifunctional district. The renovation enhanced the site’s heritage through a careful analysis of its existing structures.
By dismantling nearby buildings, Usquare Feder repurposes waste streams into raw materials, reusing bricks and glazing while recycling others for flooring. New materials, such as acoustic clay plasters and hempcrete, are bio-based, significantly reducing material inflow, waste, and CO2 emissions.
early in the process made adoption easier. “We got deeply involved with every project, expanding our role beyond design. We became material consultants, organized workshops, produced our own materials through testing and prototyping, and trained contractors on how to use them,” says De Cooman.
In Belgium alone, about 40 million tons of earth are dumped or reused as landfill each year. BC taps into this waste stream, transforming it into beautiful, local, carbon-neutral, zero-waste products such as clay plaster, earth blocks, and prefab rammed earth. “It was never about maximum profit,” De Cooman adds. “We never hold back knowledge. Instead, we hope that many companies like ours emerge across Europe, rather than us becoming the biggest or most profitable.”
But is BC’s approach scalable to larger projects? “We are currently finding that out,” says De Cooman. BC recently completed its two largest projects to date: transforming a train depot in Arles, a city in southern France, into a design and research workshop for the Luma Foundation and converting former gendarmerie barracks in Brussels into a vibrant mixed-
use quarter. These projects demonstrate how fully they have developed their methods. They start by scanning the surroundings for waste streams or sustainable materials, and adapting their designs accordingly. In Brussels, they primarily used salvaged bricks, hempcrete bricks, and clay plaster. In Arles, their most complex project yet, they incorporated waste from two nearby quarries and a recycling plant, as well as fibers and aggregates discarded by the local sunflower industry. After extensive testing and prototyping, they identified six waste products suitable for building: rammed earth, compressed earth blocks, earth mortar, acoustical earth plaster, algae plaster, and crushed roof tiles repurposed as terrazzo flooring.
The designers are already knee-deep in new projects, including the transformation of a 200,000-square-foot urban block in Brussels for a private developer. “Some real estate developers became interested when they saw we could handle larger-scale projects,” says De Cooman. For BC, this is another test of how far it can expand its methods. “We are very curious. If we want to maximize our impact on the building industry, this is the next logical step for us.”
Will BC change the industry, or will the industry change them? De Cooman smiles, “We will see.” M
Building with unfired earth is carbon neutral, waste free, and endlessly reusable. It leverages scientific advancements for scalable, sustainable construction while enhancing indoor air quality, temperature regulation, and acoustic comfort—all without toxins or VOCs
Designers Shani Nahum, Pauline van Dongen, Yvonne Mak, and Mireille Steinhage are imagining a future where solar textiles are the norm.
By Jaxson Stone
01
SHANI NAHUM
Nahum is a multidisciplinary designer who integrates graphic design, product design, and textiles into her work. Developed as her master’s thesis in the conceptual textile design program at Germany’s Burg Giebichenstein
Kunsthochschule Halle, The Boiling Purple is a collection of five beach towels that highlight ultraviolet radiation’s impact on the present, past, and future.
02
YVONNE MAK
Mak is an Amsterdambased designer who creates work that offer “surreal twists on everyday icons.” Her work, Imprint, was featured at Dutch Design Week 2024 by Isola Design.
03
PAULINE VAN DONGEN
Van Dongen is a Dutch fashion designer who specializes in smart textiles. She is currently developing SUNTEX, a lightweight, energy harvesting textile that can be used in the built environment.
04
MIREILLE STEINHAGE
Dutch product designer Steinhage aims to find simple solutions for complex environmental problems. She is currently working on scaling up her Solar Blanket, a project that developed out of her master’s thesis at Central Saint Martins.
Four Creatives Harnessing the Energy of the Sun
THE NUCLEAR FUSION REACTIONS at the core of the sun convert four million tons of matter into energy every second— and only a small fraction of the energy produced by the hot, blazing star is needed to support all life on Earth. Humans, of course, have been developing mythological, religious, economic, and artistic narratives about the sun since the beginning of time. The gaseous object lies beneath the very concept of timekeeping itself. But while the sun has come to symbolize hope, creativity, and joy, in the light of today’s climate crisis, its all-encompassing, life-giving power and untamable heat can also evoke destruction and despair.
“Solar energy needs a new narrative,” says German textile de signer Shani Nahum, “one that moves away from the traditional focus on efficiency and the payback time of blue solar panels.” Her project The Boiling Purple aims to shift that understanding.
Evolving out of her master’s thesis work at University of Art & Design Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle, The Boiling Purple is a textile collection consisting of five beach towels made of Econyl recycled nylon and Sunkolor, a material that changes from white to purple when exposed to high ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Incorporating the global UV index’s semiotic color scale and sun-inspired circular elements, Nahum turns a functional item into a poetic commentary on climate change, warning users of harmful UV exposure while also providing a reminder of the sun’s powerful duality as both life giver and potential threat.
