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Winners of the 'GIFT' (Green Innovation Future Technology) Ideas Competition in Hong Kong have been selected by a panel of judges representing Hong Kong Science Park (HKSTPC), local government, and private organizations. The winning proposals best displayed the aim of the competition: to create an innovative and iconic architecture; design a low-carbon emissions building that promotes sustainable strategies and lifestyles; nurture and uncover new local talent, and to create a scheme that unifies the Park's development.

Review the winning proposals after the break...

Three teams have been shortlisted from a longlist of ten for the renovation of Washington DC’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library - the only library and D.C. building ever designed by Mies van der Rohe. The three competing teams are:

The Italian joint-venture between Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and Partners and C+S Architects has been announced as winner of an international competition for the requalification of a former railway station site in Chiasso, Switzerland. The team’s winning scheme proposes a “soft urban design” aimed at giving value to the pre-existing buildings, which are substantially maintained and sewn to the newly designed complex of two fashion schools: SAMS and STA.

The London Cinema Challenge, organized by Combo Competitions, challenged participants to design a new cinema located on Newman Street in central London which should "reflect the participants’ ideas of the cinematic experience in the near future." The scope of the proposal, along with the extravagance of the idea, was decided by the individual competitors with the only criterion being that the design provided a space to watch movies. In addition to the cinema, each proposal had to include a "unique feature helping to serve the main purpose" of the building. Whether "an intimate screening room for indie films, or a commercial multi-storey cinema complex showing blockbusters," the winning proposals demonstrate an array of unique ideas.

Architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) have been commissioned to design of a new urban development project on a 45 hectare site in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. The competition-winning proposal comprises a transportation hub including five underground railway stations, a border control point and numerous commercial areas. Above ground there will be a range of tower blocks of different heights with apartments, shops and offices to form multi-functional city quarters.

Trailing Situ Studio’s recycled lumber heart, Young Projects has been chosen to design the annual Times Square Valentine’s Day installation for lovers in the Big Apple. Made in collaboration with fabricator Kammental, “Match-Maker” will debut early February.

He has made his debut in the MAXXI piazza. As the winner of the Young Architects Program (YAP) in Rome, Turin-based studio Bam! Bottega di Architettura metropolitan has transformed the concrete facade of the Zaha Hadid-designed museum into a visual spectacular with the installation of a yellow, translucent and aerostatic prism.

TC Design Architects have been announced as one of the four winners in a country-wide architectural competition to design the University of Mpumalanga in Nelspruit, the first public university in South Africa since the end of Apartheid. Of 147 architectural practices, the Department of Higher Education and Training has narrowed the pool of entries down to TC Design, Conco Bryan Architects, Cohen and Garson, and Gapp Architects & Urban Designers.

More on TC Design's proposal after the break…

Heneghan Peng Architects has won an international competition for a new National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) at Moscow’s Khodynskoe Pole. Selected from a shortlist of three, the Dublin-based practice will now further develop their winning scheme which vertically stacks exhibition spaces as flexible “trays” to maximize accessibility and visually connect the NCCA’s activities to the surrounding landscape.

Once complete, the large-scale building will host a variety of permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as lectures, professional conferences, concerts, performances, studios, art education facilities and more.

Czech architect Ales Javurek has been awarded first prize in the [AC-CA] Architectural Competition for his design of a two-story, 340 square meter vacation home utilizing shipping containers in Sydney, Australia. The proposal situates the home on the edge of a 1500 square meter hillside to maximize the striking panoramic view of Bondi Beach. By preserving current trees and the slope's profile, consisting of "three platforms," the proposal successfully addresses the main brief: to design a contemporary, sustainable vacation house which sensitively fits into its context and considers Sydney's climate conditions.

