Earlier this week Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, founding principals of Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, lectured at Harvard GSD about Evolutionary Infrastructures. The multidisciplinary firm has distinguished themselves with their holistic design approach, successfully integrating the disciplines of architecture, art, infrastructure, and landscape design.

Dear Mr. Architect,

I would like to clarify a few things that you may have misunderstood during the design process. Please don’t get me wrong. In general we are very pleased with the house, ummm, I mean… “living-experiment”, (Did I get that right?) We’re just a little concerned about our marriage.

Granted, we said we wanted an “open” and “airy” bathroom, however, my husband and I do not enjoy showering in full view of our neighbors. The guy next door will not stop calling me. He also seems to have purchased a telescope. We would like to install blinds. Could you recommend a manufacturer? Would some kind of curtains work? Please advise.

Women – what’s up now? Architecture is Barbie’s profession for 2011. AIA San Francisco and Mattel partnered on an architect Barbie Doll as well as a Barbie Doll dream house competition.

Representing different paths in the design profession, architects Cathy Simon, FAIA (Perkins + Will), Ila Berman (California College of the Arts), EB Min (Min|Day) and Anne M. Torney (Daniel Solomon Design Partners) will discuss their careers and share their perspectives on women in the profession. More information on the event after the break.

Jon Piasecki recently received a 2011 Honor Award from ASLA for his Stone River project. The magic of this project lies in the details. You need to watch the video (after the break) to appreciate the painstaking effort and attention to detail that went into this project.

Video, project description, and more photographs after the break.

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Landscape Artist: Jon Piasecki Location: New York Collaborators: Rob Davis Text: Jon Piasecki Photographs: Jon Piasecki, John Dolan, David Borden

In keeping with our coverage of the Solar Decathlon, we are happy to share Victoria University’s Meridian First Light House third place finish. Finishing a few point shy of the University of Maryland’s 951 points, the New Zealand university received 919 points with high standings in several categories, including winning the Engineering contest, gaining first equal in Hot Water and Energy Balance, second for Architecture and third for Market Appeal. Plus, over the course of the competition, the house managed to produce more energy than it consumed – achieving net zero energy consumption, despite 10 days of undesirable weather. Team member Nick Officer exclaimed, “While we may not have won overall we are incredibly proud to have represented New Zealand on the world stage. We had such and amazing response from the US public here along with supporters back home.” Be sure to check out our previous coverage of the house to learn more about the traditional Kiwi bach – a New Zealand holiday home – inspired residence.

More photos of the residence after the break. 

With its third annual competition, SMIBE (Society for Moving Images about the Built Environment), sponsored by The Graham Foundation, Archinect, and Image, continues to bring together a growing body of moving image stories about the built environment. They hope the competition will become a forum for the exchange and discussion of persuasive issues about the built world. For this competition, SMIBE welcomes moving image stories that investigate, explore, and entertain our communities about social, environmental, political, technological, and economic issues that designers of the built world should be discussing.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin turned 100 this year. As part of the commemoration Tour de Force 360VR produced an award winning “guided” 360 degree virtual tour of the estate. The center of Frank Lloyd Wright’s world was Taliesin near Spring Green, Wisconsin. It was his home, workshop, architectural laboratory and inspiration for nearly all his life. Our international award winning Tour de Force, allows visitors from around the world to experience this place in ways only a personal visit could provide before. The response has been dramatic. More information on the tour after the break.

Out of this world…designing for the unknown. The possibilities in design are endless and limitless when it comes to UFOs! The vast impact of ufology in architecture around the world is an interesting discovery. Documentation of some of these designs is shown here in this gallery. The photos prove how design concepts by several architects has been driven by UFO inspired ideas. More images on the UFO inspired designs after the break.