“UV radiation is one of the sun’s most significant characteristics, but it is naturally invisible to the human eye and other senses. UV radiation has both immediate and long-term effects on the skin and eyes, as well as environmental implications,” Nahum explains. “While The Boiling Purple doesn’t directly involve solar technology, it
does engage with the sun’s properties as a central element, using them to provoke thought and raise awareness.”
Nahum is just one of many contemporary designers creating textiles that shed light on the climate crisis. For Amsterdambased Yvonne Mak, textiles are also a medium for provoking thought and inspiring action. Her surreal series of curtains titled Imprint captures “how the sun’s impact, much like climate change, leaves an indelible impression on objects and landscapes, reminding us of the passage of time and the consequences of our actions,” she wrote in an artist statement for Dutch Design Week 2024. Her sun-bleached curtains mimic the slow fading of a textile, creating an illusion of windows left in place for decades. The effect is haunting and evocative, inviting viewers to consider how climate change gradually impacts our lives. “The curtains serve as a metaphor for the way climate change slowly intrudes into and alters our
THE BOILING PURPLE
Designed by Tel Aviv–based textile designer Shani Nahum, The Boiling Purple is a towel collection designed to raise awareness of the health risks posed by ultraviolet radiation.
IMPRINT
Yvonne Mak’s Imprint is a surreal series of textile installations that explore the gradual and often unseen impacts of climate change.
everyday lives. As global temperatures rise, homes and living spaces increasingly need to adapt to the changing environment.”
While Mak’s and Nahum’s work evokes symbolic and data-driven narratives, other designers are focusing on blending expression and function, integrating solar energy into textiles themselves. Dutch designer Pauline van Dongen notes, “Textiles have such a tactile, human quality, and combining that with solar energy allows us to reimagine what a ‘functional’ material can be—something that’s not just technical but also expressive, inviting, and imaginative.”
Her studio’s project SUNTEX is a lightweight, woven, solar textile designed to transform facades, awnings, and tents into energy-generating surfaces. The new material, developed with Ut recht, Netherlands–based design and engineering consultancy Tentech, is made by weaving thin, organic photovoltaic (OPV) film panels and high tensile-strength yarn, creating a flexible, modular material that can harvest solar energy while providing passive sun shading. “I imagine a future where materials like SUNTEX transform the way we see and experience energy in our surroundings—where buildings and public spaces come alive with textiles that shade, cool, and generate power, while
SUNTEX
Developed by Studio Pauline van Dongen and Tentech, SUNTEX is a lightweight and water-resistant solar textile that can be used to clad and cool buildings. The studio is currently at work on realizing a full-scale pavilion for the city of Arnhem to spread awareness about urban heat stress and demonstrate the material’s uses—from shading structures to facades.
adding to the aesthetic value of the space,” van Dongen says. The studio is currently at work on realizing a full-scale pavilion with the material, set to be completed this summer.
Harnessing solar power can improve thermal comfort not only at the building scale but also at body scale. Dutch product designer Mireille Steinhage has created a heated blanket designed to address the needs of people in emergency situations. Solar Blanket uses the sun’s energy to generate warmth and electricity, providing comfort for those struggling with energy costs or homelessness. Modular pleating allows the blanket to adapt for individual or group use, while a built-in solar panel charges a portable power bank, enabling users to stay warm and power other devices off the grid. While the blanket was designed for the U.K. market, Steinhage sees enormous potential for it to be scaled and produced for disaster relief efforts worldwide. “By allocating a percentage of sales for charitable aid, we aim to donate blankets to charities, allowing the purchasing power of this group to help others in need,” she explains.
Together, these products and projects weave a story of how solar textiles are transforming climate-responsive design. “These developments feel like a shift
toward making solar energy more personal, more integrated into our environments and our lives,” van Dongen notes. “In the long run, I believe that designing with the sun can make us a humbler part of nature again, rather than ruling over it in a human-centric way. Solar textiles should go beyond just solving technical problems; they should evoke curiosity, inspire creativity, and invite interaction.” M
Designer Mireille Steinhage’s Solar Blanket is a solar-powered heated blanket that was developed as part of her master’s program at London’s Central Saint Martins. In her work, Steinhage explores ways of making renewable energy more accessible and affordable.
SOLAR BLANKET
Sources
Discover the people, manufacturers, and suppliers behind the projects featured in the Spring 2025 issue of METROPOLIS
MAYO CLINIC ANNA-MARIA AND STEPHEN KELLEN BUILDING (HDR Wraps Mayo Clinic Lab in a Dynamic Double-Layered Facade, p. 44)
• Client: Mayo Clinic
• Design Architect: HDR
• Architect of Record: HDR
• Interiors: HDR
• AVI Consultant (Audio Visual/Data/ Information): Mayo Media Services
Hout brings the soft warmth of wood to the modern workplace. The uniquely curved armrests, constructed in FSC® certified wood, echo the curvature of the seat to bring both visual harmony and physical comfort. Available as a lounge chair and side chair, Hout was designed with sustainability in mind, minimizing the use of materials while achieving maximum impact. keilhauer.com/hout
Kimball International
Since 1999, WaveWorks has been fundamental in creating inspiring spaces where connections happen. As workstyles have evolved, the WaveWorks portfolio has expanded and flexed to meet a spectrum of needs from individual workspaces to shared and collaborative areas. New enhancements to the series include wall panels and shelves, smaller storage options, new trestle legs and planters, and additional height adjustment options. kimballinternational.com
Learn more about the topics you’re interested in as you explore the Spring 2025 issue of METROPOLIS.
