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Old building with modern canopy
Santos Coffee Warehouse in Rotterdam Renovated
The Santos coffee warehouse in Rotterdam's Rijnhaven is currently being renovated by Renner Hainke Wirth Zirn Architecten and WDJarchitecten. Originally planned as a design store for furniture, the Dutch Museum of Photography will now move in.
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Spatial collage as a living experiment
Conversion of an Apartment in San Sebastián
The young Spanish architect Ismael Medina Manzano has transformed an 80 m2 apartment in San Sebastián into an expressive collage of colours and materials.
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Facelift with a deep impact
Detached House in East Flanders
Behind the traditional stepped gables of a detached house near Ghent, Objekt Architecten has created a bright, spacious and surprisingly contemporary interior.
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The Tool for Architects
Detail Inspiration: New Features
Test the new look of Detail Inspiration. Recently, we have upgraded the platform’s technical infrastructure and introduced several new features.
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Circular building
Co-Operative Building in Frankfurt am Main by DGJ
A colourful glass facade wraps around DGJ Architektur's cooperative housing near Frankfurt city centre. It serves as an eye-catcher and an effective soundproofing facade for the day-care centre and the residents.
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Subtle play of colours
Traffic Services in Mühlhausen by Yonder
In Mühlhausen at the foot of the Swabian Alb, Stuttgart-based Yonder has transformed the motorway police station into an ensemble of old and new.
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Infrastructure as sculpture
Vertical Pedestrian Walkway in Spain
With the Halo project, Noarq, AM2 Arquitectos and the engineering firm Arenas Y Asociados have created a spectacular sculpture of urban infrastructure over a motorway.
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Brick and wood as a sustainability strategy
Casa LA near Barcelona by Alventosa Morell
4x4 walls and a roof – this is how the design concept of the detached house in Llinars del Vallès, near Barcelona, could be summed up. Using simple methods, the architects have managed to reduce the energy requirements to almost passive house levels.
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Subsequent densification in solid wood
Woody M Apartment Block in Vienna
In Vienna's Meidling district, Freimüller Söllinger has created 85 flats in solid timber construction on a former supermarket site.
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A statement against land take
WorkStack in London by dRMM
dRMM have built an unusual industrial building in East London: five storeys high, made almost entirely of timber and with 14 units for rent to small businesses.
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Between modernity and antiquity
Exhibition Design Museo Egizio in Turin by OMA
With the new exhibition concept for the Gallery of the Kings, a collection of Egyptian statues in the Museo Egizio in Turin, OMA has created a sequence of rooms from different periods.
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Find more than 3.800 captivating projects along with detailed construction drawings here!
Mixed, Compact, Affordable, Liveable
Building plots are becoming scarce, housing costs are soaring, and apartments in new developments are shrinking. Properties long considered unsuitable or uneconomical for building are now being developed, and residential units are increasingly stacked – side by side and on top of each other – into ever-larger blocks. Standardisation and industrial prefabrication seem indespensible – is this an echo of the 1970s?
Today, unlike the car-oriented satellite towns of postwar modernism, there is a renewed commitment to the European pedestrian city. The model has shifted from suburban houses to urban living. This means mixed housing arrangements with communal spaces for social interaction, and high-quality, functional, affordable apartments within compact footprints – sometimes with integrated art studios. Ground-floor zones – hosting cultural centres, supermarkets, coworking spaces, kindergartens, or changing rooms for a nearby school’s sports field – foster neighbourhood cohesion, reduce travel distances, and advance car-free cities. Above all, communal spaces and integrated facilities make compact living more bearable – much like corner pubs or coffee houses served as informal living rooms in early 20th century metropolises.
For this issue, Sabine Drey and I explored outstanding housing projects in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brooklyn, Brussels, Frankfurt, and Vienna, showcasing innovative responses to urban challenges. Modern buildings, even those meeting today’s energy standards, still need to prove their long-term viability against their concrete counterparts from the 1970s. Housing developments like Alt-Erlaa in Vienna or the Olympic Village in Munich have thrived for half a century and remain as popular now as they were when they were completed Frank Kaltenbach
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Consistently separated
Sports Hall near Milan by Giulia de Appolonia
Giulia de Appolonia's new sports hall in Olgiate Olona, near Milan, is a two-part volume – the lower part is fair-faced concrete and the upper part is a steel structure with a plastic skin. This formal trick also reflects the division of functions inside.
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Up to date
Erne Innovation Centre by Burkard Meyer Architekten
Burkard Meyer Architekten used innovative construction methods for the new building of the Swiss timber construction specialist Erne in Stein: wood-concrete composite ceilings, tamped concrete walls and an exciting atrium roof made of wood are just some of the highlights.
Interiors & Design
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Company Portrait
Hewi
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A translucent forest house
Children's Learning Centre in Uruguay
On the outskirts of the coastal town of La Barra, Diego Arraigada Arquitectos, Rafael Solano and livni+ has designed a pavilion-like learning centre for children that extends the school curriculum with various courses.
