The Board of Directors and the Strategic Council of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) have awarded the 2022 Gold Medal to Angela Brooks, FAIA, and Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, for their lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. The jurors have also selected MASS Design Group to win the 2022 AIA Architecture Firm Award, the highest honor the AIA bestows on an architecture practice.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announced that Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi will be the recipient of the 2022 Royal Gold Medal. The distinction, approved by Her Majesty The Queen and awarded each year since 1848, is given to architects or practices in recognition of a lifetime’s work and the impact on the evolution of the field and the built environment. With a career spanning over six decades, Balkrishna Doshi has had a paramount influence in shaping the architecture of India through a pioneering interplay of modernism and vernacular that translated into projects that celebrate local culture, context and craft.

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On the 30th of November, we received news of the death of Oriol Bohigas Guardiola (Barcelona, 1925), architect, urbanist, and one of the main drivers of Catalan's modern transformation.

During his Fellowship at Civitella Ranieri / WOJR Architecture Prize, Alejandro Haiek unveiled images of "Industries of Nature", the award-winning artistic narrative that explores Civitella castle's context and environment and observes how nature and industry work in parallel to form the traditional Umbrian landscape. The intervention was presented not as an art object, but as a documentation of the dynamic exchange between narratives, topographies, and shared resources, overlapping the Civitella Ranieri artist community with local farmers, automobile robotics technicians, engineers and producers.

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Architectural photographer Paul Clemence has released a new photoseries of Riken Yamamoto's The Circle project, a mixed use development at the Zurich Airport. The design was a competition entry that asked architects to create a program that offers visitors: Swissness, Surprise, and Connections to the World. Yamamoto's winning design, with its inclined facade and combination of linear and curved outlines, linked the airport to the park physically and visually, creating an architecture that highlights the Swiss identity.

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The RIBA House of the Year Award, which highlights the best new architect-designed house in the UK, was given this year to House on the Hill, designed by Alison Brooks Architects. Located in Gloucestershire, the house represents a contemporary extension to an 18th-century farmhouse that functions both as a home and repository of art. Over ten years in the making, the project creates a rich spatial experience while establishing a strong connection between the dwelling and the landscape. The jury commended the house for the “amalgam of architecture, landscape, inhabitation and art” that aptly manages to create a light and calm atmosphere.

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The NextGen International Taskforce is a collaboration between IE School of Architecture & Design and CPA NextGen, acting as a forum to exchange international talent and learn from discussions on the real estate industry and the built-environment. The group of NextGen professionals, which includes IE University alumni, meets bimonthly to discuss issues such as sustainability, inclusivity, technology, cities and wellbeing.

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The Naomi Milgrom Foundation has unveiled the 2021 MPavilion program, offering over 250 free events over the span of 152 days, its longest to date. Now in its 8th season, the event welcomes design enthusiasts from Australia and across the globe to celebrate the important contributions of the design community to cultural landscapes. This year's pavilion, titled 'The LightCatcher' is designed by Venice-based MAP studio, and will be installed in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens from the 2nd of December until the 24th of April 2022.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has revealed the 2021 President’s Medals, recognizing the world’s best architecture student projects and dissertations.  The award, now at its 185^th edition, represents a record of academic results, providing a comprehensive image of contemporary architectural preoccupations. This year’s edition saw the greatest number of entries in the history of the award, with 338 entries nominated by 102 schools of architecture from 31 countries.

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Zaha Hadid Architects has announced the creation of its Employee Benefit Trust and the transition to employee ownership. Established by Zaha Hadid in 1980, the practice with studios in London and Beijing now comprises over 500 professionals taking forward the legacy of the renowned architect. The organizational shift will ensure that profits are reinvested back into the business, into facilities and equipment, benefiting the entire staff while allowing the practice to prioritize visionary architectural endeavours.

El Garaje by Nomos has been announced as the winner of the 2021 AR House Awards 2021. Selected from a shortlist of 15 global practices, the jury praised the project for how it "rethinks the housing typology as an element to reactivate underused spaces in cities and transform rigid and obsolete infrastructure into lively solutions". House Hamburgö by Manthey Kula and House in Kanazawa by Shota Nakanishi Architects also received highly commended recognition, along with honorable mentions to Beaconsfield house by Simon Pendal Architect, Weekend House by AREA (Architecture Research Athens), and Hlöðuberg artist studio by Studio Bua.

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World Architecture Festival has revealed the winners for this year’s categories, highlighting buildings and landscapes completed across the world between 2019 and 2021. Chosen from almost 500 shortlisted projects from 62 countries, the winning projects showcase exemplary contributions to the built environment reflecting this edition’s theme: ‘Resetting the City: Greening, Health and Urbanism’. In addition to the completed buildings categories, the annual award also announced Copenhill, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, as the 2021 World Building, while SLA was awarded Landscape of the Year for its design of Al Fay Park.

