UPDATE: The Niemeyer Center has been re-opened.

The Niemeyer Center in Aviles, Spain is soon to be shut down for several months due to disagreement over its finances and irregularities in its spending. The cultural center opened a mere 8-months ago, designed by Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer and has been an admired and appreciated institution for the city. More after the break.

The annual AIAS FORUM meeting for 2011 will take a break from the snow of the past two years (2009 Minnesota, 2010 Toronto) and be held in sunny downtown Phoenix, Arizona. FORUM is the annual meeting of the AIAS and the premier global gathering of architecture and design students. The conference provides students with the opportunity to learn about important issues facing architectural education and the profession, to meet students, educators, and professionals with common interests, and to interact with some of today’s leading architects through keynote addresses, tours, workshops and seminars, last years FORUM was attended by over 1,000 young and ambitious architecture students and AIAS members. This years Keynote Speakers will be Jeffrey Inaba, founder of C-Lab and former project manager with Rem Koolhaas and OMA, Brad Lancaster, author of www.harvestingrainwater.com, and University of Californa, San Diego architect and professor Teddy Cruz.

ECDM Architects’ proposal is for a unifying building, a building that represents both the Mériadeck neighborhood and the old city, that participates in defining an urban landscape and carries the values of a society more open to its environment. It was therefore around the creation of an open space, a space of convergence and exchange that they wanted to organize the program, a space framing the city, organizing open programs and services around the borders, a space animated by its users and actors. It acts as a beautiful and lively space, where the dynamism of Bordeaux is displayed for a close and urban administration. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architectural photographer Cristobal Palma shared with us his latest video: The Nicanor Parra Library by Chilean architect Mathias Klotz. This new building will serve as the main library for the Diego Portales University, designed as a state of the art green facility awarded with the Green Good Design 2010 award.

It seems that the billings index has bounced back a bit from its sharp drop in September. A month ago, the ABI measured 46.9 – a score nearly 5 points lower than August – yet, this month, the AIA has reported the October ABI at 49.4 While the score shows a positive leap forward since September, any billings index below 50 still reflects a negative showing. However, the new projects inquiry index seems to be this month’s silver lining as it jumped to 57.3 for October.

Check out the regional breakdown after the break.

Ferley Sergey, who currently works with Zotov & Co, shared with us his design for the revitalization of the industrial areas in the Kyiv city center, a former factory “Radar” and the surrounding areas. Currently, these areas are in terrible condition. The main task is to transform the useless territory in the central part of Kiev into a “cultural cluster” in its scientific, cultural and educational functions and imbued with a single public park. More images and project description after the break.

Jaeger and Partners Architects’ design for the Shenzhen Archive Towers recently received a Design Excellence Award in the AIA Chicago 2011 Design Awards program. This competition scheme was acknowledged in the Unbuilt Design Award category. Shenzhen’s Meiling District resides between City Center and new north railway station, forming an urban center with the Archive site at its heart. Creating an authentic urban space, the design unifies four parcels (city blocks) by removing dividing streets. Circulation is re-organized, thereby harnessed, by introducing a perimeter one-way street system. The enlarged spatial boundary establishes an appropriate scale and symbolic relationship with the City Plaza. More images and project description after the break.

Just recently, the author of architectural videos blog shared with us a video on OMA’s founding partner Rem Koolhaas‘ lecture which he gave at Cornell University on October 20th. His lecture was given on the occasion of opening Milstein Hall, the new extension to the faculty of Architecture, Art and Planning designed by OMA.

Michael Bell presents Visible Weather’s vision for the future of Temple Terrace, Florida, rethinking how the cities edge connects to the larger, adjacent city of Tampa. Visible Weather is one of five interdisciplinary teams participating in “MoMA’s Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream.” Each team is challenged to re-imagine struggling American cities and suburbs, seeing the current economic crisis as an opportunity to evolve.

Deputy Mayor Laura Hay announced last Wednesday that Adept and Luplau & Poulsen was the winning team for the residential complex to be developed at Aarhus Harbour. The Brabrand Housing Association’s new residential complex calls for a deisgn in Aarhus Habour that will break the massive scale of the harbour is as it currently exists. Adept and Luplau & Poulsen’s design - The City in the Building – Housing for All at Harbour North – will provide 238 public dwellings of which 83 are apartments for families and seniors, and 155 student-housing units.

More details on the design after the break.

10 Design architects has recently been awarded a 93 ha Masterplan for a CBD in Pingtan, a New Cross-Strait District for China and It’s Trading Partner, Taiwan. Pingtan is planned as a new commercial hub to drive communication and commercial trade between China and Taiwan. Part of the competition included the design of a new Cross Straits Forum including theatre, convention, exhibition and auxiliary commercial and cultural facilities. More images and project description after the break.

