This Monday brings with it not just a new week, but a new year. 2019 is the year of the Pig, and as the New Year starts ArchDaily is committed to furthering its mission of fostering knowledge and inspiration for architects, helping them build better cities, and becoming a professional tool. Since Archdaily China was founded in 2015, the team has been dedicated to serving Chinese architects and promoting their works worldwide. 

To celebrate the New Year, we have collected greetings from a number Chinese architects. Through this call, we hope to extend their blessing to all architecture lovers.

Interior spaces are a constellation of multiple elements framed by a building’s architecture. Furniture, in particular, plays a key role in defining a space, affecting the uses, comfort level, and feel of the space. Creating a coherent design that maximizes function and activates a living space requires furniture pieces that are not only aesthetically pleasing to begin but are also timeless - creating a dialogue between furniture and architecture.

A furniture piece can be described as an extension of architecture, creating a direct connection between structure and inhabitants. The piece's geometries must mimic or complement the proportions and shapes incorporated into the architecture while accommodating the physical needs of the individual. A notable Italian furniture design company, Flexform, has utilized many of these design principles in the company’s portfolio of contemporary style furniture. Originally the handmade crafts of the Galimberti brothers in 1959, ‘Flexform di Galimberti’s’ early success led the company to expand and grow - allowing many of timeless pieces to be incorporated into the fabric of international architecture.

"There is an existential need for simplification." - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

The Father of “Less is More”

Mies espoused the concept of “less is more” long before the days of Building Information Modeling. As a director of the Bauhaus School, he sought to establish an architectural style that could serve as the Modern alternative to Classic or Gothic styles. His design focus was on clarity and simplicity.

The new Norton Museum of Art expansion by Foster + Partners will celebrate its grand opening this weekend in West Palm Beach, Florida. Two years after the ceremonial groundbreaking, the museum will open its doors to the public and showcase a new street frontage with a transparent entrance lobby. The plan preserves the institution's original 1941 east wing and the logic of architect Marion Sims Wyeth's initial plan. The project aimed to transform the existing buildings into a world-class cultural destination within a sub-tropical garden.

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Occidentului Street is fairly typical for Bucharest - a combination of villas, wagon-houses, inter and post-war structures. ADN BA's Occidentului 40, recognized in the EU Mies Prize's 2019 shortlist, is a masterclass in architectural detail and subtlety. The volume is composed of blocks, each responding to the heights and rhythms of the surrounding context.

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If you’re looking for a way to celebrate the Bauhaus centennial and you’re also in need of a vacation, you can accomplish both this year by visiting BauhausLand. goBauhaus is ready to help you plan your next trip to the Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia regions of Germany, otherwise known as BauhausLand. The region that witnessed the beginnings of the Bauhaus movement is home to many buildings influenced by its revolutionary style. In celebration of the school’s centennial, goBauhaus has compiled a list of notable Bauhaus-y places where visitors can stay overnight to immerse themselves in the experience. So if you’ve always wanted to make an architectural pilgrimage to pay homage to Gropius and his pals, 2019 is the time!

See the list below and start planning your excursion!

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The American Institute of Architects has selected nine projects for its 2019 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture. The award program celebrates the best contemporary architecture and highlights the many ways buildings and spaces can improve lives. AIA’s five-member jury selects submissions that demonstrate design achievement, including a sense of place and purpose, ecology, environmental sustainability and history.

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As Atlanta takes center-stage today for the 2019 Superbowl, we've compiled a list of some of the Southern City's architectural gems. The city, a hotspot for small and innovative practices today, punches well above its weight when it comes to modernist and post-modernist works in the US. Some of the city's most intriguing projects, after the break.

Videos

They say diversity is key for a strong portfolio. Now OMA's Rem Koolhaas can add “featured artist on a musical album” to his resume. New York-based duo Tempers, in collaboration with German artist Katja Eichinger, feature Koolhaas in a mall-themed concept album.

Nine projects have been recognized this year by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in the 2019 Institute Honor Awards for Interior Architecture. A five-member jury evaluated entries’ sense of place and purpose, ecology and environmental sustainability, and history to choose this year’s most innovative interior spaces.

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Over 40 years of practice, Herzog + de Meuron have established themselves as one of the most celebrated practices in architecture. Their works span scale and site but are united by a sensitivity to material and detail that, today, often seems to fall by the wayside. The inner workings of the practice are notoriously private, but those interested in the process behind the project may soon have reason to celebrate.

