Brutalism may be concrete architecture’s highest historic form, but the material is as versatile as we make it, and it’s got a lot more tricks up its sleeves. Though we may think of it as cold, heavy and solid, these 10 projects ranging from rocky pavilions and airy sculptural memorials to museums that look like they’re made of folded paper show off just how sculptural concrete can be in the hands of an innovative designer.

Crinkled Texture: High School by Wiesflecker Architecture

Set outside a historic high school in Austria, this new, independent building by architect Johannes Wiesflecker stands out for a number of reasons, including the way its modern form contrasts with the older complex behind it. But most eye-catching of all is its dramatic ‘crinkled’ shear wall, hanging about 8 feet in front of a glass facade. The wall is actually a three-dimensional structure in itself, almost like a sculpture that stretches from the roof down to the first floor, and can be viewed from inside as well as out.

Dynamic Angles: Simple House by Moon Hoon

For a home on a windy island in Korea where “weather is the ruler,” architect Moon Hoon needed materials that would provide bunker-like security while also offering a welcoming space to get away. Though his first solution was to sink the home into the ground, the clients wanted something more showy and extravagant. The final design stacks volumes of concrete in a criss-crossed fashion and attaches them together with slim concrete connectors, allowing the wind to flow through the structure. The result feels surprisingly dynamic for a material often associated with heavy, static solidity.

Surprising Shapes & Airy Textures: Shui Cultural Center by West-Line Studio

A latticed formwork of concrete acts as the base of a single zig-zagged roof enclosing the Shui Cultural Center in China, celebrating one of the country’s minority ethnic groups. Its shape pays homage to their language, following the shape of the character for ‘mountain,’ while the pattern of the perforated bronze steel plates of the roof takes inspiration from the Shui’s traditional characters. Architecture firm West-Line Studio wanted the thin metal sheathing to contrast with the heaviness of the concrete, which reveals itself in the building’s interiors.

Thin, Curving Walls: Museo International del Barroco by Toyo Ito & Associates

The thin, curving concrete walls of Toyo Ito’s Museo International del Barroco almost look like they’re made of paper, a quality rarely seen in this material. The firm worked with the Mexican company DANSTEK, which specializes in precast concrete, the develop the concrete walls and slabs which are precast on the exterior and cast in-situ on the interior. Those walls aren’t just decorative, either. They’re load-bearing, and integrated into a structural strategy that gives the building earthquake resistant qualities.

Carved Concrete Designs: Commercial Building by Jorge Urias Studio

Once you get a look at this low-cost commercial concrete structure in Juarez, Mexico, you wonder why we don’t see designs embedded into similar buildings more often. It seems sort of obvious, doesn’t it? Yet decorative and artistic touches are typically left off in favor of fast and simple unadorned surfaces. Jorge Urias Studio carved the tilt-up concrete panels of this building with a bold geometric pattern, giving it a lot more personality than it would have otherwise.

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Cool Concrete 10 Structures Taking A Refreshing Approach To This Raw Material

Going beyond simple stacks of shipping crates and ripped-apart pallets, these creative upcycled architecture projects reclaim stuff like corrugated iron, 5-gallon water bottles, old doors and even junk left over from the London Olympics as building materials and truly elevate them to new heights. These projects offer some fresh ideas, use the materials in new ways or demonstrate how recycled and upcycled architecture integrate into modern designs.

Stedsans in the Woods: Upcycled Permaculture Farm in Sweden

This permaculture farm and retreat nestled in the woods of southern Sweden will function as a “lab for discovering better ways to eat, live and connect with nature,” including a farm-to-table restaurant and a collection of beautiful treehouse-like cabins made of waste wood, fragments of old barns and glass from abandoned greenhouses.

Rising Moon Pavilion Made of Recycled Water Bottles

Reflecting itself into a perfect sphere on the surface of a still pool, ‘Rising Moon’ by Hong Kong-based studio Daydreamers Design is a geodesic dome fitted with 4,800 five-gallon polycarbonate water bottles, each acting as a lantern to help the structure glow. At night, they transmit light from inside out, while during the day, the interior is illuminated by the sun. LED torches are attached to pre-fabricated triangular modules with the bottles fitted over them, and an additional 2,300 bottles hang from the ceiling.

Parasitic Student Residences Made of Pallets for Paris

French architect and graffiti artist Stephane Malka proposes ‘Ame-Lot,’ a series of parasitic structures made of upcycled pallets and other reclaimed materials that attach to existing architecture. The pallets fold and unfold to let more light into the interior, and the structures can be constantly rearranged and added to as necessary for growth, becoming a visual meter of consumption in the city.

Collage House Made of Recycled Doors by S+PS Architects

Over a dozen reclaimed doors and windows salvaged from demolished houses in the city make up a highly unusual and creative collage-style facade for a Mumbai residence by S+PS Architects. This double-height curtain wall makes for some seriously striking curb appeal, and sets the tone for the living room as well. The architects also incorporated other found materials into the home, like metal pipe leftovers pieced together like bamboo to form a ‘pipe wall,’

K Valley House Clad in Reclaimed Iron by Herbst Architects

Rusted corrugated iron sheets resembling the sheds often seen in the New Zealand countryside contrast beautifully with the greenery of the Kauaeranga Valley in ‘K Valley House’ by Herbst Architects. “We positioned the form straddling the ridgeline, engaged with the slope at the high end and floating above the land as it falls away,” they say.

