Ron Arad Architects will soon break ground on Beit Shulamit (or “Shulamit House"), a new cancer centre for the Emek Medical Centre in Afula – a regional hospital campus in the north of Israel. Designed to be "an inviting and unthreatening intervention within the hospital context," the center will be situated east of the main campus’ perimeter road within the foothills of the nearby Giv’at Hamoré mountain.

"The three-story building is arranged upon a generous new ground level deck, which rests over two covered car parking levels," says the architects. "The Centre’s three upper floors step down towards the South, to create a terraced arrangement in keeping with the site’s topography. This enhances both the views out of all parts of the building towards the natural environment, and offers a variety of indoor/outdoor spaces for circulation and reflection."

One of the most interesting trends in architectural materials of recent years is the increase in use of weathering steel - more commonly referred to by its trademark name, Cor-Ten. Thought the material has been around for decades, first being used for architectural purposes in the Eero Saarinen-designed John Deere Headquarters in 1964, the material has seen a surge in popularity in the last decade or so, being used in everything from individual houses and tiny kiosks, to SHoP's design for the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which used a staggering 12,000 weathering steel panels.

To celebrate this material we've rounded up nine of the most innovative and striking uses of weathering steel from recent years: Haworth Tompkins' tiny Dovecote Studio; Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios' offices and student housing at Broadcasting Place; the perforated facade of IGC Tremp by Oikosvia Arquitectura; the rusted ribbons of Ron Arad's Design Museum Holon; vertical striations on The Corten House by DMOA Architecten; Tony Hobba Architects' Third Wave Kiosk and its corrugated Cor-Ten walls; striking patterned facades in Santiago's Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center by Cristian Fernandez Arquitectos, Lateral Arquitectura & Diseño; weathered facades and louvers in Guillermo Hevia's Ferreteria O´Higgins; and finally the folding garage-style doors of Origin Architect's Refurbishment of the Offset Printing Factory.

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To celebrate the launch of ArchDaily Materials, our new product catalog, we've rounded up 10 awesome projects from around the world that were inspired by one material: metal. Check out the projects after the break...