AD ’s 12 Most Anticipated Buildings of 2022
As we wrap up a year unlike any other, where a world still racked by a pandemic is now also feeling the effects of global supply chain issues and domestic scarcities, where climate change is proving disastrous for structures whose foundations put profits over safety and where our fundamental human rights to bodily choices and racial equality are being questioned in our courts, it can feel impossible to escape the doom and gloom news cycle. However, what tragedies often prompt are new ideas. And where new ideas affect us all is in the built environment.
It is impossible to disengage from architecture. Even in the most rural environment, structures and designs surround us; they form our most basic shelters and the places where we eat, work, play, and worship. During the last two years since the COVID-19 coronavirus was first discovered, there have been several shifts in the practice of building: Collectives like Design Advocates or WIP Collaborative have come together to help support underrepresented communities and each other, in turn; green design is moving away from buzzword territory and into a more thought-through conversation on embodied carbon (especially as the benefits of local manufacturing, materials, and labor have moved to the forefront of construction practices struck by state-of-emergency shortages); the global housing crisis became a topic of concern for all as stay-at-home mandates implied a home to stay in.
Addressing social issues long pushed beneath the surface brought architecture to a more thoughtful place. Though their fixes are not yet fully fledged, our global crises have sparked new curiosity about how the practice can help to achieve them. Big problems call for big, multidisciplinary solutions. These 14 inspiring designs are helping us look toward such a future.
Sandy Hook Memorial in Newtown, Connecticut, by SWA Group
Memorial-making has been on the minds of many more architects during the last two years, and, as always, its practice is a highly sensitive one. After a five-year approval process, global landscape, planning, and urban design firm SWA Group will unveil “The Clearing,” a landscape-based memorial for the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, located on a five-acre donated site in Newtown, Connecticut, on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy, December 14, 2022. Designed by two young members of the firm’s San Francisco studio, Daniel Affleck and Ben Waldo, the 1.8-acre memorial reflects a want to “acknowledge that the healing process does not end, but continues and grows,” says Affleck, a native of nearby suburb West Hartford. Comprised of three elements—a circling network of pathways, a central granite water basin inscribed with victims’ names and a young sycamore tree—the design is nonlinear, allowing visitors to choose their own peripatetic walk through a “flowering woodland” to the clearing where remembrance, reflection, and quiet contemplation can be had in the presence of nature.
Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by Fender Katsalidis
Currently topped out as the world’s second-tallest tower, Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is built on one of the most important historic sites in the capital city. The new architectural icon is located near the downtown Stadium Merdeka, where Malaysian independence was declared in 1957. Designed by Australian design studio Fender Katsalidis, the mixed-use hospitality, retail, and residential Merdeka 118 will stand at 118 stories when completed, rising to 2,227-feet-tall overall with its spire. It will also have a double-height observation deck, the tallest in Southeast Asia. “Achieving this height milestone is a welcome bonus,” says architect and firm founding partner Karl Fender. The building’s façade is a series of faceted windows, a reference to the patterns found in traditional Malaysian craft, while its base provides an entirely contemporary asset—a four-acre water park by Boston-based landscape firm Sasaki. This public area is also a permanent car-free zone for even greater access. “We feel incredibly proud to have contributed to the creation of this building,” Fender continues, “and its host of community assets which enrich one of the most culturally significant sites in Malaysia.”
Nanjing Zandai Himalayas Centre in Nanjing, China, by MAD Architects
Historically one of the four great ancient capitals of China, the now megacity of Nanjing is home to 9.3 million people and the new Zandai Himalayas Centre, a 6,027,790-square-foot (560,000-square-meter) multiuse complex of tower blocks, low-density buildings, public pathways, and green spaces. Architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects designed the new destination of commercial spaces, hotels, offices and residences to evoke the modern trope of a small-scale ski village surrounded by towering mountains. In the center of the Himalayas Centre compound are traditional low structures with pitched roofs that are integrated into a landscape of artificial hills and water features, while the soaring glass-and-metal buildings around them have façades articulated with undulating white louvers that read like snowy strata. The project plan was first seen at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale where the architect explained his want to achieve a Shanshui City in contemporary architecture, based on the Chinese concept of a harmonious spirit between humanity and nature. “Through the integration of contemplative spaces” that also immerse residents in nature,” he says of the design, which will open in 2022, “it still meets the conveniences of modern-day living.”
