A guide from Graphisoft on how to create powerful design presentations with Archicad through the use of Archicad version 25.

Reaching the second stage of the international competition to design Russia’s National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), which was won by Heneghan Peng Architects, WAI Think Tank put forth a proposal that projects the NCCA as not just a center "for the creation, study, and support of contemporary art in Russia" but also "a building as manifesto." WAI Think Tank focused on giving a flexible autonomy to the enclosed and external spaces, designing the galleries as extensions of the city, in an attempt to design "the first archetype of Museum as City."

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ArchiPlan has won first prize in an international competition for a contemporary art museum designed solely for the work of Korean painter Kim Tschang-Yeul. Planned for the volcanic Jeju Island, a province in South Korea, the single-story museum is designed to be the physical manifestation of Kim’s philosophy regarding the water drop.

“We spent a long time understanding [Kim] - understanding his life, intention and his philosophy,” described the architects. “It is necessary to transform his philosophy into a constructed architectural space.” 

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is back and it invites scientists, students, designers, architects, activists, entrepreneurs, artists and planners from all over the world to submit their innovative solutions to some of humanity’s most pressing problems.

Urban Architecture (UA Studio 7) and Aedas' winning proposal for the Hongqiao Central Business District has broke ground at Shanghai’s domestic Hongqiao Airport, mainland China's fourth busiest airport. The 18.4 hectare office and retail center, masterplanned by UA, has been divided into two parts: UA Studio 7 will design the office district, “a flower with eight leaves,” while Aedas designs the shopping, hotel, and conference center along a "bow curve" of pedestrian flow.

According to UA, the winning scheme's success was "due to a highly energy-efficient architecture proposal combined with an urban plan that allows for pedestrian-friendly spaces."

Arctic Harvester was the first prize winning entry in the “Innovation and Architecture for the Sea” category of the Jacques Rougerie Foundation International Architecture Competition, 2013. It proposes an itinerant soil-less agricultural infrastructure designed to drift the circulating ocean currents between Greenland and Canada, exploiting the nutrient-rich fresh water released by melting icebergs as the basis for a large-scale hydroponic-farming system. The floating facility is equipped to house a community of 800 people, inspired in its compact urban form by vertically oriented, bayside Greenlandic villages and their social, cultural and economic relationship to the sea.

Amsterdam-based NL Architects has been shortlisted, alongside three other prestigious teams, to design a new “ArtA” museum and film house for the city of Arnhem. Uniting four main programs - a cinema, art square, museum and park - the “wedge-shaped” structure is designed as an “urban moraine” that cascades towards the city and invites residents to experience the Rhine from an elevated parkway. This formation grants pedestrians two options for museum access: up the Baroque-inspired rooftop park or through the ground level “Art Square” which serves as a “public intermediary” between the building and city, as well as the museum and film theatre.

Kengo Kuma, one of four renowned architects competing to design the highly anticipated ArtA cultural center in Arnhem, has shared details about their shortlisted proposal. Enveloped in an “elegant filigree screen” of contextually prevalent red clay roof tiles, the “multileveled Arts Square” is designed to serve as “the living room of the city.” Its main programs, the Focus Film Theatre and Museum Arnhem, are united by a series of green terraces whose main purpose is to reconnect the inner city to its “unexploited resource,” the Rhine River.

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New York-based SO-IL, together with Architectuurstudio HH (AHH) and ABT, has unveiled details of their shortlisted design for Arnhem’s highly-anticipated ArtA cultural center. One of four shortlisted proposals, SO-IL’s “energy-neutral” building aims to serve as a transformative link that connects the inner city to the Rhine River. “Generous and flexible programmatic volumes,” which were shaped by the surrounding context, are designed “support the production and experience of culture, as well as create a place for reflection and wonder – a transportive experience.”

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Smiljan Radic, Gabriela Medrano, and Ricardo Serpell have won a competition to design a new landmark for Santiago, Chile: an antenna tower to be placed on the summit of San Cristobal Hill, in the heart of the city.

The 'Santiago Antenna Tower,' a unique telecommunications tower with panoramic views, should be completed in 2017, in time for the centenary of the Metropolitan Park of Santiago.

