by Zach Mortice

From this perspective, Redshift’s list of the most innovative architecture documents a different ethos. The concerns demonstrated here (housing inequality, the future of the global economy, the elastic nature of “innovation”) are not going away. They may even be amplified by the changing political tides that will have to wait a few years to see their expression in architecture. Rest assured, it’s coming.

1. Northerly Island by SmithGroupJJR/Studio Gang Architects (Chicago).

Technically completed in late 2015, this former airport-turned-wetland-peninsula took a while to grow into itself. But by summer 2016, Northerly Island had matured into an urban wildlife habitat like no other: a reparative landscape on Lake Michigan framing a great city’s skyline amid rolling hills, marshlands, prairie, and the call of ducks and herons. It’s a stunning example of adaptive reuse, using a landscape-architecture toolset to repair disused infrastructure.

2. T3 by Michael Green Architecture (Minneapolis).

Wood-structured high-rises fight climate change by sequestering carbon over the building’s lifetime, using wood beams that are lighter than steel but just as strong. Made of mass timber, Michael Green Architecture’s seven-story, 220,000-square-foot T3 office building became the largest contemporary wood-structured building in North America this year. The warm, wood-grained interior would’ve baffled the steel-and-glass modernists—the columns and room spanning-beams nod to tradition while resurrecting wood as a new standard-bearer for progressive design.

3. Starter Home by the Office of Jonathan Tate (New Orleans).

Home ownership, the middle class that has relied on it to build wealth, and the traditional starter home are all on the wane. So Jonathan Tate’s first step in lowering barriers to entry was astoundingly simple: “The first thing we do,” he says, “is eliminate the embedded cost in the land.” Tate custom-designs homes for the discarded, irregularly shaped lots that all cities have: disused parking lots, alleys, slivers of land next to waterways. These houses could be a single cross-section of a full McMansion, each uniquely suited to “leftovers” tossed aside by the real estate market.

4. Via 57 West by BIG (New York City).

Rising from a rectangular base, this multifaceted addition to Manhattan’s skyline, by one of the world’s wittiest and most experimental architecture firms, gets its unusual shape by lifting up one corner of the building to a 450-foot peak. The building hybridizes the typical high-rise profile with a European-style perimeter courtyard apartment block. With New York beset by champagne flute-thin apartment towers for a mostly anonymous globe-trotting elite, Via 57 West is a more public-minded project that works at the scale of the street.

5. Carmel Place by nArchitects (New York City).

Carmel Place is New York’s first micro-unit apartment building, a much-theorized building type that’s mostly illegal due to zoning restrictions. nArchitects’ project—made of 65 steel-framed modular pieces stacked like LEGOs, with a classic New York skyscraper setback profile—required zoning exceptions, both for the minimum unit size and maximum density of units. But its studio apartments, as small as 260 square feet, could model a pressure-release valve for New York and other cities where housing is scarce and space is at a premium.

6. Jeddah Tower by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).

Even in an age of rapidly multiplying cloud-piercers, everything about the Jeddah Tower is superlative. Currently under construction, the 3,280-foot skyscraper will be the tallest in the world by more than 500 feet, and its observation deck on the 157th floor will be the highest in existence. It may reference desert-plant fronds, but what’s most fascinating about Jeddah Tower is how vulnerable the ultra-high-rise typology looks today. Its best patrons (Middle Eastern oil regimes and China) are beset by low oil prices and economies built on infrastructure that has expanded too quickly. In that light, this gilded crystalline refuge might be the final exclamation point at the end of architecture’s sky colonization.

7. Mercedes-Benz Stadium by HOK (Atlanta).

The design of sports stadia is a conservative game, more often concerned with conjuring up red-brick visions of yesteryear than blazing new paths. But HOK is building a $1.5 billion faceted glass and metal jewel for the Atlanta Falcons, forging new precedents for event architecture. Its signature feature is a retractable roof made of eight panels that open and shut like a camera lens. Its designers are forgoing a monolithic media wall and instead installing a 360-degree halo-shaped media screen that’s five stories tall and 1,100 feet long—triple the size of existing NFL stadium screens, according to Fast Company.

