Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects (SHL) has broken ground on a new clubhouse and gallery in GaoYao, China - a mountainous district 100 kilometers west of Guangzhou. The project, focused on "space, light, view and program," was designed for a new development of luxury villas at the base of a nearby mountain. It will be built in the center of a lake by early 2017.

"The sculptural project was designed in collaboration with a Feng Shu Master to respect angles of approach and its location on the site," says SHL.

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has selected La SHED Architecture as the recipient of its 2016 Emerging Architectural Practice Award. The small, nine-person office in Montreal is known for designing "fresh, contemporary houses inspired by the informal qualities," says the RAIC. It was founded in 2011 by University of Montreal graduates Renée Mailhot, MRAIC, Sébastien Parent and Yannick Laurin.

“This is a recently created firm that has developed a coherent and consistent body of high-quality architectural work in a rapid time frame,” said the five-member jury. “It has achieved this while often working within limited budgets.” 

AL_A's MPavilion 2015 has been gifted to the City of Melbourne. It will be relocated from the Queen Victoria Gardens to a permanent site at Collins Street park in Docklands, says Naomi Milgrom, chair of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation.

“In its new permanent home, Amanda Levete’s MPavilion 2015 will continue to inspire and be part of our city’s cultural heritage as a public amenity of Melbourne. Amanda’s magical, forest-like structure joins a growing family of architectural masterpieces to be enjoyed by the people of Melbourne for years to come,” Milgrom said.

Russian designer Vasily Klyukin has envisioned the "Asian Cobra Tower." Just as its name suggests, the gold-plated tower takes the shape of a snake, offering offices and apartments in its body and a restaurant, night club and terrace in its jaws.

"In Japan telling someone that he is a snake means a compliment. In China snakes and dragons often mean the same," says Klyukin. "The symbol of wisdom and eternal life, this tower would embellish any Eastern city."

Santiago Calatrava's long-awaited World Trade Center Oculus has officially opened. Thanks to EarthCam and the project's contractor Skanska USA, you can watch the $4 billion transportation hub take shape over the course of 42 months in just 65 seconds, from June 2011 to December 2014. For more, see what the critics have to say about the newly opened building here.

The West Coast's tallest building, Los Angeles' US Bank Tower is going to be outfitted with a terrifying glass slide designed by engineering firm M.Ludvik & Co. Set to hang 1000-feet above the street, the project will be part of the building's Gensler-designed OUE Skyspace LA attraction - soon to be California's tallest open-air observation deck.

Five major firms have been shortlisted for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's $80 million expansion in Buffalo, New York. Chosen for their "design intellect" and ability to collaborate, the competing firms will envision ways to expand the gallery's exhibition space and create a new public urban area that maximizes the site's potential, as the Albright-Knox campus is located on the edge of Delaware Park - one of Frederick Law Olmsted’s major works.

“The selection of the architects reflects that malleability, because none of them has a fingerprint style,” Albright-Knox director Janne Sirén said. “All of them, almost, specialize in an ability to build for a given context.”

The five practices include:

AL_A has won a competition to design a new mosque within the Foster + Partner-designed World Trade Center complex in Abu Dhabi. The 2000-square-meter project, envisioned as a "pathway to serenity" rather than a single building, leads visitors on a journey through an informal park of palm trees that slowly align with the mosque's shifted grid as users approach the Prayer Hall. Once inside, visitors are facing towards Mecca.

"The mosque is envisaged as a piece of the city, one that reflects the journey from the temporal to the spiritual," said AL_A director Ho-Yin Ng. "The mosque and the garden become one, with the trees and the columns forming an informal vertical landscape and allowing Friday prayers to spill outside."

The Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE) has announced plans to award Frank Gehry with the 2016 Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts "in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to our country’s rich artistic tradition."

“We are thrilled to be honoring Mr. Gehry, one of the world’s greatest living architects, with our eighth annual Annenberg Award. For more than five decades, his innovation, vision, and boldness of spirit in the field of architecture has been a profound inspiration. His architectural contributions have had a significant impact, not only on the world of architecture, but on culture and humanity on a global scale,” said FAPE Chairman Jo Carole Lauder.

The London School of Economics (LSE) and RIBA have revealed the six shortlisted proposals for their next major development: 44 Lincoln’s Inn Fields/The Paul Marshall. With designs from David Chipperfield, Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Penoyre & Prasad and Herzog & de Meuron, LSE is hoping their new building's "world-class architecture" will appropriately reflect the university's "global academic reputation." AL_A, Grafton Architects, and Niall McLaughlin with Scott Brownrigg complete the shortlist.

“The amount of analysis and intellectual effort that has gone into the designs from each team is staggering and the results are impressive and very exciting. Given its size and prime location on Lincoln’s Inn Fields we want this to be a seminal university building; its legacy will endure for many generations so it is vital that we make the right decision,” said Julian Robinson, LSE’s Director of Estates.

All six schemes are being publicly exhibited at the LSE's Saw Swee Hock Student Centre through March 17. Read on for a glimpse of each. 

Frederick Steiner has been named the new dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design (Penn Design). Effective July 1, the appointment comes after Steiner announced his departure from the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, which, according to The Texas Tribune, was partially due to the school's new gun law that will allow students to carry concealed firearms.

MVRDV and the Mayor of Lyon have revealed plans to transform the city's Part-Dieu shopping center. The commission, awarded to MVRDV after the practice won a competition in 2013, focuses on preserving the center's original identity while redefining its public spaces and revitalizing its "iconic" facade. With MVRDV's scheme, the building's edges will "evaporate" as it reaches the street, creating a more inviting atmosphere that extends the public realm into the center.

The China International Exchange Committee for Tall Buildings (CITAB) and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) have announced the winners of their inaugural China Tall Building Awards. Four buildings, including two designed by Zaha Hadid and Kengo Kuma, were chosen as China's best tall buildings. Other winners were recognized for their innovation, success within the urban environment, and construction excellence.

"With the support of the Architectural Society of China and the Architectural Society of China Shanghai, the first year of this regionally focused awards program was very successful, with numerous high-quality projects entering into the running under six categories of recognition," said CITAB and CTBUH.

Julia Peyton-Jones has won the 2016 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize. Awarded as part of the Architectural Review's (AR) annual Women in Architecture Awards, the prize honors Peyton-Jones' "incredible global impact achieved with limited resources – and as someone who has done so much to nurture architectural vision and make architecture available to many people."

Peyton-Jones has serves as the Serpentine Gallery co-director for the past 25 years, overseeing the start of the Serpentine Gallery Pavillon commissions and opening of Zaha Hadid Architects' Serpentine Sackler Gallery. She will step down from her longstanding position this summer.

Carlo Ratti Associati has teamed up with German engineer Schlaich Bergermann Partner and British design studio Atmos to design the world's tallest man-made structure. Nearly twice the height of the Burj Khalifa, the 1609-meter-tall tower was envisioned as a vertical "Central Park" clothed in vegetation and supported by a lightweight matrix of pre-stressed cables.

"Imagine you take New York's Central Park, turn it vertical, roll it and twirl it," said Carlo Ratti.

Odile Decq has won the 2016 Jane Drew Prize as part of the Architectural Review's (AR) annual Women in Architecture Awards. Co-founder of Studio Odile Decq, the French architect was awarded for being a "a creative powerhouse, spirited breaker of rules and advocate of equality." Her diverse portfolio ranges from art galleries and museums, to social housing and infrastructure. She is best known for the Cargo incubator building in Paris and the Fangshan Tangshan National Geopark Museum in Nanjing, China.