Spaces for Browsing: Balancing Commerce and Community in the Design of Bookstores

The contemporary bookstore is a paradoxical space. It is commercial, but rarely commercialized; public, but often privately owned; small in scale, but expansive in impact. As adjacent architectural typologies evolve under the pressures of digital consumption, economic precarity, and changing social habits, the bookstore has not dimensioned, but adapted to the twenty first century. It is not a site for private or institutional literary exchange, but a spatial hybrid that accommodates ritual, rest, performance, and socialization.

How Will Transportation Work in the Future? A Look at the Rise of Electric Mobility in Cities

From greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution to deforestation, one of the leading contributors to global warming today is emissions from the transportation sector. Exploring its origins and evolution, as well as the major challenges it faces, the development of electric mobility in urban environments represents a global transition that requires a coordinated mix of policies and actions to achieve cleaner and more sustainable transportation systems. Designing safe and comfortable infrastructure for walking and cycling, promoting public transit and shared mobility, and designing more efficient streets that include electric vehicles, among other actions, are part of a growing worldwide effort to reduce carbon emissions.

Giwa Building / DRAWING WORKS

This renovation took place at a site with two buildings side by side: one building W2 was a hanok built in 1949, and the other building W1 was a five-story commercial building extended in 1968. The two structures embody contrasting eras, materials, and functions - wood versus reinforced concrete, residential versus commercial, past versus present. Rather than repairing or replacing the existing conditions, the design harmonizes these disparate elements by superimposing a new order onto the layered temporality and materiality of the site.

The Facets Cafe / BBWORKSPACE

Concept: A Brilliance of Light – THE FACETS is a renovation and extension project of a café located within the grounds of a renowned gemstone shop in San Kamphaeng, Chiang Mai. The design centers around expressing the "variety of gems" through architectural language, creating a space that is distinctive, alluring, and sensorially engaging. Inspired by the beauty of gemstones such as diamond, opal, amethyst, garnet, emerald, aquamarine, sapphire, and citrine, the design translates their forms, colors, and reflective qualities into built form, while subtly integrating local cultural identity.

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