Fun House
Washington, DC
Much like its name implies, Fun House is a playful, interactive retrospective that is “an opportunity to not only see, but also experience,” says Snarkitecture cofounder Alex Mustonen, who worked on the annual Summer Block Party series alongside partners Daniel Arsham and Ben Porto. Located in Washington, DC’s National Building Museum’s soaring Great Hall, the all-white freestanding structure recalls a traditional home with a front and backyard enclosed by a picket fence with various rooms highlighting pivotal designs in the Brooklyn, New York firm’s 10-year history, including 700 Air Jordan replicas—a nod to the feature inside Kith’s Brooklyn store. Beyond the backyard are two ball pits shaped like pools, one circular while the other kidney-shaped, recalling the firm’s prior piece for the museum, the popular The Beach.

Fun House

Golden Bridge
Da Nang, Vietnam
Nestled among the lush treetops overlooking tourist attraction Ba Na Hills mountain resort and theme park, the Golden Bridge—the brainchild of Ho Chi Minh City-based TA Landscape Architecture—is located on an impressive cliff that connects the cable car station to the Avatar Garden. Unlike other pedestrian bridges, this one offers an otherworldly quality: a colossal pair of aged hands clad in wire and fiberglass mesh offers up (and seemingly holds in place) the 492-foot-long golden walkway, making it seem like a scene from a movie. “The design came from the nature of the site, and it cherishes the social activities of such a theme park,” explains design principal Vũ Việt Anh, ultimately blending nature with manmade moments.

Golden Bridge

Interloop for Wynyard Station
Sydney
The twisting, accordion-shaped Interloop sculpture from local artist Chris Fox, suspends between two ends of Sydney’s Wynyard Station as a celebration of the first wooden escalators installed in the heritage-listed station in 1931 (and one of seven left in the world before it was dismantled). Hovering overhead, the 165-foot-long spiraling sculpture is made with 244 wooden escalator treads and four combs from the original escalator, creating a thematic juxtaposition between past and present that pays homage to the city’s identity while looking toward its future.

Interloop for Wynyard Station

Coralarium
Maldives
The first of its kind, the semi-submerged tidal gallery at the HBA-designed Fairmont Maldives Sirru Fen Fushi is part of a new wave of experience-driven concepts and the island’s first coral regeneration project. British environmental sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor crafted 14 pieces depicting the fragility of nature and life in part-human, part-plant, part-coral hybrid bodies housed inside a porous stainless steel structure that will eventually become part of the local ecosystem to shelter and protect ocean life. In shallow waters, a path lined with underwater trees and coral leads swimmers to a submerged staircase that takes them to the top of the gallery, where six black silhouetted Jesmonite figures welcome them to explore the treasures within.

Coralarium

Tunnel of Light
Niigata, Japan
Spanning a mountainous terrain and a large architectural expanse, the Niigata prefecture in Japan has been experiencing a decreasing population, leaving the area languishing. Enter the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale festival, founded by Fram Kitagawa to restore the area to cultural relevance through hosting artworks—160 to be exact—across 200 villages. For the 2018 program, Beijing-based MAD Architects sought to transform the historic Kiyotsu Gorge Tunnel using their take on five elements of nature—wood, earth, metal, fire, and water—in five pointed permanent installations, including the semi-polished stainless steel-lined Light Cave, which draws on the distinct rock formations, lush greenery, and turquoise water to dialogue with the shallow pool of lapping water, invoking the feeling of quiet, everlasting solitude.

Tunnel of Light

London Mastaba
Floating atop Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park and held in place by 32 anchors, New York-based artist Christo’s temporary sculpture comprises 7,506 horizontally stacked barrels on a more than 65-foot-tall floating platform made from materials that have a low-environment impact to preserve the lake’s ecosystem. On view until the end of September and coinciding with an exhibition at Serpentine Galleries of Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude’s work, the piece marks the artists’ lifelong mission to make art free. Coated in blue, mauve, and a supple red, the vertical painted ends mimic an abstract painting and reflect the shimmering lake, while white stripes bisect a red hue on the slanted walls on either side and the top of the structure—all meant to interact with the green and blue of the public park and its lake.

London Mastaba

Enter the Kaleidoscope
New York
Commissioned by Andaz 5th Avenue, the imagination-sparking, interactive kaleidoscopic installation from the New York office of Wild Flag Studios mixes mirrors, natural sunlight during the day (it’s illuminated at night), and laser- and vinyl-cut geometric shapes that move in kinetic motion for a transformative experience. The wheel reflects the observer, creating “a kaleidoscope of cultures and people,” says studio founder and creative director Vanessa Harden, while those who inhabit the installation from the inside will notice graphics printed onto the reflecting elements, including a subway car, the Statue of Liberty, cocktails, and fashion elements that tie art, New York, and the Andaz brand together.

Enter the Kaleidoscope