It's a new year, and as we inch closer to February speculation has begun to swirl around who will be named next laureate(s) of the Pritzker Prize. What used to be a somewhat predictable award has become less so in recent years, and if you look at who has won you will realize that anything is possible. Will the jury honor a member of the "old guard," as when they awarded the late Frei Otto? Or will they recognize a young architect, as when they selected Alejandro Aravena?

We want to hear from our readers - not just about who probably will win the prize, but about who should win the prize, and why.

Cast your vote in the poll below  - or add in the dark horses you think deserve the honor in 2019. 

Australian practices NAAU and Enlocus have designed a plan to transform the mining town of Jabiru in Kakadu National Park into a tourism destination. The Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation will receive $446 million in funding to support the project, setting out a vision for the future of the town following the scheduled closure of the nearby Ranger uranium mine in 2021. The plan includes new accommodation, education and health services, and a World Heritage Interpretation Center.

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Construction has begun on the Powerhouse Company-designed pavilion for the ING campus in Amsterdam. Located in the up-and-coming district of Amsterdam Southeast, the 900-square-meter pavilion seeks to “make a bold statement while integrating with its surroundings."

The clean, minimalist pavilion will sit at the heart of the ING campus, serving as both a dining area and a multifunctional space for the community. Emphasizing the natural landscape, the pavilion offers a synergy between the built and natural environment through a friendly circular form, a timber interior, and green Tichelaar tiles on the north and east facades.

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Villa Fantasía Park is a space where several key community areas converge, featuring children's play zones and a wildlife sanctuary for confiscated, rescued, or donated animals. Designed by architects Kei Arao Takahashi, J. Abraham Lara Ramiro, and Héctor García Ventura, the project is also an Environmental Management Unit located in Jalisco, Mexico, spanning an area of 16,900 square meters.

Construction has completed on Diller Scofidio + Renfro (Lead Architect) and Rockwell Group's (Lead Interior Architect) 15 Hudson Yards, an 88-story skyscraper marking the first residential project in the Manhattan masterplan. The scheme is now open with 60% of residential units already sold, totaling over $800 million in sales.

The tower marks DS+R and Rockwell Group's first skyscraper, designed in collaboration with executive architects Ismael Leyva. The scheme topped out in February 2018 to its architectural height of 914 feet.

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Diller Scofidio + Renfro have revealed the design for the new London Centre for Music. Made for The Barbican, London Symphony Orchestra and Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the first concept designs were released as part of a progress update on plan for the new proposed building. Made to be a world class center for music in London, the design would create an iconic new gateway to the City of London’s emerging Culture Mile.

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The world's largest waste-to-energy plant by Schmidt Hammer Lassen and Gottlieb Paludan is set to open next year on the outskirts of Shenzhen, China. The new plant is made to handle 5000 tons of waste per day within a simple, clean, and iconic structure. It will incinerate waste and generate power while teaching residents about the waste-energy cycle. The project aims to showcase new developments in China's waste-to-energy sector and share them with the world.

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Microsoft has unveiled plans to commit $500 million to advance affordable housing solutions across the city of Seattle, Washington. The money, to be distributed as loans and grants, will kick-start new solutions to the city’s housing crisis, where income increases have lagged behind rising housing prices.

The investment breaks down as $225 million committed to subsidize middle-income housing construction in six targeted cities, $250 million to support low-income housing across the King County region, and $25 million to philanthropic grants to address homelessness in the greater Seattle region. The tech giant has targeted the region in close proximity to the site of its Redmond headquarters expansion, expected to accommodate 8,000 new employees.

Last week, we covered the work of Moscow-based visual artist Danila Tkachenko, whose “Monuments” project appropriated abandoned Russian Orthodox churches with abstract modernist shapes. Tkachenko’s further work, “Restricted Areas” is equally as impressive, focusing on the human impulse towards utopia through technological progress.

The “Restricted Areas” photography set distills humanity’s strive to perfection through recording abandoned Soviet infrastructure. Traveling to now-deserted landscapes which once held great importance as centers of technological progress, Tkachenko captured images of “forgotten scientific triumphs, abandoned buildings of almost inhuman complexity” and a “technocratic future that never came.”

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Videos

A new video by AERIAL FUTURES explores commercial space flight through the Houston Spaceport. The video was produced as part of a broader research initiative bringing together leading thinkers, practitioners and operators to imagine the potential opened up by spaceports. The video explores the spaceport as a new kind of architectural typology, and asks what kind of impact a spaceport is likely to have on the city and its population.

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Currently, project production within universities in Mexico is immense, and we believe it is the perfect time to showcase some of their best work. Many undergraduate theses—also known as graduation projects—address truly interesting and valuable topics for our country. Unfortunately, the vast majority remain stored on library shelves or in a computer folder, missing the opportunity to drive real change in our cities and the way we inhabit them.

The world's longest bridge by Hyundai E&C and Combined Group Contracting is nearing completion in Kuwait. Called the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah causeway, the $3 billion project is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world. Running a total length of over 30 miles, the bridge will connect Kuwait City on the south of the bay with Subiya New Town to the north. The causeway joins a larger development plan for the revival of the ancient Silk Road trade route.

