1. Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture by Rem Koolhaas

In this project, Koolhaas and his collaborators lampooned the modernist utopias of their predecessors, sarcastically describing the Berlin Wall as a masterpiece of design and proposing a walled city within London as a way to create a new urban culture, one which would lead inhabitants to leave the rest of the city to fall to ruins.

2. Wall House by John Hejduk, Thomas Muller/van Raimann Architekten & Otonomo Architecten

Wall House 2 is admired for it’s fusion of Surrealist sculpture, Cubist paintings and architecture, which reflect John Hejduk’s identity as an artist, poet, educator and architect. Inspiration for his work often came from Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, where he learned to focus on the more flat dimensions of architectural form as well as the focus on pure volumes.

3. Koshino House by Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando’s design for the Koshino House features two parallel concrete rectangular confines. The forms are partially buried into the sloping ground of a national park and become a compositional addition to the landscape. Placed carefully as to not disrupt the pre-existing trees on the site, the structure responds to the adjacent ecosystem while the concrete forms address a more general nature through a playful manipulation of light.

4. Pike Loop by Gramazio & Kohler

Pike Loop is a 22m (72ft) long structure built from bricks, the most traditional building material widely present in New York. It was designed to be built on-site with an industrial robot from a movable truck trailer. More than seven thousand bricks aggregate to form an infinite loop that weaves along the pedestrian island.

5. CaixaForum Renovation by Herzog & de Meuron

The CaixaForum is conceived as an urban magnet attracting not only art-lovers but all people of Madrid and from outside. The attraction will not only be CaixaForum’s cultural program, but also the building itself, insofar that its heavy mass, is detached from the ground in apparent defiance of the laws of gravity and, in a real sense, draws the visitors inside.