The new Indore School design by STL Architects aims to radically rethink both the traditional classroom learning environment as well as the physical arrangement of those spaces. With a prototype designed for mid, mass and premium markets, the Indore School educational experience will never differ, only the materials used to build each school. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Located in the Xiaguan District in Nanjing, China, W2Y2L was required to design a high rise complex which included entertaining, sport, commercial and official parts. Hence the major concern of the design was how to merge this “huge complex” into the existing circumstances and get a brilliantly transitional connection with the landscape there. The distribution of architectural volumes in this design follows the idea of traditional Chinese Gardens, which transforms the elements of water, stones, hills, bridges and flowers into significant urban shapes animating and vitalizing the daily life of the entire district. More images and architects’ description after the break.

How can you condense more than ten thousand years of civilization into a single project that faithfully tells the story of a great nation? The answer is in the winning design of a prestigious architectural competition, to design the new compound for the General Secretariat for the Council of Ministers in Baghdad. Zaha Hadid and more than 30 other international architects participated in this competition, won by the architecture firm CAP.

Architects: Achterbosch Architectuur and Onix Location: Sneek, The Netherlands Project Year: (First bridge) 2008; (Second bridge) 2010 Photographs: Courtesy of Achterbosch Architectuur and Onix

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Peter Eisenman

Controversial artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude – known for making large-scale architectural interventions in urban and rural environments – have finally gotten approval from the Bureau of Land Management to construct their most recent project “Over the River”, which will stretch along 5.9 miles along the Arkansas River in Southern Colorado.

Read on for details of the project and more images!

Open to architects, designers, engineers and students from November 22-27, this workshop put on my LaN (Live Architecture Network), in collaboration with SOLIDO, is intended to suit a range of levels- those with no Rhinoceros modeling or CNC machining experience will gain experience working with between modeled geometries and designing tool-paths for production. Those with previous experience will have hands-on access to taking their understanding further. Sessions are co-instructed by Solido Founder Filippo Moroni & LaN Co-director Monika Wittig.

The SEED Network recently launched the 2nd Annual SEED Awards for excellence in Public Interest Design to showcase and promote projects that help create socially, economically, and environmentally healthy communities. The projects will be judged using “SEED”: Social Economic Environmental Design”® a standard evaluation to measure the positive impact of design projects.

Sixwinners will be announced January 27, 2012. Each winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to present at Structures for Inclusion conference at the University of Austin in Austin, Texas March 24-25, and a $1,000 cash prize. Each winning project will also be included in a documentary series by The UpTake. More competition information after the break.

The detailed master plan for the Jordan Development Zones Company (JDZ) by Sasaki Associates encompasses 40 square kilometers of land along the north and east coast of the historic Dead Sea. Over the past 15 years, the Kingdom of Jordan has focused on a balanced approach towards development and preservation in order to capitalize on increased tourism and to provide improvements to local existing communities. In 2008, a development authority was created to establish a detailed master plan as a sustainable framework for existing committed lands, future development parcels, infrastructure provisions, and natural resources protection. The resulting master plan establishes a comprehensive and site specific approach to the social, economic and environmental sustainability issues facing this stunning setting. More images and project description after the break.

British architect, David Chipperfield, will curate the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. Chipperfield will have only eight months to decide on a theme and prepare to curate the world’s largest architecture exhibition. He will become the first British architect to curate the event.

We recently received KieranTimberlake’s newest book, Inquiry. Instead of listing one project after the next, as in most monographs, this book is organized around ten gerunds: bending, coupling, filtering, inserting, offsetting, outlining, overlapping, puncturing, reflecting, and tuning. This is a lovely and informative way to view their work. The reason behind the book’s organized is explained by Karl Wallick in the preface. Wallick writes, “Architecture is not exactly whole: we remember instances, elements, and details, but rarely are the experiences and sensations in architectural experience comprehensive. The context of what we do as architects is also fragmentary, even as it seeks to be resolved comprehensively. Rather than insisting on the totality of complete works, architecture might be better understood as an infinite matrix of detailed moments.”

BIG + Paris-based architects OFF, engineers Buro Happold, consultants Michel Forgue and environmental engineer Franck Boutte is the winning team to design the new 15.000 m2 research centre for Sorbonne’s Scientific university University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. More images and complete press release after the break.

The computerization and urbanization of the 21st century is creating new lifestyles and forms of public space. Architectural Environments for Tomorrow presents the spatial experiments of 23 architects and artists from around the world responding to the transformation of their surroundings. “The metaphors of the world-views suggested by the artists resonate with the practical proposals of the architects, presenting images of future humanity from a variety of different angles.” Architects featured include Toyo Ito, Frank O. Gehry, Sou Fujimoto and many more.

Continue reading for a complete list of the participants and more information on the exhibit.

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