SUSTAINABILITY, WELLNESS & EQUITY
PEOPLE & PRACTICE
ART AND CRAFT
28 Studio ThusThat Gives Industrial By-Products a Second Life
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
108 Justin Garrett Moore Connects Place and Memory
DESIGN TRENDS
42 B Corps Are Creating Residential Products for a More Equitable Planet
82 Form Meets Function in Kitchen and Bath
DIVERSITY AND REPRESENTATION
108 Justin Garrett Moore Connects Place and Memory
INNOVATORS
128 Four Creatives Harnessing the Energy of the Sun
REAL ESTATE AND INVESTMENT
86 Alloy Aims to Decarbonize Real Estate
ADAPTIVE REUSE
96 Barbara Buser’s Reuse Revolution
AIR QUALITY
44 HDR Wraps Mayo Clinic Lab in a Dynamic Double-Layered Facade
54 Payette’s Ragon Building Redefines Biomedical Research Spaces
BIOPHILIA
54 Payette’s Ragon Building Redefines Biomedical Research Spaces
CIRCULARITY IN PRODUCTS
80 4 Manufacturers Lead the Way in Sustainable Surfaces
96 Barbara Buser’s Reuse Revolution
116 Ken De Cooman Is a New Kind of Architect
CLIMATE ADAPTATION
30 Study Architects Designs a Water-Saving Desert Retreat
70 The Rice School of Architecture’s Cannady Hall Features a Multifunctional Ceramic Rain Screen
EMBODIED CARBON
20 Sustainability News Updates for Q1 2025
48 Studio De Zwarte Hond Delivers a Circular Renovation and Expansion for Leiden University
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
32 A Sustainable Expansion Revitalizes a Century-Old Quebec Retreat
44 HDR Wraps Mayo Clinic Lab in a Dynamic Double-Layered Facade
EQUITABLE DESIGN
62 Snøhetta Designs an Inclusive Children’s Museum in El Paso
108 Justin Garrett Moore Connects Place and Memory
HEALTHY MATERIALS
54 Payette’s Ragon Building Redefines Biomedical Research Spaces
76 3 Key Considerations for Specifying Sustainable Ceramic Tiles
80 4 Manufacturers Lead the Way in Sustainable Surfaces
INCLUSIVE DESIGN
62 Snøhetta Designs an Inclusive Children’s Museum in El Paso
NET ZERO
48 Studio De Zwarte Hond Delivers a Circular Renovation and Expansion for Leiden University
86 Alloy Aims to Decarbonize Real Estate
RENEWABLE ENERGY
128 Four Creatives Harnessing the Energy of the Sun
RESILIENCE
30 Study Architects Designs a Water-Saving Desert Retreat
RESPONSIBLE RENOVATION
32 A Sustainable Expansion Revitalizes a Century-Old Quebec Retreat
48 Studio De Zwarte Hond Delivers a Circular Renovation and Expansion for Leiden University
SUPPLY CHAINS
74 How to Specify Stone Sustainably
76 3 Key Considerations for Specifying Sustainable Ceramic Tiles
SUSTAINABILITY COMMITMENTS
20 Sustainability News Updates for Q1 2025
42 B Corps Are Creating Residential Products for a More Equitable Planet
74 How to Specify Stone Sustainably
TECHNOLOGY & RESEARCH
BIOBASED MATERIALS
24 Ronald Rael’s Solution to the Housing Crisis? Muddy Robots
116 Ken De Cooman Is a New Kind of Architect
CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS
24 Ronald Rael’s Solution to the Housing Crisis? Muddy Robots
28 Studio ThusThat Gives Industrial By-Products a Second Life
70 The Rice School of Architecture’s Cannady Hall Features a Multifunctional Ceramic Rain Screen
74 How to Specify Stone Sustainably
84 7 Products for Better Building
96 Barbara Buser’s Reuse Revolution
INNOVATIVE CONSTRUCTION
24 Ronald Rael’s Solution to the Housing Crisis? Muddy Robots
30 Study Architects Designs a Water-Saving Desert Retreat
32 A Sustainable Expansion Revitalizes a Century-Old Quebec Retreat
44 HDR Wraps a Mayo Clinic Lab in a Dynamic Double-Layered Facade
116 Ken De Cooman Is a New Kind of Architect
Introducing our new family of Stone Textures that capture the beauty of natural stone. Inspired by nature, designed for felt, and stunningly unique.
