March 31, 2016

25 Big Ideas: It’s Time to Consider Alternate Directions, Whether Inside or Out

Ask a jeweler what big means, and a glorified pebble can turn out to be preciously big. Ask a farmer, and he might tell you about bushels of hay or acres of land. If one consults a cosmologist, everyone else’s concept of size would instantly be shot out of the sky.

Where the marriage of Big and Ideas is concerned, however, designers are definitely contenders for the top profession. That’s partly because it’s their constant responsibility not only to devise uniquely new and original thoughts but also to figure out how to scale them up—or down. It’s time to consider all directions, and we scaled up our March issue to feature 25 big ideas, wherever they occur. Step right on in, and get design super-sized!

1. Passivhaus Near Dusseldorf Offers Joint Occupancy to 3 Institutions

2. Bluarch Adopts Professor Lackner’s Technology For CO2-Absorbing Tower

3. Latitude Studio Designs Beijing’s First Organic Supermarket

4. Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox Inspires Prestwood Infant School

5. The Client’s Future Porsche Drives Jun Igarashi’s
House Design

6. Iowa Graduate Students Redesign Combat Outposts for the U.S. Military

7. Xpiral’s River Valley House in Spain Responds to Topography

8. Monasteries and Donald Judd Sculptures Inspire Swiss Skin-Care Clinic by Ralph Germann

9. Repurposed Oak Doors Clad Encore Heureux’s Pavillon Circulaire in Paris

10. Austin Bouldering Project Brings a Friendly Industrial Climbing Gym to Texas

11. JGMA’s Latino Student Center Bounces Highway Noise and Manipulates Sunlight

12. Disused Railyard Welcomes Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum

13. John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects Converts UCLA Garage into Airy Fitness Center

14. Utopus Updates Peru Visitor Center With Stunning Bamboo Latticework

15. And-Either-Or Teams With Op.AL for Ecologically-Minded Installation in Texas

16. STUDIOS Architecture Fills Neustar Office With Data-Inspired Artwork by Laurie Frick

17. A Tokyo Hostel Surrounds Bunk Beds with 1,700 Books

18. Stripes, Dots, and Zigzags Emboss Nendo Founder Oki Sato’s ChocolaTextureBars

19. Bernardes Architecture Brings Buttoned-Down Design to Ipanema Office Building

20. Faux Airplane Fuselage Surrounds Conference Room at Kayak Software Corporation

21. A 200-Year-Old Olive Tree Becomes the Focal Point of a Guesthouse in Spain

22. Bullfights and Tangos Inspired Lim Seungmo’s Boutique Hotel Room Design in Seoul

23. Id Designs Tokyo Pop-Up Showcasing Sony’s Life Space UX Projection TVs and Speakers

24. Make Architecture Connects Costa Mesa’s Pacific Amphitheatre to Neighboring Fairground

25. HNTB Plants Base of Air-Traffic Control Towers in San Francisco International Airport Terminal

> See more from the March 2016 issue of Interior Design

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