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Following years of federal review, the National Capital Planning Commission has finally approved Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Sculpture Garden renovation proposal. Sugimoto’s redesign, which was proposed in Spring of 2019, transforms the Hirshhorn Museum into an accessible and inviting structure welcoming more than 30 million annual visitors. The design features flexible venues to welcome large-scale sculptures and time-based performances, and includes work on long-overdue repairs in the infrastructure.

David Adjaye was announced as the lead designer of the Barbados Heritage District, dedicated to documenting and recounting the impact of slavery on Barbados as well as cultures and nations in the Western hemisphere. The project will comprise a memorial, a museum and a research institute, the latter in charge of presenting Barbados’s pivotal role within the slave trade history as the place of departure for millions of enslaved Africans towards the Americas. The Heritage District, whose announcement closely follows Barbados’ transition to a parliamentary republic, marks a cornerstone in the development of the country’s identity more than five decades after declaring its independence from Britain.

Bjarke Ingels Group and A-Lab have unveiled their design of Oslo Science City, a new innovation district in Norway's capital that aims to create a physical framework for Norway’s innovation environment of estimated 150,000 scientists, students, entrepreneurs, and contribute to the country’s transition to renewable energy. The district aims to be a net zero emission area that operates on renewable energy and circular economic principles, as well as zero emission solutions during development and operation.

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In its new exhibition Peter Cook: City Landscapes, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art showcases drawings by the influential architect, best known for his architectural theories and visionary concepts. Curated by Kjeld Kjeldsen and Mette Marie Kallehauge, the event is part of the exhibition series Louisiana on Paper, which presented the work of various artists over the years and is now debuting its first show featuring drawings by an architect.

After launching virtual exhibitions about Parma (Italy), Pittsburgh and Milwaukee (United States), and Lagos (Nigeria), the online platform Google Arts & Culturehas opened the virtual exhibition Brasília: um Sonho Construído (Brasilia: a Built Dream), which presents an immersive tour of the Brazilian federal capital designed by Lúcio Costa.

Curated by the National Museum of the Republic, the exhibition had the collaboration of the Public Archives of the Federal District, the Institute of Architects of Brazil, the Chamber of Deputies Museum, the Federal Supreme Court, and other organizations based in Brasília. Through images from Google Street View, visitors travel through the corridors of six museums in the capital in 360° virtual tours, including the Museu de Valores (Museum of Currencies), the Square of the Three Powers, and also the Supreme Federal Court building.

Zaha Hadid Architects have presented "NFTism", a virtual art gallery at Art Basel Miami that explores architecture and social interaction in the metaverse. The gallery features spatial designs created by ZHA that focus on user experience, social interaction, and "dramaturgical" compositions, combined with MMO (massively multiplayer online game) and interaction technological services.

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In downtown Kuala Lumpur, Merdeka 118 topped out at 678.9 metres tall and 118 storeys, becoming the second-tallest building in the world. Five years after construction started, the tower’s final silhouette is revealed with the completion of the spire, redefining the city’s skyline currently dominated by the Petronas Towers and the Kuala Lumpur Tower. Designed by Australian firm Fender Katsalidis, the project features a triangular faceted glass façade inspired by patterns found in Malaysian art and, together with the surrounding park designed by Sasaki, creates a new layer of the city’s identity.

Shape Tomorrow, a new exhibition at AEDES Architecture Forum in Berlin, is a reaction to both staid, self-serious architecture shows and to the staid, self-serious architecture profession. Taking the form of a miniature city, it turns buildings into named characters, encourages visitors to populate structures with miniature people, and leaves space for them to fill the room with their ideas and criticism.

The exhibition, on view through January 13, is the brainchild of German architect Matthias Hollwich, founder of New York-based HWKN—a burgeoning firm known for both its research and its sense of whimsy. The show centers on nine, 16-foot-tall white plaster towers whose glowing bases take on the forms of some of the firm’s playful, kinetic projects from around the world. These include 25 Kent, a fractured office building in Williamsburg, and Die Macherei, a jutting and terraced mixed-use business district in Munich.

Interior design is far from an easy task – it is often a five-step process that involves swapping out ideas time after time until the perfect look is achieved. But a new online tool is allowing architects and designers to view and adapt furniture for all interior design projects, with just a few clicks. Hello Raye is a curated online marketplace that offers 3D-model configuration for tens of thousands of commercial and residential products including furniture, fixtures and equipment all in one place.

KCAP Architects and Planners have unveiled the ZIL-South masterplan, a new residential district in Moscow built on the basis of a 15-minute city. The masterplan will be built on the largest brownfield area of the former ZIL industrial zone, and will feature more than 100 hectares of commercial and residential landmarks, public spaces, parks, landscapes, and interconnect routes alongside the Moskva River, all inspired by the area's pre-industrial past.

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