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Videos

Louisiana Channel has released a new video interview with Frank Gehry. Known for his expressive use of form, Gehry has become one of the most important architects of our time. Recorded at his studio in Santa Monica, the interview explores Gehry's life and early influences, as well as modern architecture and the world as he sees it today. Marc-Christoph Wagner explores Gehry's ideas on building, art, and leaving your mark on the world.

El Equipo de Mazzanti, led by Giancarlo Mazzanti, has developed a line of toys inspired by their playful Bosque de la Esperanza sports center on the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia. The first edition of the “We Play You Play” toy series inspired by the firm’s most recognizable architectural and social projects, the Bosque de la Esperanza toy set embodies Mazzanti’s ethos of “using the playful as a design tool.”

With more than 15 years of experience in architectural design, the Mazzanti team developed a special interest in using play as a method of involving and encouraging social behavior within the communities impacted by their designs. The Bosque de la Esperanza set therefore contains 16 modular pieces and 30 connectors, with complex geometries igniting a cognitive element, and creative challenge.

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The Harvard Graduate School of Design has relaunched its free online course entitled “The Architectural Imagination.” Directed by the school’s Eliot Noyes Professor of Architectural Theory, K. Michael Hays, the course seeks to teach students “how to understand architecture as both cultural expression and technical achievement.”

The free 10-week program runs until July 2019 and is carried out through the online edX platform, a Harvard/MIT system that specializes in high-quality massive open online courses. During the course, students will engage with the social and historical contexts behind major works of architecture, basic principles to produce drawings and models, and the pertinent content for academic study or a professional career as an architect.

What do Kanye West and Frank Gehry have in common?

As a first impression, not much. However, they have both engaged on stages with striking design details: the use of exaggerated scale and dimensions to manipulate visual perception, bulky concrete walls and slabs to emphasize heavyweight and grandiosity, visible scaffolding to create an industrial, unfinished feel... Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

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Heatherwick Studio has received planning approval to transform Olympia London, a 150-year old exhibition and event space in West Kensington. Working with SPPARC, the project will transform the 14-acre site into restaurants, hotels, performance venues and office space, as well as create 2.5 acres of new public space. The proposal aims to turn Olympia London into a world-class cultural hub in West London.

Skyrocketing prices of London housing have become so unbearable that many have turned to less-than-ideal compromises. Large homes can be found but come with commutes of hours; places are still available in the city, but only for those with sky-high paychecks. Unable to balance their needs, people are resorting to workarounds that disrupt the existing urban fabric and dissatisfy all involved. Surely we can do better.

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ODA New York has been selected to redesign the historic post office of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The iconic Postkantoor has sat vacant for more than a decade, and now the adaptive reuse project aims to bring new life to the city center. Built in 1916, the post office was one of the only original structures still standing after the Rotterdam Blitz aerial bombardment in 1940. The city of Rotterdam hopes to re-energize the neighborhood by activating the site with residential, retail, and hospitality.

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Sasaki has released details of their redevelopment proposal for the Yangtze Riverfront Park in Wuhan, China. Developed in collaboration with OMA and Gensler, Sasaki has drawn on the centuries-old symbiosis between the city and river, leveraging the river’s dynamic flooding to nurture a rich regional ecology and create dynamic recreational experiences.

The endeavor in landscape urbanism seeks to celebrate the river’s spontaneity, and incorporate flooding as an essential element. Stitching together then OMA and Gensler “urban balconies,” a series of microenvironments will host a wide variety of distinct wetland ecosystems, the characters of which evolve throughout the seasons.

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Ateliers Jean Nouvel has collaborated with French practice OXO Architectes on a competition-winning design for a mountainous campus in the Sophia Antipolis technology park in Antibes, France. The “Ecotone Antibes” will serve as the main entrance to the technology park, which is home to over 2,000 companies.

Described as a 21st-century campus for France, the 40,000-square-meter mountainous structure is covered in lush vegetation, containing offices, a hotel, amenities, and co-working spaces. The campus, a rare exercise in biomimicry for the South of France, sought to capture the site’s rich landscaped surroundings, translating a natural ethos to the hard, technological campus.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced the foundation of a new award focused on recognizing work in housing in the UK. The award is named in memory of Neave Brown, the British architect, and designer famed for his many housing estates in London.

The idea of turning cold, raw materials into elegant shapes has always fascinated artists, architects, and designers. In the Carrara marble sculptures of Lorenzo Berdini and Michelangelo, human forms were carved from heavy blocks of stones with great detail and precision. There is no difference in architecture: from taking a light volume off the floor, to leaving a small indentation between a structure and a fence, to altering the lining of a block, there are several devices to make buildings visually lighter.

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