The AIA|LA's Restaurant Design Awards (RDA) honor excellence in restaurant design. The competition is open to all individuals and practices with both restaurant owners and architects/designers invited to submit. Either the project itself must be located in the United States or the submitting individual/firm must be US-based. Submissions are accepted in three main categories: restaurants, caf?s/bars and lounges/nightclubs. The annual RDA Ceremony recognizes both Jury Award Winners as well as People's Choice Award Winners, as selected by votes collected from the general public on the AIA|LA website.

Register by: 04-02-2010 / Submit by: 04-30-2010

SEAMLab's inaugural Scholarship Competition encourages students to thoughtfully consider contemporary challenges and opportunities that exist in material design, architecture, engineering, science, and the built and natural environments. This Scholarship Competition invites students of architecture, art, design, engineering, planning and science to submit research, speculations, or design projects that operate as FOG ANALOGIES. These submissions should utilize select characteristics of fog to propose a responsive material, structure, or environment pertaining to one of the following three categories:

MATERIAL _dematerialized matter
STRUCTURE _dematerialized space
ENVIRONMENT _dematerialized landscape

Entries will be juried by a multidisciplinary panel of professionals. Competition winners will be awarded monetary scholarships for graduate study at a United States college or university.

Register by: 04-15-2010 / Submit by: 04-15-2010

"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed."
-- President Rene Preval of Haiti

In the wake of the Port-au-Prince earthquake, Haitians have sustained an immense loss of life, with numbers still climbing, and the collapse of physical structures signifying the collapse of the governmental, social, economic, and infrastructural institutions those structures housed and represented. Many of those institutions and infrastructures were weak before the quake, as Haiti is among the world's poorest nations, reliant on international aid and subject to severe economic disparity.

This earthquake was no typical disaster, and Haiti is no typical disaster-struck region. In many ways, Port-au-Prince and its institutions required rebuilding before the buildings collapsed. The relief effort of this particular disaster goes beyond air-dropping supplies and building emergency housing. Haiti also requires an emergency economic system (the banks and tax office have collapsed), an emergency medical system (hospitals have collapsed), an emergency justice system (courthouses and the federal prison have collapsed), emergency education (schools have collapsed), and an emergency government (the parliament and many ministry buildings have collapsed). People talk about emergency shelter. What about emergency institutions, only one of which is housing?

Participants in February's Spontaneous Architecture competition are invited to take this question seriously, enacting a response onto the site included below. The site includes multiple institutions and social, economic, and governmental infrastructures as well as residential areas and open space parks currently being used as campsites for those in need of housing. Participants are asked to consider one or all of the institutions present and can operate on the entire site or a specific portion thereof. Responses can be strategic, organizational, institutional, and/or architectural.

Submissions are single images, formatted in 8.5 inches by 11 inches (landscape), 300dpi tiffs. Images must be anonymous, containing no identication of their creators. Submissions may (but are not required to) include up to 100 words of text. All submissions are due by 11:59PM on 15 February 2010.

Participate to Donate. As always, the winner of February's Spontaneous Architecture competition will receive fifty percent of the entry fees collected from the month's submissions. This month, the remaining portion of the entry fees will be donated to the Haitian relief effort.

ALSO: With the announcement of February's Spontaneous Architecture competition brief, we would like to announce a new partner in the Spontaneous Architecture project. GOOD Magazine is now joining PRE-Office and Studio-X in this endeavor for the rest of 2010.

Register by: 02-15-2010 / Submit by: 02-15-2010

** PLEASE NOTE: OFFICIAL COMPETITION SCHEDULE NOT RELEASED YET, WE WILL UPDATE IT HERE WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE **

The Marine Culture and Pop Music Center is an integral part of the major public investment and construction plan by the Kaohsiung City Government. A major investment toward the overall development of Kaohsiung and even the whole of Southern Taiwan, it is one of the "i-Taiwan 12 Infrastructure Projects" as well as the "International Art and Pop Music Center" under Executive Yuan's "New Ten Construction Projects", which has a budget of NT$500 billion over five years. Through the building of an international art and cultural performance venue and a marine culture center, the aim is to establish Kaohsiung as a fulcrum for Asia-Pacific pop music production and performance and an international exchange platform for marine culture.

The central and direct goal of the Project is to create a Marine Culture and Pop Music Center that highlights the unique character of Kaohsiung City while satisfying the needs of the local people, the industries and future trends. This is to be achieved by basing its design and planning on the cultural assets of Kaohsiung, the strengths and conditions of the Project site and the characteristics of the pop music and marine culture industries. The pop music component of the Project, to be equipped world-class hardware, will help foster music professionals in Southern Taiwan, provide a leaven for pop music and its related industries and create a Southern Taiwan incubator for pop music.

Register by: 04-15-2010 / Submit by: 04-15-2010

The CAE Design Awards is an Internet-based marketplace of ideas. Through this forum the committee will disseminate quality ideas on educational facility planning and design to clients, architects, and the public. As we rethink and reshape what we do as architects, we must evaluate and measure our successes, and have an arena in which to test ideas. This awards program is an opportunity to engage in critical evaluation and experimentation, not as an end in itself, but always in the context of our clients and their needs.

The CAE Design Awards seek to identify, honor, and disseminate the projects and ideas that exhibit innovation and excellence through:

- The enhancement of the client's educational program through the thoughtful planning and design of facilities

- The integration of function and aesthetics in designs that also respect the surrounding community and context

- A planning/design process that is educational, collaborative, and builds the capacity of the school and its community to support its students

This program has two primary areas of focus: the project area and the forum of ideas.

1. The project area will focus on how individual projects further the client's mission, goals, and educational program. In this area, the entire story will be told with respect to how each submitted project is conceived, planned, designed, built, inhabited, and evaluated.

This area will portray quality within both the process and the product. The best processes exhibit authentic collaboration between the design team, the client, and the community as they work together to fulfill the client's goals. These are projects that show exemplary care in serving the client and ensuring a quality built environment, both functionally and aesthetically.

2. The forum of ideas will be a place for experimentation, a planting bed for thoughts to nurture and grow. The process of conceiving, planning, designing, and building is a path of discovery, and the forum of ideas will be sufficiently flexible to respond to the imagination of the participants. This area will not necessarily showcase entire projects, but rather select elements from projects.

Register by: 03-01-2010 / Submit by: 03-01-2010

The call is to design a pragmatic art installation for one of three pre-selected sites that fulfills the following criteria:

- Is a three dimensional form that has the ability to stimulate and challenge the mind of the viewer on a contemplative level.

- Embodies a sense of beauty and concept in its built form that is derived from the artistic sensitivities of the design team and from an acute attention to details.

- Captures energy from nature, converts it into electricity, and has the ability to store, and/or transform and transmit electrical power to a power grid connection point to be supplied by others.

- Does not create secondary emissions other than electricity and does not pollute its surroundings.

- Is safe to people who would view it. Consideration must be made for viewing platforms and boundaries between public and restricted areas.

- Is pragmatic and constructible within reason and employs technology that can be scalable and tested. There is no limit on the type of technology or the proprietary nature of the technology. The Land Art Generator Initiative will endeavor to reach contractual agreements with any company and/or patent holder that is specified as a part of a successful design entry. It is recommended that the design team make an effort to engage such entities in preliminary dialogue as a part of their own research and development of the design entry.

- Does not negatively impact the natural surroundings. Each entry should provide an environmental impact assessment in order to determine the effects of the project on the ecosystem into which the installation is to be constructed. Mention should be given to a mitigation strategy that will address any foreseeable issues.

- Uses all or any portion of the site. There is no requirement or restriction on size other than those of the plot limits themselves and the environmental footprint of the design.

The designs should be considered first and foremost as art installations. The consideration for energy generation should come in a very close second. What this means is that the installations are art first, power plants second. There may need to be sacrifices to be made in terms of efficiency of energy generation in order that the design function primarily on a conceptual and aesthetic level. The objective is not to design and engineer a device that provides the cheapest KWh or the most energy per square meter of land.

Register by: 06-04-2010 / Submit by: 06-04-2010

Dream Home Awards are presented to those companies and individuals who assist in creating America's Dream Homes and set new standards of excellence in the Nation's Building Industry. The competition is open to interior designers, architects, building and remodeling firms, communities and trade contractors. Firms are invited to enter from across all 50 states to compete in custom home products, interior design, commercial and mixed-use projects as well as the prestigious Community of the Year, Home of the Year, Community Service of the Year. Our awards program is the only comprehensive competition open to the nation's design-build industry.

The Dream Home Awards also awards individual trades for unique products and services assisting the building process.

Our Paper Free Company
Dream Home Awards is America's true green industry awards program. All of our judging, announcements and advertising are done without paper, printing or shipping. Our goal is to assist architects, builders and designers who are taking the industry to the next level.

Offices
Dream Home Awards central offices are located in Littleton, Colorado at the foot of Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Dream Home Awards was conceived of in 2007 to create a comprehensive program to award excellence in the nation's building industry. Dream Home Awards is an non-exclusive program open to architects, builder, developers, interior designers and tradesmen to showcase the ingenuity, trend setting and classical products created each year in this creative industry.

Promotions
In this evolving and dynamic time, Dream Home Awards constantly strives to explore new ways to market products and services for the design build industry in this technological savvy global economy. We encourage non printed publications that can be transported and distributed with low carbon footprint for cost savings as well as natural resource preservation.

Register by: 04-07-2010 / Submit by: 04-07-2010

Over the past decade architecture has witnessed a revolution in design and fabrication tools available to the discipline that has changed the way we imagine space forever. Digital design methods for form finding and implementing have produced an influential body of work, preoccupied with the development of novel, complex and heterogeneous spatial form.

This form, simply referred to as 'geometry', is often evaluated through performance driven issues emphasising the environmental and structural parameters that shape it. Yet, throughout history, the emergence of new spatial forms and with them new architectural styles, bear significance beyond advances in technology but in relation to what they offer to the human condition in terms of aesthetic and social processes – issues currently under-represented by the discourse.

'Concrete Geometries' is a work-in-progress term derived from the notion of 'concrete' as 'existing in reality or in actual experience' or 'capable of being perceived by the senses' and the abbreviation 'geometries' for the constructed environment. 'Concrete Geometries' like Concrete Science, Concrete Music or Concrete Art is interested in the particular and immediate, concerned with actual use or practice. 'Concrete Geometries' is an attempt to expand this current debate.

Set up as a cross-disciplinary Research Cluster at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, 'Concrete Geometries' investigates the intimate relationship between spatial form and human processes - be they social or aesthetic - and the variety of new material entities this relationship might provoke. By bringing together art, architecture, sciences and humanities, we hope to connect fields of knowledge that are currently fragmented through disciplinary boundaries.

