Increasingly, designers are interested in challenging the stigma associated with utilitarian projects, public amenities that are essential but also often go unnoticed. This issue includes a section illustrating how architecture can be used to go beyond the utilitarian character usually associated with building for infrastructure, with projects by Henning Larsen, Oppenheim Architecture, BIG, and NODE. Also in this issue, four projects that show how an intervention in a historic centre can often lead to a very creative synthesis, a layering of new upon the old. This includes an abstracted museum extension by Francesca Torzo Architetto and an office complex by David Chipperfield Architects.

Increasingly, designers are interested in challenging the stigma associated with utilitarian projects, public amenities that are essential but also often go unnoticed. This issue includes a section illustrating how architecture can be used to go beyond the utilitarian character usually associated with building for infrastructure, with projects by Henning Larsen, Oppenheim Architecture, BIG, and NODE. Also in this issue, four projects that show how an intervention in a historic centre can often lead to a very creative synthesis, a layering of new upon the old. This includes an abstracted museum extension by Francesca Torzo Architetto and an office complex by David Chipperfield Architects.