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The heaviest object in this Saint-Denis bakery is the one built to look like it isn't there. https://www.urdesignmag.com...
28/08/2026

The heaviest object in this Saint-Denis bakery is the one built to look like it isn't there. https://www.urdesignmag.com/mur-mur-suspends-the-counter-at-what-the-bread-bakery-in-saint-denis/

MUR . MUR aligned the serving counter of WHAT THE BREAD leg for leg with the structural concrete columns of the building. From the sidewalk the eye collapses the two into a single vertical and registers only the horizontal plane above them, so the slab reads as unsupported. As the studio put it, the counter is the masterpiece of the project. A 120-square-meter bakery where the lightness is applied to the densest object in the room.

Two notches cut out of the same brick mass, facing opposite directions. A car goes in one, sculpture in the other. https...
27/08/2026

Two notches cut out of the same brick mass, facing opposite directions. A car goes in one, sculpture in the other. https://www.urdesignmag.com/casa-loma-residence-studioac-toronto-sculpture-court/

StudioAC designed Casa Loma Residence on a Toronto site backing onto the historic Casa Loma stables. Both outdoor rooms are subtracted from the volume rather than added to it, so they belong to the building rather than to the yard. The symmetry of the two voids is what makes their contents read as a decision.

A press brake arrived at the workshop, and the machine ended up defining the project rather than serving it. https://www...
26/08/2026

A press brake arrived at the workshop, and the machine ended up defining the project rather than serving it. https://www.urdesignmag.com/sharp-kayak-guillaume-bloget-folded-aluminum/

Guillaume Bloget designed Sharp during a residency at Rhizome, in France's Morvan region, working in folded aluminum sheet and cork. The hull carries no internal frame: a double wall, formed by the folds themselves, gives the shell its rigidity and makes the kayak unsinkable without any added flotation. Most small craft separate skin from structure and pay for both. Here the two are the same operation, performed once.

In an attic where daylight was never going to be enough, the ceiling became the brightest surface in the apartment. http...
25/08/2026

In an attic where daylight was never going to be enough, the ceiling became the brightest surface in the apartment. https://www.urdesignmag.com/mimosa-apartment-treivas-suzdal-attic-renovation/

Treivas Architecture Bureau painted the restored timber ceiling of Mimosa Apartment lemon yellow and held the walls at neutral beige below eye level, so the color reads as a light source rather than a finish. The 73 square meter (786 square feet) apartment sits under the roof of a 19th century building in Suzdal, a town whose center is UNESCO-protected for its medieval architecture. Two of the ten windows are cut into the roof itself, which is where the yellow does its most direct work.

A bridge in Tongzhou still carries pedestrians and cyclists — while diners sit a few feet away behind mirrored glass. ht...
22/08/2026

A bridge in Tongzhou still carries pedestrians and cyclists — while diners sit a few feet away behind mirrored glass. https://www.urdesignmag.com/luminous-tunnel-dos-restaurant-mars-studio-beijing/

MARS Studio carved 108 square metres (1,163 sq ft) out of an active highway underpass in Beijing's Tongzhou District, splitting the space with a wall of mirrored glass instead of closing it off entirely. One half stays a public walkway; the other becomes Luminous Tunnel – Dos Restaurant, commissioned by Intime Group for a site inside the future Tongzhou High Line Park. Arched structural elements and the bridge's original concrete frame the dining room's glow from outside — the corridor never stopped being a corridor.

OMA's first 100% affordable housing project in the US comes down to one unglamorous move: multiplying corners. https://w...
21/08/2026

OMA's first 100% affordable housing project in the US comes down to one unglamorous move: multiplying corners. https://www.urdesignmag.com/730-stanyan-by-oma-affordable-housing-san-francisco/

Completed with San Francisco-based Y.A. studio, 730 Stanyan delivers 160 permanently affordable homes at the entrance to Golden Gate Park by maximizing the number of corner units in the plan — more perimeter, more windows, more apartments that read as generous rather than compact. Over half the building, 82 of 160 units, goes to family-sized apartments, with three-bedrooms averaging 93 square meters (1,000 square feet).

In Vienna, the bathroom became a shortcut, not a dead end. https://www.urdesignmag.com/asap-zt-pitro-sammer-chromatic-ch...
21/08/2026

In Vienna, the bathroom became a shortcut, not a dead end. https://www.urdesignmag.com/asap-zt-pitro-sammer-chromatic-chambers-vienna-apartment/

ASAP - Hoog Pitro Sammer reorganized Chromatic Chambers' circulation without adding a single new wall, giving each of six rooms its own saturated color instead — pink kitchen, indigo bathroom, petrol-blue living room among them. Material transitions in walnut, red marble, and tinted mirrored glass mark where one chromatic chapter ends and the next begins.

A line of polished concrete threads this Kentish Town terrace straight into its garden. https://www.urdesignmag.com/falk...
21/08/2026

A line of polished concrete threads this Kentish Town terrace straight into its garden. https://www.urdesignmag.com/falkland-road-studio-163-architects-kentish-town/

Studio 163 Architects paired a full-width rear extension with a whole-house refurbishment for a couple raising two young children, using a narrow palette of concrete, oak, brick and timber to lift the cramped ground floor without losing its warmth. The same concrete floor that runs through the kitchen folds upward outside to form built-in planters, while an oak threshold with hidden cupboards marks the seam between old house and new work so quietly it barely registers as a seam at all.

Four roof sheds shaped like gills ventilate this Montfermeil nursery school without rising above the existing building's...
21/08/2026

Four roof sheds shaped like gills ventilate this Montfermeil nursery school without rising above the existing building's ridge line. https://www.urdesignmag.com/bien-urbain-montfermeil-nursery-school-gill-roof/

Paris-based Bien Urbain built the 745-square-meter extension from stone quarried ninety minutes from the site, using solid blocks rather than a facing to tie the new volume to the heritage town center around it. The gill roof pulls daylight and air through every classroom, while the school stays connected to two courtyards through a hinge at ground level.

Zly Architekt hides a 25-person sauna inside a shipping container in Bratislava. https://www.urdesignmag.com/pixxla-saun...
20/08/2026

Zly Architekt hides a 25-person sauna inside a shipping container in Bratislava. https://www.urdesignmag.com/pixxla-sauna-zly-architekt-bratislava/

By housing thermal capacity within an anonymous industrial shell, the Slovakian practice turns a simple utilitarian box into a quiet spatial experience. Inside, dark timber cladding absorbs interior light reflections, directing full visual weight toward the central wood-burning stove and a single floor-to-ceiling glass wall framing the surrounding landscape. The structure maintains an understated presence when parked outdoors, proving how minimal material moves can redefine temporary architecture.

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