This was a great week to choose from ArchDaily’s archive.  Again, the projects are from all over the world and vary greatly in size, anywhere from a small private concrete chapel in Lima to a library in Belgium with an active rooftop leaving way for a green pedestrian space.   An iconic concrete oval ribbed stadium in Croatia, remote Montana camp, art museum in North Carolina and Slovenian weekend house are all revisited after the break.

The 2011 Zerofootprint Re-Skinning Award Winners were highlighted last week during the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo held in Toronto. The annual competition aims to ‘jump-start the discussion on how we might retrofit entire cities to fight climate change’. Recognized as the Best Overall Project 2011, the Palms residence in Venice, California designed by Daly Genik Architects, “is an outstanding example of an architecture project that can transform our cities to fight climate change,” says Ron Dembo founder and CEO of Zerofootprint. “The design is energy and water efficient, replicable, and beautiful. This project demonstrates that retrofitting existing buildings to reduce their environmental impact does not have to mean limiting the quality of materials, the use of smart technologies, or the aesthetics of the final product.”

A complete list of the 2011 Zerofootprint Re-Skinning Awards winners and finalists following the break, including the King and King Headquarters in Syracuse, New York by King and King Architects and the Orange Cube in Lyon, France by Jakob + MacFarlane.

An hotel in Slovenia, a resort in India, The Trump International in Hawaii, a nice Japanese hotel and even an AD Classic from Michael Graves in Disney World! All for our 8th selection of previously featured hotels. Check them all after the break.

Leti 360 / Studio Mumbai Located at 2350 m (7700 ft.) above sea level, Leti 360 resort is perched on a promontory in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. The site is a two hour walk from the nearest motorable road and is accessed by a narrow footpath carved into the mountainside, part of a network of trails used by local villagers for daily travel and transport (read more…)

The idea that a diverse population needs a diverse environment to succeed seems easy enough to grasp. Certainly, it is easier to comprehend than a one-size-fits-all design philosophy. Why then, in the name of universal design and equality, do architects continue to design uniform one-size-fits-all environments? Answering that is not so simple. Some may suggest that construction methods, costs, and site restrictions make diverse environments economically and physically infeasible. Others may fault the lack of courses architects take in human biology and psychology. This might make it impossible for them to understand the diverse range of people their buildings affect. Even more may fault the ever increasingly abstract design process. This may hinder architects’ ability to identify with real future occupants. All of these conceivably play a role, but the most likely culprit is Plato’s philosophy of essentialism for the same reason biologist Ernst Mayr felt it caused evolution’s insufferably late discovery; essentialism has and continues to fundamentally shape how we see and deal with diversity.

We featured this project while it was in progress back in June. MiAS Arquitectes recently sent us the photographs of the completed building. Check out more photographs after the break.

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Architects: MiAS Arquitectes / Josep Miàs Location: Barcelona, Spain Project Area: 9,000 sqm Photographs: Adrià Goula

Last week we told you about ACME Studio’s newest collection of roller balls and card cases with designs by Charles and Ray Eames and Hariri & Hariri. We asked you which architect and project would you like to see in future collections, and among all the comments by registered users we now have two lucky winners!

Grace Whang will receive Charles and Ray Eames “Dots-Etched” collection, and Tim Grantham won Hariri & Hariri “Site Plan”. Congratulations to you both! We will contact you directly with the details.

Remember you can also become a registered user of ArchDaily to have access to all our special features and so you can participate in future giveaways! More information on ACME Studio’s collection after the break.

Farshid Moussavi Architecture has just shared their winning residential proposal for the La Défense financial district to the west of Paris with us. The new 11,000 + square meter building is part of the larger urban renewal project, La Parvis Jardin de l’Arché, which links La Défense and les Terrasses de Nanterre. The design’s slender volume – which contains 7,500 sqm of residential units, 2,930 sqm of student accommodation and 1,000 sqm of retail space – is comprised of slightly rotated floor plates that produce oblique balconies and loggias. The shifting form builds upon the site’s visual connection to La Grande Axe, providing uninterrupted views down the historic boulevard. The winning project marks Moussavi’s first built work in France, as well as FMA’s first major project since the dissolution of her previous firm Foreign Office Architects with co-founder Alejandro Zaera-Polo.

