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Asif Khan's Vantablack pavilion, the world's first super-black building, will open at the PyeongChang 2018 Opening Ceremony on 9 February 2018.

The Olympic pavilion is coated with Vantablack VBx2 carbon nanotubes and illuminated by thousands of tiny white light rods. These rods extend from the structure's parabolic super-black facade and create the illusion of a field of stars suspended in space. Looking at the building will be the closest experience to looking into space from a point on Earth.

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Videos

Each year the Vilcek Foundation selects American immigrant champions of the arts and sciences. This year the 2018 Vilcek Prize in Architecture was awarded to Guatemala-born, and now San Diego-based, professor and architect Teddy Cruz. Cruz uses his past experiences, living in Guatemala during its civil war, to focus his academic and professional career on shaping political and socioeconomic forces.

Bee Breeders have announced the winners of the SKYHIVE Skyscraper Challenge. The purpose of the competition was to allow architects, design students, engineers, and artists from all over the world to "generate design ideas for iconic high rise buildings in cities around the globe."

Have you ever been on the construction site and had a problem arise that needed immediate attention? The answer to that question is almost guaranteed to be yes. The Construction Administration phase is not intended to be a time for big design decisions, but with unforeseen field conditions, contractor errors and never-ending client changes, your team can keep designing and problem-solving throughout CA. Morpholio's new update to their Trace app for iPhone, TracePro, aims to transform site visits by "importing key components of the design process into the Construction Administration phase."

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England-based Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios have completed their redesign of the Hayward Gallery which transforms the iconic cultural venue into a modern space which allows Southbank Centre to continue to provide “more access, to more arts, for more people.”

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Plans for the United States’ largest mass timber office building in Newark, New Jersey have been revealed by developer Lotus Equity Group and Michael Green Architecture.

A part of the Riverfront Square redevelopment project – which will feature 11.8 acres of mixed-use buildings by TEN Arquitectos, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), Minno & Wasko Architects and Planners and Michael Green Architecture and parkland designed by James Corner Field Operations – the Riverfront Square office building will contain up to 500,000 square feet of Class A office space within its cutting-edge timber-framed structural system.

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A new infinity pool offering unparalleled views of New York City is to be constructed atop KPF’s upcoming Brooklyn Point tower. At 680 feet above grade – nearly 100 feet higher than the iconic infinity pool at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore – when completed the pool will become the “highest residential infinity pool in the Western Hemisphere."

"The Greenest Building is the one that is already built." (Carl Elefante, FAIA)

The world’s urban population will double by 2050, and cities need to come up with sustainable ways to accommodate this mass movement. We often see projects being built as quickly as possible to support growth, but these buildings end up lacking character, and they make the city look altogether generic. A smarter and more sustainable solution is to increase the density of existing centers, as well as to recover existing structures through refurbishment and repurposing.

To turn what is old into something new is a challenging process. It requires a bold vision and a rigorous commitment to design.

The job application process can be an exhausting one, endless cover letters, constant updating of your curriculum vitae, not to mention ensuring your instagram is #onpoint and squeaky clean. And chances are, recruiters and employers will spend all but a few seconds looking at your content. Novorésumé, an online résumé builder, is there to help speed up the process and provide all the tools you need for an employer friendly, well-designed CV.

Thanks to Art Jameel, a Middle Eastern non-profit arts organization, a new arts district is taking shape in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Since the crowning of Prince Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has shifted focus from oil to arts and technology. The new multidisciplinary art center, named Hayy, is a 17,000 square meter step in the right direction.

Spanish and Mexican architect Félix Candela is widely recognized as one of the most prominent figures in 20th century architecture. His innovative experiments with reinforced concrete produced iconic buildings deemed cascarones, or 'shell structures', such as the Pavilion of Cosmic Rays at UNAM, Mexico City (1951); the Chapel Lomas de Cuernavaca, Cuernavaca (1958); Los Manantiales Restaurant, Xochimilco (1958); and the Palace of Sports for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

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TripAdvisor announced the World’s Top Destinations “on the rise” according to the 2018 Travelers’ Choice awards. According to TripAdvisor, the winning cities are based on millions of comments posted on the site each year. They also look for cities with an increase in search traffic and user interest to make reservations.

