Non-building as a creative form of architecture.

The online magazine archdaily regularly addresses fundamental questions of architecture. In this context, the article “The Architecture of Restraint: When the decision not to build becomes design”, which describes a growing trend in architecture that deliberately avoids new construction. Instead, existing buildings are maintained, repurposed or even simply left empty — an approach known as “architecture of restraint”. This approach is not passive, but very deliberate: it takes a great deal of decision-making ability, judgement and imagination to intervene only where it is really necessary and to design with as few resources as possible.

A key example is David Chipperfield’s restoration of the Neues Museum in Berlin, writes archdaily. He retained the ruins, which had been severely damaged during the Second World War, and added only what was absolutely necessary.