More images of the winning design after the break. 

Architecture Workshop in Rome (AWR) is proposing an international architectural ideas competition, “Life Saving – First Step Against Disaster”, with the aim of developing tsunami-proof strategies that could lessen the impact of these events on human lives. Architects, engineers, designers and students, around the world, with passion and creativity, can deal with this sensitive issue. More information on the competition after the break.

As part of Little Tokyo Design Week, a recently successful event hosted by Los Angeles, offices deegan day design and Open A of Japan curated an exhibition of 40 houses from Japan and California. The goal was to highlight 20 Japanese and 20 Californian architectural practices that explore new efficiencies of scale, construction and reduced ecological impact, posing innovative possibilities for the future of small-scale residential design. They had many exciting architects participate in this exhibition, such as, Neil Denari, Greg Lynn, Wes Jones, Sou Fujimoto, Makoto Tanijiri, Mt Fuji Architects just to name a few.

Van Alen Institute, a New York-based organization dedicated to projects in public architecture, is joining the U.S. National Park Service to launch Parks for the People: A Student Competition to Reimagine America’s National Parks. Students and faculty will have a once-in-a-generation chance to creatively rethink our national parks’ connections to people, and their role as revered natural, social, and cultural destinations through design studios focusing on one of seven national parks. More information on the competition after the break.

STREET WORKS, an initiative of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA NSW), is a competition to create temporary installations that transform under-utilised public spaces into vibrant places. An exhibition of the 67 entries they received from landscape architects, architects, artists & designers from 8 countries is now on at Customs House in Sydney.

It is an exciting week in the Windy City. Chicago Ideas Week (CIW) kicked off yesterday and runs through the 16th, featuring 100 speakers in 7 days. CIW is a combination of the world’s top speakers and Chicago’s best thinkers. The result, a newly created ecosystem of innovation, exploration, and intellectual recreation. Head to CIW’s website to download the schedule and purchase tickets, or to view a webcast.

Designing in Lima, a city of marked eclecticism is more a provocation than a challenge. The vibrant movement of forms, heights, colors, reflections, textures and all kinds of elements competing for the leading role is a particularly interesting framework for XTe a+d‘s proposal for an exclusive, loft apartment building. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architect: Ravnikar Potokar Arhitekturni Location: Idrija, Slovenia Competition Team: Robert Potokar, Sabina Colnar, Ajdin Bajrović, Mateja Šetina, Carlos Graca Project Team: Robert Potokar, Andrej Strehovec, Marjan Starič Interior Design Project: Andrej Strehovec, Maja Slapernik, Robert Potokar Project Area: 7,740 sqm Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Andrej Strehovec

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Celebrating 25 years of architecture and design Danish Architects 3XN have built a portfolio of work that ‘focuses on the humanity and environment at the center of its architecture.’ Their recent works include the award winning Middelfart Savings Bank Headquarters and the incredibly popular Museum of Liverpool.

Projects by 3XN that have been featured on ArchDaily include:

Bella Sky Hotel Middelfart Savings Bank Headquarters Museum of Liverpool Swedbank’s New International Headquarters Horsens Stadium Horten Headquarters Muziekgebouw Saxo Bank Tivoli Concert Hall

K

Keystone: (noun) – Key-shaped stone at the top of the arch used to open a secluded vault in Egypt containing the secret to all Architectural success. The vault may be empty, and booby trapped.

L

Light: (noun) – The illumination at the end of the tunnel which has been turned off due to lack of financing.

Linear: (noun) – The shortest distance between your ideals and your client’s pocketbook.

Lintel: (noun) – A bean-soup used to span window openings.

Loggia: (noun) – A gallery or corridor on the façade of a building, open to interpretation on one side.

{ more definitions after the break }