Reynaers Aluminium US

Magdalene College Library / Niall McLaughlin Architects

Magdalene College’s New College Library, designed following a 2014 competition, replaces the cramped and outdated facilities of the adjacent Grade 1 Listed Pepys Building with a larger library that includes an archive and picture gallery. Situated along the boundary between the enclosed Master’s Garden and the more open Fellows’ Garden, the building extends the quadrangular layout established from the college’s monastic origins. Approached from Second Court through a small doorway beneath an old Yew tree, the design creates a journey that gradually rises toward light, with rooms, galleries, and niches offering varied reading experiences, culminating in views over the lawn toward the river. The library is organized on a logical lattice of interrelated elements: a regular grid of brick chimneys supports floors and book stacks while ventilating the building, and roof lanterns between groups of chimneys bring daylight into the interiors. This arrangement produces a natural hierarchy with narrow circulation zones and wider reading areas, reinforced by the distinction between load-bearing brick verticals and spanning engineered timber horizontals, forming an intuitive warp-and-weft pattern. Materiality and form draw from the context and college brief for durability and sustainability, reflecting older buildings’ load-bearing brick, timber floors, and gabled roofs, with brick chimneys and timber window tracery that will weather like stone. The design balances historic reference with modernity, incorporating passive ventilation strategies to reduce energy use and engineered timber to minimize embodied carbon.

ABW Office Building / RB Architects + Lang Benedek Associeted Architects

The concept of the office building of the concrete blocks manufacturer is based on three main principles - the central green atrium used as the main communication port, transparency and clear connection between the customers and employees of the company. Environmental principles of the passive standard were observed during the project stage as well during construction of the building. The levitating, transparent building on the triangular floorplan becomes the central architectural element of the production plant area, with top-quality background facilities for full-time and part-time employees and clients alike. The office part, built on lightweight platform, is supported by inclined steel pillars that emphasize the elegance of the building. So do rounded corners, and monochromatic materials (concrete, glass, steel). The indoor areas are lit from all sides, enabling the wheelchair-accessible supervision of all activities in the production plant. Technological facilities, fitted with modern technology, complies with the passive standard, including ventilation system with efficient heat recovery and extensive green roofs. Efficient heat recovery ventilation is important, allowing for a good indoor air quality and saving energy also in winter but also in summer time. For heating and cooling is used water/water heating pump. Cooling system is integrated in the concrete slabs. Space Heating Energy consumption is13 kWh per square meter of net space per year.

A House With A Hat / FELT

In this reconfiguration, FELT extends a detached single-family house near [Ghent](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/ghent) by adding a hat-shaped second story on top of the existing sixties bungalow. The new first floor with a diamond-shaped central hall accommodates three bedrooms and a bathroom. On the ground floor, the living spaces are diagonally connected. A double-height dining space with a barrel-vaulted ceiling playfully links the two floors and brings light into the heart of the house.

Eclipse house / I/O architects

Utterly introvert, this house is located on the last plot of a desired neighbourhood in the outskirts of [Sofia](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/sofia), Bulgaria. The complexity of the program confronts the size of the site thus determining the tree structure of the house. Each of the three stories differs in both size and concealment strategy. The vastest first story is underground yet naturally lit and directly connected to the street and the garden. The compressed and mostly open ground floor together with the small garden is hidden behind the hedge. The privacy and sunlight of the large upper floor are meticulously controlled by big scale sliding panels. Only the simple hovering pigmented zinc volume and the blind entrance are exposed to the street while the rest of the complex structure remains unrevealed. The spaces inside are integrated around the light of the central atrium and pierced by unexpected space connections. The reflective roof of the deep veranda brings back garden view to the interior. The linear underground space of the swimming pool has visual and physical contact with the garden while the bright garage is connected to the rest of the house through an under-stair periscope space.

Bushey Cemetery / Waugh Thistleton Architects

Bushey Cemetery is a 16-acre site of outstanding natural beauty situated within the meadows in London's green belt and is one of the most significant Jewish burial sites in the UK. Our extension of the cemetery was designed around the existing landscape. The buildings are very much part of their setting and, in 60 years when it is anticipated that the cemetery is fully occupied, the buildings will be returned to the earth, and the site to the green belt. Laid out along a north-south axis the buildings facilitate the movement of mourners. A timber colonnade forms the processional route to the prayer halls, which are entered from the west and exited to the east, before mourners are led towards the graveside. Two monolithic prayer halls, discretely embedded into a corner of the sloping site, are at the heart of the development. Built of rammed earth, this organic, locally sourced material defines the overall design and was chosen for its symbolic and practical sensitivity to the Jewish faith, echoing the traditional sentiment of the deceased being laid to rest in plain wooden caskets, 'returning to the earth'. This is an ancient building method that is natural, sustainable, durable and strong. Left exposed within the ceremonial spaces, the rammed earth creates a sombre, peaceful atmosphere. Oak panelling, larch glulam beams, earthen tiles and Corten steel doors complete the natural, tactile material palette. A linear reed bed and series of ponds and swathes define the edges of the cemetery, facilitating rainwater attenuation and encouraging the biodiversity of Bushey Cemetery's pastoral setting. On site for less than two years, the project has been a 10-year journey taken alongside the organisation's trustees, Jewish community and planners, requiring us to develop an understanding of the processional nature of the Jewish faiths' practice of burial.

45 East 7th