President Obama in his State of the Union address shared plans for making American businesses more energy efficient. Focusing on investing in innovative clean energy technologies, the ‘Better Buildings’ initiative aims to increase energy efficiency in commercial buildings by 20 percent over the next decade. Building on his other contributions, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and proposed “HOMESTAR” legislation, this series of incentives would hope to propel private sector investment to upgrade offices, stores, schools and other municipal buildings, universities, hospitals, and other commercial buildings.

YAJ Architects present a proposal for the future of industrial buildings in an atmosphere where environmental and sustainable practices are vital, yet largely focus on the construction of housing and offices. This design for the Future Train Depot focuses on a near zero energy performance by using ground water heating and cooling, solar panels, and sensor-driven natural ventilation.

More on this project from YAJ after the break.

Nominations are invited for the 2011 Harleston Parker Medal, which is presented to “such architects as shall have, in the opinion of the Boston Society of Architects…completed the erection for any private citizen, association, corporation or public authority, the most beautiful piece of architecture, building, monument or structure within the limits of the City of Boston or of the Metropolitan Parks District”.

Rotterdam-based office for urban design and landscape architecture West 8, in collaboration with Sener & Gestec, have designed this entry for the Valencia Central Park Competition. Their proposal achieved a place on the competition shortlist. The design presented here is a concept for Parque Central inspired by the Valencian tradition of solid narrative and poetry.

More images and description of the project after the break.

David Tribby, of David Tribby Photography has spent the past few years documenting the abandoned and decaying architecture of Gary, Indiana and has shared his collection of work with us. Considering his work, Gary’s past and Gary’s present allows us to discuss a broader topic, the possible outcomes for abandoned architecture and their role in today’s urban centers. More of David Tribby’s photographs and a brief narrative after the break.

Yushang Zhang, Rajiv Sewtahal, Riemer Postma and Qianqian Cai (with studio tutor Alexander Sverdlov, at The Why Factory of professor Winy Maas (MVRDV) at the TU Delft) shared with us their project, “Vertical Village: A Sustainable Way of Village-style Living”, which was awarded the first prize in the d3 Housing Tomorrow 2011 Competition. The competition called for transformative solutions that advanced sustainable thought, building performance, and social interaction through the study of intrinsic environmental geometries, social behaviors, urban implications, and programmatic flows.

The d3 Housing Tomorrow competition assumes that architecture does not simply form, but rather perform various functions beyond those conventionally associated with residential buildings. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Las Vegas is our destination for the Architecture City Guide series this week.  Some of the most famous hotels and casinos grace the streets of Las Vegas, we’ve included those and much more. We want to hear from you, so take a minute to add your favorite can’t miss buildings in Las Vegas in our comment section below.

The Architecture City Guide: Las Vegas list and corresponding map after the break!

Back in December we showed you the second place project by Asymptote Architecture for the Kaohsiung Port Terminal Competition. We have now an update on the project, with a great video and some models you can check after the break.

The Center for the Promotion of Science proposal by Zürich based architecture studio Dürig AG is based on the concept of a New Belgrade composed of an orthogonal grid of a unified structural system that embraces rationality and clarity. The urban plan of the composition is to create defined individual building segments within the subdivided block of nine distinct segments. Within this development, Dürig AG has designed a Scientific Research Institute of which the Center for the Promotion of Science is an integral part.

More on this project after the break.

On our sixth selection of previously featured interiors we are still looking back at projects published on 2009. Check them all after the break.

Bank in Donoratico / Massimo Mariani The project concerns the redesign of a building at Donoratico (in Livorno) located next the head office of the bank “Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Castagneto Carducci” (also designed by architect Mariani in 2002). The building is on two levels (read more…)

Football is one of the best vehicles for social change (not to mention it’s fun to play). As fans of social change AND fun, Architecture for Humanity, Nike, and Fu.De (Football for Development) have teamed up to host a design competition for a prototype football, education, and health center for Liga FOS — a project that promotes social development through sport in vulnerable Buenos Aires suburbs.

The Chicago Architectural Club is pleased to announce the 2011 Burnham Prize Competition. This year’s competition is co-sponsored by the American Institute of Architects Chicago and Landmarks Illinois. The competition is intended to examine the controversial legacy and questionable future of the McCormick Place East Building, the 1971 modernist convention hall designed by Gene Summers of C.F. Murphy Associates which is sited on the lakefront in Burnham Park. Registration for the 2011 Burnham Prize Competition has been open since 1 February 2011. Submissions are due 4 April 2011. More competition information after the break.

In nature, nothing is perfectly square, and organisms orient themselves by the sun. Both truths explain the fresh design of the “net zero” Zona home.

The Jacksonville, Florida, residence, designed using ArchiCAD software from GRAPHISOFT, the personal home of by architect John Zona III and his wife. It features a main residence and guest cottage/studio, both with American football-shaped footprints to minimize the considerable cooling demands of homes in Southern climes.

