This year, in partnership with MINI Clubman, we are launching a special award that highlights the best refurbishments of buildings and spaces from around the world.

Alongside MINI, we have decided to promote this category in the belief that one of the most sustainable ways to develop architecture now is through the recovery of existing structures. From urban renovations to new uses for former factories, or even simply giving new life to an old house, refurbishment projects demonstrate the flexibility of our existing cities and the many scales at which old buildings can be repurposed.

As in our Building of the Year Award, we entrust our readers with the responsibility of rewarding the best refurbishment projects in architecture—the designs that have had an impact on our profession. By voting, you are part of an impartial and distributed network of professionals who act as a jury to choose the most relevant works of the last eight years. Over the next 3 weeks, the collective intelligence of our audience will filter more than 450 projects to select 3 winners representing the best of architecture refurbishment published on ArchDaily.

This is your chance to reward the architecture you love—make your nomination for the Refurbishment in Architecture Award.

When Spanish architect Rafael Moneo won the Pritzker Prize in 1996, the jury identified his ability to see buildings as lasting built entities—their lives extending beyond architectural drawings—as integral to his success. The South Souks, Moneo’s 2009 project in Beirut, Lebanon, indeed responds to a long history and anticipates a lasting future. After the city’s historic souq (outdoor marketplace) was destroyed during the Lebanese Civil War, developer Solidere began rebuilding the commercial area in 1991. As part of the project, Moneo designed an arcaded shopping district that follows the ancient Hellenistic grid and retains original street names.

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As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Pakistan Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

Keeping the subject of FREESPACE in perspective, the Pakistan Pavilion takes inspiration from the physical and social dimensions of the sparsely open spaces embedded within the many informal settlements of Karachi, the most populated and fastest growing city of Pakistan.

Will Alsop, the British architect known for his colorful and unconventional designs, has died at age 70. As reported by The Guardian, Alsop passed away on Saturday following a short illness, with his firm aLL Design confirming the news on Sunday.

Massachusetts’ Bentley University Arena together with Architectural Resources Cambridge (ARC) have earned the LEED Platinum certification and was named the most environmentally sustainable arena in the United States. The 76,000 square foot arena emphasizes the university’s commitment to sustainability, energy efficiency, and goal to reach carbon neutrality by the year 2030. Bentley Unversity also offers a major in Sustainability Science and a program that will reduce more than 270 tons of material waste per year. This arena hosts several university events such as concerts, alumni events, career fairs, and is home to its NCAA Division I hockey team.

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has a knack for combatting a variety of complex issues via its step-by-step approach, yielding a design that seems almost inevitable. Ingels has labeled his design strategy as a form of “architectural alchemy." This combines multiple programs or “ingredients” that on their own, would simply be seen as “normal." But in aggregate, you get more out of the mix than you would keeping them separate. The result of this looks something like a waste-to-energy plant topped by a ski-slope, or a parabolic skyscraper with a Copenhagen-style courtyard.

Inspired by BIG’s “will to find new solutions for environmental, social, economic and technological problems”, artist Giuseppe Gallo has designed these 9 posters that evaluate BIG’s unique use of syntax.

More on syntax in architecture and how you can get your own copies of the posters after the break.

Ever since the City of St. Louis approved a sales tax to fund public greenways in 2000, citizens and planners have imagined a bike and pedestrian path along the city’s main east-west corridor. Last week, that vision was brought to life as Stoss Landscape Urbanism was selected to design the Chouteau Greenway. Their proposed strip of green space and walkways will stretch from the iconic Gateway Arch at the city’s eastern end to downtown, from there extending to Foster Park, which sits adjacent to Washington University in St. Louis on the city’s western edge.

As their entry in a competition for The Arbour, a new academic building for the campus of George Brown College on Toronto’s Lake Ontario waterfront, Montreal-based firm Provencher_Roy have revealed their design for an adaptable mass timber building that could grow and change in time.

Using a staggered truss structural system that divides the building into modular cells measuring 8.4 meters tall, 17.4 meters wide and 40 meters long, the firm explains that the stacked program elements can be reorganized as necessary, with classrooms and double-height auditorium spaces able to be converted to basketball courts or column-free open offices by adjusting the cross-laminated timber flooring, which can be adjusted without compromising the rest of the structure.

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As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Lebanon Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

Lebanon is participating for the first time at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia under the theme "The Place that Remains." The project has been developed by the curator, Hala Younes, Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Lebanese American University (LAU).

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Continuing their Time-Space-Existence series of monthly videos leading up to this year’s Venice Biennale, PLANE—SITE have released a new conversation with architect and former Harvard GSD chair of architecture Toshiko Mori. Each video highlights the ideas that drive the work of well-known designers, with this episode focusing on Mori’s philosophy of visual communication, dialogue with history and considering the future in her work.

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In the architecture world, few designers can claim to have a more clearly-defined style than Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946). Much of Libeskind's work is instantly recognizable for its angular forms, intersecting planes, and frequent use of diagonally-sliced windows, a style that he has used to great effect in museums and memorials—but which he has equally adapted to conference centers, skyscrapers, and shopping malls.

