Dougong Cube by Terrence Curry, Wu Chaoyun, He Shen and Cheng Kun, Beijing, China —
"The beauty of the dougong is that it's a modular system," said Terrence Curry, one of the Dougong Cube's lead architects. "You'll have the master carpenter making the parts, then you'll have the apprentices finishing them out. And then you'll have the laborers assembling them. You'll have the common components, but the way you put them together is what matters."