The call is structured into two thematic fields:
A: Geometry and Perception
B: Geometry and Social Processes

The cluster wishes to address such questions as:
-How is spatial form socially and experientially relevant?
-How does it choreograph human processes?
-Can it stimulate emotional or behavioral responses or create particular aesthetic experiences?
-Can social cultures be pattered through formal configurations of space?
-How can the articulation of a space support acts of inhabitation, appropriation or other types of direct engagement?
-How do we perceive space visually and bodily?
-What social or aesthetic consequences does the formal articulation of space have for our everyday lives and for the production of reality?
-What kind of associations emerge between spatial form and social actors?

To advance this research, we are seeking submissions that provide practical or theoretical contribution. Submissions may include works of art or design, architectural projects or case studies, urban studies, research papers, scientific experiments and other forms of inquiry that address the objectives outlined.

10 Projects and 10 Texts will be selected by the curatorial board for inclusion in an exhibition, symposium and publication at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 2010.

The call is open to students, practitioners and researchers from the fields of Architecture, Art, Design, Urban Design, Geography, Neuroscience, Behavioral Psychology, Spatial Cognition, Social Science, Ethnography, Anthropology and other disciplines concerned with such questions.

Register by: 04-12-2010 / Submit by: 04-12-2010

FIGMENT, one of Governors Island's key cultural partners, has joined forces with The Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) to sponsor a competition to design and construct an architectural pavilion for the 2010 summer season on Governors Island, the City of Dreams Pavilion. The registration deadline is February 8, and the deadline for entries is February 16.

Since Governors Island first opened to the public in 2004, the attention and interest that this new public place has received has increased exponentially. In 2009, more than 275,000 people visited the island through its summer season (late May to mid October) to engage in a variety of arts and cultural programs, as well as to enjoy summertime activities like picnicking and bike riding on the island.

The City of Dreams Pavilion will be a gathering place for people to meet, learn about the arts programs on the island, be able to enjoy a planned or impromptu performance or lecture, and experience the interaction of art and the historic context of Governors Island.

Our theme for the pavilion, the City of Dreams, points toward the future. The current state of the world is such that both the economy and natural resources are limited in ways we have never experienced in our lifetimes. Inevitably, the result will be a change in harmful habits that have driven the world to its current state. One place to start to activate and energize these changes in within the architecture and design community, where the movement toward sustainable design has only scratched the surface of what is possible and necessary.

Instead of a typical design competition, the City of Dreams Pavilion asks entrants to consider how they will construct this temporary structure in the most efficient and sustainable way possible. Entrants will consider the entire lifecycle of building materials in their submission, from pre-construction through disassembly.

In the end, the goals is to create a pavilion that has net zero impact and that serves as a prototype for a new, truly sustainable, way of thinking about design and construction.

Register by: 02-08-2010 / Submit by: 02-16-2010

Floods are natural phenomena. Their impact can come to devastate villages built in their path.

The Usumacinta Observatory will be used to study the rises in the river, define infrastructural projects to contain floods and, at the same time, provide refuge for the affected population.

The ARK should be a project that raises awareness about a reality that is as hazardous as is it inevitable. It is not foreseen that the water be retained by either dams or reservoirs.

Register by: 02-15-2010 / Submit by: 02-19-2010

The challenge is to design a sustainable, flexible and locally embedded one family house for a specific location in Ghana. The modular construction should be suitable for local implementation and affordable for its future owners. The winning design(s) will be built in Ghana.

Participants all over the world are challenged to design a house for a family in coastal region, Ghana. The basis for designing is a framework of 8 OS-House principles in which houses and specific elements can be designed, developed and implemented. Some of the judging criteria are: How strong are the 8 principles implemented in the design? How feasible is the design? How well is the structure embedded in the urban context?

OS-House conducted research in Ghana to get a better understanding of Ghana's housing situation. These research findings contain essential information that will help you create a design with higher social, technical and economic viability.

To generate content for the OS-House platform we start with the Ghana design competition. However the aim of OS-House is to provide knowledge and choice. Therefore all submitted designs are published on the OS-House platform after the competition.

After this first competition and pilot project OS-House will continue to promote the implementation of more OS-Houses, challenge platform members to improve available designs, organize new competitions and stimulate local parties to take designs and adapt them to their local conditions. Our goal is to realize a 100,000 OS-Houses before the year 2020.

Register by: 05-17-2010 / Submit by: 05-17-2010

This Competition concerns the development of the architectural conceptual design of the building to house the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, intended to become a new identity landmark of the City of Gdansk, and the conceptual site landscape design commensurate with the nature, status, and location of the site.

The purpose of this Competition is to arrive at the architectural concept of the building to house the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, appended with the site landscape design, that will be best in terms of its city-planning, architectural, functional, aesthetic, and operational aspects, and recognise the site's nature, status, and location, and to obtain recommendations from the Competition Jury with respect to awarding the public contract to the winner of the Competition.

Register by: 03-26-2010 / Submit by: 08-13-2010

We could call this house The House of Subtext. Strangely, this is supposed to be a house for a man whose pseudonym at one time, in translation, meant: Man without a Spleen.

But was he really a "man without a spleen...?"

What is a "subtext.?" As Stanislavski wrote "Chekhov often expressed his thought not in speeches, but in pauses or between the lines or in replies consisting of a single word? the characters often feel and think things not expressed in the lines they speak."

Could such a statement inspire us in architecture...? How would a house that "expresses" itself not through what is obvious, but through what is "underneath," hidden, "untold" look like...? How would a house whose message is "in between the lines" look like...? Would it be a house whose meaning is "blurred, interrupted, mauled and otherwise tampered with by life" as one critic described Chekhov' work...?

Or, in a more restricted way, would it be a house that is half dedicated to medicine (and what it symbolizes) and half dedicated to literature (and its larger meanings), as the very life of this great writer was...?

Or would it be a house that asks questions (but does not give answers), as he thought the task of art in essence is...?

We ask you, then, to design a "house of mood, " a house whose life is "submerged in the text," as his own work is. A house that refuses the heroics, or, to be more exact, the explicit, self-advertising forms of heroism, since there is with certainty a form of heroism in a doctor, like Chekhov, who treated the poor without charging them and who built public buildings for them, with his own money... and who refused to complain, despite the fact that he was seriously ill, of an illness that actually shortened his life significantly.

Maybe this house will be "difficult," since it will be an "inconclusive" house, as his work was (or appears to be), in Virginia Woolf's thinking... But what might appear "inconclusive" is in no way "without something to say..." Far from it and perhaps quite the opposite.

The deadline of this competition is July 15th, 2010.

As always, we accept ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme. You can send your work to this e-mail address. Shortly after the deadline we will display all the works received on our website: www.icarch.net. We do not charge an entry fee, but we welcome donations, however small, that would help us maintain and develop our website and other activities that we have, or plan to have. You can send your donations by PayPal to admin@icarch.net.

This competition is an homage to Anton Chekhov, who was born 150 years ago, on January 29th, 1860.

Register by: 07-15-2010 / Submit by: 07-15-2010

This collection of essays will focus on terrain vague?marginal, semi-abandoned space in or along the edge of the city?as abstract concept, specific locale, and subject of literary, architectural, or otherwise artistic intervention.

Ignasi de Sola-Morales defines terrain vague as land in a "potentially exploitable state but already possessing some definition to which we are external," or "strange places" that "exist outside the city's effective circuits and productive structures? (119, 120). Gil Doron similarly defines "landscapes of transgression" as derelict sites where "nature has started to reconstruct the built or (now) 'ruined' environment. . . . space[s] that opened in the dichotomy of what we perceive as city and nature? (255).

We are particularly interested in responses to the idea, as expressed by Luc Levesque, that "'terrain vague' offers a counterpoint to the way order and consumption hold sway over the city. Offering room for spontaneous, creative appropriation and informal uses that would otherwise have trouble finding a place in public spaces subjected increasingly to the demands of commerce, the 'terrain vague' is the ideal place for a certain resistance to emerge, a place potentially open to alternative ways of experiencing the city."

We invite submissions from a range of fields, in particular literature, architecture, ecocriticism, urban studies, cultural geography, the visual arts, and film studies. Suggested topics may include:

Site and situation
Forms of documentation
Contextual definitions/theorizations
Urban wilds
Transgression and recreation
Urban natural history
Environmental justice
Interventions

Please send abstracts of 300 to 500 words, accompanied by a brief bio, to site.situation@gmail.com. Inquiries are welcome.

The deadline for abstracts is 1 June 2010. Completed essays will be due on 1 February 2011.

"That zero panorama seemed to contain ruins in reverse, that is?all the new construction that would be built. This is the opposite of the "unromantic ruin" because buildings don't fall into ruin after they are built but rather rise into ruin before they are built." Robert Smithson, "A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey"

Register by: 06-01-2010 / Submit by: 06-01-2010

The Lumec "Fondation Concept Lumiere Urbaine" (CLU) aims to encourage emerging designers to develop innovative lighting concepts within the context of an exterior public space.

THE OBJECTIVES
The CLU foundation aims excellence by encouraging conscious integration of the plastic quality of the products, technical advancements in exterior lighting and environmental respect.

THE GRANTS
The grants will be awarded based on merit by the Lumec CLU committee. This committee is composed of engaged professionals from within the Quebec community of creators and designers and aims social harmony by the quality of the built environment. Laureates will be selected from all received applications. The 2008-2009 edition includes three (3) prizes distributed as follow :

[ First Prize CAN$2,500 or a 12 weeks training course* with the industrial design and engineering teams of Philips Lumec ]
[ Second Prize CAN$1,500]
[ Third Prize CAN$1,000]

* The training course is remunerated. Conditions may apply.

2009-2010 EDITION
Theme: STREET FURNITURE LIGHT

How can light enrich and simplify the lifestyles of citizens? How to streamline urban infrastructure and integrate in street furniture innovative lighting solutions with improved performances? Open a window on the future and reinterpret the present.

Objective: To design an object that qualifies as a street furniture while retaining its primary purpose, lighting.

Register by: 04-30-2010 / Submit by: 04-30-2010

It would be perhaps appropriate to remember Eric Rohmer, who died on January 11th 2010, as a "vital antithesis to Hollywood," as AFP correctly described him.

This "vital antithesis to Hollywood" was a kind of cultural David, fighting, in the name of La Nouvelle Vague with many Goliaths... or, like Lao Tzu's fragile blade of grass, winning its battle with the deadly thunderbolt (as opposed to the almighty oak, unable of such a surprising victory).

In a world of incessant violences, a "mere" meeting between a boy and a girl in the railroad station, or on the beach, a "mere" discussion late at night between a man and a woman, a "mere" romantic conquest that does not result immediately in instant gratification (explosively externalized visually), these discreet stories of life as lived, do stand as convincing reminders that life is not that incessant scandal that the media tries to convince us that it is!

It is very possible that Rohmer would have agreed with Pascal, who said that all our problems derive from the fact that we cannot stand still in a room and even with the much different Van Gogh who, in one of his letters, did express his interest to rather contemplate the above mentioned Taoist blade of grass than an "exotic" distant star...!