Far Rockaway Library in Queens, New York by Snøhetta
Residents of the beachside neighborhood of Far Rockaway, Queens, will soon receive a new, twice-the-size public library branch, having been reading, studying, and researching at a temporary site nearby since 2018. In 2022, the new 18,000-square-foot library building by Oslo- and New York–based studio Snøhetta will open its doors at the site of the former, a 1968 structure that was a neighborhood staple, even used as a disaster relief center during 2012’s devastating Hurricane Sandy. The community, however, had outgrown the facility, and thus, the architecture firm created a two-story replacement whose simple rectangular volume is covered in fritted glass in a graduated hue inspired by the Long Island sky. The entrance is a triangular cut corner, while an inverted pyramid atrium brings light into its central spaces. Because of its location, the project is elevated to comply with new FEMA Flood guidelines, is targeting LEED Gold certification, and will engage an artist to create site-specific work as part of New York City’s Percent for the Arts program. And what's adding even more excitement around the project is the fact that New York-based artist José Parlá has been commissioned to create a mural for the exterior facade of the building. The mural will consist of fritted glass and a colored gradient to wrap the building in a distinctive texture.
National Museum in Oslo by Kleihues + Schuwerk
In June 2022, the largest museum in the Nordic region will be realized by German architects. Designed by the team of Kleihues + Schuwerk, the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway is a 587,710-square-foot (54,000-square-meter) building that came about as the result of a merger of four museums for historic and modern art, contemporary art, design and craft and architecture, and will hold more than 400,000 objects when completed this coming summer. Its design incorporates two existing buildings on its site near the city hall, creating an entrance marked by a historic corner that leads visitors into a square that will eventually be include outdoor seating for the restaurant and café. Generally low-density and mostly rectangular, its tallest volume is marble glass (consisting of a thin sheet of marble sandwiched between thin layers of glass), which shines from within when lit at night atop the two-story base. Its other façades are wrapped in Norwegian slate, and oak is the material of choice for the interior. The project is a pilot of Oslo’s FutureBuilt sustainable building program and was designed to cut emissions by 50% when compared to a similar benchmark.
Fotografiska in Berlin by Herzog & de Meuron
The Swedish photography museum Fotografiska is currently on a global expansion tear, with three new branches planned through 2023 that will make it the largest privately held art museum in the world by several measures: number of locations, exhibitions shown per annum, and interior square footage. The first of these forthcoming buildings is an adaptive reuse outpost in Berlin, opening in fall 2022 and designed by Swiss architecture studio Herzog & de Meuron with interiors by German firm Studio Aisslinger. Situated in a 1908 former Jewish Quarter department store—a landmarked building known as Kunsthaus Tacheles—the six-story, 58,000-square-foot (5,400-square-meter) space will receive a pyramidal roof extension, three floors of exhibition space, an event hall, a restaurant, a café, a bakery, a lounge, a gift shop, a rooftop bar, and a total refresh by its architects, as it has been left to nature for the last several decades. Redesigning the structure to fit again into its urban context, the museum will be defined by a series of distinct volumes that blend its façade into the mixed-use surroundings, where cafés, shops, and apartments are situated harmoniously.
Museum of Broadway in New York by Paul Bennett Architects
Though New York’s Times Square is inherently associated with Broadway, there has never been a formal, permanent space dedicated to that theatrical legacy. Thanks to local firm Paul Bennett Architects, four-time Tony Award–nominated producer Julie Boardman and Diane Nicoletti of experiential agency Rubik Marketing, the first-ever Museum of Broadway is opening in its heart on West 45th Street in summer 2022. The New York–based firm is transforming a former office building into a multistory, interactive space that will educate on the history of Broadway, give behind-the-scenes looks at some of fanatics’ favorite shows, and celebrate the spaces where musicals, plays, and theater happen. “In the theater, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us,” explains Boardman of the museum’s origins, which seem to fall in line with the current trend of experience-based and interactive museum design. “We are thrilled to create a museum honoring Broadway’s extraordinary history, the trailblazers who pushed the art form forward, and celebrate its bright future.” The project is a collaboration with several arts organizations including Playbill, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the Billy Rose Theatre Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, Concord Theatricals, and Goodspeed Musicals.
Mata Atlantica at Rosewood São Paulo in Cidade Matarazzo in São Paulo by Jean Nouvel
In São Paulo, a new green campus on the last formerly abandoned site on the city’s busiest avenue is rising as a global example of sustainable luxury design, thanks in part to Pritzker Prize–winning French architect Jean Nouvel. The brief called for a 300-foot-tall (93-meter-tall) tower that would be home to the five-star Rosewood São Paulo hotel, its residences, and amenities including a gym, spa, and private penthouse. However, situated within the seven-acre Cidade Matarazzo estate, a new mixed-use social hub powered entirely by clean energy and dedicated to introducing 10,000 new trees to the area, it is certainly much more than just that. Nouvel designed the hotel tower, known as Mata Atlantica—a reference to the Brazilian forest of the same name—as an ecological beacon for the overall project: It is a vertical forest built with a slatted structure of local wood and proof that building tall and living in luxury does not have to mean building in all glass. The building will evoke the feeling that the surrounding “Matarazzo Park will have invaded a tower,” the architect explains. “Let’s make one thing clear. The park tower will be regal and welcoming—and it will be much looked at and envied. In its own distinctive way, it will say: Follow me, live in style.”
