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It’s been quite the year for French architect Dominique Perrault. His work continues to defy categorization, owing no reference to history, and emphasizes both the landscape and meticulously developed materials. An exhibition celebrating three decades of his work was on view at the Pompidou last summer, and a comprehensive monograph was published in conjunction with the exhibit, which includes plans for the upcoming rock-formation-inspired Thermal Baths in San Pellegrino (set for 2012) and the recently completed—and dramatically cantilevered—Hotel Habitat Sky in Barcelona.   MORE >>

It’s been quite the year for French architect Dominique Perrault. His work continues to defy categorization, owing no reference to history, and emphasizes both the landscape and meticulously developed materials. An exhibition celebrating three decades of his work was on view at the Pompidou last summer, and a comprehensive monograph was published in conjunction with the exhibit, which includes plans for the upcoming rock-formation-inspired Thermal Baths in San Pellegrino (set for 2012) and the recently completed—and dramatically cantilevered—Hotel Habitat Sky in Barcelona.

Perrault founded his firm in Paris in 1981 and first obtained international attention with his National Library of France (1989) and the Berlin Velodrome and Olympic Swimming Pool (1992). He pioneered the use of metal mesh in architectural applications, thereby challenging notions of walls and impermeability, as exemplified in his brand-new Madrid Olympic Tennis Stadium, nicknamed the “Magic Box.” The building—topped with a series of massive moving panels on hydraulic jacks—showcases his technical mastery. The Box will sit atop a man-made lake, engaging itself in a spectacular dialogue with the surroundings. perraultarchitecte.com   << LESS

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Marge Simpson once proclaimed her love for Toronto saying, “Everything is so clean and bland…I’m home!” The sculptures of local duo Christian Giroux and Daniel Young may be streamlined and artifice-free—their recent “Boole” collection was made from repurposed Ikea products—but they’re far from bland.   MORE >>

Marge Simpson once proclaimed her love for Toronto saying, “Everything is so clean and bland…I’m home!” The sculptures of local duo Christian Giroux and Daniel Young may be streamlined and artifice-free—their recent “Boole” collection was made from repurposed Ikea products—but they’re far from bland.

The pair met in 2001 and has since created a body of work that channels mundane elements into quietly provocative critiques on contemporary architecture, urbanism and everything in between. “Our interests are varied,” says Giroux, “but we repeatedly return to post-war industrial forms and architecture and to minimalism in particular.” For “Access” (2004), they looped together air-conditioning ducts into a large, burnished mass. For 2006’s “Fullerene,” they crafted a buckyball eight-feet in diameter using aluminum and synthetic rubber tires that could be rolled around by hand.

“It’s difficult for us to think about sculpture without thinking about the built forms and industrial products that surround us,” says Giroux. “I have a long-standing appreciation for design—and a bit of a furniture fetish—but, more importantly, we try to respond to the general currents and conditions of design, both good and bad.” Young sees it differently: “I’m not as interested in design because I find it mostly exists in an envelope between consumerism and the aspirational,” he notes. “But I do take light fixtures very seriously.”

Giroux and Young have also toyed with larger, public works (the latter studied urban geography at the University of Toronto) with numerous, unrealized proposals. In one from 2007, they planned for a continuous A-frame archway that cuts through the length of a park, eventually passing through a playground where it becomes a functional swing set. But luckily for the tykes of Toronto, “Reticulated Gambol” is nearing completion: a 40-foot, blue steel jungle gym with repetitive structures that flies in the face of the haphazard, often bombastic contraptions normally made for children. “We conceived it as both an aesthetic disruption within the park,” explains Giroux, “and as an object that integrates itself seamlessly into the social operations that define the space.” In other words, they’re playing prankster, but in the most harmonious—and conceptual—way possible. Marge would certainly approve, but Lisa would understand. cgdy.com   << LESS