Written by Moshe Katz Architect Architecture has always been obsessed with permanence. We design a house, define its rooms, determine its boundaries, build its walls, and expect life to adapt itself to what we have created. A two bedroom apartment remains a two bedroom apartment. A four bedroom house remains a four bedroom house even when three of those bedrooms have been empty for twenty years. The strange contradiction is that while human life is constantly changing, the ar

Designing a skyscraper should never begin with the question of how tall it can become. Height is only the physical condition that makes the challenge visible. The deeper question is what a vertical building can become when it is treated as an idea, an experience, a symbol and a new piece of the city rather than simply an efficient stack of floors. A skyscraper occupies an extraordinary position in architecture because it is visible from far away, changes the skyline, becomes

Architecture does not begin with a building. Design does not begin with a shape. Long before there is a floor plan, façade, material palette or beautifully rendered image, there is something much more fragile and much more important: an idea searching for its own language. Creative research for architects and designers is the process of discovering that language. It is a way of moving beyond the collection of information and entering a deeper investigation into meaning, emoti