What Eric Rohmer succeeds beautifully is to show us, the rushing citizen of a New Millenium, that the poetry of life can and should be found here, in our closest proximity, and quite often in what is not "spectacular." If the reports that many viewers of the recent film Avatar experience a deep depression afterwards are correct, perhaps watching a film by Rohmer might have the opposite effect: while his movies are not always simplistically optimistic, they do describe in uplifting forms the rich complexity of life, here on the earth, not on distant planets, made to exasperate our sense of terrestrial adequacy!

His modesty is a very wise and daring invitation to the "here and now" that most of us neglect to see, smell, hear, touch and taste. And above all, THINK and FEEL.

So let's pay our homage to this modest great film director by designing a house that will refuse to be spectacular, that will refuse to be shocking, that will refuse to be a scandal. Let's think, for example, of Jacques Prevert (in poetry), or Giorgio Morandi (in painting), and of other inspiring artistic gestures that function beyond the perimeter of what is scandalous, or superficially flamboyant!

Build, dear architect, THE MOST MODEST HOUSE imaginable! A RETICENT HOUSE, yes, but NOT a dull one! Descend into a modesty that is not aggressively "minimal" either, but subtly poetical, discreet and sensitive, even though at times perhaps a little odd...! A house that smiles, as some of his characters sometimes smile, with a subtle "clin d'oeil," a subtle "je ne sais quoi..."

Design a House for Eric Rohmer! One that might not be a machine for living, but a machine for thinking. And feeling!

Design THE HOUSE OF RETICENCE!

A task that is far from easy...

As always, we accept ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme. Please send your work to this e-mail address by April 4th, 2010, when Eric Rohmer would have been 90 years old. We will display all the works received on our website and we will let you know the results of the competition not much later after the deadline. There is an entry fee of 20E / 30$ payable at the time of submitting your work. This fee will enable us to maintain and develop our website.

Register by: 04-04-2010 / Submit by: 04-04-2010

Dizzy, yes, dizzy of melancholia (as regressive rapture) Chopin makes us...!

It is difficult not to cry (destined for dissolution, longingly), when a Polonaise is played...!

And all of this because of the mad(dening) music that Chopin composed, mad(dening) because TOO FULL OF SOUL!!! Not that this was / is a bad thing...! Far from it! But so very uncommon!

When the piano met him, the piano learned to lament and exult and cry and whisper and sing and dance in such sublime, piercingly kind (if we can say so) forms that it didn't regain its conscience ever since! It is our belief that after Chopin the piano was simply not the same, whatever other composers might say or might have said...!

We ask you to be ROMANTIC like never before, dear architect! It is true, it is not autumn now, the proper season for romanticism, yet, the gray of the skies, in some parts of the world, the cold weather, and the expectancy of spring make us believe and hope, yes hope, that suffering (as a creative springboard) is still possible, that romantic longing did not perish and that Chopin's piano music is as adequate for expressing unfashionable feelings as it always was...!

So we ask you to design A HOUSE FOR FREDERIC CHOPIN, now that we are approaching the day of his 200th birthday!

If there ever was the chance to envision a flying building, this is it! Take advantage of it! Fly! Fly together with it!

Can we transform our building into a piano...?

Can we transform our building into a Nocturne...?

Can we transform our building into a Polonaise...?

Design a house for someone who, in the words of George Sand, was more Polish than Poland itself! But at his most nationalistic he became, paradoxically, universal! Yes, he was so intensely Polish that he became ALL OF US!!! His soul was and is, OURS!

Please send your work, in ANY form, ANY size and ANY format to this e-mail address by March 1st, 2010 (his birthday). We will publish all the works received on our website and we will also display them during an Architecture Festival that we plan in the near future with the theme: Architecture and Music. There is an entry fee of 20E/30$ payable when you submit your work. This fee will help us to maintain and develop our website. The results of the competition will be sent to you not much later after the deadline.

Register by: 03-01-2010 / Submit by: 03-01-2010

It is difficult to imagine a much better film director...! Born 100 years ago (on March 23rd), Akira Kurosawa enchanted us with incredible renditions of classical themes transposed into the genius loci of Japan, medieval or modern... Who would have expected that the best Dostoevskian film ever made was to be done in Japan...? And yet this is exactly what happened, under the directorship of Kurosawa, in the great film The Idiot. Who would have expected to have Shakespeare translated into film in the most brilliant form, again, in Japan...? Yet, this did happen in two films directed by Kurosawa, Ran and Throne of Blood.

As for his collaboration with the incredible Toshiro Mifune we can only use exalted terms! We were so impressed by this great actor that we even thought of launching (and perhaps we should) A House for Toshiro Mifune.

Kurosawa excelled in various "genres," but in what is called "historical films" we think he reigns supreme. The visual beauty of his films, the exquisite use of color, the dynamic interplay between actors, in either individual scenes or collective, make almost any movie by Kurosawa a very high standard against which any other film should try to measure itself!

As for Red Beard, again, with Toshiro Mifune, we think that it should be seen by any student of medical arts... and not only seen, but also learned and interpreted critically, since this film teaches beautifully that all human beings are vulnerable, and that very well, at one point or another, the patient could be the doctor and the doctor could be the patient... All schools of Medicine should test their students on the knowledge of this film, since it sets very high ethical standards for this demanding profession.

One of the very last films by Kurosawa, Dreams, is at times a pessimistic look into the future but also, potentially, an optimistic one, if we would only listen...! The Taoist invitation, at the end of the film, to live in simpler terms on this ravaged earth is worth reflecting on, by all of us...!

To summarize, we invite you to design a house that could act as some kind of architectural homage to this great director! Make it as inspired and inspiring as his movies!

Let's celebrate very great film with very great architecture, if possible!

Design A HOUSE FOR AKIRA KUROSAWA!

Please send your work in ANY form, ANY size and ANY format to this e-mail address. We will display all the works received on our website. There is an entry fee of 20E. We will use this money to develop our website as much and as well as possible. The deadline for submitting your work is March 23rd 2010 (when we will celebrate the 100th birthday of this great Japanese film director).

Register by: 03-23-2010 / Submit by: 03-23-2010

Proposals are being sought for Y.I.P.P.I.E. (York Improvement Project for Pride, Involvement, and Empowerment). York College is a senior college located in the diverse neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens in New York City. This call is an opportunity to create a public artwork that embodies a positive vision for the York family of students, faculty, staff and surrounding community.

Three semi-finalists will be chosen by a panel of judges. Models will be made of the semi-finalists and put on display. The winner will be chosen by York College students, faculty and staff. The winner will receive a $500 prize and the opportunity to have their work fabricated and installed permanently in a high traffic area at York College.

There is no fee for entry and all are eligible to apply. There is no registration deadline. Applications must be mailed or hand-delivered to York College no later than March 15, 2010.

Register by: 03-15-2010 / Submit by: 03-15-2010

In dense urban settings, community gardens are an invaluable public resource - they not only provide the opportunity for city dwellers to grow their own food, but they may also educate the wider community about organics, food security, and sustainability.

Pandora Park Community Garden Society invites student and professional architects, landscape architects, builders, engineers, gardeners and designers of all kinds to take part in Green Shed: Pandora Park Community Garden Design Competition. The goal of this international competition is to generate buildable designs for a storage shed and outdoor common space for a new community garden that will showcase sustainable building strategies and materials. The winning design will be built by a team of volunteers over the summer of 2010.

Pandora Park Community Garden is currently under development as part of the City of Vancouver's 2010 in 2010 initiative - a project to create 2010 new community garden plots across the city. The competition encompasses the northwest corner of the garden, an area that has been reserved for public amenities including picnic facilities, storage for garden tools, a beehive, and a small fruit tree orchard. With stunning views of the north shore mountains and surrounding park and garden, the site offers the possibility to design a space for contemplation and congregation, in addition to serving the gardens needs for seating and storage.

The primary objective is to demonstrate that natural, hand built, recycled, or otherwise sustainably produced building materials and technologies can be used in a contemporary aesthetic and community garden context. Entrants are therefore encouraged to use materials in innovative ways in the tradition of Samuel Mockbee's Rural Studio. Materials may include, but are not limited to: rammed earth, cob, straw bale, reclaimed wood, offcut dimensional lumber, and salvaged materials from any source. A list of identified salvaged materials from local builders and suppliers is provided.

Register by: 03-19-2010 / Submit by: 03-26-2010

Whether it is despite or thanks to Miami's vertiginous development, it never found its feographical center and urban gravitational center. Therefore, Miami is composed of strips, avenues, suburbs and a small and weak "business center" which give incidence to verticality, rather than the enjoyment of the horizontal urban space coincident with the Atlantic horizon. Miami is bridges and viaducts, highways and Malls, small neighborhoods adjacent to private housings. As Los Angeles urban model, Miami has never encountered a functional civic space within its self-proclaimed center, which allows people to enjoy the proper "place spirit". For this reason, ARQUITECTUM and a Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Miami) have decided to choose a troubled spot with huge potential, where the future of the human urban space will be debated, with a pedestrian scale which will allow gathering, enjoying shadows and living as any other city in the world; returning the public space its superiority over private and closed space such as Shopping Centers.

For this purpose, a basic and important program has been porposed, which includes a Catholic Cathedral, high cost living housing (lofts), a Civic Center, a small Contemporary Architecture Museum, as well as several plazas that reconfigure the new Center from within, leading the public open space to become the main object of the project.

Register by: 04-14-2010 / Submit by: 04-21-2010

Prologue
We, as a nation, have been looking at education, particularly technical education, as a means to satisfy the manpower needs of our planning. Real development of the nation springs from a well developed human resource. The new developments in Biotechnology, Space research, Microelectronics, the computers and all the rest of the Hi-tech will no doubt be of great help to the rural area. But this is not the most important need nor will it bring true development to our weaker sections. True development must put the people and their land on the development path so that thereafter they can contribute to development and not just be the beneficiaries.

The Challenge
The learning process is not just listening or pen pushing but experiencing and acquiring skills. Intelligence development also depends on giving wide exposure to the student in the formative periods. So for practical experience of science learning one has to design a Science Center for rural areas lying on Delhi-Agra highway.

This Science Center is a Creative Space with a volume of approximate 7500 cubic Meters and there will be maximum 200 users at a time. This design should house permanent and temporary exhibitions, laboratories and workshops, a conference center, cafes, office space and a distinctive competition hall. The dimension of site is 40 m X 60 m with a maximum 30% allowed ground coverage.

This project also aims towards achieving a target of Sustainable building, which comprises, use of eco-friendly construction materials, clean and efficient use of energy and the best of waste management techniques. The form and designed spaces will be representing various fields of knowledge:

- India on the Move
- Human and the Environment
- Practical learning
- Roots of Civilization
- Young Adult Gallery

Candidates can add more spaces according to their needs. Participants can also make any valid assumption related to their design, but must be clearly stated and justified.

Eligibility
This competition is open for all Students. A team may comprise a maximum of three undergraduate students or two Post graduate students.

Register by: 02-15-2010 / Submit by: 02-15-2010

After the great success of the first edition, esterni presents the second edition of Public Design Festival: a festival aimed in the first place for designers and architects, but also for public administrators, companies, and common citizens to focus on public spaces, and on how they are conceived and designed, or, on the contrary, neglected.

