On the northern bank of Portugal’s Tagus River lies Miguel Arruda Arquitectos Associados’ Vila Franca de Xira Municipal Library. Dubbed the “Factory of Words” because of its location on the site of a former rice mill, the white building is marked by a triangular slit that runs through its floors. This video, by Sara Nunes from Building Pictures, features different perspectives of the library juxtaposed with an interview with the architect, where he explains the building’s connection with the city and the river as well as how they sought to create a library program that incorporates a broader use of the public space.

David Adjaye has been selected as the winner of MIT's 2016 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts, which honors “individuals whose artistic trajectory reveals that they will achieve the highest distinction in their fields and continue to produce inspiring work for many years to come.” The award consists of $100,000 prize in addition to an artist residency at MIT in the spring of 2016. During the residency, Adjaye will participate in four different public events, including panels and symposia.

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Architect Magazine has unveiled its list of the 50 best architecture firms in the US, with Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Gensler taking the top three slots in the overall ranking, respectively. The rankings are based on scores from three categories: business, sustainability and design. This year the methodology was updated to include three new factors: percentage of women and minority designers; range and value of employee benefits and the rate of employee turnover. Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture also ranked first in the business category, followed by Kirksey Architecture and EYP Architecture & Engineering. EYP also headed the sustainability rankings, followed by Gensler and ZeroEnergy Design, while the design rankings were led by NADAAA, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Studio Gang Architects. Learn more about the methodology and view the full rankings here.

London-based Feilden Fowles has been selected to design a new visitor center for the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP). To be located on the southern entrance of the park on a hillside that used to be part of a quarry, the rammed-earth building will arise from the ground. The center aims to increase the park’s capacity, which currently receives over 400,000 visitors every year, and will include a 140-square-meter restaurant, a 125-square-meter gallery space, an 80-square-meter public foyer and a 50-square-meter shop.

Through her project "Cities and Memory - the Architecture and the City" Architect Marta Vilarinho de Freitas has created a set of illustrations that focus on architecture and the fantasy worlds it can create. The project arose from her thesis on “Communicating Art” at the Superior Artística School in Porto, and seeks to tell stories of the “cities and the life that inhabits in each of them.”

View more images and a text from the architect after the break. 

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OMA has been selected to design a new building for Brighton College that will host its sport and science departments. Their design combines the two departments into one linear building that runs along the edge of the playing field.

The sport facilities are housed on the same level as the field, while the science department stretches over the top “like a skeletal bridge.” Views between the two departments are offered on the inside creating “lively and animated circulation throughout the new building.” The façade is inspired by the terrace housing that runs opposite the building.

UNStudio’s design for a theatre in Den Bosch, the Netherlands has been selected through a competition in which the city’s residents voted on one of two finalist designs, receiving 57% of the votes. Their proposal, Theatre on the Parade, integrates the theatre’s four volumes into its surrounding environment.

During the Mextropoli Festival in Mexico City, we had the chance to sit down with Martha Thorne, the Vice Dean of the IE School of Architecture and Design, and the Executive Director of the Pritzker Prize, who spoke with us about some of the challenges currently facing architecture education.

"When there is globalization in any field there’s the danger that every place becomes similar, or in this case the danger that schools can become similar or standardized, all trying to approach architecture and the academics of architecture in the same way,” she explained. “I think what’s really interesting is to try to look at schools and see how they try to differentiate themselves.”

Living off the grid just got a little bit easier, thanks to Nice Architects’ Ecocapsule, a self-sufficient, portable pod that is powered by solar and wind energy. Unveiled at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, the micro-home’s spherical shape is designed to maximize the collection of rainwater and minimize energy loss.

The Ecocapsule includes a 9,744 watt-hour battery, which is charged by a built-in 750-watt wind turbine, and 2.6 square meters of solar panels. The energy system can support someone living off the grid for about a year, depending on the location, according to the architects. The unit also contains a built-in kitchenette with running water, a flushing toilet and hot water.  

Learn more about the Ecocapsule and view images after the break.