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Historic England has given protection to 17 Post-Modern buildings through their new listing publication. The bold, playful examples of a critical reaction to Modernism, designed between 1970 and 1990, have been listed to stem losses for the valued architectural style, following a recommendation from the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport.

The listed schemes vary in terms of location and use, encompassing culture, housing, education, civic, commercial, and law. From Crown Courts in Cornwall and warehouses in Slough to libraries in Cambridge and housing schemes in London, the listings reflect a revived interest in Post-Modernism, which was spurred by the 2011 “Style and Subversion” exhibition at the V&A in London.

The Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, upon recommendation from 2018 curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects, have announced the jury for the forthcoming Venice Biennale.

The jury will be responsible for awarding the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for Best Participant in the International Exhibition FREESPACE, and the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant in the International Exhibition FREESPACE. They will also have the opportunity to award one special mention to National Participations and two special mentions to the participants in the International Exhibition.

The eighteenth-century English water gardens were often designed with playful intent. Picnicking visitors would be surprised as fountains spouted without notice and perplexed as they stumbled upon mysteriously evocative structures like gazebos and banquet halls. At Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Park in Yorkshire, home to one of the world’s best-preserved water gardens, these historic botanic and architectural follies—or, impractical, playful forms—were once abundant. Today, they’re being reinterpreted through equally whimsical contemporary art installations.

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As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Chinese Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

The motivation for this exhibition is more than just xiangchou, a Chinese term that refers to nostalgia for rural lands. We return to the countryside where Chinese culture originated to recover forgotten values and overlooked possibilities; from there, we will build a future countryside.
– Li Xiangning (Curator)

One of the major challenges facing contemporary built environments is the future of rural development. In China, the countryside has become a new frontier for experiments in this area, and the country is developing its countryside at a speed and scale unseen in the West. Drawn by the promise of boundless opportunity, architects, artists, developers—as well as capital flow—are converging in rural areas across the nation.

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Uber has unveiled images of its vision for the future of its revolutionary ride-sharing business. “Uber Elevate” seeks to herald in a new era of “urban aerial ridesharing” beginning in 2023 with customers able to hail a flight on-demand.

As reported by The Verge, this future vision has seen Uber hold a competition inviting architecture firms to speculate on the “Uber Air Skyports” of tomorrow. The Skyports comprise a system of launchpads and landing sites throughout the urban landscape hosting a futuristic “flying taxi” service. At the company’s second annual Elevate conference in Los Angeles in May 2018, Uber revealed the winning designs from six firms, capable of transporting more than 4000 passengers per hour.

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Foster + Partners has unveiled their vision for the headquarters of DJI, the world’s leading robotics company, to be located in the Chinese technological powerhouse of Shenzhen. Symbolizing the “heart of innovation” for the robotics giant, the scheme seeks to alter the traditional concept of office architecture, generating a “creative community in the sky.”

Comprised of two towers, the scheme strikes a balance between research, development, office space and public amenities. The floors comprise floating volumes cantilevered from central cores by steel mega-trusses, ensuring maximum flexibility in large, column-free workspaces.

A collaboration between Moriyama & Teshima Architects and Acton Ostry Architects have been announced as the winner of the competition for a new timber building in Toronto. Their proposal beat out several other notable firms including Shigeru Ban, who is known for his timber constructions, Patkau Architects who worked with MJMA, and Provencher_Roy who partnered with Turner Fleisher. The winning design scheme, called The Arbour, will be a net-zero tower to house a new school of computer technology as part of an expansion at George Brown College.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Swiss Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia is delighted to announce the presentation of «Svizzera 240: House Tour» at the Swiss Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition focuses on the unfurnished interior of contemporary housing by celebrating a peculiar form of architectural representation — the «house tour».

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Japan Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

In the 20th century, the industrialization of society raised productivity and brought us convenient life with economic growth. However, the change has made us adapt our lives into an industrial network and created the barrier between people and environmental resources. One of the main roles of the 21st-century architecture is to break the barrier and to realize higher accessibility to resources.

UNStudio, in collaboration with Buro Happold Engineering, has won an international competition for the design of a new bridge spanning the River Danube in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Their scheme will serve as a blueprint for the "Galvani Bridge" connecting South Buda and Csepel, balancing graceful aesthetics with strong performance.

The competition for the bridge was conceived with the goal of decreasing the 600,000-strong daily traffic load on existing bridges across the Danube by 40,000. As well as easing traffic congestion, the bridge is intended to embody a liveable, loveable, healthy image of 21st-century Budapest.

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Moleskine, the go-to brand of sketchbook lovers have expanded their luxury notebook line, The Art Collection. The Italian paper-manufacturing brand and architects' favorite (we know we are!) dedicates this new collection to those who value the creative process just as much as the final result and want to translate their stories and ideas onto papers. Whether it’s drawing, doodling, painting, sketching, or composing, the Art Collection meets the diverse needs of its users who "simply need get lost in their colors and visions without fear of losing the spirit of their work."

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