A festival featuring installations and projects in some of Milan's public areas, meeting with representatives of the most important international urban design festivals, workshop on the theme of public spaces, alternative hospitality projects and a big party to celebrate public spaces.

During the Salone del Mobile (Milan's furniture fair), when everyone's attention is focussed on private spaces, esterni will focus on the city of Milan and its inhabitants, to further highlight the central role of public spaces as places where citizens develop a sense of community.

Purpose
The duepercinque competition was created with the following purposes:
- to make the public opinion more aware of the public space as a context for projects.
- to offer everyone - Italians and foreigners alike - the opportunity to express their creativity in a festival which talks about public space and enjoy a prestigious showcase, such as Milan's Salone del Mobile and other important events in Milan.
- to establish in time a tradition of projects in the public space.

Task
Participants shall design an intervention in a urban (2x5-metre) parking space. They may submit different kinds of projects, such as installations, communication projects, services for the city, actions, urban furniture items, or performances.

Submitted projects shall be related to public space according to the following guidelines:
- development of new (creative, temporary, or experimental) solutions to the city's problems
- re-appropriation of the public space as a place to express yourself
- public space as a place where people meet, get together, exchange ideas, integrate, and experiment
- public space as a place where a sense of community is built
- development of new ways to use the public space

Call for new projects
All presented projects shall be new and novel, and especially developed for this competition. Non-compliance with these terms will result in the immediate exclusion from the competition, or should the non-compliance be established at a later stage in the revocation of conferred awards - by unappealable decision of the jury - as well as in the repayment of received prizes.

Register by: 02-10-2010 / Submit by: 02-10-2010

The aim of the WA Community Awards is to highlight and publish remarkable projects that might otherwise remain unnoticed by the international public yet have the potential to inspire exciting questions about contemporary architectural discourse. ALL PROJECTS uploaded to the portal are considered as candidates for WA Awards, so we invite architects, architecture students from ALL COUNTRIES to submit their buildings (realized or not) of ANY TYPE for the appreciation of the WA Community.

Register by: 01-22-2010 / Submit by: 01-22-2010

The 2010 competition will consider the relationship between urban environment's and the river's edge, specifically the relationship of the City of St. Louis to the Mississippi River. Since 1967, Eero Saarinen's majestic Gateway Arch has commanded St. Louis, occupying the banks of the Mississippi. Commemorating Thomas Jefferson's purchase of the Louisiana Territory, the Arch stands on the grounds of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and symbolizes American settlement westward, hence why it is called the 'Gateway to the West.'

While the Mississippi was, indeed, a threshold to Western American settlement, the river itself has always been, and remains, the 'gateway' to the Gulf of Mexico - and thus, by sea, to the rest of the world. What might then be an equivalent to the Gateway to the West for the north-south axis of America? Not in the form of a singular monument, but in the complex ways in which the cities of St. Louis and East St. Louis can respond to and interact with their majestic river.

To address this question, the selected site for the 2010 Steedman Competition encompasses a large, complex territory, from the confluence of the rivers to the north to the bridge crossings south of the Gateway Arch. Thus, an urban design and a landscape design sensibility are required in addition to that of an architect. Considerations of infrastructure, topographic transformation, environmental stewardship, and built form must be creatively intertwined on behalf of enlarging the range of human uses and experiences at the boundaries of city and river.

Cities seeking to increase the qualities inherent to urban living, rescue land from industrial obsolescence, or provide an alternative to peripheral sprawl turn to their waterfronts more than ever, and for a broader array of reasons. Along these waterfronts, it seems possible to accommodate the changing needs of today's urban dweller, as modern societies continue their millennial shift from industrial-based economies (and their spatial demands) to service- and lifestyle-based economies and their requirements.

Register by: 02-28-2010 / Submit by: 04-11-2010

The Western Red Cedar Lumber Association (WRCLA) is calling for entries in the 2010 Western Red Cedar Architectural Design Awards program. The awards recognize innovative design using one of the world's most unique building materials, Western Red Cedar.

All entries must be submitted by July 30, 2010. Submissions must be made online at www.construction.com/community/WRCLA. Winners will be chosen by a panel of notable architects, and the results announced at the Greenbuild Expo in Chicago, November 16 – 10, 2010.

Register by: 07-30-2010 / Submit by: 07-30-2010

A Tall Building at the port of Piraeus – the Piraeus Municipality belongs in the urban area of the city of Athens which has a population of 4,000,000 – is abandoned for more than 30 years. It is 22-storey building, 84 m. tall and it is known as "Piraeus Tower". It is often called as "the sleeping giant" due to its abandonment. The only tower of the area is "sleeping" in one of the bigger ports of Mediterranean that presents a dynamic growth the last decades.

There is a challenge, therefore, in order for the Tower to become a landmark at the port of Piraeus and to be highlighted, with its modernisation, as one of the most important architectural buildings not only for the city of Piraeus but for the whole city of Athens.

The challenge is focused to the reconstruction of the external facade of the building. The facade interventions regard the type and dimension of the proposed constructions either in contact or at a distance from the existing curtain walls. The interventions may be surfacings, facades renovations, constructions of every type and size, or all of them. The proposed interventions may be extended over the building within the ground boundary without, though, any height limitation. Every vertical or horizontal construction cannot be occupied by indoor spaces. The building indoor space is still in the existing outline. The frame of the building shall be kept without any intervention. However, additional support provisions shall be introduced where appropriate and necessary.

Register by: 03-31-2010 / Submit by: 04-14-2010

Triple Canopy is pleased to announce its first call for proposals. We will be commissioning ten projects spanning the five areas outlined below?original research, new-media journalism, public programming, Internet-specific artwork, and critical dialogues?to be published in the magazine and presented before live audiences in the next year. Submissions and proposals are due by February 15, 2010. For more detailed information, visit our commissions page.

This first round of commissions is supported in part by a generous grant from the Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston. Commissions will be accompanied by a modest honorarium, the amount of which will reflect the scope of the project and the cost of its development. Support future commissions by making a tax-deductible contribution online now.

Project Areas:

Research Work
Research Work was established to facilitate the creation of research projects that are produced outside academia, for a general audience; employ Internet-specific methods of presentation; and serve a public best reached by making the work available for free online.

Internet as Material
Internet as Material was established to support emerging and mid-career artists who have never before made work specifically for the Web in the production of an online project. These projects further Triple Canopy's mission by utilizing the Internet?which is too often understood as a channel for the transfer of information?as a medium for the development of artworks that actively engage readers.

Thinking Through Images
Thinking Through Images was established to foster conversations about images and videos of cultural, political, and social relevance, between artists, writers, researchers, and other cultural practitioners working in different fields. The program aims to facilitate close readings of popular media and fine art?from nineteenth-century paintings to Internet memes to documentation of current events?that consider these cultural products in a common context.

New Media Reporting Project
The New Media Reporting Project was established to provide journalists an outlet for?and provide them with the training and technical resources and expertise to realize?in-depth, critical reports executed in multiple media, with the goal of providing an immersive experience of the stories and subjects that shape our age.

New Programming
New Programming was established to support the development of exhibitions, panel discussions, performances, film screenings, and other public events that examine the intersection of culture, politics, and technology.

Register by: 02-15-2010 / Submit by: 02-15-2010

Given the reductionism and oversimplification of some of the large-scale urban projects implemented in Europe in recent years, and the risks of homogenisation and impoverishment of the urban landscape, we believe that promoting public space and making known its political and plural character and the diversity of functions it can embrace, is an ideal way of stimulating urban projects that aim to reinvent and enhance the structural role that this space has always played in European cities.

The European Prize for Urban Public Space is a biennial competition that aims to highlight the importance of public space as a catalyst of urban life, and to recognise and foster investment by public administrations in its creation, conservation and improvement, while also understanding the state of public space as a clear indicator of the civic and collective health of our cities.

In order to enter for the European Prize for Urban Public Space, the works must be presented for the award by the institutions that are responsible for the intervention, or by its authors. The Prize covers the geographic region of the Council of Europe (http:www.coe.int/). If it is desired to present interventions related with the creation of new urban spaces, it must be borne in mind that, apart from general considerations about the effect as a whole, the results achieved within these public spaces and their impact on community life will be the ones that are specifically evaluated.

Register by: 01-29-2010 / Submit by: 01-29-2010

We are launching this competition in the context of larger issues concerning the environment, global food production and the imperative to generate a sense of community in our urban and suburban neighborhoods. From Mowing to Growing is not meant to transform each lawn into a garden, but to open us up to the possibilities of self-sustenance, organic growth, and perpetual change. In particular, we seek specific technical, urbanistic, and architectural strategies not simply for the food production required to feed the cities and suburbs, but the possibilities of diet, agriculture, and retrofitted facilities that could achieve that level within the constraints of the local climate.

Seeking architects, urban designers, planners, engineers, scientists, artists, students and individuals of all backgrounds:
? How can we break the American love affair with the suburban lawn?
? Can green houses be incorporated in skyscrapers?
? What are the urban design strategies for food production in cities?
? Can food grow on rooftops, parking lots, building facades?
? What is required to remove foreclosure signs on lawns and convert them to gardens?

We want to see how you'd design future-proof spaces and systems to explore the larger framework of suburban and urban agriculture and its effects on the architecture and urban design.

Register by: 03-31-2010 / Submit by: 04-30-2010

The second issue of eVolo magazine is now available and highly recommended as a worthwhile addtion to any library. In much the same way the premier issue symbiotically merged real projects with the more conceptual sort generated in the course of the eVolo competitions, this sequel does to great success. Creating an admirable sense of balance, oftentimes acting as somewhat of a transitional device between projects are the incredibly varied and thought-provoking essays. The theme centers specifically on skyscrapers and speculates on the future of the typology as proposed through various projects and writing.

With over thirty selected projects from the eVolo skyscraper competition and several case study towers, the publication is sure to provide a current snapshot of critical thinking on tall buildings. Graphically, the book is well-composed and complements the rigorous editing of Carlo Aiello.

eVolo Issue 2 available here.

Interviews with:
Carol Willis
Giacomo Costa

Skyscrapers by:
Herzog & de Meuron
Morphosis
MVRDV
Jean Nouvel
Office for Metropolitan Architecture
Skidmore Owings and Merrill
Studio Shift

Essays by:
Brian Ahmes
Marcos Betanzos
Joanna Borek-Clement
Benny Chow
Mario Cipresso
Elie Gamburg
Arvin Garay-Cruz
Mohamed Ghamlouch
Ted Givens
Maryana Grinshpun
Mathias Henning
Reinaldo Leandro
Andrew Liang
Jos? Mu?oz-Villers
Chad Porter
Maria Prieto
Javier Quintana

2009 Skyscraper Competition:
30 most innovative projects

Aranda / Lasch:
Recent work

Editor's Letter
by Carlo Aiello
It has been a tremendous satisfaction to compile this issue about the past, present, and future of the skyscraper. No other architectural genre captures our imagination and reflects our cultural and technological achievements like these towers that pierce the sky. We start off with the history and evolution of building high, from the Egyptian pyramids, Gothic cathedrals, and first American skyscrapers to the contemporary reality in Asia and the Middle East.

