MVRDV has revealed their design for Fabryczna Offices, a new mixed-use office and retail complex to be located in the heart of Łódź, Poland.

Fitting into the city’s master plan for development around the new central station, Fabryczna Offices “connects past to present” with its distinct, rhythmic facade and gently curving forms. A 4-story plinth wraps around the perimeter of the site to create an inner courtyard, from which a 60-meter-tall office tower will rise. This orientation allows daylight to reach all levels of the building, while maximizing the space for the publicly-accessible courtyard area.

On the 4th of February, Minneapolis will host the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles for the 52nd Super Bowl. With over 100 million people expected to watch the game this Sunday, all eyes will be on the city of Minneapolis—a city known for not allowing the harsh climate get in the way of their celebrations—and the brand new US Bank Stadium, where a huge permanent roof will ensure that, come rain, shine, or snow, Minneapolitans will have a space to gather and enjoy themselves.

HKS Architects took on the challenge of designing the stadium to replace the Minnesota Viking’s previous home, the Metrodome, which was known as "Minneapolis’s living room" for the strong relationship it had with the population as both a civic hub and a stadium. Unlike past stadiums the Dallas-based architects have designed, the US Bank Stadium required a different outlook, with a focus on designing a catalyst for public infrastructure and a communal space that provokes interaction with the community. So how did they achieve a structure that can both host the Super Bowl yet remain a prominent part of the city for years to come? We spoke to the lead architect on the US Bank Stadium, Lance Evans, about how to design and construct the centerpiece for one of the biggest sports events of the year.

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2018 has been an unprecedented year for ArchDaily’s Building of the Year Awards.

But before we get to shortlisted nominees, we want to emphasize the values embodied by this awards process. As the world’s largest platform for architecture we are acutely aware of our responsibility to the profession, and to the advancement of architecture as a discipline. Since our mission is directly related to the architecture of the future—in inspiring and educating the global community of architects who will design the urban fabric of the future—the trust placed in us by our readers to reflect architectural trends from regions around the whole world creates challenges that we are eager to rise to. The democratically-voted, user-centered Building of the Year Awards is one of the key pillars of our response to these challenges, aiming to tear down established hierarchies and geographical barriers.

By participating in the process, the ArchDaily community decides what it means to push architecture forward. So without further ado, these are the most inspiring building, according to ArchDaily readers.

Why does a film garner critical acclaim? Is it captivating performances from its actors? Stunning tableaus and cinematic moments? Or, could it be the intricate sets where tales of drama, laughter, love, and loss play out? 

Following her stunning watercolor prints of last year’s Oscar nominees and the Netflix sensation Stranger Things, architect and illustrator Boryana Ilieva provides a glimpse into the elaborate sets of 6 stand-out films from 2017. With the Golden Globes broadcasted earlier this month and the Academy Awards only a few weeks away, the homes in these award-winning motion pictures deserve as many accolades as the Hollywood stars who inhabit them.

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How much do you wish you knew about carpentry, solar energy or masonry? Leonardo Da Vinci said, "the noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding." Those who are open to learning and expanding their horizons are more likely improve their approach to design. If you've always wanted to understand more about construction processes, structures or materials, this list of online courses is for you. 

We scoured MOOC platforms and databases to highlight a series of online courses related to construction and building materials.  Many of the courses are permanently available and can be taken immediately; we've also provided information so that you may contact the universities or instructors to inquire about start dates, certificates, costs, course language and other relevant details.

Videos

A version of this article was originally published by Common Edge as "The Principles of Ethical Redevelopment."

Where does creativity live? Can the highest level of cultural production come from down the street? What does it mean to be a good neighbor, a good steward? How does that look when there are so many forces at work keeping people isolated? How do you see value in what others discard? Can we learn to talk about moments of success in our struggling neighborhoods, not as random and magical, but as sophisticated flexibility? What is civic empathy?

These are some of the questions Place Lab, a University of Chicago partnership between Arts + Public Life and the Harris School for Public Policy, explored in an exercise last year conducted with the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation: it’s the articulation of a set of nine principles collectively called Ethical Redevelopment.

Days (or rather, nights) before the deadline, the studio becomes a haven for all those students madly rendering, photoshopping, and printing the last pieces of their presentation, using the adrenaline of the deadline for motivation. While it's common for people to disagree even on the true definition of an all-nighter—is it classed as working until the sun rises, being awake for a period of over 24 hours, or even working right through to bedtime the following evening?—students often unhealthily boast about how many they have survived.

People’s true personalities begin to blossom in the early hours of the morning, and you get to experience the person they truly are. Although many of us have probably experienced such nights, it is luckily a culture that we grow out of throughout architecture school, or at least something we get wise to and begin to reassess our priorities. But the memories of those who suffered through with us will never be forgotten.

In this video, Wendover Productions asks some simple (if rarely asked) questions about cities: Why do they exist? What causes them to grow exponentially over time in the way they do? In answering these questions, the video suggests that, somewhat paradoxically, the creation and growth of cities is a natural phenomenon, bringing up some interesting implications regarding city planning in the future.

Trained in Architecture, Urban Design, and Theory, Alina Sonea illustrates the complex and often paradoxical nature of the cities we inhabit. The Feldkirch-based artist and architect has, since 2013, completed a series of detailed illustrations that employ graphic yet delicate black lines to render dense images of fantastical metropolises.

