Wak isn't much to look at: a few potholed streets with 30-year-old concrete homes of German design.

ECONOMIST: Foreigners pay up despite the goats

Perkol-Finkel, a marine biologist, modified the composition, texture, and design of concrete so that it fosters growth of native flora and fauna while increasing the operational life span and stability of the concrete structure.

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After the 1968 Ronan Point tower block partial collapse in London, in which four people died, new British Standard Structural Design Codes for concrete were introduced to prevent it happening again.

BBC: WTC collapse forces skyscraper rethink

The design is a mix of concrete pathways, ample seating areas and architectural features.

BBC: New York��s floating freight line

The design featured a wooden frame on top of a concrete-slab foundation, with an exterior covered in gray asbestos shingles. (Steel was in short supply.) The structure violated the Cambridge fire code, but it was granted an exemption because of its temporary status.

NEWYORKER: Groupthink

Thus, the three- to six-foot concrete walls with 3-inch thick steel reinforcements, depending on design.

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Its dashing architecture, like a giant curved earthworm lined with a concrete honeycomb, was widely seen as a showpiece of French engineering and design flair.

ECONOMIST: The aftershocks from a collapsed airport terminal

In fact, says, Lisa Hassanzadeh, Concrete's 37-year-old partner and head of interior design, the choice of Vitra is as much "a business deal" as a design decision.

WSJ: Inn With the New

In a three-story building of concrete and smoked green glass opposite Cisco Systems' San Jose, California headquarters, the grand design of the Internet is in its final tests.

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