A collection of shots of Peter Zumthor’s works, photographed last winter, has been added to the portfolio section. Projects visited include Kolomba (Cologne, Germany), Bruder Klaus Chapel (Mechernich, Germany), Kunsthaus Bregenz (Bregenz, Austria), St. Benedict Chapel (St. Benedict, Switzerland), Shelters for Roman archeological site (Chur, Switzerland), and Therme Vals (Vals, Switzerland).

At risk of becoming overly accustomed to the same antipodean island I have lived on most of my life (well to be fair… it’s a rather large island), it was refreshing to return to some of the places I had previously visited as an open-eyed student intern in Europe.

In particular, it was great to see the way the built environment has evolved in some areas, with many bold works completed by both prominent and lesser known architects. The context of these ranged wildly from the rural to the historic, and in the case of Vitrahaus (above), to the industrial but rarified aggregation of works by key 20th and 21st century architects.

In the coming month or two I will be posting several projects from a recent trip to Japan. The first is Shibuara House by Kazuyo Sejima (one half of the well known collaboration SANAA). The building contains workshop spaces and offices, in addition to the ground floor space which is open to the public. This was an interesting project to visit, most notably for the complex layering of internal and external spaces when moving through the building.

Also coming soon is a chapel project by Hironaka Ogawa + Associates, impressive for many reasons, not least its clever use of structural steel framing (update: posted).