It is not the first time architects have fallen foul of the capacity of curved, reflective surfaces to focus the sun's rays into a beam concentrated enough to start a fire, a phenomenon that is apparently difficult to model, but whose effects are well enough understood to have been exploited – legend has it – by the ancient Greek inventor Archimedes.
The step-pyramid was one of the first times architects dabbled with stone on such a monumental scale – and their attempts to experiment can be seen in the building itself.
Also, for the first time, architects Gordon Gill and Adrian Smith officially announced their involvement in the project.
NextFab is a unique Philadelphia workshop housed at the University City Science Center that offers sophisticated, high-tech equipment to be used by everyone from industrial designers and architects to first-time inventors -- in short, anyone who needs the technological means to fabricate their vision.
In addition to popping up on academic reading lists, their authoritative but accessible, unfussy style means they are just as likely to pop up in an esteemed architect's Cappellini cabinet as on a first-time buyer's Billy bookcase.
A Jersey architect has questioned whether the building industry should subsidise homes for first-time buyers.
It will be the ninth time an architect has designed a pavilion for the gallery.
This is the first time an architect and artist have collaborated, the first time the content and structure have come together.
It is the first time the architect practice has won the Riba prize, now in its 20th year, after three previous times on the shortlist including for an educational institution: Westminster Academy in 2008.
Jencks suggests a key work was Gehry's Fish sculpture in Barcelona, commissioned to jazz up the base of a boring hotel tower in the Olympic port in 1992, which was the first time the architect employed computer modelling software, borrowed from the aerospace industry.
This is also not the first time that the architect has tackled a New York City landmark.
