2017’s building applications has seen a rise in both Brooklyn and the Bronx, according to YIMBY’s construction report on New York. Despite a drop within Manhattan and Queens, the number of new building applications over the five boroughs seems to be stabilising; 2016 saw the number of multi-family units decrease by over 40% to 19,356, a pattern which fortunately appears to have stopped as 2017 saw fillings for 19,180. After the last two years of massive drops, this couldn’t be more welcomed by New York.

Videos

The celebrated modernist architect and innovator of social housing, Neave Brown, has sadly passed away following his battle with cancer.

We are starting the new year with an announcement from the American Institute of Architects that there will be no winner for their Twenty-five Year Award in 2018. This will be the first time this has occurred since the award was officially established in 1971. The AIA award recognises buildings that have “stood the test of time for 25-35 years and continues to set the standards of excellence for its architectural design and significance.”

Over the 46 years of the award, it has celebrated buildings by of Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn and Charles and Ray Eames. Last year it was awarded to the Grand Louvre – Phase I by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners for its iconic stainless steel pyramid that “rivals the Eiffel Tower as one of France’s most recognisable architectural icons.”

The new social housing project by Stefano Boeri Architetti is the first to integrate a vertical forest into an affordable residential skyscraper, improving the living conditions often incurred within such developments. 5,200 shrubs and 125 trees will be planted up the 75m tall structure in Eindhoven.

Trudo Vertical Forest will contain 125 social housing units over 19 floors to house lower income social groups, particularly young people. Each apartment will include a balcony filled with an array of trees, plants and shrubs for a forest soaring into the city's sky.

The RIBA have announced the winner of their competition in collaboration with the National Grid to give function to the sub-terrain voids left behind when the steel frame of a gasholder is dismantled. Outpost, the winning London studio, proposed a mixed-use scheme for a ring of four storey buildings descending into the well below. The other shortlisted teams included CF Architects, 318 Studio, Max Architects, Wilson Owens Owens Architects and Jan Verhagen and Priscille Rodriguez of Unit Architects.

Outpost’s proposal solves Britain’s shortage of affordable housing and creates an opportunity for flexible workshops, studios and workspaces to be integrated into the structure. The simple, economical vision makes full use of the gasholder base and presents a familiar domestic setting on street level, appearing as one storey.

In an alternative universe, architects would have the ability to design every single aspect of their building in line with their architectural vision. There would be no mechanical, structure, or government regulations to worry about. Back in the real world though, this could not happen—many people have to be involved in the creation of a building in order for it to function. From the government to structural consultants, everyone thinks they know best, and the role of the architect sometimes becomes that of a negotiator, trying to please the third parties while maintaining their aspirations for the project. Architects must stand strong, however, because who really knows what would happen if we let someone else be in charge.

CF Møller’s Storkeengen (Stork Meadow) is a landscape solution, bringing the town of Randers closer to the longest river in Denmark, the Gudenå River to prevent the threat of flooding. The storm protection uses the wetland meadows as an attractive nature park to handle the raised stormwater level, whilst a recreational pathway increases accessibility with the nature areas across the river.

At an altitude of 2735m, architecture students at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have built The Bonatti Bivouac, a temporary refuge for the A Neuve’s glacier. The shelter uses the envelope as a structural object, eradicating the need for metal, screws, or nails. Informed by theoretical architect Semper, their design uses the joints to form a piece of architecture.

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Videos

The new year is here! And with it, a new slate of documentaries we're dying to see.

Of all the media forms, film seems to be the most adept at making a personal connection with viewers, offering a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of a great architect, the construction, and performance of a project or an issue that is confronting the entire architecture community. This year's films are no exception, as we get the chance to learn about the daily routines of Bjarke Ingels and Paulo Mendes da Rocha, projects by Tadao Ando and Glenn Murcutt, and the troubles of urbanization and gentrification.

Check out this year's list below, and find more great architecture documentaries with our Architecture Documentaries to Watch in 2017, Architecture Documentaries to Watch in 2015, our top 40 Architecture Docs to Watch in 2014, and our 30 Architecture Docs to Watch in 2013.

The Danish pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale will demonstrate the power of collaborative innovation through large-scale installations. Architect and Head of Institute of Architecture & Technology at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Natalie Mossin was selected to be the Danish pavilion curator by several prestigious organizations including The Danish Architecture Centre, The Danish Ministry of Culture, Realdania and the Danish Arts Foundation.

Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) has announced the six recipients of their 2018 Richard Rogers Fellowship program. Inspired by Lord Richard Rogers’ “commitment to cross-disciplinary investigation and engagement,” the Fellowship established last year to support individuals “whose research will be enhanced by access to London’s extraordinary institutions, libraries, practices, professionals, and other unique resources.”

The six winners will be given the opportunity to live and research at the Wimbledon House in London, which was designed by Rogers for his parents in the late 1960s. In 2015, Rogers gifted the home to Harvard for Fellowship use. This year’s winners will receive a three-month residency as well as travel expenses to London and $10,000 cash.

The City of London has released new visualizations showing how its fast-changing skyline will look by 2026, as 13 schemes are currently under construction or due to begin construction in London’s Financial District.

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New renderings have been revealed showing an updated design for Frank Gehry’s ‘Ocean Avenue Project’ in Santa Monica, California.

Originally conceived as as 22-story hotel and residential tower, the project has now been shortened to 12 stories (130 feet) to meet restrictions imposed by the city’s Downtown Community Plan, which calls for “aggressively slow growth” and a “lower scale downtown” of mainly 4-5 story tall buildings.

Plans announced last month for Apple’s first global flagship store in the southern hemisphere have prompted outrage among Melbournites, who are criticizing the complete lack of public input in the project’s approval process.

The new three-story building, designed by Foster + Partners, would require the demolition of the existing Yarra Building, and would change the character of Federation Square, a popular public location for gatherings and events. But before being announced, the project was already fast-tracked through the first stage of planning approval, thanks to a partnership with the city.

Plans for Adjaye Associates’ new home for the Studio Museum in Harlem are moving forward, as permits for the project have been filed with the city.

Replacing the museum’s current home, an existing century-old building repurposed in the 1980s by architect J. Max Bond Jr, the new building at 144 West 125th Street will rise 122 feet to become a new stand-out on the historic 125th Street Corridor.

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From Greek architect and photographer, Yiorgis Yerolymbos comes a book which captures the construction process of Renzo Piano’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre in Athens, Greece. Yerolymbos carefully documented every moment where the superfluous Olympic parking lot became a cultural center and sloping park with waterfront views. For almost a decade, and from every angle, the photographer watched the site transform. Birds-eye imagery proved to be some of the most captivating. As photographs, they manage to possess the characteristics of an architectural drawing.

French studio JAGG has been selected as the winners of The Great Mine competition, which sought ideas for the transformation of the Garonne River in Bègles, France, through the intervention of two waterfront sites.

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The final designs for one of 2018’s most awaited projects have been revealed, as SLA has released plans for the 170,000-square-foot (16,000-square-meter) park and ski slope that will cap the BIG-designed Amager Bakke Waste-to-Energy Plant in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Across the world, homelessness in fast-paced metropolises such as New York City is at a record high since the Great Depression of the 1930s, more than 60,000 people are in shelters every night while many others must find a place to sleep on the streets, the subway or other public spaces. The real estate industry has caused the increasing rents and a high demand for any remaining plots; many of the new builds are luxury apartments, rather than the low-cost housing that is so desperately needed. As a result, thousands of people are forced onto the streets and charities struggle to provide adequate help for everyone.

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Through his series of architectural photographs, photographer, Marc Goodwin, is giving us an inside look into the architecture firms of the world’s greatest cities. His work has brought us through a collection of Nordic architectural offices, firms both large and small in London, numerous studios within Beijing, a selection of practices in Seoul, and a compendium of offices through the French capital. Shanghai is the next to be added to his list with his most recent collection showcasing the rich architectural culture of China’s largest city.

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Just a few months after the opening of Apple’s first town square concept retail store, the Foster + Partners-designed glass-box structure is facing the wrath of its first Chicago winter – and it doesn’t appear to be handling it so smoothly.

As reported by the Verge and 9to5Mac, nearly all of the store’s riverfront outdoor space has been roped off due to the presence of large and potentially dangerous icicles that have formed on the edge of the building’s MacBook-shaped roof. Signs reading “watch for falling snow and ice” now surround the store and at the entrance on Pioneer Court.

Rising 150 meters from Dubai’s Zabeel Park, the “World’s Largest Picture Frame” has officially opened in the UAE. Known as the Dubai Frame, the structure is the latest in the city’s line of eye-catching megaprojects, offering up panoramic views of the skyline while framing views of iconic buildings such as the Burj Khalifa for visitors and residents all across the city.