The 2011 edition of Indesem will focus on the theme ‘Losing ground’; the changing position of architect and architecture with respect to the digitalized network society and the necessary shifts in practice and thinking when designing in this changing paradigm. For more information on the theme, lectures and workshop you can go to the event’s official website.

The three fountains located in the Republic Square of Pilsen were designed by Ondřej Císler and constructed in 2010 following a 2004 two-stage competition. It took five years for local authorities to accept the design that jurors of the competition very positively received. When in 2010 Pilsen was announced to be a European City of Culture in 2015, the decision to finally construct the fountains was approved.

More on the project after the break.

Great projects from Europe, Asia, and South America you may have missed last week. Check our selection after the break.

Rural Dining / Javier Rodriguez Acevedo In the search of a certification project, it found an agricultural company located in the north riverside of Lontué river that required an agricultural dining for their employees who work in season from pruning, thinning and harvesting. More strong in the third one, between the months of January and March (read more…)

The awkwardly shaped large site at West Side Highway and 57th Street is about to get a whole lot more attention. Bjarke Ingels and BIG will finally make their architectural debut in North America, with an unusual apartment building design in none other than New York City. The asymmetrical peak almost pyramid in shape is the result of blending the mismatched forms of a typical Manhattan tower podium and a low-rise apartment block European in style.

BIG’s reinvention of the ‘New York apartment building’ somehow is able to check all of the boxes, providing a connection to the waterfront and the Hudson River Park, acknowledging the surrounding context both in relationship to building size and neighbors’ views, and alleviating traffic noise. The leafy green courtyards that pop up within this new residential typology help to balance a steeply sloped facade, 450-feet at its peak. Designed for client Durst Fetner Residential, the building offers both a cultural and commercial program and will accommodate 600 residential units varying in size.

Follow the break for the architect’s description and more photographs.

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Architects: BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group Location: Manhattan, New York, USA Partner in Charge: Bjarke Ingels Project Leader: Beat Schenk Project Architect: Sören Grünert Project Team: Thomas Christoffersen, Celine Jeanne, Daniel Sundlin, Alessandro Ronfini, Aleksander Tokarz, Alessio Valmori, Alvaro Garcia Mendive, Felicia Guldberg, Gabrielle Nadeau, Ho Kyung Lee, Julian Liang, Julianne Gola, Lucian Racovitan, Marcela Martinez, Maria Nikolova, Minjae Kim, Mitesh Dixit, Nicklas Rasch, Riccardo Mariano, Stanley Lung, Steffan Heath, Thilani Rajarathna, Xu Li Architect of Record: SLCE Architects Landscape Architects: Starr Whitehouse Structural: Thornton Tomasetti MEP: Dagher Engineering Civil: Langan Engineering Construction Manager: Hunter Roberts Transportation: Philip Habib & Assoc. Building Envelope: Israel Berger & Assoc. Marketing: Nancy Packes Vertical Transportation: Van Deusen & Assoc. Acoustical: Cerami & Assoc. Wind: CPP Environmental: AKRF Client: Durst Fetner Residential Project Area: 870,000 sqf Renderings & Animation: German Glessner

The Techno Box by LED Architecture Studio is a habitat structure designed to perform in emergency situations. The elements are modules that can be aggregated to serve different functions. Each unit is designed for a maximum of 5/6 people and is conceived to serve temporary housing problems for people facing natural disasters.

Read on for more on this project after the break.

While building information modeling (BIM) is traditionally thought of as being effective on large, complex projects, more and more architects are also using it on single-family residential projects to lower costs, speed construction process, and make better-performing, greener buildings. Hear from architects using BIM for residential work about the benefits-and some of the challenges.

Jean-Paul Viguier has produced this design for the SFR Headquarters in Saint-Denis, France, a 130,000 sq. meter facility that will house four sectors of offices along a single spine. The building is scheduled for completion in 2013.

More on this project after the break.

Studio O+A, principals Verda Alexander and Primo Orpilla, were named this week by Contract magazine as the 2011 Designers of the Year. Known for designs such as the Facebook Offices in Palo Alto, the award is recognition of Studio O+A’s consistency of bringing creative quality design to start-ups and venture firms in Silicon Valley.

Complete press release following the break.

Atelier Zündel & Cristea architects shared with us their Grenelle Tower in Paris France, which has been commended by the Mipim AR FUTURE awards. At a time when Paris is reviewing its ambitions of ‘greatness’, the richness of the city’s diversity is transposed vertically into towers of shifting density. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Greek architects, mab architecture, have shared with us their interactive, multi sensory pavilion, Plinthos. Additional images, multiple videos and a description of this visually striking project after the break.

Hydrogen House is a series of house prototypes and suburban planning strategies for the Hilltop neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. Advocating a shift from a corporate fuel economy to a grassroots one, the project uses hydrogen fuel cells to link the design of domestic environments to ambitions for suburban development. Follow the break for more drawings of Hydrogen House.

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Architects: !ndie Architecture Location: Denver, Colorado, USA