In the 1970s, the principal designers at DIALOG, Norm Hotson and Joost Bakker, were commissioned by the Canadian government to redevelop Vancouver's Granville Island, a former industrial site, into a people place. The architects envisioned a radically different type of waterfront characterized - not by beaches or parks - but by varied commercial and cultural programs. Today this iconic destination, popular with both citizens and tourists alike, is recognized as a pioneering precedent for urban development across Canada. In the video above, the DIALOG duo chronicles the success of the mixed-use design, touching on how it has influenced the city of Vancouver as well as the firm’s more recent work.

Although tablets have opened up a whole new range of possibilities for architects and designers, using them for drawing and doodling is often a clumsy experience. In many cases there's far too little accuracy and far too much complexity when it comes to working simple operations. Archisketch, which was formerly known as Archipad, seeks to streamline this experience with a smooth, cleanly designed app for iPad that not only allows you to import drawings and doodle over them, but also draw to scale.

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Videos

LEGO® has released their newest, limited-edition architecture set: BIG’s unbuilt LEGO® House. Planned for completion in 2016, the creatively stacked “experience center,” which will commemorate the toy company’s history and future, is the first unbuilt project offered as part of the series.

The minimalist, white block set is only available for purchase in LEGO®'s hometown of Billund (or here on ebay). A glimpse of just how the blocks (and building) might be constructed, after the break...

Laboratorio de Arquitectura Dominicana (LAD), curators of the Dominican Republic’s first-ever Venice Architecture Biennale participation, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a short documentary that will reveal the daily life of La Feria. Originally built by brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo as a symbol of power and wealth, the 1950s fairground has transformed into an “architectural protagonist” within the city of Santo Domingo that serves various government bodies by day and illicit enterprises by night.

UPDATE: Did you know that Apple Campus 2 will be solely powered by renewable energy? Also, 80 percent of its 176-acre campus will be entirely dedicated to green space. Watch the newly released Norman Foster interview (above) to learn more about the project's sustainable features, as well as details about Steve Job's original inspiration. The following news was originally published as "New Images Released of Apple’s Recently Approved Cupertino Campus" on November 13, 2013.

Shortly after the approval of Apple’s new corporate headquarters in Cupertino, never-before-seen images have emerged to reveal a glimpse into the campus’ massive, 2.8 million square foot “mothership” and its surrounding facilities.

Provided by the City of Cupertino and released by Wired, the images depict just what Steve Job’s hoped for: a world-class, state-of-the-art office campus that promotes innovation through vibrant communal spaces and healthy employee amenities. From the net-positive main building to a private, subterranean auditorium placed within a forested, California-native landscape by OLIN, the Foster + Partners-designed Apple Campus 2 has the potential to be, as Job’s believed, “the best office building in the world.”

A collection of the newly released renderings, after the break...

This last Wednesday, April 9th, Herzog & de Meuron opened its first project in Brazil - Morro Arena - located in the city of Natal. With a capacity for 350 people, the arena features multipurpose rooms for dancing, classrooms, a terrace overlooking the sea, locker rooms and a sports court.

The project is the first finished part of a broader urban plan for the region developed by the Swiss Office in partnership with the Centro Sócio Pastoral Nossa Senhora de Conceição in 2009.

The winners of the 2014 Canadian Urban Design Awards, a biennial competition recognizing projects that contribute to the vitality and sustainability of Canadian cities, were recently announced by the Royal Institute of Canada (RAIC), Canadian Institute of Planners, and Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. Eight individuals, organizations, and firms - including Perkins + Will for a masterplan in Edmonton - were recognized for their urban design efforts in categories such as Community Initiatives and Civic Design. For information and images on the winning entries, read on after the break.

Videos

Archibot, a project currently being developed by South Korean architectural designer Han Seok Nam, aims to "revolutionize" how architects and contractors work on construction sites by printing digital CAD plans onto the ground "error free." Having recently been granted a patent, the robot seeks to avoid the human errors associated with interpreting information from construction documents.

