BUILT CLOSE TO THE WATER

The rescue tower in Binz (D), today also known as the Müther Tower, was built as a lookout for the lifeguards in 1981. Ulrich Müther used minimal means to create a four-sided glazed edgeless space from his signature double-curved concrete shell construction.

The futuristic building looks like a foundling left behind from the future. The interior space escapes reality through the omnipresent reflection of the horizon in all window fronts.

The border checkpoint in Sarpi (GEO) between Georgia and Turkey is located directly on the shore of the Black Sea, and in its striking style is more border stone than border post. The sculptural building appears like a huge wave with towering spray. 

The architect Jürgen Mayer H. designed this tower with cantilevered terraces and a flat building with a wave shaped roof in 2010. In addition to customs, the border checkpoint is also a vantage point and contains a cafeteria and a conference hall. Thus, at this point, the connecting elements are emphasized over the demarcating ones.

The coastal sauna named Löyly is located in Hernesaari, a former industrial area of Helsinki (FIN), which is currently being renovated. The sauna is an integral part of the Finnish way of life. Located directly on the waterfront, Avanto Architects have added a sharp-edged structure to the coastal landscape. 

Löyly sits on the harbor pier like a "stealth building." The building can be experienced 3 dimensionally via the terrace, the roof but also from the water. The uses include the next to the sauna, a restaurant and viewing terraces.

In Beidaihe (CN), a coastal town east of Beijing, there is a chapel directly on the beach. At high tide, the chapel is literally submerged in water; only the slightly elevated access path and the entrance stairs allow entry on dry feet.

The chapel by Vector Architekten lies like flotsam on the beach. The geometric form allows it to be identified as man-made. The bell tower is set off from the main roof by a deep cut. The light guides in the chapel give a lot of sacredness to the prayer space, which is oriented towards the sea. In the dark, the precisely placed lighting emphasizes the strong geometric form. 

Halley Station, founded in 1956, on the Brunt Ice Shelf in the East Antarctic, is a research station of the British Antarctic Survey dedicated to the study of the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements taken there were used to discover the ozone hole in 1985.  

Halley VI, completed in 2012, is the sixth iteration of Halley Station: the first 4 were built directly on the ice shelf and over time were crushed by the masses of snow, the fifth was built elevated but was threatened by the break-off edge of the ice shelf and had to be abandoned. 

Designed by Hugh Broughton Architects in collaboration with AECOM for the British Antarctic Survey, Halley VI is the first mobile research station. On hydraulic legs, it can independently adjust to rising snow levels and is also mobile in terms of location.

The Ladeira da Misericordia was an important historical road connection, between the upper and lower parts of the city of Salvador de Bahia (BRA). Now largely abandoned, architect Lina Bo Bardi chose it as the site of a visionary project in the 1980s.

She transformed four dilapidated and abandoned buildings into exemplary social housing. A vacant lot next door became the setting for another of the architect's experimental buildings - a restaurant that integrated the new architecture into the existing vegetation.

The Coaty Restaurant became a popular cultural center. The sweeping views of the harbor, Atlantic Ocean and All Saints Bay were reduced to small amoeba-like windows, while the restaurant focused inward on integrated nature in the form of a giant fig tree.

The Orianda Imperial Palace on the Crimean peninsula can be seen as the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel's ideal solution for a representative summer palace.

Commissioned in 1837 by Tsarina Alexandra Fedorovna, Schinkel designed an idealized project that was never realized. 

Situated on a cliff above the Black Sea, the palace design fascinates by its ambivalence; on the one hand, the representative turn towards the view with a huge terrace and a central caryatid portico, on the other hand, the introverted museum rooms under hanging gardens.

"Structures on the Edge" was launched in 2011 in Lincolnshire (UK), on the west coast of England. In a series of remote locations on the coast, artists have created walk-through sculptures that engage intensely with their surroundings. 

 Architectural collaboration MSA-Gruff have designed a project to explore the nature of the site's extreme environment: the point where land, sea and air meet in a shifting and ever-changing seascape. 

The observation tower reinforces the perpetual wind and makes connections to important parts of the landscape: the shifting sands, the tide line, and the emerging offshore wind farm

Hashima Island, also called Gunkanjima (Battleship Island), is an industrial ruin on a small island located about 20 kilometers south of Nagasaki (JP). Underwater coal mining was conducted from the island between 1887 and 1974.

Under the management of the Mitsubishi Group, the island was further developed from 1916 onwards and housed up to 5200 inhabitants. The first reinforced concrete building in Japan was built on the island. In January 1974, coal mining was declared finished, and in April 1974, the last boat left the island. 

Since then, the buildings on the island have been empty. Photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre documented this ghost town in their book Gunkanjima. The pictures testify to a flight-like exodus of the inhabitants. Many everyday objects seem to be waiting for their former owners.