Biarritz is internationally known as one of France’s most premier surf spots. Apparently the city embraces the skate and surf culture so much that the Cité de l’Océan et du Surf Museum was designed with lines taken straight from the skate park. From a kidney pool shaped skylight, to quarterpipe-style walls in the garden, Steven Holl dialed in the skate/surt aesthetic flawlessly when designing this place. More looks after the jump.

Architect Andrew Berman was able to create his dream project when he designed and built this free standing work space in Long Island. The client’s requirement was that she needed to have somewhere peaceful where she could keep her books and work. Watch the video after the jump, as Berman described the idea and the process.

Interior and exterior architecture in churches has been examined since grand cathedrals were built in the earliest years A.C., but Dutch designer Lotte van Laatum has given holiness a modern touch with Liturgical Elements for the Maasstad Hospital in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.Description from the designer:

The concept of ‘light’ was the starting point for the designs of the liturgical elements. The oecumenical services are taking place at the auditorium. This is an internal space lacking natural daylight. Patients of the hospital are the visitors of the services and the concept of ‘light’ can positively contribute to their personal issues.

The auditorium is a neutral space without ecclesiastical architectural elements. The main concept behind the design is formed by light passing through church windows lighting the liturgical elements.

The design of the church windows is based on the circle and the sphere, both symbols of the divine and perfection. It also symbolizes the sun as a heavenly body.The basic shape of the sphere is also used for the designs of the textile and the tableware. This way the different layers in the design come together. The textile is made from linen and lamb’s wool, also materials with a biblical meaning. The textile is produced by the Textile Museum Tilburg. The tableware is made of mouth blown Bohemian crystal.

More images after the jump.

Open minds often lead to creative thinking, and i29 Interior Architects knew that open office spaces fostered the same creative environment. The Tribal DDB office features a layout with flexibly-defined office spaces using unconventional materials like fabric to perfect the acoustics, which therefore absorbs sound and  creates privacy in an open space. The ceiling, walls, furniture and lamps are all made from felt, giving contrast to the sleek design with of a sense softness.

More images after the jump.

“The Nike Air Hangar is a 40,000 square foot facility located at the suburban Hillsboro Airport, on the outskirts of Portland. Privately owned by Nike, Inc., it houses three Gulfstream G5 jets for executive business travel. In addition to the requisite support space for flight planning and airplane maintenance, the Hangar provides amenities for travelers and pilots such as a lounge, exercise facilities, executive suites, meeting space, and a gourmet kitchen.”

More images after the jump.

Architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien designed the new Barnes Foundation building with respect for its strong history in education and fine arts, and as a reflective addition of the foundation’s mission. The foundation was located in Merion, Pennsylvania for almost a century where Barnes built a gallery around his collection of French Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and early Modern paintings. The building is scheduled for completion in late 2011.  More after the break.

“In July 2010, the Brooklyn-based street art collective FAILE installed their much awaited Temple Project in the heart of Lisboa, Portugal. Having spent years tagging the streets of various cities, FAILE has developed an acute awareness of our urban settings, and this Temple is a masterful display of the site specificity of their oeuvre.

“Right in the middle of Restauradores Square in Lisboa, FAILE married pop art with antiquity in what appeared to be an ancient ruin. Described as ‘camouflaged in plain sight,’ the design allowed people to engage and interact with the work on their own terms. The artists have always been interested in the notion of visual time travel. Throughout their work, their subtle references to 1986, the year the Space Shuttle Challenger launched and crashed, seek to tug at our subconscious, providing just enough of a visual cue to trigger the emotional reconstruction of a past moment.”

More images after the jump.

Forbes Magazine estimates Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ net worth sits at $8.3 billion and climbing, and Apple the company has $76.2 billion in cash earnings chilling somewhere really safe. With the growth of Apple even during a recession, it makes sense that the company’s headquarters would not only expand, but would also be architecturally progressive.

Steve Jobs appeared at a Cupertino, Calif., City Council meeting to discuss the new developments. “We’ve hired some great architects to work with, some of the best in the world. We’ve come up with a design that puts 12,000 people in one building.” Their current building only houses 3,000 employees.

This new four-story infrastructure is a minimalist design from Foster + Partners, and features heavy use of glass and an indoor park. Jobs compared it to a landed spaceship.

More images after the jump.

After over a decade of temporary pavilions designed by some of architecture’s most prolific minds, Summer at the Serpentine unites these images of the Serpentine Gallery’s temporary structure’s on the pages of a book, with illustrations from each architect and penmanship from renown architecture writer Philip Jodido.

“Since 2000, the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Kensington Gardens has called on some of the world’s top architects to design summer pavilions – temporary structures that are erected next to the Gallery itself for a three-month period. The Serpentine, which was built in 1934 as a tea pavilion, opened in 1970 as a showplace for exhibitions of modern and contemporary artists. The only architecture program of its type in the world, the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions attract up to 250,000 visitors each summer.”

Some of the  Serpentine pavilion architects are names that have almost seamlessly blended into pop culture; Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Oscar Niemeyer are only a few examples included.

Available for purchase through TASCHEN.

More images after the jump.

On view at the National Heritage Museum, Night Road: Photographs of Diners by John D. Woolf celebrates an icon of American vernacular architecture. The structures are designed to grab the attention of passers by and beckon weary travelers with the prospect of rest and warmth. Woolf’s final photographs are the result of combining multiple exposures to accurately recreate the lurid color and dramatic lighting of the traditional roadside diner. In that, the exhibition both highlights a dying artistic tradition and new artistic technologies.