According to Nam, a contractor "will be able to grasp exactly where the door and the wall needs to be constructed by having the construction documents be printed directly onto the site without measurements. Errors will be easily detectable since the construction document can be directly compared to a life-size print out directly on the construction site." It would be "just like following a map and driving towards a destination."

See a video of the robot at work, after the break...

Construction has begun on the new Nanjing Jianye District office tower in China. Designed by UDG China, the multi-level complex will house hundreds of government workers throughout almost 100,000 square meters of office space.

Sector 66 of Gurgaon, India will be the site of Maison Edouard François’ newest project: a massive luxury complex crowned by three stainless steel-clad skyscrapers. Given over entirely to opulence, Guragon 66 will house a hotel, a multiplex cinema, and an apartment complex. Yet its most defining feature may be its shopping mall, which covers most of the ground floor. This glass-canopied commercial center will host internationally known brands, such as Fendi and Chanel, in independent marble buildings within the main structure.

These shopping "embassies" will be grouped along the mall axis in a manner resembling a traditional European neighborhood. At the same time, the roofs of the shops will be utilized as restaurant space, and will be connected to each other by elevated footbridges. This is intended to create a unique, multi-level promenade which the architects describe as "an exterior landscape that is air-conditioned and unified beneath the glass canopy of the mall."

Well-designed, protected bike lanes are not only the desire for riders, but a necessity for cities to offer sustainable transport. Bikes sales are on the rise and it is imperative that cities meet the growing demand. As Portland-based planner Nick Falbo describes: "If your city is designed so that you may bike instead of drive, it would be a happier, healthier place to live." With that in mind, Falbo has revealed a systematic proposal that can make the intersections safer for bicyclists, cars and pedestrians.

Fours steps for safer crossings, after the break...

Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray’s Unfinished Spaces has been awarded the 2014 Society of Architectural Historian’s (SAH) Award for Film and Video, an award presented annually to the “most distinguished work of film on the history of the built environment.” Initially released in 2011, the critically acclaimed documentary reveals the turbulent past of Fidel Castro’s Cuba and tells the story of his utopian dream to construct the Cuban National Arts Schools. You can learn more about the film here, and the school’s history, here.

The fertile Anqiu region of China’s Shangdong Province is known locally as the land of “cultivation, stone hills, and creeks.” Thus, Little Diversified Architectural Consulting’s (LITTLE) design for Anqiu’s new cultural campus and fitness center is based upon these very elements.

The Sarasota Architectural Foundation (SAF) has announced that a replica of Paul Rudolph’s Walker Guest House will be constructed at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. It is hoped the iconic, 24' x 24' vacation cottage will be opened to the public by 2015, after which it will be disassembled and transported to select museums around the country.

More information about the Walker Guest House, after the break...

Building Trust International, in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity and Karuna Cambodia, has realized three winning designs from the 2013 Future of Sustainable Housing in Cambodia competition.

Built on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the constructed designs sought to provide impoverished Cambodians with new options for safe and secure homes under $2000 that are capable of withstanding flood and able to be expanded in phases. 

Check out the three completed designs, after the break...

Details have been released on the eight proposals competing to serve as the UK Pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo. Each design draws inspiration from the theme “Grown in Britain: Shared Globally,” which is intended to showcase Britain’s contribution in research, innovation and entrepreneurship to the global food challenges.

Presented anonymously, the proposals will be reviewed by an esteemed jury before a winner is announced in May. 

Check out all the innovative proposals, after the break...

Tod Williams has broke his silence in his first interview since the Museum of Modern Art announced their decision to raze the former Folk Art Museum, expressing devastation that the building will be “reduced to a memory.”

“Yes, all buildings one day will turn to dust, but this building could have been reused,” Tod Williams. “Unfortunately, the imagination and the will were not there.”

Though MoMA has promised to preserve the building’s iconic copper-bronze facade, Williams is concerned it will forever stay in storage.

Proposals are being suggested on how to resurrect the facade, as the New York Times reported, including a concept from Nina Libeskind, chief operating officer of Studio Daniel Libeskind, and AIA New York executive director Fredric M. Bell that will be presented to MoMA next week. However, Williams expressed disinterest at the idea of installing fragments of the building elsewhere.