8. Cricket Shelter Farm by Terreform ONE (Brooklyn, NY).

Not many foodstuffs can beat crickets for their efficiency in converting energy into protein. And not many carbon-efficient food systems are as untouched by architectural investigation as insect farming. The Cricket Shelter Farm is a pavilion made from hundreds of plastic jugs connected via tubes. Its sculpted curves and composite cellular components advertise a brave new world of low-carbon protein production. The pavilion certainly has a strong aesthetic presence, but Terreform ONE’s Mitchell Joachim says most of his design concerns were purely functional. For Joachim, a baseline belief for all design is that “the form must embed desire,” which takes on unique meaning when you’re talking about a food source that has to overcome cultural taboos and some stomach-churning to get to the supermarket.

9. Botswana Innovation Hub by SHoP Architects (Gaborone, Botswana).

With its Botswana Innovation Hub, SHoP offers its vision of a developing-world collaborative research facility—one with a design that would be just as at home in Silicon Valley. The complex, created to support innovation and research, is arranged as a set of three long, rounded bars connected by walkways and landscaped courtyards. The mega-complex, now under construction, has the sleek profile of a starship—albeit one that can collect rainwater and solar energy, and will be covered in an “energy blanket” shaggy green roof.

10. Pennovation Center by HWKN (Philadelphia).

At the University of Pennsylvania’s Pennovation Center, you can code an app, build a robot, or sequence DNA. An all-purpose research and entrepreneurship hub, it’s accessible to both students and outside groups. Its labs and machine-fabrication workshops give second life to an old brick DuPont paint-research facility—a clever example of adaptive reuse. The north façade is made up of triangular steel and glass shards that frame a set of stadium-style stair seating for aspiring TED Talk-ers. “Many people talk about disruption, but most innovation comes out of evolution,” says HWKN’s Matthias Hollwich. “You take ideas and regenerate them with incredible new properties that lead into the future, and that’s what we did with the building.”

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This article originally appeared on Autodesk’s Redshift, a site dedicated to inspiring designers, engineers, builders, and makers.

Zach Mortice is an architectural journalist based in Chicago.

The post Tall, Green, and Global: 10 of the Most Innovative Architecture Projects of 2016 appeared first on Archipreneur.

This week’s interview is with Marc Kushner, FAIA, Partner at New York architecture firm HWKN (Hollwich Kushner), and Cofounder of Architizer.

With portfolios from over 40,000 architecture firms worldwide, Architizer is today the largest database of architecture online – the ‘Facebook of architecture’, so to speak. In 2013, Marc launched the A+ Awards, an international awards program for architecture. But he didn’t stop there: at the beginning of this year, Marc launched his next innovation – Architizer Source – an online products marketplace for architects. His vision for it was that it could revolutionize architecture. Marc definitely has the means to achieve this: to help fund the national launch of this online tool, Architizer has secured $7 million in Series A funding in a round led by August Capital.

Marc just might be the very definition of an archipreneur! Keep reading to learn from an architect who built two very successful businesses, launched one of the largest awards programs for architecture, and now plans to completely revolutionize the industry. He is always one step ahead, and yet makes it all look so effortless.

I hope you enjoy the interview!

You first co-founded the architecture firm HWKN and later Architzer. What made you decide to partner up with Matthias Hollwich and start your own architecture firm? Was there a particular moment that sealed the decision for you?

Matthias and I knew each other for a few years and both found ourselves between jobs in the Spring of 2006. After sitting on a review together at Columbia GSAPP, we decided to enter a competition together. We lost – but it was an amazing experience. We just completely clicked. I was interviewing for a new position at the time and Matthias was only temporarily in NYC, but the magic in our collaboration was palpable to both of us and we immediately decided that we wanted to do more things together. It was a shotgun wedding – not much planning, just a mutual respect and admiration that we knew would lead to good things.

So what made you then decide to start Architizer? Could you tell us a little about your idea behind it?

We launched Architizer in 2009 with the goal of transforming how architects engage with the Internet. At the time, Facebook was growing and platforms like YouTube and Flickr were changing the way we share information. We looked around and wondered where the innovation for architects was.

How did you finance it?

We bootstrapped the launch; we’ve since taken financing from a group of NYC investors and, most recently, a Series A led by the Silicon Valley venture firm August Capital. We also have architects joining in. Gary Handel sits on the board and SHoP architects are our investors.

What is the business model for Architizer?

We sell business tools to building product manufacturers who rely on architects to choose products for construction. Architects control nearly $100 billion worth of product choices every year in the US – that makes our community very valuable.