Learn more after the break…

Slash with Phillips/Pilkington Architects have been announced as the winners of the Royal Adelaide Hospital Site International Design Competition, which was open to registered architects and landscape architects from around the world. The competition centred around redesigning the current hospital site, which will be vacated in 2016, in order to create an iconic place within the Greater Riverbank Precinct of Adelaide. See the winning and shortlisted proposals after the break.

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Architects have been invited to submit expressions of interest in designing The Crystal Palace as a new cultural destination for London in the spirit, scale and magnificence of the original. Plans to invest £500 million in rebuilding The Crystal Palace and restoring the surrounding public park were announced in October by ZhongRong Group, with the support of the Mayor of London and the Bromley Council.

The new culture-led exhibition and employment space will sit at the top of the 180-acre Crystal Palace Park in south London. It will incorporate the listed Italian style terraces, and other Victorian heritage within the park, fully restored for the public. The project is expected to create more than 2000 permanent and temporary jobs as well as attracting wider investment into the local high streets and the wider economy.

German architecture firm, GRAFT, has been selected as the winner of the "Apassionata" competition. Tasked with designing a temporary structure for the exhibition of horses, GRAFT proposed a complete wooden building that could be assembled, dismounted and reassembled at the convenience of the company.

Learn more after the break...

The Parramatta City Council has announced Sydney firm Johnson Pilton Walker as the unanimous winner of the Parramatta Square Design Competition, beating a shortlist (curated from 73 submissions) that included Sydney based Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp, Bates Smart, and Italian practice Mario Cucinella Architects.

The 53-storey commercial towers will provide up to 140,000 square metres of office space to Parramatta's central business district as well as act as centrepieces for the future Parramatta Square, in the heart of the CBD. 

See images of the towers, which feature a unique floating "public space in the sky," after the break...

Austrian Bramberger Architects have won the international competition to design the new High Tech Center in Villach, Austria. The winning scheme proposes four blocks of buildings and a corresponding area of dedicated open spaces, articulated longitudinally by a main axle. This axle, named “Communications Promenade” acts as a central route between the buildings and, in the future, it is proposed to connect the surrounding buildings, promoting the necessary infra- structures for the creation of an investigation campus.

TOTEMENT | PAPER's competition proposal to design an international multipurpose cultural and leisure exhibition complex, close to Moscow's Kremlin, centers around resolving the aesthetic disconnection, or "visual conflict", between the image of a modern European city - defined by the Ismailovo hotel complex - and the historic context of the site. Their designs (two variations of each other of which one has won the competition) do not blend into the existing cultural monuments but rather offer a modern antidote to the issues of scale, perception and "grandiose historical stylization" that currently exists.

Scandinavian practice C.F. Møller Architects, in collaboration with DinellJohansson, has been announced as winner of the HSB Stockholm architectural competition. The winning scheme includes three "ultra-modern residential high-rises" planned for Stockholm's city center. Only one of these proposals will actually be built, including the world's tallest wooden skyscraper. Completion of the chosen tower is set for 2023, the 100th anniversary of the competition organizer and Sweden's largest housing association, HSB. View the three project proposals after the break.

Vienna-based Delugan Meissl Associated Architects (DMAA) has been announced as winner of a competition to design a mixed-use, cultural complex in Munich. Dubbed Hanns Seidel Platz, the 40,500-square-meter scheme will provide a 160-unit “living tower,” office space, a civic center, concert hall and large public plaza for the district of Neuperlach.

This winning concept was developed in collaboration with the architecture firm Wimmer un Partner. It is expected for completion in 2019.

schmidt hammer lassen architects has been announced as the winners of a competition to design a large new central library in Ningbo, one of China's oldest cities with a population of seven million. The building will house the library's significant collection of over two million historic and ancient books, and will aim to double the library's daily visitors to around 8000 per day. Situated on the edge of a new ecological wetland area, the proposal will also form a new cultural hub within the city. As the latest in schmidt hammer lassen's long list of libraries (including the Royal Library in Copenhagen) with eight completed and four currently under construction, Ningbo's will be the practice's first in China.