Further detail and the architect's description of the project, after the break.

Latitude Studio, based in Barcelona and Beijing, have unveiled designs for a showroom exhibition centre in China's capital city. Integral to the design is how visitors circulate and interact with the spaces centred around the "future shopping mall". Including an auditorium, model spaces and views onto an area which is expected to see enormous retail development, the building's central atrium and "thematic sightseeing walk" offer a unique journey for the visitor.

Zaha Hadid, Rick Joy, and COOP HIMMELB(L)AU are three of 20 diverse architects shortlisted to compete for the commission of the International Arvo Pärt Center near Tallinn. As part of the competition’s second stage, the selected practices will move forward with the design of a 2,000-square-meter expandable facility which will be used to house the famous Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s work on a wooden coastal site in Laulasmaa.

The Union of Estonian Architects (UEA) will announce the winner on June 20. See a complete list of the competing architects, after the break.

As we announced yesterday, four impressive teams have unveiled their shortlisted proposals to design a new house for an existing art museum and film theater on a waterfront site in Arnhem. Competing to design the “ArtA” cultural center includes BIG, who teamed up with Amsterdam-based Allard Architecture to propose a scheme that would merge the two facilities by constructing “a simple building volume of two poles: The Film Theater facing the city and the Art Museum facing the river.”

Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has named Mecanoo architecten and Martinez + Johnson Architecture winners of a competition to reinvent Mies van der Rohe’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library - the only library and D.C. building ever designed by the legendary architect. The Netherlands- and D.C.-based team aims to resurrect the neglected building by improving "Mies in a contemporary Miesian way." This includes opening up the boxy interiors to enhance flow and increase natural light and, most dramatically, sculpting two rooftop terraces by topping the historic landmark structure with a four-story, mixed-use addition.

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Four international teams have unveiled their shortlisted proposals in the final leg of a highly anticipated competition to design a new “cultural hotspot” on the edge of the Rhine. ArtA, the “catchy” new name of what was previously known as “The Arts Cluster,” is part of a larger redevelopment project for the City of Arnhem which aims to reconnect the southern district of Rijnboog with its waterfront and establish a new home for the Focus Film Theatre and Museum Arnhem.

A sneak peak of the shortlisted proposals, after the break...

Smiljan Radic has been announced as the winner of the competition to design a landmark on San Cristobal Hill, in the heart of Santiago, Chile, that consolidates the hill's numerous antennas into a single infrastructure.

According to the Contest Director, Luis Eduardo L. Bresciani, the purpose of this competition was to generate an innovative structure of iconic character, an architectural work of outstanding quality that would differ from other towers in other cities and give an identity not just to the hill, but to the city of Santiago. The jury also took into account the landscape of the site, particularly the care with which the park would be treated, as well as the tower's relationship with the statue of the Virgin and the hilltop in general. Finally, the functionality of the infrastructure, which should act as both a telecommunications tower as well as a public space with panoramic views, was considered. See the six shortlisted proposals, after the break.

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A design team led by Carlos Marín and José Muñoz-Villers has claimed first prize in Mexico City’s "La Merced" competition for their masterplan proposal to re-conceive the popular marketplace, Plaza Central La Merced. The team’s design, which beat out about 100 other entries, proposed the realization of a new public square to centralize pedestrian activity and to anchor strategies for urban revitalization, such as the reclamation of local heritage sites, the careful manipulation of natural elements, and the installation of urban furniture as a means for placemaking.

UNK Project Architects' entry for the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation's National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) competition centres around the interplay between art and architecture: "It’s what touches our soul and motivates us to pursue radical new ideas." Reaching the second stage of the international competition, which has been won by Heneghan Peng Architects, UNK Project Architect's proposal offers an intriguing, "almost airtight" space veiled by a monolithic façade facing landscaped urban space in the centre of Russia's capital.

J. Mayer H. has been crowned as winner of an invited competition to design a 19-story medical services and residential high-rise in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region. The “sculptural” tower, which is defined by the horizontal “cloud-shaped” aluminum strips that cloak its facade, is designed to “provide a natural atmosphere” enhanced by planted terraces and balconies overlooking the adjacent landscape of the Rheinaue and views of Duesseldorf.