We present two fascinating interviews, the first one with Carol Willis, the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum in New York City, who explains the true genetics and economics behind the birth and future of the skyscraper. The second one with Italian artist, Giacomo Costa, who shares his vision about "the relationship between the natural environment, human activity, and supernatural reality" with provocative images of an apocalyptic urban future.

Javier Quintana exposes the time gap between new architectural concepts and their built reality – like Arne Hosek's "City of the Future" designed in 1928 and materialized in 1998 by Cesar Pelli as the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur or Sergei Lopatin's 1925 idea for the Veshenka Tower in Moscow, later observed as the Willis Tower (former Sears Tower) in Chicago in 1974.

Another group of essays explore the global influence of Manhattan as a contemporary Babylon to be replicated across the world, or the role of the Italian Futurists, Japanese Metabolists, and Archigram, who influenced generations of architects and designers to push forward the concept of vertical living.

In the 'Opinion' section you will find critiques on some of the latest ideas for skyscraper design by some of the most forward-looking architects – like the concept of pixelated tectonics in Le Project Triangle in Paris by Herzog & de Meuron and Rodovere's Sky Village by MVRDV. On the other hand, Jean Nouvel redefined the Italian loggia towers of the seventeenth century with the Tour Signal in La D?fense, Paris; while Morphosis Architects explores new programs for vertical density with The Phare Tower. Lastly, Studio SHIFT masterfully integrates their Miyi Tower in Sichuan, China, with the existing landscape.

Central to this issue are thirty projects from eVolo's 2009 Skyscraper Competition which look into the future of the skyscraper with the use of new technologies, programs, and aesthetic expression. Sustainability, globalization, flexibility, and adaptability are just some of the multi-layered elements explored by some the entries. You will find examples of cities in the sky, horizontal skyscrapers that link various cities, or emergency architecture for disaster zones.

Finally, we present the work of Aranda / Lasch, a young New York-based design studio which develops their research on the observation of the patterns of organization in the natural world and its implementation in architecture and design. Their "Quasi-Series" furniture is designed following the assemblage logic of Quasi-crystals, where a structural pattern does not repeat itself.

We would like to acknowledge our readers for their encouraging letters and e-mails that we have received over the last months. It is our mission to continue discovering and promoting new talents and to present a new wave of architecture that will undoubtedly transform our world.

Review By Mario Cipresso

What If this could happen in Boston?

Winner of the SHIFTboston Ideas Competition announced at the SHIFTboston Forum

(Boston, MA, January 14, 2010) Government officials, business, academic, and community leaders converged with artists, architects and design professionals at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston to showcase and celebrate the creative ideas about Boston's future cityscape.

Before a packed auditorium, the finalists of the SHIFTboston Ideas Competition were discussed by a panel composed of local architects Brian Healy and Audrey O’Hagan, joined by Maria Aiolova Co-Founder of Terrefuge and Terreform ONE, NY and Carlo Ratti Director of MIT SENSEable City Lab. Projects presented encompassed a variety of topics ranging from social web technologies, transportation, urban agriculture, energy harvesting and ecological urbanism.

The winning team of Sapir Ng and Andrzej Zarzycki were presented with their US$1,000 prize check for their idea TUTS: Tremont underground theater space. Their concept is to transform the abandoned Tremont Street subway tunnels into an interactive cultural space with experiential theaters and immersive digital galleries. While creating a connection between the Orange and Green subway lines, a trolley museum would celebrate the history of the landmark as North America's oldest subway system. "Compared to what I do on a daily basis and seeing the normative architecture that we have, this is really truly wonderful. I'd like to figure out a way that in city government and in the development community, that we can figure out what are the kernels of brilliant ideas and be able to apply them." Kairos Shen, Chief Planner, Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Visit SHIFTBoston to see the all of the finalists online.

About the SHIFTboston Ideas Competition 2009, http://shiftboston.org, This international competition gathered 141 entries from sixteen states and fourteen countries ideas from visionary architects, artists, landscape architects, urban designers, and others answering the call: WHAT IF this could happen in Boston?

About SHIFTboston
SHIFTboston is here to be the catalyst for change; our goal is to promote the future urban environment and provide a stage for progressive thinkers to present his and her visions. We will push new ideas and innovations that are necessary for Boston to become a model city for the future. Let's start now and have fun doing it.

Posted By Mario Cipresso

On Jan. 12th a powerful 7.0 quake hit the impoverished nation of Haiti. This was followed more than 30+ strong aftershocks. There has been widespread major damage and a loss of life estimated to be between 45,000 to 50,000 according to the Red Cross with some other estimates as high as 100,000. There are projections of 2-3 million without shelter.

Architecture for Humanity has launched an appeal to focus on the long term reconstruction effort in Haiti.

If you can, please support this cause.

For more information about Architecture for Humanity's activities in Haiti or to donate, please visit Architecture for Humanity

Posted by Mario Cipresso

[New application now available in the App Store]

Apple has approved 'Architecture' for distribution in the App Store. A selection of the world's finest architectural masterpieces in pocket size. A one-stop GPS-enabled guide to the world’s greatest buildings from the 20th and 21st century.

Travel to any place in the world and this guide will tell you, where the most interesting buildings are located nearby. It tells you the story behind the building and the architect, shows two images for each project, website and address, and a detailed map with walking or driving directions. It also presents you with a Google Street View where available.

'Architecture' contains projects from 165 different architects, in 270 cities worldwide. It has more than 1000 pictures from buildings stored internally. From Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to Sanaa and OMA. From Oscar Niemeyer and Frank Lloyd Wright to Morphosis and Peter Zumthor. A selection of 20th and 21st century architecture that spans traditions throughout the world, from the all time favorites to the latest Pritzker Prize winners, from classic icons to hidden architectural gems and oddities.

A great tool for architecture and design lovers, world travelers and city dwellers, to discover great buildings worldwide. Projects can also be browsed by categories ?cities? or ?architects? with no data connection needed, because all information and pictures are stored offline on the end-user’s phone. So no expensive roaming cost when abroad and it can also be used without GPS, in Flight Mode or on the iPod Touch. All projects have a full description, photos and additional details such as the name of the architect, the year it was built and the associated website.

'Architecture' offers a free trial version that lets users try all features for 3 days. After the trial period, it will return to basic browsing mode. Cost of application is USD 3.99 / EUR 2,99.

Download Application

Application Homepage

More Screenshots

Posted By Mario Cipresso

From Studio Banana TV's website:

Studio Banana TV interviews Japanese architect Toyo Ito on the occasion of his lecture at the European University of Madrid. Toyo Ito is one of the world's most innovative and influential architects. Ito is known for creating extreme concept buildings, in which he seeks to fuse the physical and virtual worlds. Interview realised with the sponsorship of the European University of Madrid.

Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect born in 1941. He graduated from Tokyo University's Department of Architecture in 1965. His office Toyo Ito & Associates is a world leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated" city, and has been called "one of the world's most innovative and influential architects."

After a brief stint in the Metabolist studio of Kiyonori Kikutake, in 1971 he started his own studio in Tokyo, named Urbot ("Urban Robot"). In 1979, the studio name was changed to Toyo Ito & Associates. Throughout his early career Ito constructed numerous private house projects that expressed aspects of urban life in Japan. His early experiments include the Tower of Winds, the Egg of Winds and the Pao House for nomad women. Later projects include the Yatsushiro Municipal Museum and the Shimosuwa Municipal Museum. More recently he has built the Sendai Mediatheque (2001), the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London (2002), TOD's Omotesando Building in Tokyo (2004), the World Games Stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2008) or the Torre Fira BCN Building in Barcelona (2009).

Ito has defined architecture as "clothing" for urban dwellers, particularly in the contemporary Japanese metropolis. This theme revolves around the equilibrium between the private life and the metropolitan "public" life of an individual. The current architecture of Toyo Ito expands on his work produced during the postmodern period, aggressively exploring the potentials of new forms. In doing so, he seeks to find new spatial conditions that manifest the philosophy of borderless beings.

Interview by Cornelia Tapparelli. Translation by Yayoi Kawamura.

Watch the interview.

Posted by Mario Cipresso

For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Triple Canopy, you'll find this most recent issue to be an exemplar of the timely critical writing and cultural analysis that has quickly become their hallmark. In reviewing Issue 7, you'll find yourself digging back into previous issues to connect various urban ideas that have been investigated over the first several issues. In this sense, Triple Canopy offers an admirable sense of continuity from release to release.

From Triple Canopy:

Issue 7, Urbanisms: Master Plans

The seventh issue of Triple Canopy has reached its conclusion, and with it a seven-month examination of our current urban situation and what lies beyond it: the city’s past and its future; the suburban, the exurban, the frontier.

Learning from Tijuana by Teddy Cruz with Caleb Waldorf From the graveyards of corporate architecture to the informal settlements of Latin America.

The VPL Authority by Rustam Mehta & Thomas Moran with Keller Easterling Deep in the desert Southwest, a public-private corporation is building a mega-eco-city that will be the hub of a new high-speed rail network.

Divine Wilderness by Nathan Schneider From Thomas Aquinas and John the Baptist to cellular automata and intelligent design: How God taught us planning, and where we went wrong.

Daybreak by Lucy Raven In the suburbs of Salt Lake City, the newest great dead American economy lies in wake atop the last one.

Urbanisms: Master Plans also features work by Zlatan Filipovic with Molly Kleiman, Bryan Finoki, Hovhanness Tumanyan & Vahram Aghasyan, Urban China, Kazys Varnelis, and Zs with Josh Slater.

Read Triple Canopy Issue 7

Posted By Mario Cipresso

The recently launched eVolo magazine is now available digitally on Zinio for a fraction of the price of the print edition and with the added bonus of sparing a few trees from the horror of the paper mill.

Zinio provides an easy-to-use interface with excellent clarity of text and graphics. There are various zoom and viewing controls to help you maximize your reading experience. My favorite features include a clickable table of contents and the ability to search the text.

Have a look at Zinio.com

Posted By Mario Cipresso

From SPFa:
SPF:a presented its design concept in grand style to a packed house at the Grand Theatre in Calgary, along with other finalists, Allied Works Architecture/BKDI, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Jean Nouvel Workshop, and Saucier + Perrotte. The project, which involves building a National Music Centre in and around the shell of Calgary's oldest blues bar is seen by many as one of the country’s most ambitious and important urban-design projects, and is located in the heart of one of Calgary's oldest neighborhoods. The Centre will be part museum, part education and outreach facility, and part performance space, incorporating genres ranging from pop and country to ancient music and contemporary composition. For its presentation, SPF:a delighted the crowd with a stunning documentary film – taking viewers on a journey, not only through the building, but through the entire creative process and soul of the project. Cantos will announce a selection in September 2009.