The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects has presented 27 projects with 2019 Design Awards. AIANY announced the results after two days of deliberations by a a jury of independent architects, educators, critics, and planners. For each of the five categories, winning projects were granted either an “Honor” or “Merit” award, and were chosen for their design quality, innovation and technique.

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For the third time, the Architecture and City Festival MEXTRÓPOLI is hosting the competition Arquine No. 21 | MEXTRÓPOLI Pavilion 2019. On Monday, January 14, from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, all registered proposals were submitted. Following a deliberation at the Arquine offices at Avenida Ámsterdam 163 in Mexico City to evaluate the 297 proposals submitted (out of 371 registered), the jury—composed of Víctor Alcérreca, Sol Camacho, Mario Corea, Hernán Díaz Alonso, Jimena Hogrebe, and Fermín Espinosa (as technical juror)—reached the following decisions:

New photographs by Paul Clemence from Archi-Photo show BIG -Bjarke Ingels Group’s “The Eleventh” taking shape as construction continues in Chelsea, Manhattan. Having topped out in August 2018, the scheme’s twisting geometries are taking their place within the “Pritzker District” with neighbors including Frank Gehry’s IAC Building, Jean Nouvel’s 100 11th Avenue and Foster + Partners’ 551 West 21st Street.

The development’s larger 35-story, 400-foot-tall structure will twist alongside a second 300-foot-tall sister tower, both clad with bronze and travertine, sharing a connected podium and skybridge.

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Rio is the World Capital of Architecture. The title was awarded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Friday morning, January 18, during a ceremony held at the organization's headquarters in Paris, and stems from the hosting of the World Congress of Architects in Rio in 2020. This is the first time a city has received this designation—established last year through a partnership between UNESCO and the International Union of Architects (UIA).

Moshe Safdie has been named the laureate for the 2019 Wolf Prize for Architecture. The award recognizes a winner in either painting, music, sculpture, or architecture. As one of Israel’s most prestigious international awards, the prize is bestowed upon luminaries for their accomplishments in advancing science and art for the benefit of humanity. The jury cited Safdie’s exemplary career motivated by the social concerns of architecture and his formal experimentation.

Videos

Moscow-based visual artist Danila Tkachenko has developed a project researching the boundaries of historical memories in Russian Orthodox churches. “Monuments” involved the sensitive appropriation of the abandoned rural churches, erecting lightweight structures in abstract modernist shapes.

The project sought to explore the area between fact and fiction, reflecting on “humanity’s inclination to exploit images of the past for the sake of our current needs, and future goals.” The structures, all abandoned in 1917 following the Russian Revolution, were adorned with striking modernist elements which, although visually powerful, can be dismantled following the project’s completion with no effect on the landmarks.

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Videos

As the world population grows, designers look to develop the seas. Architecture and planning firm, URBAN POWER strategically designed nine man-made islands off the southern coast of Copenhagen to combat many of the city’s impending challenges. The islets, called Holmene, address demands for tech space, fossil-free energy production, flood barriers, and even public recreation space.

Videos

Discovering the stories behind architectural projects and urban interventions is the premise of ARQ.DOC, a new series set to premiere in January 2019 on YouTube. Produced in a documentary format, the episodes explore the creative diversity of Brazilian architecture.

Videos

Five design teams have been selected to present their ideas for the Chicago O'Hare Airport Global Terminal and Global Concourse expansion. The designs are on display at an exhibition opened by Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the Chicago Architecture Center. Teams include Fentress-EXP-Brook-Garza, Foster Epstein Moreno, Studio ORD, SOM and Santiago Calatrava. Known as O’Hare 21, the project represents O’Hare’s first major overhaul in 25 years.

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Sculptor and jewelry designer, Cydney Ross explores the architectural passage of time through unconventional ceramics and mixed media. By over-firing, freezing, and thawing her materials, she simulates the swaying, slumping, and even collapsing of structure.

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Shanghai/London-based firm Neri&Hu has published details of their “Unfolding Village” installation, set to take center stage at the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair 2019. The exhibition, taking place in February, will see Neri&Hu depart from the traditional convention of furniture fairs, often purely focused on product design, and instead actively engage with pressing social issues unique to their base country of China.

Having recently studied the issue of disappearing villages and village cultures in China, the designers were alarmed by the impact of such a disappearance on community, family, and cultural roots. With many products centered on the ideas of nostalgia, dwelling, and “the individual’s relationship within a collective,” the firm created the “Unfolding Village” exhibition to capture the essence of traditional Chinese villages.

A professional networking platform has been launched aimed at connecting early-career architects in the USA. Ticco admits architects with between 2 and 15 years of experience, with the goal of sharing smart design ideas for the future of the built environment. Developed by Katie Rispoli Keaotamai over a one-and-a-half-year timespan, the platform will now accept applications for its first 100 members until April, at a cost 31% lower than the fees paid for professional memberships.

Centered around dialogue, the platform offers access to ideas and opportunities that will positively shape the built environment, be it exchanging information, consulting on a project, or finding a new role in the profession.