3XN and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have released images of a new headquarters planned for a 24,000-square-meter site on banks of Lake Geneva in the Swiss city of Lausanne. Adjacent to the historic Château de Vidy, which has been the “iconic home” of the IOC, 3XN’s design is intended to respect both the château’s legacy and park setting, while making the transition from park to building as “soft” as possible.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has just announced that Moshe Safdie, FAIA, will be the 2015 AIA Gold Medal recipient. Honoring him for his “comprehensive and humane approach to designing public and cultural spaces across the world has touched millions of people and influenced generations of younger architects,” the AIA believes that Safdie's work has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.

“Moshe Safdie has continued to practice architecture in the purest and most complete sense of the word, without regard for fashion, with a hunger to follow ideals and ideas across the globe in his teaching, writing, practice and research,” stated Boston Society of Architects president Mike Davis in his nomination letter. 

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Following Moshe Safdie’s selection to be the next AIA Gold Medalist, the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) and Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) has announced Peter Eisenman, FAIA, as winner of the 2015 Topaz Medallion. Eisenman, known for a lifetime of scholarly work and his long associations with Princeton, Harvard, Cooper Union and Yale, will be honored for his global impact on architectural education after more than 60 years of teaching.

“There are probably very few schools of architecture where Peter is yet to have lectured,” wrote Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, in a recommendation letter. 

It may be the world's second oldest construction material, but wood is still one of the most versatile and inspiring materials available to architects today, coveted as both a structural material and as a finish on walls, floors, ceilings and facades. In recent years it's even seen a resurgence in popularity, thanks to its sustainability credentials and its increasingly popular "natural" feel. With all this in mind, ArchDaily Materials has rounded up five recent projects that prove innovation in wood is still alive and well in the architectural world: Wilkinson Eyre Architects' Maggie’s Oxford; Shigeru Ban's Aspen Art Museum; Pushed Slab by MVRDV; MARGEN-LAB's Endesa World Fab Condenser; and finally a forthcoming building that is notable for its ambitious wooden design, the Sleuk Rith Institute by Zaha Hadid Architects.

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It’s that time of year again and architects continue to top the list as some of the most difficult individuals to buy for. That classic black tee or new coffee cup just isn’t cutting it anymore, so we’ve decided to help you out by putting together a list of items any architect would love. Take a look at ArchDaily’s top 15 gifts for architects, after the break. 

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has begun construction on a new whiskey distillery and visitor centre in Speyside, Scotland. Designed for The Macallan, a core brand of the major Scottish spirits producer Edrington. The proposed building is buried into the surrounding landscape of The Macallan Estate, revealing itself as a series of grass covered mounds overlooking the river Spey.

Read on after the break for more about the design

New York-based SOMA Architects has announced plans for an 11-story residential development in Beirut. Cantilevering over a protected 1920s house, “BOBO’s” steel exoskeleton and concrete core will support 13 new residences on top ground floor retail in the Lebanese capital’s Mar Mikhael district.

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As Afghanistan begins its second decade of democratic governance after nearly 30 years of political instability, through the funding from the Republic of Korea, UNESCO has teamed up with the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture, to build a Cultural Center close to the boundaries of the Bamiyan World Heritage property. With the realisation of the Bamiyan Cultural Centre, Afghans have the opportunity to recapture their heritage, to create a new impact on a historical site and to foster a positive relationship between their struggles and their hopes.

“This new architectural programme can challenge cultural barriers, reaffirm Afghanistan’s remarkable ancient history and enforce culture as a foundational component to Afghan national identity and peace-building,” states UNESCO.

'Twas the month of December, when all through the house, not an architect was stirring, not even a (computer) mouse. The drawings were hung in the boardroom with care, in hopes that the client soon would be there. The designers were nestled all snug in their beds, while dreams of unlimited budgets danced in their heads. So instead of preparing for the year's final meeting, dear readers, please send us a holiday greeting!

The holidays are upon us, and at ArchDaily we've decided to put an architectural spin on traditional festive greeting cards. You're invited to submit your own architectural holiday card to be hung above the (proverbial) ArchDaily mantle with care. You could win a $500 Amazon Gift Card!

Send us your best Corbusier Santa Claus, Rem 'Jack Frost' Koolhaas, Graves-inspired Postmodern Menorah, or perhaps the latest holiday wares from Zaha Hadid. We'll be collecting our favorites and sharing them at the end of December. Get ready to deck halls like Gehry and gather around the hearth with Saarinen – we'll go easy on building code.

ArchDaily's 2014 Holiday Card Contest has been generously sponsored by Mosa.

A legal challenge against Steven Holl's design for the new Maggie's Centre at St Bart's Hospital in London has been dropped, after Holl and Maggie's agreed to change the design. The challenge was brought by the Friends of the Great Hall, a group that has been campaigning against Holl's design and arguing that it would have a detrimental effect on the adjacent Great Hall designed by James Gibb in the 18th century.