Glenstone Museum pavilion for Richard Serra in Potomac, Maryland, by Thomas Phifer and Richard Serra
Since its major 2018 expansion by New York–based architect Thomas Phifer, the Glenstone Museum has again engaged the architectural talent to design its first building dedicated to a single artist, Richard Serra. On the eastern side of the nearly 300-acre natural woodland and PWP Landscape Architecture–designed Museum campus in Potomac, Maryland, just 15 miles from Washington, D.C., Phifer has collaborated with Serra to ideate a minimalist concrete structure that will house one of the artist’s most recent large-scale sculptures and provide a new outdoor venue for two additional pieces: Sylvester, 2001, and the site-specific Contour 290, 2004, both made of steel. Approached via a trail and through a single doorway, the 4,000-square-foot pavilion for Serra will be constructed of precast concrete panels, in a similar aesthetic to Phifer’s previous designs for the Museum. “I hope when people come upon this experience, they will find it surprising, powerful, and deeply moving,” the architect says of the new, more modest project, which is expected to open to the public in spring 2022. “Creating another building for Glenstone’s extraordinary landscape while working with Richard Serra, without question one of the greatest artists of our time, is the honor of a lifetime.”
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem by SANAA
Adjacent to the Russian Compound, atop a hill in the heart of Jerusalem, a light and airy 484,375-square-foot (45,000-square-meter) new campus for the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design is taking shape. Designed by Japanese architects SANAA, with an assist from local firms; HQ Architects for Building Execution and Ni-Kutz for past Design phase, the compound of nine academic departments, administration offices, galleries, a store, and a cafeteria features glass walls and stacked, exposed concrete slabs that allow visual connections between different spaces, and activities, within the six-story building on the site with the hope that they will inspire multidisciplinary collaborations. Though it may appear as a large single structure on the site, it has been designed so that “ample room is reserved around each program to allow natural light and fresh air to enter from above and from the sides, filtering into even the most central part of the building,” architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa say in a statement. When it is completed in October 2022, the Academy (founded in 1906, making it Israel’s oldest higher education institution) will concentrate 2,500 students at this new hub, helping to revitalize Jerusalem’s historic city center.
Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture in Gashora, Bugesera, Rwanda by MASS Design Group
Next year, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, an organization dedicated to catalyzing change around conflict mitigation, food scarcity, and safety in marginalized communities, will see its academic and research campus for the new Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA) realized by nonprofit MASS Design Group in the nation’s drought-prone Bugesera district, one that also sadly lost half of its population during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and is currently facing a new crisis: Though the population is expected to double in the next three decades, the area has minimal farmland capacity to feed it. Supported by the government of Rwanda, RICA was master-planned, designed, landscaped, engineered, and built by MASS as an energy-independent and net-carbon zero complex of landscape, housing, education, storage, and processing, all supporting the plant- and animal-based studies of its future students, whose work will address this future food scarcity problem head-on. It will contain the largest solar power farm in the nation and all of its building materials (and 90% of its building labor) were sourced locally. The campus is organized around the “one health” theory that animal, ecological, and human health are intertwined, and, when completed, will be the first built example of this kind.
Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi by Adjaye Associates
Having signed the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together in Abu Dhabi in February 2019, Pope Francis, His Eminence Dr. Ahmed el-Tayeb, and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar called other global faith leaders on a humanitarian mission of tolerance and interfaith understanding. The event also inspired the Shiekh’s plan to fund a multifaith complex on Saadiyat Island, with worship spaces for Christian, Islamic and Jewish religions. After a global competition, Adjaye Associates was chosen for the project and, soon after, unveiled a design for the four-building complex—including a temple, a church, a mosque and a secular gathering space—joined by a shared garden. “My experience and learning with this project brought a clarity: I’ve always seen these three religions as very different—it’s what we’re led to believe—but then you discover these incredible connections and overlaps that sit with these distinct differences,” principal architect Sir David Adjaye says. Designed with similar volumes but different façades, a variety of colonnades distinguish each structure and inspire the interior architectures as well: a curtain-like façade wraps the church, slender arches open the loggia and support the internal spaces at the mosque and angled beams on the exterior lead to a scaled but similarly patterned ceiling inside at the synagogue.