TitanPointe, a windowless skyscraper in downtown Manhattan that was found to be the NSA’s spy hub by the Snowden document. A documentary on this buildings designed to withstand nuclear explosions.

For architect Ole Scheeren, the people who live and work inside a building are as much a part of that building as concrete, steel and glass. He asks: Can architecture be about collaboration and storytelling instead of the isolation and hierarchy of a typical skyscraper? Visit five of Scheeren’s buildings — from a twisted tower in China to a floating cinema in the ocean in Thailand — and learn the stories behind them.

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This year, the Serpentine Galleries in London celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Pavilion commission. Starting with Zaha Hadid as the architect of the first Serpentine Pavilion in 2000, many world-famous architects have created temporary structures in London’s Hyde Park, including Frank Gehry, 2008; Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup, 2006; Oscar Niemeyer, 2003; Daniel Libeskind with Arup, 2001; and Smiljan Radić, 2014. In 2015, Spanish architects selgascano (José Selgas and Lucía Cano) designed the 15th Serpentine Pavilion. The Pavilion is an amorphous, double-skinned, polygonal structure consisting of panels of a translucent, multi-colored fluorine-based polymer (ETFE) woven through and wrapped like webbing. The architects’ inspiration comes from the site itself, as well as from the ways in which people move through London, notably the Underground with its many-layered, chaotic yet structured flow.

Courtesy the Aga Khan Award for Architecture