We caught up with Mikko Summanen, one of the co-founders of Finnish firm K2S architects, during his recent trip to Chile for the Finland-Chile Architecture Marathon lecture series. K2S is known for their work designing public and cultural buildings, with projects including the Arctia Headquarters and the Kamppi Chapel in Helsinki, both of which follow the tradition of Finnish architecture (wood, light, craftsmanship, construction detail), while exploring new ways to materialize the tradition. K2S are especially known for their innovative use of traditional materials, as seen with the curved wooden walls of the Kamppi Chapel, with its interiors bathed in light; the use of brick on the Paasitorni Hotel, and the influence of the Finnish maritime industry on the floating Arctia Headquarters.

“In the case of the chapel in Kamppi, what we found really rewarding is that it’s a combination of really traditional techniques like carpentry and shipbuilding combined with the most contemporary technologies like 3D modeling … and even nanotechnology in the case of the treatment of the wooden facades,” Summanen told us.

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China will soon finish construction on what will be the world’s tallest and longest glass pedestrian bridge, floating 300 meters above a canyon in the Zhangjiajie National Park. Designed by Israeli architect, Haim Dotan, the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge will be 380 meters long, six meters wide and feature a transparent glass floor.

“The Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge was designed to be invisible as possible--a white bridge disappearing into the clouds,” said Dotan.

Did you know that the fictional bridges on the Euro banknotes were actually made a reality in the Netherlands? In Tom Scott’s latest “Things You Might Not Know” video, he tells the story of how the seven bridges came to be constructed in the town of Spijkenisse.

With a budget of less than $250,000, studioMET Architects was tasked with transforming a 4,000-square-foot parking garage with a leaky roof and no plumbing, gas or electricity, into a modern and open studio space for LEGO artist Sean Kenney.

Due to Kenney’s constantly changing scale of work, which can range from a life-sized sculpture to a celebrity portrait, the studio needed to have a flexible workspace. The result is a front area -- containing a desk, lounge and kitchenette -- that can be easily transformed into a loading dock. The workspace also includes a video/stop animation studio and woodshop as well as a storage room for sculptures. 

View photos of the studio space in Brooklyn after the break.

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The winners of the Atlanta Bridgescape Competition were announced today at the American Institute of Architects' (AIA) National Convention. The urban design challenge sought proposals for creative interventions at two existing freeway overpasses in the city’s Midtown and Downtown districts, with a referential budget of $3 million per bridge. The winners were selected from five finalists by a panel of industry experts.

See the two winning proposals as well as the winners of the People’s Choice Award after the break. 

The world’s longest glass skywalk has been inaugurated in China, jutting off the edge of a 718-meter tall cliff in the Longgang National Geological Park in Chongqing, reports CCTV. Aptly named Yuanduan, which means “at the end of the clouds,” the horseshoe-shaped walkway offers visitors stunning (and a bit terrifying) views of the surrounding mountains and canyon below. Extending for more than 26 meters off the cliff’s edge, the bridge is five meters longer than the Grand Canyon Skywalk. Only 30 tourists will be allowed on the bridge at a time. View a gallery of photos at The Daily Mail.

Deemed “the biggest architectural awards programme in the world,” the World Architecture Festival (WAF) annually awards and recognizes inspiring and innovative built projects from around the globe. The awards have been held over the past seven years, honoring buildings across 30 categories and ultimately selecting the World Building of the Year. From Grafton Architects' School of Economics at the Universita Luigi Bocconi — the first Building of the Year awarded in 2008 — to A21 Studio’s The Chapel — the most recent winner — the awarded projects have included everything from a chapel to an art gallery and even a public garden, spanning the world from South Africa to Vietnam, Italy and Spain.

This year WAF will be held from November 4-6, featuring three days of conferences, exhibitions and lectures in addition to the awards ceremony. As the 2015 award ceremony nears closer we look back at the World Building of the Year winners from the past seven years. See who has taken home the award after the break and learn how to submit your project here. Projects can be submitted for consideration until May 22nd. Use the code ARCHDAILY10 to receive a discount.

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