As a follow up to 'The Competition' trailer we published this month, architect Angel Borrego Cubero of Office for Strategic Spaces (OSS) announced that the documentary he directed and produced is going to be shown at Instituto Cervantes New York, as well as Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. The screenings will take place March 4th, 7:00pm and March 8th, 4:00pm respectively. The screening at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, an event curated by Daniel Ibañez, will be preceded by a small introduction given by director Angel Borrego Cubero, and followed by a discussion with the audience and professors from the GSD. For more information, please contact: pr@o-s-s.org

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has selected the finalist teams in the eleventh annual ULI Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition. Graduate-level student teams representing Harvard University, Yale University, a joint team from Ball State University and Purdue University, as well as another join team from Kansas State University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and the University of Kansas are all advancing to the final round of competition, scheduled to take place in March and April. This year’s finalists were charged with proposing a long-term development plan for downtown Minneapolis that creates value for property owners, city residents, and the greater Twin Cities region.

The latest incarnation of TEDTalks has finally arrived with TED2013: The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered. This year's conference in Long Beach, California will host the largest number of speakers in TED history, more than 70, with more than half coming from TED's global talent search (which found "some truly astounding youngsters"). Another interesting change for this year? Many will present shorter speeches (most hovering about12 minutes, rather than the traditional 18) .

Designed by d-code Architects, the proposal for the Museumof Underwater Antiquities is a synthesis of a building characterized by orthometrical simplicity with incorporated high-tech components and a surrounding area of curved and parabolic shaped paths, installations and water parks. Given the importance of the two subjects of the museum building and its surroundings, the overall effect is presented as arythmological dialogue between linear building solidity and environmental curving fluidity. More images and architects’ description after the break.

As part of the VIII Biennial Ibero-American architecture and urbanism exhibition, Note Gallery will be hosting the presentation of the new book "Itenerarios de Arquitectura 06 - Paulo Mendes da Rocha" by Catherine Otondo and José Paulo Gouvea on Wednesday, February 27th. Following the book presentation, the Architects Conference, featuring Cristina Guedes & Francisco de Campos and Ricardo Bak Gordon Architect, both winners of the VIII Bienal Ibero-americana de Arquitectura e Urbanismo, will take place Thursday, February 28th. Both events take place at the Boavista Gallery in Lisbon. For more information, please visit here.

The idea of establishing Operalab – a mobile think tank - in the urban environment is the evidence of the transformation taking place in the structure of the Grand Theatre - National Opera, representing the openness and modernity of this elite cultural institution. Designed by exexe Studio, the main idea behind their proposal is the separation of part of the urban fabric, provoking creative use and generating more space rather than just designing the building. This time, it's not the audience coming to the theater, but a theater coming to the audience. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Designed by Vo Trong Nghia Architects the Trees Building, a branch bank of ABBANK, aims to create a co-existence of the rapid development and abundant nature of the seaside city. Located in Danang, Vietnam, the office building uses a classical style with two-storey-height columns dating back to Alberti, which has been typically used for bank buildings all over the world to symbolize their authority and stability. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Upon their recent selection to host the International Specialized Exposition in 2017 (EXPO 2017) with a theme Energy of the Future, National Company Astana and Mayor’s Office of Astana launched a sponsored international architectural competition for the development of a concept design of EXPO facilities, including an installation to serve as the symbol of EXPO 2017 in Astana. The objective of the competition is to get conceptual architectural and urban planning solutions and ideas for EXPO facilities. The competition began last week and will last until June 18.The winner will get award equal to 15 Million KZT (equivalent to US$ 100,000). For more information, please visit here.

Design saturates every facet of our lives. As the new MoMA exhibition states: design is a fundamental tool in helping people respond to change. Applied Design, running from March 2nd to January 31st, focuses on the various means and methods by which we design and the product of those varied paths that lead to innovation.

This year's Douglas C. Allen Lecture, presented by the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture, features Adriaan Geuze, one of the founders of West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture. Founded in 1987, West 8 is an award-winning international office which has established itself as a leading practice within the last 20 years with about 70 architects, urban designers, landscape architects, and industrial engineers. The event takes place Wednesday, March 6th, from 6:00pm-7:30pm in the Reinsch-Pierce Family Auditorium. For more details about the event, please visit here.

Orizzontale was recently invited by GATR to take part in the 2012 edition of the architectural festival Festarch.lab with a project which imagines and builds upon an architectural installation for the main square of Terni, a town in the center of Italy. With the challenge to design a multifunctional stage, the result was ‘Gondwana’, a mobile archipelago of wooden platforms, which comes in different shapes, dimensions and colors, and invades the square with endless configurations. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good, the official U.S. representation at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2012), will travel to Chicago in May 2013, and is seeking new projects—urban interventions realized in U.S. cities in the past two years—with an emphasis on those based in Chicago and the Midwest region. The exhibition will be on view through Summer 2013. The exhibition in Chicago will feature a site-specific adaptation of the original exhibition design and will include many of the projects featured in Venice alongside dozens of new projects selected as a result of this open call for submissions. Submissions are due no later than March 6th. For more information, please visit here.

Designed by Söhne & Partner Architects + BET Architects, their proposal for the United bank of Addis Abada is represented in units coming together into a single entity in a seamless fashion. These units are the shares that make up the bank and shares are the people that came together to make this bank a reality. Conceived as a composition of a tower and podium, the form of the building is articulated with diamond shaped units interwoven together. More images and architects’ description after the break.

ETAT Architects + Spridd Architects recently won the first prize in an invited competition for a mixed-use building of housing and commercial space. Located in the centre of Norrköping, on the fringe of the historic 19th century textile industry area of Sweden, the exterior architecture interprets certain characteristic themes in the historic industrial area. These include elements such as large windows, local towers, repetitive and rationally organised fenestration, an emphasis on vertical elements in the façade, and exposed building material of stone. More images and architects’ description after the break.

In the framework of New Culture Festival, 'Art-Ovrag 2013: Garden City', there is currently an open call for their open architectural international competition “Balancing Pavilion”. The event, which takes place annually in Vyksa, Russia, gathers the best modern art designers, architectures and artists in one place. The 30 best projects will be presented on the exhibitions in Vyksa city, Volga department of NCCA (Nizhny Novgorod) and State Museum of architecture named after Schusev, Moscow. The deadline to register is March 22nd and the submission deadline is March 30th. To register, and for more information, please visit here.

Videos

Filament Mind is a human information-driven installation by E/B Office which is designed to visualize the collective curiosities and questions of Wyoming’s Teton County Library visitors through a dynamic and interactive spatial sculpture. The project is inspired by the concept that our civic spaces should be intelligent and responsive, communicating as much to us as we do to each other, enabling a form of intra-environmental social interaction between our thoughts and the material of our built environments. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Inspired by the adjacent canal's pragmatic linearity and the industrial buildings located on the left bank, the second prize winning proposal, titled 'Stairway to Heaven' for the new high school appears as a linear volume located in the extension of the Veveyse promenade's perspective. Designed by PYO Arquitectos + Nomos Groupement d'Architectes + Pascal Heyraud Architecte Paysagiste, the basic organization of the building is staged with a central staircase of generous proportions linking a sequence of public spaces that interrupt diagonally the classrooms structural grid.More images and architects' description after the break.

Designed by Arthur Kupreychuk , the proposal for the railway station, located in Sevastopol, Crimea, Ukraine, consists of a passenger terminal building and a hanging in the air cloud-canopy above it. The supporting structure of the canopy is similar to the structure of an airship. The canopy strives upward by buoyancy forces, if its average density is less than the density of the atmosphere. More images and Kupreychuk’s description after the break.