Cool Hunting

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Capsule Video: Billes Products International Design Contest 2008
For the inaugural video in our new series of mini-episodes, we're pleased to present a document of the New Orleans-based Billes Architecture's first-ever design competition. We were honored to be invited as a judge and, as you'll see in the video, the results are nothing less than stunning and—perhaps—harbingers of the design future....

Reinventing Grand Army Plaza
by Tamara WarrenGrand Army Plaza, the main entrance to Brooklyn's Prospect Park, sprawls across 11 acres in a landscaped oval. With regal statues and a sparkling fountain, it's majestic and — its function as a busy traffic circle separates the cultural landmark from the surrounding pedestrian sidewalks — inaccessible. Reinventing Grand Army Plaza is an exhibit that highlights the visions of 30 top entrants...

Carmody Groarke: Osnaburgh Street Pavilion
Carmody Groarke, a young British firm, just won an Architecture Foundation competition to design a new pavilion in Regent's Place, London. The firm is a finalist in BD's Young Architect Practice of the Year, and designed the pavilion to be made of a series of vertical rods that reflect light during the day and emit light at night. The design is further enhanced by...

Architecture That Defies Death
The architect-couple Arakawa and Madelaine Gins who are responsible for the Reversible Destiny Lofts have a lot more in their ouevre of conceptual fountain-of-life-inspired structures. After we covered the whimsical apartment building they designed last week, Tropolism alerted us to an overview of the pair's "bigger and more outrageous projects" that appeared on Tropolism last year. The piece includes the life-enhancing apartment buildings, the...