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Regional connections
Semi-Detached Houses in Catalonia by Taller Sau
In Vidrà, a small village in the Catalan foothills of the Pyrenees, Taller Sau have designed two semi-detached houses with a regional connection and a high level of structural efficiency.
Climate & Resources
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Carefully extended
Emmanuel College, Cambridge by Stanton Williams
Stanton Williams have extended Emmanuel College in Cambridge to include student accommodation, a bar and teaching rooms. As is usual in Cambridge, the building project took place on a historic site and required a great deal of sensitivity in terms of heritage conservation.
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Working with a view of the greenery
The Pavillon Jardins in Paris by Atelier du Pont
With the Pavillon Jardins in the Parc de la Villette, Atelier du Pont has created a timber hybrid building with clean lines and flexible working areas.
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What can AI do for architecture?
For a culture of sharing
What hopes do architects have for artificial intelligence? For our 1/2.2025 issue, we asked around 20 experts. Thomas Wortmann, from the Institute for Computational Design and Construction at the University of Stuttgart, hopes that the triumph of AI will be accompanied by a stronger open-source culture in architecture firms.
Books
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Refurbishment Manual student priceSpecial Price €30.00 Regular Price €79.90Incl. 7% VAT , excl. Shipping Cost
Current Topics Detail 12.2024
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Fired and unfired clay
Hotel Leo in St. Gallen by Boltshauser Architects
The Hotel Leo in the garden of the Villa Wiesental is clad in greenish and white-grey clinker brick. The interior walls are made of clay bricks and earth blocks.
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Provisional as a concept
House 14a in Copenhagen by Pihlmann Architects
From the outside, the house from the 1950s has changed very little. Inside, Pihlmann Architects and art historian Marianne Krogh have created open, flowing spaces.
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Sculptural monolith
Performing Arts Centre in Brighton by krft
For the Performing Arts Centre at Brighton College, Krft and Nicholas Hare Architects designed a solitaire with a shell of flint blocks and light grey Seeton bricks.
Natural Building Materials
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In the midst of nature
Student-Built Observatory near Barcelona
The Flora observatory built near Barcelona for observing nature was developed and erected by a team of students and researchers at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.
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Interview with Sarah Wigglesworth
Creative Solutions to Combat the Climate Crisis
British architect Sarah Wigglesworth drew international attention with her Straw Bale House in London. In this interview with Heide Wessely, she describes how to design cities more sustainably.
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Sustainable and single-origin
London’s Tallest Circular-Design Office Building Made of Wood
With the Black & White Building, Waugh Thistleton have not only created London’s tallest solid-wood office building, but have also made a significant contribution to the circular economy.
Sustainable Construction
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Repurposing
Wilkinson Eyre Overhaul Battersea Power Station in London
On behalf of an investor from Malaysia, Wilkinson Eyre have transformed London’s Battersea Power Station into a shopping mall featuring offices and flats. For the most part, the interiors of the impressive turbine halls have been preserved.
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Theatre factory in old foundry
The Mercury Store in New York by CO Adaptive Architecture
Assigned the task of repurposing an industrial building into a performing arts centre, the architects consistently set their focus on retaining and opening its historical structure.
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Pivoting walls
The Plato Art Gallery in the Czech Republic by KWK Promes
In the Czech city of Ostrava, KWK Promes have transformed an old slaughterhouse into an art gallery. The dilapidated condition of the exposed-brick building represented both challenge and inspiration for the planners.
Videos & Podcasts
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Hotels, hostels, resorts
Where’s the Journey Headed? – Editorial Detail 3.2023
The current issue of Detail takes a look at new beginnings. Few sectors of the economy were so battered during the corona years as the hotel industry.
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Meet the Architects
DIIIP, Loft M in Cologne
In our video series #Meet the Architects, architects present current projects from their offices. Jochen Reetz from DIIIP explains the design for the Loft M project in Cologne.
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Refurbishment
Taking Stock – Editorial Detail 1/2.2023
Apart from the ecological, social, and economic necessity to do so, adaptive reuse often raises unforeseen structural and detailing issues, which we address at the start of the year. We document seven selected projects energy-efficient renovations, the addition of new functions to existing buildings, the densification of inner-city areas, and conversion.
Videos
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Ecological resistance
The Rambla Climate House in Spain
In a suburb of the Spanish city of Molina de Segura, Andrés Jaque and his office Offpolinn have created the Rambla Climate House, a single-family dwelling conceived as a climate- and eco-house. The project won the 2022 Simon Architecture Prize.
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Structural fire protection
Frame House in California
Mork-Ulnes are designing a single-family house that will withstand future disasters.
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Surrounded by nature
Modular House in Madrid
The DelaVegaCanolasso architecture studio specialize in small houses using modular techniques. In this video, Ignacio de la Vega and Pilar Cano-Lasso shed light on their latest project, the Fresnos house in Madrid.
Products & References
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Company Portrait
Lignatur
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Company Portrait
Hoba
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Company Portrait
Ecophon Saint-Gobain