Architizer started out as a side project for your firm. Now, its community consists of over 40,000 architecture firms and it can hardly be called a side business. Do you still find time to design as an architect?

I do – but it isn’t easy. The single greatest decision I have made in my professional career is partnering with Matthias Hollwich. We sat down together a few years ago and found a way to run Hollwich Kushner together as I continued to run Architizer. It is a relationship that requires a lot of faith and trust.

But you didn’t stop there, even though one would think handling two successful businesses might be enough. In 2013, you launched the A+ Awards and now, at the beginning of the year, Architizer Source. Could you tell us a little about your visions; why you created this tool?

I guess I am pretty restless! Source is the culmination of what we have been working on at Architizer – leveraging the huge buying power that is wrapped up in the architectural profession. Architects are, per capita, the nation’s largest group of shoppers. Our profession calls it ‘specifying’, but it is not more complicated than shopping. There is a huge disconnect between how much spending we control and how underserved we are by the tools for making our jobs easier.

Today, specifying is a nightmare of Google searching, phone calls with salespeople, lunch-and-learns, PDFs, and postage stamps. You know things are pretty f**ked up when stamps are involved! Everything we do springs from the basic observation that architects are powerful; we just need to unlock their value.

Architizer has been compared to Facebook. You said that Architizer Source could be doing for the architectural industry what Airbnb has done for accommodations, or Uber for taxis. So you’re planning to go global with this, and hope that architects all over the world will use it?

Of course! The Architizer community is truly international. Source will be for everyone.

I read that to help fund the national launch of Architizer Source, Architizer secured $7 million in Series A financing in a round led by August Capital. Wow! That’s the type of funding every startup dreams of! How did you achieve it?

We raised money by looking beyond the self-deprecation that pervades the architecture profession. I attend dozens of architecture events in a year, and that means that I have endured endless complaints about the perceived value of architecture — about how architects don’t make enough money, about how we aren’t respected. I can prattle on for pages about how important architects are to society, but sometimes dollars speak louder than words.

$570,000,000,000. That’s how much architects oversee in US construction every year. That is a very compelling figure to bring to Silicon Valley and you don’t need to #LookUp to understand it.

Are architects the better digital media entrepreneurs?

Digital media is the least of our concerns as a profession. We need innovation in every aspect of our profession – and innovative risk taking is the only way we are going to address the challenges we face.

I know Architizer Source is still in its beta version and so there is still more work to be done – but considering your speed in completing projects, what’s next for you?

I dream of starting an investment fund focused on the architectural profession.

Do you have any advice for “Archipreneurs” who are interested in starting their own business?

Figure out where the money is. As architects we aren’t trained to be hard-nosed about money, but, if you figure that out, you can accomplish great things. The amazing thing is that it is actually easier than most of the problems that we face in designing a building!

How do you see the future of the architectural profession? In which areas (outside of traditional practice) can you see major opportunities for up and coming developers and architects?

I see a profession that is completely different from the one we know today. Traditional practice is broken – I yearn to see solutions that we can’t even imagine today.

About Marc Kushner

Marc Kushner, AIA, is an architect with just one agenda: he wants you to love architecture. As Partner at progressive New York architecture firm HWKN (Hollwich Kushner) and Cofounder and CEO of Architizer, Marc is a celebrated designer and pioneer in the digital media industry, continually striving to find new ways to help the world not just like, but fall in love with architecture.

Architizer is the largest platform for professional architects online, and the most comprehensive database of the products and people behind the world’s best buildings. With acclaim from The New York Times, Inc. Magazine, and New York Magazine, Architizer has revolutionized the way architects communicate their work to the world and engage with the design industry since its launch in 2009.

With his business partner Matthias Hollwich, Marc also founded one of the most dynamic architecture firms to come out of New York in the past 50 years: HWKN. Continually developing projects that combine provocative design with commercial sustainability, HWKN’s work is regularly printed in publications such as Wallpaper* and The Wall Street Journal. In 2012, HWKN won MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Program with their project, WENDY, a 5,000 sq ft temporal project whose ‘personality’ was brought to life through direct interactions with the public and her cult digital media following on Facebook and Twitter.

Marc regularly presents on topics about the intersection between architecture and digital media, he has taught architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and has spoken at event conferences including TED, PSFK and GRID. He also serves on the board of +Pool.

The post Revolutionary Tools for the Architecture Industry: Marc Kushner on Architizer appeared first on Archipreneur.