This years list includes ten cities. Keep reading to find out which ten cities were chosen by TripAdvisor world travelers:

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has selected four architects from around the globe to receive 2018 Honorary Fellowships. This year’s Honorary Fellows inductees demonstrate the diverse ways in which architects contribute exemplary designs to the profession that have a positive impact on society.

The architects receiving the honor are French architect Odile Decq, Burkina Faso native, Diébédo Francis Kéré, and American architects William J. Stanley III and John Sorrenti.

More about the Honorary Fellows after the break.

Traditionally, Winter Olympics stadiums have stuck to a design that obscures the sky and protects against the elements in order to keep the guests warm. This year, the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics organizing team wanted to try something different. Guests will watch the three-hour opening ceremony at the PyeongChang Olympic Main Stadium – and it will be roofless.

Pyeongchang, located not too far from the border of North Korea, is notorious for one of the worst winters in the country. Temperatures in PyeongChang are forecast to reach minus 14 deg C (about 7 deg F), partly due to the powerful, biting winds that barrel down from Siberia and the Manchurian plain. This may be the coldest Olympics since the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. And because of the curious roofless architecture, the roughly 35,000 spectators will be completely exposed.

As one of the key figures of midcentury Modernism and perhaps Finland's most celebrated architect, Alvar Aalto (3 February 1898 – 11 May 1976) was known for his humanistic approach to Modernism. For his characteristically Finnish take on architecture, Aalto has become a key reference point for architecture in the Nordic countries, and his commitment to creating a total work of art left many examples of his design genius not only in buildings but also in their interior features, including furniture, lamps, and glassware design.

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Videos

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the winners of the 2018 Thomas Jefferson Award for service to public architecture and the 2018 Collaborative Achievement Award for distinguished achievements of those who have had a beneficial influence on or advanced the architectural profession.

For all those Game of Thrones fans looking to go face to face with a White Walker (or snuggle up like Jon and Dany), here’s your chance: Lapland Hotels Snowvillage in northern Finland has opened its very own Game of Thrones-themed ice hotel, complete with ice-carvings of the show’s best settings and sigils.

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In just 13 years since its inception, Danish firm BIG has earned world renown for its inventive architecture and its founder, Bjarke Ingels, has become one of the most popular names in the architectural world. However, with success comes criticism; BIG has been called out by some critics for what they believe is the "infantilization of architecture," referring to their designs as isolated, self-admiring and solely photogenic.

On her most recent visit to Spain, Spanish journalist Anatxu Zabalbeascoa spoke with Ingels about the impact of the Danish office on architecture and how their work wavers on a tightrope between "breakthrough projects for the world of the powerful" and "a face for people who are not happy with existing architectural models."

In May 2017, the Chilean firm ELEMENTAL was chosen to design the Art Mill, a cultural center that will be one of the largest in Qatar and will share a neighborhood with the Museum of Islamic Art (by I.M. Pei) and the National Museum of Qatar (by Jean Nouvel). Organized by Malcolm Reading Consultants, the final verdict closed an exhausting call that initially received 489 proposals and extended for two years in its four phases.

After making a trip to Doha (Qatar), Alejandro Aravena spoke with Chilean newspaper El Mercurio and shared details about this project. "One of the things we set out to do is to make this endure for the next 1,000 years," explains the 2016 Pritzker Prize winner. "When you look at industrial facilities, especially silos, archaeological ruins are the kind of things that remain," he adds.

British architect Amanda Levete has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Jane Drew Prize, recognizing “an architectural designer who, through their work and commitment to design excellence, has raised the profile of women in architecture.”

Founder of London-based practice AL_A, Levete rose to promise as one half of Stirling Prize-winning practice Future Systems, which she ran with then-husband Jan Kaplický. Together, they completed paradigm-shifting and critically acclaimed works such as the Birmingham Selfridges and the Lord’s Media Centre, winner of the 1999 RIBA Stirling Prize.

Levete left Future Systems to form AL_A in 2009, where she found continued success designing cultural venues with bold materiality. Some of the firm’s best known works include the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon, the Central Embassy Shopping Center in Bangkok, the 2015 MPavilion in Melbourne, and the recently-opened addition to the V&A museum in London.

The Architectural League of New York has announced the recipients of its 2018 Emerging Voices awards, spotlighting individuals and firms “with distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design, and urbanism.”