Foster + Partners has completed and reimagined the Apple store in Sanlitun, an urban quarter in Beijing, China. Originally built in 2008, Apple’s first store in China has relocated, in proximity to the older building, taking on more social aspects, and generating a “new dialogue with the surrounding pedestrian streets, addressing the large open square that is a social focus for the district”.

Oppenheim Architecture has completed the design for a resort in Ticino, southern Switzerland. Overlooking Lago Maggiore, the resort arises from the varied landscape of Alpine peaks and dense forests. Comprising over 100 private residences, a boutique hotel, and spa and wellness environment, the design embraces the region's unique landscapes and ecologies across three sites.

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The Lisbon Architecture Triennale has announced the appointed Chief Curators for their 6th edition, which will take place in 2022. The architects Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay were chosen given their great professional experience in the various aspects of the discipline that includes education, academic, and project activity in Portugal and abroad. The duo will be dedicating three years to preparing the Triennale 2022, beginning with an exploratory period for research, a team definition phase, a phase of structuring the programme design, ending with its implementation.

Waugh Thistleton Architects or WTA has won an international design competition in collaboration with In Praise of Shadows and Land Arkitektur, to deliver the new head office of Gotlandshem, the national housing association of the Swedish island of Gotland in Visby, Sweden. The project, low carbon, and low impact building will be a multifunctional place, providing a healthy hub for businesses, accessible by the whole community.

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Proposing a reflective “floating garden” to counterpoint the existing absolutist castle, MVRDV has won the competition for the masterplan of the Ettlinger Tor area in Karlsruhe, Germany, taking joint-first place alongside Max Dudler Architekten. Inspired by the historical fabric of the city, the project imagines a new composition, blurring divisions, and bringing more greenery to the area.

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A new six-story net-zero carbon office development in Vauxhall, London, UK has been granted planning commission by the city council to move further. Designed by FCBStudios, the timber workspace named Paradise, will transform an abandoned site on old Paradise street, and replace the existing disused roastery.

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The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts has announced 2020 Grants to Individuals. A total of 52 new grants will support critical projects that tackle contemporary issues, broaden historical perspectives, and explore the future of architecture and the designed environment. They are awarded for research, exhibitions, publications, films, and digital initiatives, among other formats.

Townscaper is a new building game that allows users to create their own town, in a very simple way, with elements rising from a digital sea as they click. With no goal apart from the design aspect, this video game, launched very recently, has already gained a lot of positive reviews.

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SOM has unveiled its design for a record-breaking supertall structure in Jiangsu Province, in China. Under construction since 2017, the Greenland Int’l Finance Center will become the tallest tower at almost 500 meters, once completed, surpassing Nanjing’s Zifeng Tower, also designed by SOM.

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Barcelona and the Netherlands based Anagram A-U and Gruppa have designed a "Mountain of Knowledge" for the School of Dolní Měcholupy in Prague. Made for the national competition to create a new kindergarten and primary school, the proposal embraces connection and interaction to drive learning. The design is made of contour lines that delineate the mountain, while the building's core features a series of indoor-outdoor classroom spaces.

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100architects has designed a proposal that regenerates the Puji Road pedestrian bridge in Shanghai, China. Entitled High Loop, the proposal reimagines the 1-kilometer elevated platform, adding playfulness and color to the city, without transforming the structure.

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Zaha Hadid Architects has just unveiled Roatán Próspera Residences, its latest project with AKT II and Hilson Moran. Located on the island of Roatán in the Caribbean, the largest of the Bay Islands of Honduras, the project takes on specific ecological and social criteria, to develop homes for the island.

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Dutch design practice Mecanoo has won the competition to design a new tower in Amsterdam. Dubbed Brink Tower, the project will rise 28 floors and accommodate nearly 400 new residents. The proposal is made to address a housing shortage for a range of tenants, including students and researchers. The new tower aims to become a green, sustainable and vibrant vertical neighborhood in the city.

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Videos

The Lisbon Architecture Triennale published on Vimeo the series of debates Talk, Talk, Talk held during its 5th edition, which was curated by Éric Lapierre. Divided into five major exhibitions, the Triennale addressed in one of them the issue of economy of means, discussed in the debates below.

Bringing together technical experts in different fields to address issues of global importance, Fabien Cousteau, first grandson of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center (FCOLC) announced the inception of PROTEUS, “the world’s most advanced underwater scientific research station and habitat to address humanity’s most critical concerns”. Conceived as the underwater version of the International Space Station, the project is designed by Yves Behar and fuseproject.

Hytera, one of the world's leading radio and communication systems manufacturers, has selected SOM to design its global headquarters, in Shenzhen, China. Integrated within the context, the project joins other emerging technology enterprises in the city and introduces a new typology of office space, as well as activates the surrounding public space.

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Videos

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced three joint winners of the Rethink: 2025 international design competition. Looking for designs for a post-pandemic world, the competition invited architects and students to consider what life and our built environment could look like by 2025. In total, there were over 147 entries from 18 countries that were submitted to reimagine daily life.

The COVID-19 Pandemic is a disruptive moment for our world, and it’s poised to spur transformative shifts in design, from how we experience our homes and offices to the plans of our cities. The webcast series Design Disruption explores these shifts—and address issues like climate change, inequality, and the housing crisis— through chats with visionaries like architects, designers, planners and thinkers; putting forward creative solutions and reimagining the future of the built environment.

Episode 3 will be streamed online on ArchDaily Facebook, Monday, July 27, at 11:30 am EST, and will focus on the future of Architecture and the Public Realm. Our guests will be Benedetta Tagliabue, co-founder of Barcelona-based EMBT, and Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism and incoming William W. Wurster Dean of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley.

After a prolonged closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Farnsworth House reopens its doors with a new exhibition entitled “Edith Farnsworth Reconsidered”, a temporary refurnishing of the country house to reflect its 1955 appearance. Focusing on Dr. Edith Farnsworth’s life and times, the exhibition aims to highlight the untold story of this woman.

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The London Design Festival has announced the program for its 18th edition to be held this fall. Despite the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the festival will return to the city as "a symbol of London's determination to maintain its creative and cultural leadership." Since its inception in 2003, London Design Festival brings together practitioners, retailers and educators to celebrate and promote design annually across the capital.

MVRDV is celebrating the upcoming opening of its Berlin office with an in-house exhibition, showcasing the firm’s 30 years’ worth of work in Germany. Launched at the Architektur Galerie Berlin, the event takes over the walls of MVRDV Haus Berlin, showcasing the company’s archive, some only on paper but much of it realized, with “both current and past German projects, including unseen projects from the past and newly-revealed future projects”.

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HKS Architects has won a commission to design a mountain resort on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Far East of Russia. Made for Three Volcano Park, the plan is envisioned as a year-round mountain resort focusing on the ecological side of the Kamchatka Region. Facilities will include a range of ski-in ski-out hotels, an eco-village, cable cars and residences overlooking views of the Moutnovsky, Vilyuchik and Gorely Volcanoes.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the lack of exhibitions and commissions, artists around the world started to struggle. The Artist Support Pledge, an initiative born in March of 2020 in response to this global crisis, seeks to support creative individuals, including architectural photographers. Founded by artist Matthew Burrows, the global movement connects communities in order to ensure “an equitable and sustainable economy for artists and makers of all countries, media, and ethnicities”.

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