A STAR ARCHITECT LEAVES SOME CLIENTS FUMING - THE NEW YORK TIMES

Santiago Calatrava Collects Critics as Well as Fans.

Samuel Aranda for The New York Times.
Workers in Valencia, Spain, fix leaking windows in a
science museum by Santiago Calatrava.

VALENCIA, Spain — For a while, this sprawling Mediterranean city embraced Santiago Calatrava’s architecture with gusto. In a dried-up riverbed, Mr. Calatrava built and built, eventually filling 86 acres with his radical, and some say awe-inspiring, designs.

But these days, even as Mr. Calatrava’s eye-catching PATH station creeps toward completion in Lower Manhattan, he is often cast as a villain here in Valencia. One local politician runs a Web site called Calatravatelaclava, which loosely translates as, “Calatrava bleeds you dry.”

THE SHED - RICHARD PETERS ASSOCIATES

© Justin Alexander

The Shed

By Richard Peters

Location & history

Tucked away at the end of a lane in the Sydney suburb of Randwick, close to The Spot and in walking distance to Coogee beach, is a 74m2 simple brick industrial structure built in 1890 by two Irish blacksmiths (brothers) to house their coach building business.

Over the past 120 years the building has also operated as a motorcycle repair shop, secondhand washing machine warehouse, a builder's workshop, and more recently a studio for local artists. Having grown up in the area, one of the owners knew the building well and when it came up for sale in 2003, took a leap of faith and invested in a project that presented an exciting opportunity to develop a smaller, sustainable and more efficient way to live, while challenging the convention that ʻbigger is betterʼ.