VIDEO:
SPFa on Vimeo

More information at:
www.spfa.com

Posted by Mario Cipresso

By now, many of you are familiar with the annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition that has been featured on our Death By Architecture website. In fact, we reviewed the publication, 'eVolo, Skyscraper For The XXI Century' that presented the results of the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions of the competition and still highly recommend it as a worthy addition to your library.

Like the book, the magazine is thoughtfully edited by Carlo Aiello and the lengths he has gone to publicize the work produced in the course of the competitions is commendable. This premier issue of eVolo Magazine centers itself around selected projects from the 2007 Housing Competition and then complements those projects with a strong selection of notable commissions by architects such as Herzog & De Meuron, Steven Holl, OMA, BIG and Asymptote. The juxtaposition of 'real' and 'conceptual' makes for interesting food for thought especially when you consider the mission of the magazine, which is to highlight the most innovative and inventive ideas that will shape the cities of the 21st Century.

With over 30 projects and articles, the magazine is substantial and of high-quality and you'll surely find yourself returning to it many times. eVolo plans to release two issues a year currently and given the execution of this first issue, I am definitely looking forward to the sequel.

www.evolo-arch.com

Review by Mario Cipresso

BIG wins an International Competition to design Tallin's new City Hall.

An international idea contest was held for Tallinn's new City Hall in Estonia and the best concept was presented by the Bjarke Ingels Group from Denmark together with Adams Kara Taylor of the UK.

The purpose of the international idea contest was to find the best architectural solution for the new administrative building of the city government that will be situated on a 35,000 m2 plot near the Linnahall building. The contest for the new city was met with a great interest, 81 architects and their teams were willing to present an entry. Of those, the international jury chose the best 9 to shortlist as finalists into the second phase of the competition. By May 15 the finalists handed in their final solutions. The international jury's decision to award BIG's entry first place in the competition was unanimous and was presided by the vice mayor Taavi Aas.

Bjarke Ingels, BIG, Partner-in-Charge:
There is a saying that success has many fathers. That is especially true when designing such a crucial public building and public space as a town hall. The design needs to be shaped by input from neighbours and users, citizens and politicians. Paradoxically we architects often find ourselves isolated from this crucial dialogue at the moment of conception, due to the anonymity of the architectural competition.

Since this was a 2 stage competition, we already had our first feedback from the jury – causing us to dramatically rearrange our design to fit the citizens’ needs. As a result we have envisioned a very elastic structure – capable of adapting to unexpected demands. We see it as the first conversation in a design dialogue we look forward to continue.

Public Insight + Political Overview
Good governance and participatory democracy is dependent on transparency in both directions. It requires adequate political overview of the problems, demands and desires of the public, as well as public insight into the political processes. The new town hall of Tallinn will provide this two way transparency in a very literal way. The various public departments form a porous canopy above the public service market place allowing both daylight and view to permeate the structure. The public servants won't be some remote administrators taking decisions behind thick walls, but will be visible in their daily work from all over the market place via the light wells and courtyards. From outside the panoramic windows allow the citizens to see their city at work. In reverse the public servants will be able to look out and into the market place's making sure that the city and its citizens are never out of sight nor mind.

Jakob Lange, BIG, Project Leader
The Town hall is not only surrounded by public space - but literally invaded by the citizens in the form of the public service market place beneath the canopy of the public offices, where the citizens of Tallinn can meet their public servants.

Democratic Tower
The City Council, the heart of the democratic process, is located in the town hall tower visible from the park, the plaza and the podium of the Linnen Hall. The roof of the tower is tilted forming a slender spire. Inside the City Council greeting hall is accessed via the grand stair or elevators directly from the market place, or from the City offices around it. Above the greeting hall, the City Council is located in a generous space illuminated though a large window facing the city. A balcony for press and visitors flanks the space on the level above. The sloping ceiling of the tower is finished in a large reflective material. The mirror ceiling transforms the tower into a huge democratic periscope allowing literal transparency between politicians and public. In ancient times the town hall would have a vaulted ceiling decorated with a sky or frescos of the land and territories under the ruler's government. In the new town hall of Tallinn the ceiling will be a real (reflected) overview of the city both old and new.

Whenever a politician raises his/her glance, he/she will be met with the view of Tallinn's townscape. In reverse, the citizens, rallying protesters or simply people passing by, will look towards the tower, and within it get an insight into the political work. The circular formation of council members will be reflected in the tilted ceiling, and give the surrounding citizens a sense of assurance that the democracy is busy working for them. In a traditional tower only the king at the top gets to enjoy the great view. The periscope is a form of democratic tower, where even the average Tallinn citizen on the street gets to enjoy the overview from the top. From a distance the silhouette of the town hall tower enters the family of Tallinn’s historical spires including those of the Niguliste Museum-Concert Hall, Toomkirik, Kaarli Kirik, P?havaimu Kirik, St. Olav Church and the current town hall.

Hanif Kara, Adams Kara Taylor:
The structural concept reflects the simplicity of the architectural intent; a grouping of "easily assembled individual Frames" that through vierendeel frames free the connection of the city at ground level whilst simultaneously act as a "group" to resist lateral loads. The result is an economic, fast build adaptable solution.

The Jury
The international idea contest was jointly organized by the City Planning Department and the Union of Estonian Architects. The members of the jury were: Head Architect of Tallinn Endrik M?nd, Administrative Director of the Tallinn City Office Viljar Meister, head Architect of Riga Janis Dripe, architect Tarald Lundevall from Norway, architect Peter Wilson from Germany, architects Martin Aunin, Tiit Trummal, Kalle Komissarov, and Andres Levald as a substitute member. The winning project was awarded with 500,000 Estonian kroons. The mayor of Tallinn Edgar Savisaar stated contentment with the results of the competition, thanked all the participants and expressed his hope that the new administrative building of Tallinn will be built sooner or later, despite the hard times in the European economy.

THE TALLINN TOWN HALL CREDIT LIST:
- ARCHITECT: BIG
- CONTRIBUTORS: Daniel Sundlin, Hanna Johansson, Ondrej Janku, Ken Aoki, Benjamin Engelhardt, Maxime Enrico, Joao Albuquerque
- PROJECT: TALLINN TOWN HALL
- CLIENT: CITY PLANNING OFFICE, CITY OF TALLINN
- COLLABORATORS: AKT
- SIZE: 28.000 M2
- LOCATION: TALLINN, ESTONIA
- TYPE: OPEN IDEAS COMPETITION

For further information or high res images please contact:
BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group
E-mail: press@big.dk
Website: http://www.big.dk

Posted by Mario Cipresso

Their usefulness and relevance to our purpose is yet to be seen but in hopes of connecting with more of you, I have setup a Twitter account and created a group on Facebook.

Many of you have already joined us online at Linkedin and that's proven somewhat successful. I expect these two venues to create more frequent debate.

I'm definitely open to some feedback in how you think Twitter can best be utilized, I doubt you want to know when I am making a turkey sandwich...well, maybe some of you do. So look me up on Twitter with my name or my user name, "DeathByArch".

Those of you on Facebook, which I believe is everyone by now, please look us up and join the group.

I am looking forward to your participation.

Posted By Mario Cipresso

From the 0300tv.com website:

0300TV visited Sofia von Ellrichshausen and Mauricio Pezo [Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects] and four of their recent residential projects in Concepcion, Chile: Parr House, Poli House, Wolf House and Fosc House.

So what's the big deal? PvE Architects may have the recipe for operating in developing contexts like -not-so-emerging-anymore Chile.

It’s been almost eight years since they’ve been established in Concepcion, Chile and started to experiment with their subtly restrained method of work formats, trial and error, between art and architecture. Operating in unstable conditions, PvE Architect’s work demonstrates that there’s no room here for grand gestures. It’s all about searching for small ideas, small approximations, which –in addition- will conform the final oeuvre.

0300TV presents Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects: Context & Work System, featuring an interview to PvE Architects and footage of Forestal and I Was There Installations plus Parr, Poli, Wolf and Fosc houses.

See the video at 0300tv.com.

Posted by Mario Cipresso

VBS.NET is featuring a recent interview with Oscar Niemeyer that is a must-see. The interview is presented in two short segments but it's quite fascinating that after 101 years of life, thus far, Niemeyer believes in keeping it simple although his architecture maintains a certain complexity that has become a trademark over his long career.

He talks briefly about his work but turns to the ocassional outside influence on his architecture, such as a woman. He prefers not to discuss architecture it seems, rather he appears to return to various moments in his life, painting a vivid picture of what he really believes in hindsight is important. A life that he believes is so insignificant in comparison to the magnitude of the cosmos, that no man should consider himself important. It's all about being useful and making contributions to society.

Oscar Niemeyer Interview at VBS.NET

From the VBS.NET site:
In the 1950s, Brazil decided it would be a perfectly reasonable idea to move the capital to the center of the country's interior plateau (read: nowhere). To facilitate this sensible endeavor they enlisted Oscar Niemeyer - an ardent communist and proponent of modern architecture who, alongside his buddy Le Corbusier, had co-designed the UN building in New York - to build a crazy spacepod city in the middle of the planalto.

Brasilia provided Niemeyer the perfect template to test out all the theoretical business he and his modernist colleagues had been cooking up for the past two decades. Together with urban planner Luis Costa, he designed a functionally integrated city full of massive concrete mushroom buildings and swooping aluminum spires and twisty overpasses and skyways and symbolic edifices and designated "sectors" where no one would ever have to watch out for traffic or wait at a stoplight. It's basically the bastard child of Alphaville and Albany, NY, and to this day remains a benchmark in what we really hope the future is going to look like.

It also sealed his reputation as one of the century's most influential architects and certainly its most influential Brazilian. Then an anti-communist military junta seized control of the country and kicked him out.

Posted By Mario Cipresso

Denver, Colorado-based Sprocket hosted an open competition in the historic Highland Square district of Denver to engage the DESIGN community in a public forum. The specific goal was to create a discussion of innovative concepts for designing, occupying and programming public space. The competition endeavored to explore the concepts of community and sustainability through the union of an innovative programming, the exchange of goods and service, and public art.

The program focused on creating a viable concept for programming a 'public space' and entrants were encouraged to go beyond the idea of food and produce. The entrants were asked to expand the historical notion of a ?farmer’s market’ to things such as art display, community venues, music venue, crafts, etc. The concepts were to focus on activating the space with the flexibility to provide year round programming. In addition, each entrant was to create a viable identity for community outreach.

The competition attracted almost 60 entries hailing from both the United States and abroad. All entries are online for viewing at the Sprocket Gallery website.

The winners are:

First Place
Arquitectura, Inc.-(Wisconsin)
Nick Cascarano, Harry Van Oudenallen, Brittany Radlinger, Andrew Herland

Second Place
Andy Stein, Rick Alexander And Mari Suarez (Colorado)

Third Place
Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui, Lorene Faure, Justin C.K. Lau, Jaenes Bong, Jonathan Alotto, & Ana?s Sansonetti (United Kingdom)

Merit Award
Bernie Costello (Colorado)

Colorado Award
Steve Perce (Colorado)

International Honor Award
Carlos Marin And Carlos Avalos (Mexico)

National Honor Award
Ziska Architecture (Ohio)
Rick Ziska And Justin Gustafson

Complete details and jury information at Sprocket Gallery.

