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The Issam Fares Institute (IFI) for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut serves students and academics while also providing a powerful nexus for local, regional and international researchers, thinkers and policy makers.

The 3,000-square-metre building is located on the northern side of the university campus, which was masterplanned by American firm Sasaki Associates in 2002. To retain the established pathways and landscaping of this masterplan, Zaha Hadid Architects lifted half the building off the ground.

The IFI’s design builds upon the institute’s mission as a catalyst and connector between AUB, researchers and the global community. Routes, views and links within the campus converge to define the IFI as a three-dimensional intersection; a space for university’s students, fellows and visitors to meet, connect and engage with each other and the wider world.

Photos by Hufton + Crow, Luke Hayes

The design of the Heydar Aliyev Center establishes a continuous, fluid relationship between its surrounding plaza and the building’s interior. The plaza, as the ground surface; accessible to all as part of Baku’s urban fabric, rises to envelop an equally public interior space and define a sequence of event spaces dedicated to the collective celebration of contemporary and traditional Azeri culture.

It’s located on the Heydar Aliyev Boulevard from the international airport to the old city, so in a way it kind of greets you, welcomes you, as you approach the city and it unfolds.

The centre, which contains exhibition spaces, a library, a museum and concert venues, is set in a public plaza, the ground of which rises up to form the building’s wave-like shell.

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu, an associate at Zaha Hadid Architects who led the project, said the building reflected the romance and optimism of Azerbaijan, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. “They wanted to have something unique, something which is looking at the future, somehow showing their soft, romantic side but at the same time their optimistic side,” said Bekiroglu in an interview

The Heydar Aliyev Center is the first architecture project to have won the overall title of Design of the Year in the Design Museum’s annual awards. “This was an incredibly ambitious project and for me,” Hadid said. “It was always my dream to design and build the theoretical project and that was the closet thing to achieving that.”

Photography by Hélène Binet,  Hufton + Crow,  Iwan Baan

Chilean architect Smiljan Radić who was named as the designer of 2014 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion unveiled his translucent and bulbous Serpentine Gallery Pavilion at Kensington Gardens in London. Raised up from the ground over a series of rugged quarry stones, the cylindrical pavilion is constructed from a paper-thin layer of white fibreglass, reminiscent of papier mache wrapped around a balloon.

“I want to bring back a sense of primitive space to the tradition of the folly in the park,” said Radic, speaking from his studio in Santiago. “I like fragile constructions that have nothing to do with the history of architecture – like road-side fruit stalls, travelling circus tents and the simple shelters people build for themselves with whatever materials are to hand.”

Radić designed the pavilion using a series of models put together from masking tape. His intention was for the structure to feature the same handmade qualities, on a grander scale.

[quote_box_center]”I feel like a giant made this model as a gift for London,” he said.[/quote_box_center]

Radić’s Pavilion has its roots in his earlier work, particularly The Castle of the Selfish Giant, inspired by the Oscar Wilde story, and the Restaurant Mestizo, part of which is supported by large boulders. Design as a flexible, multi-purpose social space with a café sited inside, the Pavilion will entice visitors to enter and interact with it in different ways throughout its four-month tenure in the Park.

Smiljan Radić  a 48 year old architect who before now has built little outside of his native Chile – will be one of the youngest and least-known architects selected by the Serpentine Gallery in the 14-year history of the programme.

“What is most captivating about Radić’s heroically peculiar pavilion is the way that it seems to stand out of time,” wrote critic Ellis Woodman in the Independent. While Guardian critic Oliver Wainwright  branded it the “weirdest structure yet to have graced the west London lawn” and said it “looks like the site of a momentous pagan ritual”

Last year’s pavilion was designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and comprised a cloud-like structure made from a lattice of steel poles. Other past commissions include Herzog & de Meuron, SANAA and Peter Zumthor.

Radić is the fourteenth architect to have accept the invitation to design a temporary Pavilion outside the entrance to the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. The commission is one of the most anticipated events in the cultural calendar, and has become one of London’s leading summer attractions since launching in 2000.

Smiljan Radić’s design follows:

1. Sou Fujimoto’s cloud-like structure – 2013
2. Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei – 2012
3. Peter Zumthor – 2011
4. Jean Nouvel – 2010
5. Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, SANAA – 2009
6. Frank Gehry – 2008
7. Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen – 2007
8. Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup – 2006
9. Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura with Cecil Balmond, Arup – 2005
10. MVRDV with Arup, 2004 (un-realised); Oscar Niemeyer – 2003
11. Toyo Ito and Cecil Balmond – with Arup – 2002
12. Daniel Libeskind with Arup – 2001
13. Zaha Hadid, who designed the inaugural Pavillion in 2000.

Below is the photo gallery of 2014 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Smiljan Radic