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Acclaim For The Reclaimed 14 Cool Upcycled Architecture Projects

Instead of wearing the architectural equivalent of jeans and a t-shirt, these buildings treat their facades like high fashion to stand out from the crowd and make a visual statement. Artistic exterior treatments can give structures a bold makeover, offer multiple functions like built-in courtyards and benches, and engage with the city in ways that ordinary buildings simply don’t.

Mercado de Getafe by A-cero, Madrid, Spain

An ordinary brick building suddenly becomes extraordinary with the addition of a wrap-around facade by A-cero. The architects created a black envelope for the structure and added aluminum ribs and oversized lighting that protrudes to stick out over the sidewalk.

Hotel Cumbres Lastarria by Rodrigo Errazuriz, Santiago, Chile

The white facade of this hotel by Rodrigo Errazuriz wraps around the glazed front of the building, turning rectilinear windows into a pattern of abstract shapes.

Izumono Sakaba by Area Connection, Izumo City, Japan

Architecture firm Area Connection took inspiration from the traditional details on the Izumo Taisha Shrine for this wooden latticework affixed to the facade of a nearby restaurant.

Frankfurter Kunstverein by Joko Avian, Germany

It’s too bad this cloud-shaped woven bamboo facade installation by artist Joko Avianto was only temporary, as it adds a beautiful new dimension to the exterior of the Frankfurter Kunstverein art museum.

Hotel WZ Jardins by Estudio Guto Requena, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Exploring the concept of a ‘hacked city,’ the new facade of the Hotel WZ Jardins by Studio Guto Requena is covered in an ‘urban camouflage’ metal skin that lights up at night in interactive patterns, reacting in real time from sensors on the building that collect data on air quality. Passersby can also influence its patterns by logging onto a mobile app and using finger taps or voice commands.

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Fashionable Facades 15 Buildings That Put On An Artistic Face

German concertgoers are so excited about the stunning new Elbphilharmonie building in Hamburg by architecture firm Herzog & De Meuron, they’re already snapping up tickets for the first events scheduled after its inauguration on January 11th, 2017. The glittering wave-shaped addition is a bold ultramodern example of adaptive reuse, delicately hovering over an existing brick warehouse building to assist with soundproofing its 2,100-seat arena. The project is finally nearing its completion after nearly a decade of construction, with all of its interior fittings set to be in place in time for its handover to its operators on October 31st, 2016.

With anticipation building for such a long time, it’s a good thing the final result is so impressive. Located in Hamburg’s Hafencity quarter on a peninsula jutting out onto the River Elbe, the complex not only mimics the adjacent surface of the water, it literally mirrors it with 1,100 panes of reflective cladding punctuated by convex elements and D-shaped windows reminiscent of fish mouths. Reflective basalt grey dots prevent the structure from overheating and add to the shimmering effect.

The complex also houses a 250-room hotel, 45 private apartments, two additional concert halls and a public viewing area with panoramic vistas of the waterfront. Reusing the old building pays tribute to the neighborhood’s industrial past even as Hafencity – a new urban redevelopment scheme that enlarges the Hamburg City Center by 40 percent – blossoms as a cultural hub. The scheme is seen as a blueprint for Hamburg’s development into the 21st century, reestablishing it as a modern maritime city.

Inside, the careful selection of state-of-the-art materials helps explain the long delay in construction, as an organically textured white ‘skin’ made of dense gypsum-fiberboard panels enhances acoustics and makes the space even more visually expansive. Other details, like a flowing glass wall on the panoramic ‘plaza,’ continue the aquatic theme.

Even without the threat of rising sea levels, we’ve got land scarcity issues in nearly every major city, prompting engineers and architects to look towards the rivers and seas as settings for floating structures that could support not just housing and restaurants but also farms, movie theaters, schools and even cemeteries.

Floating Movie Theater: Pavilion of Reflections

Assembled on Lake Zurich for the contemporary art biennial Manifesta 11, ‘Pavilion of Reflections’ is an open-air floating cinema with an integrated swimming pool that dips right into the lake. In the daytime, it functions as an urban island, while at night , the LED screen lights up and spectators take their seats to watch a series of documentaries.

Floating Hawker Center: Solar Orchid for Singapore

Singapore’s traditional hawker culture of food and retail street carts extends out onto the water with the Solar Orchid by SPARK Architects. The self-contained, solar-powered pods encourage interaction with the harbor while reinterpreting the nation’s traditional pastime. Each individual pod accommodates cooking stalls with built-in exhaust, water, electrical, gas, waste collection and water recycling services as well as places for diners to sit.

Floating Eternity Cemetery for Hong Kong

Hong Kong has a bit of a corpse burial problem, as they run out of land space even for their efficient hillside cemeteries and skyscraper vaults. Could a floating cemetery island that’s able to move from one port to the next throughout the region offer a solution? It’s certainly a novel idea. The Floating Eternity Cemetery by BREAD Studio leaves the land for the living with an exterior looping wall housing urns and central space for ceremonies. Families can come aboard at certain times of year to honor their dead, making it a special, shared experience, before the offshore cemetery moves along again.

Floating Swimming Pool: Baltic Sea Park

When you run out of land for parks, build them on the water. This way of thinking is spreading across the world, from New York City to Estonia, envisioned as the home of this ‘Baltic Sea Park’ by kilometrezero. The circular pavilion honors thousands of years of history and cultural exchange on the Baltic Sea, and connects buildings on land to a floating structures that acts as a dock for a changing series of floating pavilions. In the summer, the protected circle of water within it becomes a giant swimming pool.

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Looking Beyond Land 12 Floating Galleries Schools Cemeteries