3XN/GXN have revealed their design for a new CO2 neutral and climate positive addition to the Hotel Green Solution House (Hotel GSH), in Rønne on the Danish island of Bornholm. Scheduled for 2021, the new wing including 24 rooms, a conference room, and a roof spa, is expected to provide a positive climate footprint when built, a novelty in Danish commercial buildings.

Kengo Kuma & Associates and Mad Arkitekter won the competition for the new Ibsen Library in Skien, Norway. Working with BuroHappold Engineering, the team created the design to celebrate the renowned playwright Henrik Ibsen. As a new cultural center for the city, the project creates multiple access points across multiple floors to form a welcoming environment. The library aims to make Ibsen’s drama and literature accessible to everyone.

+ 15

Across the globe, ever since 2014, every year on the 31^st of October, World Cities Day is celebrated. To mark this event, UN-Habitat has released its World Cities Report 2020 on the value of sustainable urbanization, focusing on the most up-to-date and pressing topics. Analyzing the intrinsic value of cities in generating economic prosperity, mitigating environmental degradation, reducing social inequality, and building stronger institutions, the report highlights how together these can drive transformative change.

+ 7

KCAP Architects & Planners won the international competition for one of the Bucheon Daejang New Town as part of the Seoul metropolitan region in South Korea. Titled Open Fields City, the proposal was made with DA GROUP to create new urban quarters characterized by "fields" and interconnected pathways.

+ 2

The International Highrise Award (IHA), organized by the city of Frankfurt and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM), has selected Norra Tornen, the residential towers designed by OMA / Reinier de Graaf as the winner of its ninth edition. Granted every 2 years, to architects and developers for buildings of minimum 100 meters in height, completed in the last two years, Norra Tornen was selected from 31 projects from 14 countries.

+ 10

Chinese architect and town planner Wu Liangyong was recently featured in a new interview from the International Union of Architects (UIA) about his life and teaching. As the former Vice-President of the UIA and the Architectural Society of China (ASC), Liangyong won the Jean Tschumi Prize back in 1996. Today, he reflects on his academic career spanning 70 years at the Tsinghua University School of Architecture.

The Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor, has just announced the appointment of Alejandro Aravena as Chair of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury as of March 2021, in time for the award’s 43rd year. Moreover, the announcement also designated Manuela Lucá-Dazio, the Executive Director of the Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, as an advisor to the Prize and the next Executive Director.

Hufton+Crow has unveiled its latest series of images, capturing Denmark's recent and inventive projects, completed between 2018 and 2019. The photographs showcase CopenHill Energy Plant and Urban Recreation Center by BIG, along with Tingbjerg Library and Culture House and Køge Nord Station, both designed by COBE.

+ 40

Herzog & de Meuron have created a new proposal for a third tower in the Roche development along the Rhine River in Basel, Switzerland. Designed for the biotech company, the updated plan combines green open space along the riverbank with a reception building and the third office tower. HdM developed a proposal for two buildings on the southern plot; a low-rise to sit within the park and the high-rise to reach a maximum height of 221 meters.

+ 2

Remember nightclubs? That mask-less, gloveless world where you’d melt into a gyrating, strobe-tinged crowd of hundreds while losing yourself to the ecstatic soul-shuddering beat of electronic dance music (EDM)? Nightclubs and their requisite soundscapes may feel like a distant and potentially panic-inducing memory today, but they have long served as vital spaces of innovation and countercultural resistance. In their fusion of creative cultures, technological innovation, and political protest, clubs are spaces where utopian dreams are born and come to life—at least for the night.

Jean Nouvel has just unveiled his design for Sharaan, a resort hidden within the rock dwellings of AlUla, a cultural oasis in north-west Arabia. Showcasing a modern take on millennia-old ways of living, the project puts in place monumental designs carved into the rocks, respecting and preserving the landscape. Inspired by the nearby Hegra, Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, the concept takes a curatorial approach bringing together landscape and history.

+ 8

Mask Architects has been named one of ten winning teams in the Cool Abu Dhabi a global design competition. Their proposal, The Oasys, is a system where residents of Abu Dhabi can relax and enjoy outdoor spaces without feeling the heat. Selected from more than 1,570 participants across 67 countries, the project aims to tackle the effects of climate change through a localized solution for the urban heat island effect.

+ 13

MVRDV has revealed the first images of Chengdu Sky Valley, the firm’s competition entry for the Future Science and Technology City in Southwest China. Fusing technology with nature, urban with rural, and modernity with tradition, the proposal introduces “a liveable city into the Linpan Landscape”. Located in one of China’s emerging cities, the project balances the competing needs of the area, through a computational workflow developed by in-house tech taskforce MVRDV NEXT.

+ 5

Real estate development firm ELAD Canada has unveiled Galleria III, Toronto’s tallest flatiron building designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects and DesignAgency. Made to be a gateway to Galleria on the Park, the development will include 426 residences ranging from studios to three-bedroom units. The tower will part of the next phase in the master-planned community and the transformation of Toronto’s West End.

+ 1

The judges for the Oscar Niemeyer Award, one of the most prestigious of its kind in the realm of Latin American architecture, have announced the 20 finalists for the competition's third edition.

The FRAM Museum will take on a new extension dedicated to polar exploration and environmental education. Designed by Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter, the winning proposal of the invited architectural competition, Framtid, or Future is centered on the idea that “architecture exemplifies how we care for our environment”.

+ 6

Strelka KB has announced five teams selected for the international competition to integrate development of 5 sites in Saratov, Russia. A total of 67 applications were submitted from 24 countries, and the jury reviewed all the submitted applications to select participants for the second stage. The participants needed to propose a framework of planning, programming, landscaping and transport solutions for the project sites across Saratov City Center.

+ 3

This past June we published a survey called "How do Architects and Industry Professionals Specify Materials and Products”. The objective was to better understand architects’ behaviors and needs during the specification stage of their design processes.

Dutch design practice Mecanoo has released a new documentary exploring the modernization of Washington DC’s Martin Luther King, Jr central library. Called "A Legacy of Mies and King", the documentary explores both architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's vision in the sixties, as well as the recent effort to create a modern library that reflects a focus on people while celebrating the exchange of knowledge, ideas and culture.

The first 3D printed residential building in Germany, built by PERI GmbH, and designed by MENSE-KORTE ingenieure+architekten is undergoing construction in Beckum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The two-story printed detached house with approx. 80 sqm of living space per floor is using a system put into practice in Germany for the first time. In fact, the construction technique has come through all of the regulatory approval processes over the last few weeks and months.

Multi-disciplinary design practice EcoResponsive Environments has won the RIBA competition for the ‘Vision of Future Living’ in Runcorn, England. Designed for SOG’s Heath Business and Technical Park, the proposal aims to help attract interest from global investors and reimagine what the site's future might hold. The competition for the redevelopment of The Heath asked architects to consider how we will live, work and play in the future.