Holl's design narrowly won planning permission in July, however the Friends of the great hall launched the judicial review a month later as a final attempt to block the scheme.

The latest designer of the prestigious Serpentine Gallery Pavilion has been named as SelgasCano, the Spanish practice known for their use of the latest synthetic materials and new technology. The Serpentine Pavilion, which has grown to become one of the most visited annual architecture attractions in the world, aims to provide architects who have never built in the UK their first chance to do so. In the past, this has led to pavilions by globally-recognized names such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Oscar Niemeyer, and Peter Zumthor, but in recent years the Serpentine Gallery seems to have changed course a little, instead bringing lesser-known, emergent stars to a much wider audience. This was true of Smiljan Radić and his 2014 pavilion, and will likely prove true for the duo of José Selgas and Lucía Cano.

Although designs for the 2015 pavilion will not be released until February, SelgasCano have promised "to use only one material... the Transparency," adding that "the most advanced technologies will be needed to be employed to accomplish that transparency." This coy description perhaps calls to mind the design of their own office, a partially sunken tube of a building with one side made entirely of curved glass, which won them widespread recognition in 2009.

To give a better idea of the design style that SelgasCano will bring to the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, we've rounded up a number of their major projects for your viewing pleasure, after the break.

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It seems as though the complex case of architectural copyright has been a major talking point of 2014. As the year begins to draw to a close, a fresh tension has risen between two European offices. British practice Wilkinson Eyre have claimed that a central structure at the site of the 2015 Milan Expo is direct plagiarism of their Cooled Conservatories at Gardens by the Bay project in Singapore, completed in 2012. According to an article in The Telegraph, the 'Tree of Life' will "form the centre-piece of the Italian pavilion" in Milan.

Steven Holl Architects has been selected to design a new extension to one of India’s oldest museums, the Mumbai City Museum, also known as the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. Selected over OMA, Studio Mumbai Architecture, Zaha Hadid and four others, Holl is now the first architect ever to be chosen through an international competition to design a public building in Mumbai.

Continue reading to learn more about Holl’s winning design. 

JAHN and ADG have released designs for Los Diablos Rojos del Mexico’s new home stadium in Mexico City. Scheduled to open in the city’s Magdalena Mixhuca sports complex in 2017, the 13000-seat “Estadio Diablos” will feature a “monumental lightweight” roof structure that resembles Diablos’ trident.

“Indicative of the sky, the roof design is sharp, translucent, luminous and dynamic,” says JAHN. “Composed of lightweight steel wrapped in PTFE textile material, the roof will become an iconic symbol for the great City of Mexico.”

More on the stadium’s design, after the break. 

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The London Borough of Wandsworth has launched an international call for architects and engineers interested in envisioning what could be the second pedestrian bridge to rise near the Battersea Power Station development. The two-stage ideas competition, whose announcement comes shortly after the recent approval of Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge, believes that the bridge could potentially become “one of the most expressive and visible landmarks in London.”

Though the competition cannot guarantee that the winning design will be built, partial funding has already been budgeted for the bridge’s future construction and it is hoped that the winning design can be used to attract further interest and funding. Continue reading to learn more. 

Belgian architects ABDM and Dutch architects RAU have been selected over eight teams to design the new Howest College Campus in Kortrijk. A collaboration with Delva Landscape Architects, the school will act as the campus’ main building, open to all 24/7.

UK start-up company The Photon Project has announced its plan to launch the Photon Space, the world's first intelligent all-glass living unit. Motivated by the major positive benefits that natural light can have on our energy levels, sleep pattern and overall health, the goal of the Photon Space is to create a dwelling that allows its occupants a maximum connection to the outside world.

Posited as an ideal addition to hotels, spas, health retreats, medical centres, and other resorts, the skin of the Photon Space is made of smart glass supported by curving glass beams, switching from transparent to opaque in seconds with the help of an iPhone app.

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"Be very sensitive to where you are, in what times and in what parts of the world, and how that constitutes the artistic practice," says Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in this recent video from Louisiana Channel. In Advice to the Young, Eliasson deliberates on creative practice, urging young artists to take risks and produce meaningful work. "Just because you think about a work of art," says Eliasson, "it is not necessarily a work of art." Most recently, Eliasson has made headlines for his immersive exhibition Riverbed at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art which explores the intersection between nature and the built environment. Revered as one of the world's leading sculptural and installation artists, Eliasson is adamant that the practice of working with art remains to be "very fierce, very strong and very robust."

The UK Government has announced £140 million in public funds will be granted to the planned "Olympicopolis" cultural quarter in East London, in the former 2012 Olympic Park. The museum and educational district is planned to feature a new outpost for the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum and Sadler’s Wells theatre, and a new campus for the University of the Arts London.

The site, which is just North of Zaha Hadid's Aquatics Centre, is the focus of an ongoing design competition which reportedly attracted almost 1,000 expressions of interest in the contest's pre-registration phase. The winner of the competition will be announced in March.