Dezeen Magazine

Lebbeus Woods

Lebbeus Woods 1940-2012

News: experimental architect and artist Lebbeus Woods has died at the age of 72.

Woods was long admired by students and academics for his fantastical drawings imagining deconstructed buildings and dystopian landscapes that relate as closely to science fiction as to architecture, including one series that shows a "defensive wall" designed to protect Bosnia from invaders by absorbing them like a sponge (pictured).

Labyrinthine Wall for Bosnia by Lebbeus Woods

Woods trained as an architect at the University of Illinois and worked under Eero Saarinen, before leaving practice to focus on theory and experimentation. He also co-founded the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, where he developed a number of conceptual projects aimed at finding architectural answers to contemporary world problems.