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Inside the theater skylights and broad windows filter light into public spaces, such as the café seen here.
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Designed by Amsterdam-based UNStudio, the Theatre de Stoep in the Dutch town of Spijkenisse encompasses a large auditorium and secondary performance hall. But the show starts before one crosses the threshold: A swooping façade of white aluminum panels is punctuated by porthole-like openings, behind which glow purple LED lights, lending the exterior a dramatic air all its own.
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Torquing panels of white ETFE (an architectural plastic) mark the façade of San Mames Stadium in Bilbao, Spain, designed by ACXT. This gleaming new sporting center replaces a 100-year-old arena, which was known to Iberian soccer fans as the “cathedral of football.” The new stadium accommodates more than 53,000 fans.
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At night San Mames Stadium’s plastic panels are illuminated with red and white lights, the colors of the Athletic Club of Bilbao.
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El Blok, a new boutique hotel designed by Puerto Rico–based Fuster + Architects, is located in the small town of Esperanza, on the popular vacation island of Vieques. Glass-reinforced-concrete panels punctured at irregular intervals by small ovoid cutouts adorn the curvilinear façade, which mimics the shape of the nearby shoreline.
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Light filters through the perforations in the concrete panels, creating a dynamic interplay of light and shadow.
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This new Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo’s fashionable Ginza shopping district, designed by Jun Aoki & Associates, takes a subtler approach to storefront bling than some of its glittering neighbors. Here, LEDs housed in metal cylinders embedded in the store’s textured façade emit a golden glow.
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Designed by Tighe Architecture and John V. Mutlow Architects, the La Brea Housing complex comprises 32 affordable apartments for formerly homeless LGBT youth and people living with disabilities or HIV/AIDS. Set in West Hollywood, the building breaks the mold for affordable multifamily housing by making a bold design statement: Perforated metal panels and ribbonlike decorative elements on the façade shade units and their balconies while adding a bit of visual intrigue.
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The pearl-hued façade of the Louis Vuitton Matsuya Ginza.
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With a Dr. Seuss–reminiscent façade marked by large round windows, the OFIS Architects–designed Borisov Arena in Barysau, Belarus, cuts a striking, whimsical figure. Its graphically perforated metal skin wraps around the four-story steel skeleton, offering views into the stadium from outside the massive structure.