Posted By Mario Cipresso

The recent release of the "HYBRIDS" series has proven timely and relevant given the current prevailing environmental and economic issues we face as a global society today. The underlying themes center largely on the need to intensify and maximize land use as a means to develop sustainable systems and societies which is directly connected to the increasing scarcity of available land. These two themes coupled with the recent trends towards re-inhabiting city centers makes the thoughtful consideration of high-density, mixed-use urban solutions more critical than ever. We've seen more large-scale urban proposals in the architecture media recently than ever before, often bordering on the absurd. The authors have done well to select a good cross-section of projects that are largely built (or planned) and have split the two volumes based on horizontal versus vertical strategies.

The authors present the notion of the 'Hybrid' as structures that enable the mixing or combination of different programs and urban uses. They further expand the definition to include the hybridization of public and private interests in the realms of housing, public space and civic amenities as a means to address the aforementioned social and environmental issues.

"Hybrids 1: High-Rise Mixed-Use Buildings" features Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid, OMA's Dubai Renaissance, REX's Museum Plaza and BIG's Scala Tower. "Hybrids 2: Low-Rise Mixed-Use Buildings" features Jakob+MacFarlane's Docks du Paris, Steven Holl's Vanke Center and Office dA's New Kuwait Sports Shooting Club. One may find the scale of these projects somewhat daunting and it remains to be seen how sustainable these high-density solutions are as projects of this nature are largely untested. These projects form somewhat of a laboratory, a new type of social experiment which is largely taking form in Asia and the Middle East.

The projects are presented in typical a+t fashion which is anything but typical. All projects are custom diagrammed which lends to the ease of project-to-project comparison and analysis. Every project is considered and quantified urbanistically, programmatically and functionally. The graphic presentation is very well done and you'll find the books to be well organized.

It's unfortunate that you can't find these easily on Amazon at the time of this review but you can purchase them directly through a+t ediciones.

Review By Mario Cipresso

Although the results were officially announced last week for the international competition sponsored by the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control, the work of all 7 finalists has now been published online at the TCDC competition website. Only the first place entry shows all the presentation panels while all others were limited to just a few images. The entries have also been published elsewhere on the internet in English and Chinese at Forgemind Archimedia where they display some varied materials, but still not all entries in their entirety (see the links below).

The seven finalists were composed of three local Taiwanese firms, who placed first, second and third, and four international firms with local associate architects who all received honorable mentions......hmmm.

First Prize
Ricky Liu & Associates + CUH2A
http://www.forgemind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=15717

Second Prize
Fei & Cheng Associates + Harvey Ellis Devereaux
http://www.forgemind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=15718

Third Prize
Domino Architects & Associates
http://www.forgemind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=15719

Honorable Mentions
TAG Design Works + Kornberg Associates
http://www.forgemind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=15720

Shuhei Endo + Kunio Watanabe
http://www.forgemind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=15721

Studio Shift + HOY Architects
http://www.forgemind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=15722

Manfredi Nicoletti + ARCO Architects & Designers
http://www.forgemind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=15723

Taiwan Centers for Disease Control Competition Website

Posted by Mario Cipresso

There are many organizations that sponsor worthwhile programs and they of course deserve our support. I recently learned of one such program that has architecture students as its driving force and the group in particular that I am familiar with is the University of Southern California chapter of the Global Architecture Brigades. This is essentially a student initiated effort and it's always inspiring and refreshing when young undergraduate students begin learning about the positive impacts that architecture can have on people and their communities.

The students at the University of Southern California (USC) who in collaboration with the organization Global Architecture Brigades have begun an international project for the impoverished in Panama. They are researching and designing a sustainable and ecologically responsible residential project that will eventually be built in Panama, by us and with the help of the community. Our goal is to construct a beneficial space while teaching the community members construction techniques. Hopefully this will enable and empower the surrounding communities to continue rebuilding their neighborhoods.

You can learn more about the program and students involved, and if you deem appropriate, donate, by following this link to the USC Global Architecture Brigades Blog

More on the Global Architecture Brigades:
Global Architecture Brigades is a volunteer student-based collaborative dedicated to the research, design, and construction of socially responsible, environmentally sustainable solutions to architectural problems in the developing world. A think tank design approach utilizes extensive community dialog and independent research to create efficient, appropriate, and elegant structures to be embraced and utilized by those for whom they were built. Ultimately, extended relationships between brigades and communities would result not only in the implementation of a variety of projects, but also the accumulation of a vast wealth of knowledge from which future students, designers, and communities could learn.

Creating these solutions within the current parameters that the field of architecture has set is simply not possible. Students of design must question, reconsider, and ultimately rewrite every aspect of design that culture has come to accept. Through this counter-cultural approach to design defiance, architecture can become something essential not to the few who want, but rather to the many who need.

Global Architecture Brigades Home

Posted By Mario Cipresso

Recently launched was the new Morphosis website designed by Venice, California media/web firm UseAllFive. More impressive is the connection of the website to the new Morphopedia.com which is quickly becoming an exhaustive resource for all Morphosis work. Every project is documented in photos, drawings and text with specific technical data.

This is a refreshing approach to publishing architectural projects which facilitates the detailed study of a complete body of notable work. Students should find incredible value in this latest endeavor.

morphosis.com

morphopedia.com

Posted By Mario Cipresso

Through an RFQ process, the New South Town of Miyi County in south eastern China selected the Los Angeles based team of Studio SHIFT and SWA Group to create a master plan for the developing area. As part of the new plan, Studio SHIFT has designed a tower containing various programs aimed at promoting the region's heritage and natural amenities. The tower sits at the edge of the Anning River and will mark the transition between the new development to the north and the new wetlands, leisure and agricultural districts to the south.

The Miyi Tower rises from the southern end of a kilometer long promenade that stretches from a high density residential and cultural hub devoted to regional arts. The promenade itself consists of a series of parks and public spaces designed by SWA Group to highlight accessibility to the river. It then tapers between rising paths which form the amphitheater at the tower's base. The paths converge and then continue as a bridge across the river and as an overlook affording views of reclaimed wetlands and the lake beyond. The designers were intent on utilizing natural and mechanical means of filtration to produce clean water, converting a highly polluted river into a usable amenity for residents and visitors. This new amenity takes the form of a series of lakes, wetlands and waterways which lend form to the new districts in the master plan.

The tower itself, which is to act as a major landmark per the Miyi government's request, is designed as an educational building for residents and the multitude of tourists that visit every year. Because the town is known for its abundance of sunshine and temperate climate, only half of the building's program elements are enclosed. These double height spaces alternate with unenclosed areas and rise around a vertical core, their alignment shifting toward different views at every floor. An auditorium, exhibition spaces and restaurants featuring local cuisine can be found on the interior while open-air floors are used as event spaces, gardens and an observation deck. The pairs of lower and upper enclosed spaces are joined by structures which act as light monitors. These light monitors, of which there is a third at the highest level, are aligned to take advantage of different lighting conditions throughout the day.

The tower is sheathed in a very porous yet continuous skin that gives the various programs their unified form. As porous building skins are often treated as opaque modules with subtracted holes (i.e. perforated skins) Studio SHIFT deliberately created the inverse. On the Miyi Tower, rather than defaulting to a technique of perforation, they created a pattern of objects in space mounted to a light frame. This inversion allows the skin to take on a rather ethereal effect and evokes the shimmering surface of the river below.

Architect: Studio SHIFT

Principals: Mario Cipresso and Chris Warren

Project Assistants: Chris Hyun and Andrew Kim

www.studioshift.com

Landscape Architect: SWA Group Los Angeles

Gerdo Aquino, Ying Yu Hung, Patrick Curran and Alex Robinson

www.swagroup.com

Posted by Mario Cipresso

If you've been to DBA over the years, you're by now familiar with an annual competition called eVolo. This ideas competition asks architecture firms and students to present their ideas on the potential and possibilities for the future skyscraper. For a study on typology in the modern era, it seems that there is none better suited than a skyscraper for this endeavor. It is, after all, somewhat bound by its definition. That specificity, and the tenacity with which it is manipulated, is why you'll be very surprised by the contents of this book.

Carlo Aiello does us a favor in the simplicity of his presentation. There are just two blocks of text that introduce us to the aims of the book. These are best summed up in the text:

"In this book we present the top ranked projects from the 06, 07, and 08 Skyscraper Competition. The central conception of these competitions was to speculate as to the reality and future of the skyscraper, posing questions such as; What is the skyscraper in the beginning of the XXI Century? What is the historical and social context of these mega-structures? What is their response to the urban fabric? Is the modern skyscraper a city in and of itself? Is the human scale lost?"

From this point on the reader will find sixty two-page spreads of the entries categorized within the three years of competition covered by the book, beginning each with the first, second and third place proposals. Each spread is neatly edited with the name of the project, team members and country, and followed by descriptive text from the entries' authors. And finally comes the most eye catching feature of any architecture book, some very sexy imagery.

Whether you're a student or a practicing architect, eVolo: Skyscraper for the XXI Century is a good addition to the bookshelves. By omitting the compulsory requirements of most competitions (and sometimes the compulsory requirements of gravity) eVolo is able to provide us with some very inspirational work. This book showcases the freshness of ideas, those from graduate students to some very well established firms, and reminds us of the potential that is found within our art.

Review by Chris Warren

Death By Architecture now has a group on Linkedin.com for your use as a discussion and collaboration forum.

We hope you join us there and look forward to fostering new professional and personal relationships. Look for like-minded professionals in all disciplines to jointly approach competitions or connect with organizers and consultants interested in the competition process.

Join today at Death By Architecture Linkedin

Posted by Mario Cipresso

The RIBA is delighted to announce the shortlist in the competition to design a new foot and cycle bridge crossing the River Soar in Leicester.

151 expressions of interest were received from all over the world including India, Australia, Iceland, Brazil and the USA. Six teams have now been shortlisted for the second stage design phase and those teams are:

Allies and Morrison with Price and Myers
Explorations Architecture, Paris with Buro Happold
Knight Architects with Gifford Bridge Designers
McDowell & Benedetti with Arup
Moxon Architects with Arup
Ramboll Whitbybird

James Sinclair of Leicester Regeneration Company said "We have been delighted by both the quantity and the quality of the submissions received, even though this has made the selection exercise a very exacting process. We now have an outstanding shortlist of design teams and look forward to seeing the results of their design development in the New Year".

The shortlisted designs will be submitted in early February 2009 with final presentations held on 19 February 2009 in Leicester.

More information is available at RIBA Competitions.

Posted by Mario Cipresso

Taiwan Centers For Disease Control Complex Planning, Design, And Construction Supervision Project, Announcement Of Short-List Tenderers (Stage One).

