BIG, OMA and SANAA are amongst 12 architectural heavyweights competing to design the Nobel Foundation’s new home in Blasieholmen, Stockholm. Currently in the competition’s first stage, the architects have submitted anonymous entries for jury review.

Once complete, the building hopes to become one of Stockholm’s main attractions. It will not only serve as the Nobel Foundation's primary home, but also provide facilities for research and education, as well as public exhibition spaces, a conference center, library, cafe, shop and more.

Read on for the complete list of participating architects and a sneak peak of the proposed schemes.

UPDATE: Following ongoing discussions, the city of London and the Chinese ZhongRong Group have finally unveiled plans for the Crystal Palace replica, announcing a competition to find the “the best not the biggest” architects to take on the project.

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson said: "Paxton's stunning Crystal Palace was a beacon of innovation in the 19th century, encapsulating a spirit of invention which was to shape London and the world for generations to come. Since the iconic building was destroyed, the conundrum of what to do with the crumbling site has not been successfully resolved.” Until now.

Check out renderings and more information, after the break…

Five proposals for reconnecting Londoners with the River Thames have gone on display at London's Royal Academy of Arts (RA). The competition, organised by the Architecture Foundation, "launched an open call for multidisciplinary design teams to put forward new ideas and visions for self-selected sites along the Tidal Thames" earlier this year. The five selected teams were shortlisted earlier this year and recently discussed their designs at a public design workshop. The schemes are now being exhibited as part of the Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out exhibition.

Read extracts of the proposals after the break...

Together with the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), MASS Design Group is helping to build 15 conservation primary schools over the next 10 years in African landscapes, home to some of world's most important wildlife populations, including elephants, rhinos, great apes, and lions. They will design non-traditional educational campuses for primary school children that offer lessons and other services extending beyond the classroom walls.

The RIBA Lubetkin Prize, awarded annually to the architects of the best new building outside the European Union, was won this year by Wilkinson Eyre and Grant Associates for Cooled Conservatories, Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. The prize, which was also awarded to Wilkinson Eyre in 2012 for the Guangzhou International Finance Centre, is now in its 13th year.

Upon announcing the news, RIBA President Stephen Hodder stated: 

Emmanuelle Moureaux, expert in the architecture of color, has created yet another vibrant space, this time for the 2013 Shinjuku Creators Festa in Japan.

Shikiri, meaning "to divide space using colors," is a made-up term the French architect has embraced in her art and architecture. She aims to "use colors as three-dimensional elements, like layers, in order to create spaces, not as a finishing touch applied to surfaces."

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Looking for something to do this week? If you are in the greater Los Angeles area, come check out the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) sixth Solar Decathlon at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine. Currently on view through October 13, this (free!) event showcases nineteen student-built, solar-powered homes that claim to be exemplars of sustainable housing. After being closely monitored by the DOE throughout the length of the competition, one team will be crowned as winner for successfully blending affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.

Catch a glimpse of each project, ranked in order of the current standings, after the break. 

LEGO® has officially announced the next addition to their architecture-inspired products: The United Nations Headquarters. Standing alongside New York City’s East River, the United Nations Headquarters is a beacon of modernism and international collaboration, designed by a team of multinational architects including Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. Scaling 5 inches high x 8 inches wide x 6 inches deep, this representation of the UN Headquarters costs $49.99.

Check out more about the building and its history here.

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Designed and built by 25 students from Chalmers University in Sweden, HALO is a socially sustainable home for four students, running on renewable energy from the sun. HALO was designed using one underlying concept: shared space is double space.

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Helsinki-based Verstas Architects have recently been announced as the winners of a competition to design a new central campus for the Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. The new core of the university will sit alongside the campus's original Main Building and Library designed by Alvar Aalto.

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A looping mixture of culture and commerce has won Joel Sanders Architect and FreelandBuck first prize in the international competition hosted by the largest media and publishing company in China, Phoenix Publishing and Media Group (PPMG).

Their 80,000 square meter winning proposal for the new Kunshan Phoenix Cultural Mall divides a large urban block into four 'cultural cores,' each five stories high and respectively housing a theater, fitness club, education center, and exhibition halls. The podium, which sits upon the glass-clad cores, spirals the length of the perimeter (comprised of stores, restaurants and cafes) and ultimately plateaus at an open park where the public and Phoenix employees would share a common space.

A couple of days ago we featured Zaha Hadid's Serpentine Sackler Gallery, her recent conversion of a classical 19th century brick structure. Today, photographer Danica Kus shared with us some more photos on this project. Enjoy them all after the break.

Foster + Partners have just revealed a new design for a 19-story luxury condominium building at 551 West 21st Street, on the western side of Manhattan. The design features a cast concrete frame surrounding windows with a warmly colored metal trim that cover the full 11-foot floor to ceiling height.