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Throughout history, there have been certain architects whose unique ideas and innovative styles have influenced generations to come. Some of these pioneers introduced ideas so revolutionary that entirely new words had to be invented to truly encapsulate them. Whether they became a style embraced by an entire era, or captured the imagination of millions for decades to come, we know a Gaudiesque or Corbusian building when we see one.

Here are eight adjectives derived from the works of architects whose names are now in the dictionary:

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A great photograph is often as important as a great building—sometimes even more. From the pages of glossy magazines to the galleries of digital publications and online portfolios, high-quality photography is crucial for contemporary architects. Yet the array of camera options, equipment, accessories, and technical jargon (aperture, ISO, shutter-speed, etc.) can be dizzying, if not intimidating. So what happens when the camera in your iPhone is no longer enough?

To ensure emerging practitioners and professionals alike take the perfect shot, Eric Reinholdt summarizes at length the photography equipment used in his own practice in this two-part video from 2016. The first instalment on the architect, writer, and photographer's channel 30X40 Workshop makes it clear that his preference is a digital SLR camera. The 20+ megapixel image quality as well as range of larger aperture lenses with added versatility are crucial features for large format printing and digital publishing. Canon and Nikon are among the suggested brands as they are established with a large offering of products. And, are expected to provide additional upgrade paths as new equipment is released.

The team led by Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter, in collaboration with C.F Møller Arkitekter, Bollinger + Grohmann Ingenieure, Baugrundinstitut Franke-Meißner und Partner, GMBH and Transsolar Climate Engineering, has been selected as the winners of an international competition to design a master plan and mixed-use tower for the central rail station in Oslo, Norway.

Known as Nordic Light, the winning proposal was lauded by the jury for best responding to the site and program’s unique challenges, and for its dedication toward sustainable architecture. Nordic Light was chosen as the unanimous winner over proposals from BIG, Ingenhoven Architects and Sauerbruch Hutton.

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This article was originally published by The Architect's Newspaper as "Demolition of Paul Rudolph’s Shoreline Apartments stalled by single tenant."

Demolition of the Paul Rudolph-designed Shoreline Apartments in Buffalo, New York, has accelerated, and the full destruction of the housing complex is being stalled by a single tenant. John Schmidt has refused to leave his unit in what remains of the brutalist buildings, despite having received an eviction notice, over what he feels are strong-arm tactics from developer Norstar Development Corporation.

This article was originally published by Common Edge as "John King on San Francisco, Oakland, and the Challenge of Affordable Housing."

John King has covered the urban design beat for the San Francisco Chronicle for 17 years now. That’s long enough, in other words, to have written about a handful of economic booms and subsequent busts. But the Bay Area is a unique beast. No other region in the country has been as thoroughly transformed by the digital revolution. And it’s a transformation that continues to this day. Shortly before the New Year, I spoke to King about the fate of San Francisco, the Oakland renaissance, and his 4-month long fellowship in Washington, DC.

There are different methods for estimating how green a city is. We can count the parks, add up all green areas, quantify only the forested areas, specify the number of trees planted, and more recently, according to this new, we can now analyze inhabitants perspective. A team of researchers led by Newsha Ghaeli, at MIT's Senseable City Lab has developed a method to find out how green an urban space is from the perspective of pedestrians.

Images taken from Google Street View are processed by an algorithm that estimates the percentage of each image that corresponds to trees and other types of vegetation. "It is important to understand the number of trees and treetops that cover the streets, as this is what we perceive in cities," Ghaeli said.

Check out below the top 10 greenest cities according to the algorithm.

The Museum of Modern Art will explore the architecture of the former Yugoslavia with Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, the first major US exhibition to study the remarkable body of work that sparked international interest during the 45 years of the country’s existence. The exhibition will include more than 400 drawings, models, photographs, and film reels culled from an array of municipal archives, family-held collections, and museums across the region, introducing the exceptional built work of socialist Yugoslavia’s leading architects to an international audience for the first time.

You’ve probably seen the ads. Popping out from your Facebook newsfeed, the Masterclass sales pitch immediately attracts the eye: beautifully backlit wooden models and silky hand sketching emphasized by orchestral swells are accompanied by an adorable pirouette by the one and only Frank Gehry. The combination of Gehry’s status and slick production has managed to amass over 1.6 million views for the trailer on Youtube. Even in the company of courses taught by Martin Scorsese, Deadmau5, and Samuel L Jackson, the lone architect impressively lays claim to the eighth most popular teaser in the Masterclass series. The production value alone is almost a convincing argument for the $90 USD price, a detail that is quietly left out of the trailer.

The course has been reviewed by a critic, a practicing architect, and a curator—but what of its ostensible target audience, the architecture student? Has Masterclass managed to crack the online class conundrum with cinematography and celebrity?

In Zaha Hadid Architects' description of their Library and Learning Centre at the University of Economics Vienna, they describe the exterior of the building as "characterized by two elements of contrasting colors separated by a glass joint: shell and shadow." For that reason, the building was a perfect subject for architect and photographer Edwin Seda, who says he is fascinated by the effect light has on buildings. "Design is created to work with natural light but is never really in control of this aspect," says Seda. "This set of images therefore explores light as a medium for architectural transformation, a sort of fourth dimension, that only materializes once the building is complete and the seasons begin to change."

Seda's photoset captures the Library and Learning Centre throughout the course of a day: from the daytime when the building's light and dark elements are clearly distinguished; to sunset when one side of the building is closer to orange than the white or black planned by the architects; then to the evening, when the building's internal lights bring an entirely different dynamic to the building's composition. Read on to see the full set of images.

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