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Architecture

Houston's futuristic Astrodome is home of the first skybox and an animated scoreboard,150 yards wide.

Remembering the Astrodome, the Eighth Wonder of the World

Fifty years after its grand opening, the spectre of the Houston stadium still looms large

This particularly charming street in Colmar, France looks straight out of a fairy tale.

The 11 Most Endearing Small Streets Worth Visiting

These tiny corridors around the world invite you in with their charm and surprising level of bustle

A TV tower on Burnt Island in Fife, Scotland, reaches just 410 feet -- but others of its kind top 2,000

Cool Finds

The Fourth Tallest Man-made Structure Isn’t a Building at All

TV towers and power station chimneys are some less well-known record-breakers in the history of super-tall structures

This Dutch Wind Wheel Is Part Green Tech Showcase, Part Architectural Attraction

A giant structure proposed in Rotterdam puts cutting-edge energy tech inside a rotating observation wheel, with room for a hotel and apartments

Someone Built a Bold New Font Out of Buildings

Created out of aerial photography, you’ll never guess where the “O” comes from

Exterior of Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings Nominated for Unesco World Heritage Status

It’s the first time the United States has nominated works of modern architecture

Amager Resource Center, Copenhagen, Denmark. Under construction. This power plant, which turns household waste into electricity, is the cleanest in the world. "Normally, you want to be as far away from the power plant as possible because of the toxins, but in this case you literally have fresh mountain air on the roof of the building. Since we have snow in Denmark, but we don't have hills, we made the roof into a big ski slope," Ingels explains. The chimney puffs a giant steam ring each time a ton of carbon dioxide is emitted.

Designing Buildings For Hot Climates, Cold Ones and Everything in Between

A decade’s worth of sustainable projects by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his firm, BIG, are now on display at the National Building Museum

New Research

The Taj Mahal Gardens Have a Special Relationship to the Solstice

On the day the sun climbs the highest in the sky, careful alignments within the gardens and buildings of the beautiful mausoleum appear

The soaring choir at Beauvais Cathedral was first constructed in the 1200s.

New Research

Europe’s Great Gothic Cathedrals Weren’t Built Just of Concrete

The designers and builders of Europe’s great Gothic cathedrals weren’t actually so innovative

(Clockwise from top left) Katrin Macmillan, Ashutosh Saxena, Richard Lunt and Horace Luke are hard at work on exciting new projects.

Eight Innovators to Watch in 2015

From food science and robotics to solar tech and sustainable architecture, these folks are poised to do big things

After the devastating 2011 tsunami, the Japanese government spent billions of zen to build this sea wall along the Sendai Coastline. It's almost 20 miles long.

In an Era of Superstorms, This Exhibit Captures Our Shifting Relationship with the Earth’s Rising Seas

“Sink or Swim” shows how we’re learning to be smarter and more resilient in our response to increasingly unpredictable oceans and rivers

One of the hapless burglars in "Home Alone" unwittingly stepped on Christmas ornaments placed by Kevin

Cool Finds

Architects Analyze Kevin McCallister’s “Home Alone” Booby Traps

Overanalyze Home Alone in every way possible — and it still stands up, all these years later

New Research

Pollution Is Turning the Taj Mahal Brown

Workers must periodically cover the Taj Mahal in clay to remove the pollutants stuck to its marble walls

Sunrise at Red Rocks Park in Colorado

When America Invested in Infrastructure, These Beautiful Landmarks Were the Result

Explore eight of the Works Progress Administration’s most impressive structures.

The Hunger Games cornucopia from the first movie.

The Architecture of the Hunger Games’ Horns of Plenty

What inspired the architectural object at the center of the Hunger Games arena?

None

Cool Finds

Someone Just Bought an Entire Connecticut Ghost Town for $1.2 Million

Johnsonville was once a 62-acre mill village

Located on the Rhode River of the Chesapeake bay, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center's new laboratory building emits 37 percent less CO2 and cuts energy costs by 42 percent.

A New Environmental Science Lab Now Walks the Walk, Cutting Its Overall Emissions by 37 Percent

With geothermal heating, on-site water reclamation and a host of other energy saving technologies, the Smithsonian’s first LEED-Platinum building opens

The Annie Pfeiffer Chapel on the campus of Florida Southern College

Rebuilding a Frank Lloyd Wright Classic With 3-D Printed Blocks

A 70-year-old chapel on the campus of a Florida university is being restored thanks to new, innovative technology

A corridor leading to the infectious disease ward at Ellis Island's defunct hospital.

Cool Finds

Ellis Island Is Opening an Abandoned Hospital to the Public for the First Time in 60 Years

There are 29 abandoned buildings in all, several of which visitors can explore

Universal Studios in Hollywood has a stunt show and set inspired by the 1995 film Waterworld.

Anthropocene

10 Architectural Schemes That Could Help Us Adapt To Rising Seas

From a floating house to a mobile city shaped like a giant lilypad, designers offer up some wild solutions for a wetter future

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