Short-List Tenderers (7 Entries):

1. Number: 1, Tenderer: Domino Architects & Associates / Yi-Yong Yang Nationality: Taiwan

2. Number: 4, Tenderer: Fei & Cheng Associates / Philip T. C. Fei Nationality: Taiwan
Joint Tenderer: Harley Ellis Devereaux / Samuel R Bayne, Jr (Louis Hartman) Nationality: USA

3. Number: 6, Tenderer: TAG Design Works, Inc / Johnny C. Lu Nationality: USA
Joint Tenderer: Kornberg Associates Architects / Ken Kornberg Nationality: USA
Ramer Architecture / Richard Ramer Nationality: USA

4. Number: 12, Tenderer: Ricky Liu & Associates / Ricky Liu Nationality: Taiwan
Joint Tenderer: CUH2A, Inc. Architecture Engineering PLA / James Theodore Hall, Jr Nationality: USA

5. Number: 18, Tenderer: Mario Cipresso & Chris Warren competition website.

Posted by Mario Cipresso

Images 1 & 2 - 1st Prize: Michael Cady, Elba Gil ,David Lillie, Andres Montana: Chicago, IL
Images 3 & 4 - 2nd Prize: Cheyne Owens: Cambridge, MA
Images 5 & 6 - 3rd Prize: Lindsay Grote: Chicago, IL

Earlier this year the Chicago Architectural Club and the Chicago Humanities Festival announced UNION STATION 2020, an international design ideas competition for the conversion of Chicago's Union Station into a high-speed rail hub, regional market, and meeting place. This year's Burnham Prize competition forms part of Burnham 2.0: A Patchwork Plan for Chicago, a composite urban plan that marks the centennial of Burnham and Bennett's Plan of Chicago.

UNION STATION 2020 asked for innovative solutions for the transformation of Union Station into a center of high speed rail traffic and related programs. It was not simply a question of designing an efficient and functional transit hub. How can this intermodal node become more than a mere knot of infrastructure? What role can this project play in the reconfiguration of Chicago's West Loop and of the city and region? How can an existing landmark building be transformed to accommodate and generate a new combination of activities while welcoming an unprecedented level of rail traffic? How can we leverage infrastructure to produce other results, to shape the city and the public sphere? How can a point of exchange generate a regional culture? And what does 'culture' mean, anyway?

The jury included Stan Allen, Doug Garofalo, Geoff Manaugh, Bruce Mau and Zoka Zola.

The Results
1st Prize: Michael Cady, Elba Gil ,David Lillie, Andres Montana: Chicago, IL
2nd Prize: Cheyne Owens: Cambridge, MA
3rd Prize: Lindsay Grote: Chicago, IL

HONORABLE MENTIONS
FRPO Arquitectura + Urbanismo: Madrid, Spain
Gabriel Belli Butler, Pasquale Tuttolomondo: Rome, Italy
Duliao Studio: Beijing, China
Casimir Kujawa, Mason Pritchett, Patrick Johnson: Chicago, IL
Xiao Min Du , Wei Lun Huang : Toronto, Canada
Jeeyong An, Hosung Chun, Sang Hwa Lee of GinsengChicken: New York
Sascha Oroz: Chicago, IL

More information available soon at: http://www.chicagoarchitecturalclub.org/

Posted by Mario Cipresso

Density Projects is the second publication in the 'Density' series by a+t ediciones of Spain. Continuing the mission of the first book in the series, 'Density:Condensed Edition' the intention is to present new collective housing projects that promote density and intensity in architecturally unique ways. The authors specifically look to projects that combine other programmatic uses beyond residential as they're particularly interested in the ability of these combined uses to emulate the urban condition and subsequently their potential to affect and bolster the larger urban environment. Given the global movement towards conservation of resources, these types of projects are more relevant than ever as the increased densities and minimized footprints reduce our consumption of natural resources and our impacts on the physical environment.

As I noted in an earlier review of their Civilities series, the quality and thoroughness of the diagramming presented is quite impressive. The authors not only include the architect's original diagrams and drawings, they employ their own method of analysis for the projects that allow for a one-to-one comparison of key data such as program distribution, density, open space, etc. This strategy, which is a common theme in most a+t publications, is what truly differentiates them from the average compilation of work.

After each project is introduced with this initial level of analysis they are further defined through images of physical models and computer models, line drawings spanning floor plans to construction details, nicely coded diagrams and full-color renderings. It is important to note that the projects featured were in a state of design development or were intiating construction at the time of publication so none of the works were complete at the time of publication in 2007. Beyond the publication's usefulness in raising awareness of new ideas in high-density residential projects, the drawing and diagramming techniques presented are so varied and illustrate trends in architectural representation and the effective articulation of ideas.

I've enjoyed referring back to both books in the Density Series regularly for the manner in which they analyze and present the ideas in each project and expect you will as well.

Review by Mario Cipresso

Completely filmed before 2008's Beijing Olympics and edited right after its ending, "China According to China" presents a set of thoughts by five local architects on China's current situation and history.

Ai Wei Wei [FAKE design], Jiang Jun [UrbanChina], Yu Kongjian [Turenscape], Wang Shu [Amateur Architecture Studio] and Ma Qingyun [MADA s.p.a.m.] are in charge of defining the issues that every Chinese architect has to deal with in today's practice, all of which may set the parameters of future development for Chinese architecture.

At the time of this posting, 4 of 5 video segments have been uploaded to the site in this five-part series at www.0300tv.com

Posted by Chris Warren

In a critical look at current state of mobility and the ubiquitous and multitudinous methods and venues of networked communications, Ted Kane thoughtfully analyzes and documents the resultant transient communities as they manifest themselves in Los Angeles. Kane makes an obvious nod to Paul Virilio's notion of 'polar inertia' where Virilio contends that rapidly developing technologies have the ability to create an instantaneous present that effectively supplants conventional notions of space and sovereignty of territory through unprecedented connectivity.

Through several essays and some quite rigorous photojournalism, Kane focuses on the phenomena of migrating cities and emergent urban systems. Along with constantly evolving networking and communications systems, Kane identifies the increasing popularity of the Recreational Vehicle as an enabler of nomadic societies. Within the 8.8 million RVs on the road live an estimated 1.5 million people, on a full-time basis. Kane argues that the freedom associated with this lifestyle redefines our ideas of community and challenges our conceptions of cities as fixed settlements. Data and communications networks stretch far beyond the freeways and blazed trails, liberating the individual while continually providing that crucial connection to the city.

Although Kane looks primarily to Los Angeles, he acknowledges parallel developments in nearby Las Vegas and Phoenix. Those familiar with the southwest United States will likely think of Quartzsite, Arizona. A small town with a permanent population of approximately 2,000 people, it swells dramatically during January and February as it receives over a million visitors in thousands of RVs for its mineral and gem shows. Quartzsite though is a desert condition where Kane emphasizes the urban. He cites the prevalance of urban street camping in Los Angeles where individuals, for a variety of reasons, live full-time in an RV. In many cases it's not preferred shelter, it's a necessity borne of the sheer economic disparity between income and the astronomical cost of housing in Los Angeles.

The elegant book design, by Henri Lucas & Davey Whitcraft of Los Angeles, is of note as well. Printed in China, half of the publication uses a heavy, brown Chinese postal paper as stock which contrasts nicely with the black text. The extensive photos, which comprise one-half the book and surely required a significant effort, are presented in full-color depicting both urban and desert ideals.

(Published by the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design and may have limited availability.)

Review By Mario Cipresso

"Architectural responses to unprecedented conditions. Confronted by shifting densities and uncharted urban transformations, 'Verb Crisis' tackles the conflict between the limits of architectural design and the demands on the practice for updated relevance."

If you haven't yet picked up the ongoing series of boogazines, we here at DBA highly recommend doing so. In addition to the high level of publishing quality we are used to seeing from Actar, the series offers a fresh accumulation of ideas, writings and projects in rapid-fire, content-full offerings. True to their name, the boogazines retain the finished quality of an architecture book, while coupling it with the timeliness of a magazine.

In this sixth edition of the series, 'Verb Crisis' steps beyond the reporting of the architectural current and packs the volume with writings underpinned with a real sense of urgency. This is an edition largely devoted to understanding the awesome changes that are affecting the urban realm, and how, at the scale of rapidly expanding (and simultaneously developing) cities, the mire is further muddied by policy and politics as well as social, economic and environmental concerns. Also, as a publication devoted to the progressive nature of architecture, 'Crisis' recognizes the fact that the profession cannot sustain itself in this new world without a sea change in its methodology and outlook. While Verb usually strives to present a positivist attitude, this release builds itself around worthy self-examination and realism. As evinced by the selected authors and their experiences, crisis as a term appropriately marks the state of the practice of architecture and its impending need for an overhaul. It also raises several questions:

Are architects capable of evolving to meet the needs of new development?

How do we redefine ourselves?

Is it possible that we have already become irrelevant?

Through essays, project investigations and interviews with guest writers such as Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Jacob van Rijs, John May and Teddy Cruz, and through studies of the urban laboratories of Dubai, Madrid, Detroit and Tijuana among others, Verb Crisis will at the very least provoke thoughts on the architect's function and duty in the new world climate. As they see things, crisis breeds the necessity which spurs potential change and redefinition, "..the demands of crisis also represent unexpected possibilities, creating opportunities to work in extraordinary situations, as long as we are willing to immerse ourselves. Verb looks forward to what's next."

Previous Verb boogazines: Processing
Matters
Connection
Conditioning
Natures

Review by Chris Warren

There appears to be an increasing number of publications documenting, assessing and projecting the future of not only the U.S.-Mexico border but of the various contentious border relationships throughout the world. Of the few that I've had the opportunity to peruse, this publication does perhaps the most thoroughly impressive job of defining and dissecting the vast number of issues that pervade not only U.S.-Mexico's tenuous relationship but intelligently draws connections to other regions. This book begins with a brief survey and comparison of border situations between such countries as North Korea and South Korea, Israel and Palestinian Territories, Morocco and Spain, U.S. and Canada and Myanmar, Laos and Thailand among others.

If you're not already well-informed on the U.S.-Mexico situation, this book will bring you up to speed quickly with accessible text and well-executed diagrams. Romero immediately makes the scale of the problem obvious: 14 border cities as residence to over 12 million people strung along the longest border (700+ miles) between a developing nation and a superpower. He delves into the complex issues plaguing the border such as crime, corruption, free trade, urbanization, migration, scarcity of resources and environmental destruction.

Beyond looking at the past and current situation, Romero looks forward and discusses both U.S. and Mexican policies that are beginning to shape the future of the border. From guest worker and anti-migration programs to economic development and transportation strategies, it's all insightfully analyzed. A fascinating and eye-opening read that is a must for anyone even remotely interested in the political, cultural and socio-economic factors shaping our relationship with Mexico and ultimately, the rest of the world.

Review by Mario Cipresso

This animation, MUTO, by an artist called 'BLU' is simply amazing. Pay attention to the changing light conditions and sky in the background, it gives you some understanding of the time required to create the work.

To learn more about this animation and BLU's work, visit BLU.

Posted by Mario Cipresso