"Grace Farms is a trophy building, not a light-on-the-land wilderness retreat"

Grace Farms is beautiful. The centrepiece of the site is the sinuous 83,000-square-foot, $67 million building called The River, designed by SANAA and set on 80 acres of open space in tony, architecturally-exceptional New Canaan, Connecticut. The River flows downhill, 1,400 feet long, covering a 44-foot elevation change.

The aluminium roof, which glows in daylight like iridescent ceramic tile, covers indoor spaces on four levels: the sanctuary up top, the library one level below, the commons beyond, bottoming out in a bi-level sunken gymnasium, surely among the most spectacular places to play a pick-up game in the country, if not the world.