The Water / Cherry House by Japanese firm Kengo Kuma Associates is located on a cliff along one of Japan's many beautiful coastlines. The home is a series of separate enclosures connected by open-air walkways that run between water and rock landscapes, fusing interior and exterior spaces into one. Various screens in the house can be opened to further connect living spaces with the outdoors, exposing panoramic vistas onto the home's lush, peaceful surroundings to create a structure that is truly in tune with its natural environment. Check out this video by JA+U for a tour!

Author Richard Florida of the NY Daily News made an argument in his “Obama, build a lasting urban legacy” article that President Obama should create a new federal department at the cabinet level called the Department of Cities. Although the President has listed many issues that he would like to focus on in his second term, such as immigration, gun control and climate change, an initiative to create a more promising future for American cities could define the President's term and leave a lasting impression on the country.

The President made efforts in his last term to rethink and revitalize America's urban centers with the Office of Urban Affairs, created in 2009, but these efforts have gone largely unrewarded. Pair this with the existing Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is becoming increasingly out of date and irrelevant, and it's clear that Mr. President needs to rethink his approach. But despite the challenges that the Obama Administration faces, creating a Department of Cities to finally tackle the issues plaguing our most vital urban nuclei could be one of the most important and far-reaching moves he makes.

Read more about the future of our cities!

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Robots fascinate us. Their ability to move and act autonomously is visually and intellectually seductive. We write about them, put them in movies, and watch them elevate menial tasks like turning a doorknob into an act of technological genius. For years, they have been employed by industrial manufacturers, but until recently, never quite considered seriously by architects. Sure, some architects might have let their imaginations wander, like Archigram did for their "Walking City", but not many thought to actually make architecture with robots. Now, in our age of digitalization, virtualization, and automation, the relationship between architects and robots seems to be blooming...check it out. 

Keep reading to see five new robots making architecture.

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NBBJ's design for the new Samsung Headquarters in Silicon Valley will become one of the new buildings to relieve the the city of its dull, nondescript two-story office architecture that dominates the landscape and introduce a new culture of office environments with a little push from the architecture itself. According to the LA Times by Chris O'Brien this architectural endeavor is just one move to establish ground in the rivalry between Samsung and Apple, whose highly anticipated spaceship-like Foster + Partners-designed Cupertino Campus has made waves in the design community. Technologically innovative and influential companies like Samsung, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Nvidia have engaged in a cultural shift of the work environment to create a hospitable and creative community for its employees. The architecture of the campuses and offices introduced by each of these companies reflect the goals of an innovative business model that engages its employees in an innovative work environment that fosters collaboration and creativity.

See how the new Samsung Headquarters innovates office building design after the break.

First, we have to get something straight. This is not the VERY Large Array. This is the RATHER Large Array, the Very Large Array’s much smaller, distant—and inexpensive—cousin and the flagship piece for Art Center College of Design’s 2011 exhibition, MADE UP: Design’s Fictions (curated by Tim Durfee with Haelim Paek).

The other thing is that while the Very Large Array still exists out in its Dune-like remote setting, spread across a giant “Y” configuration in the New Mexico desert, the Rather Large Array (RLA) has all but vaporized back into the production streams from whence its PVC tubing and hardware store components came from.

3-D printing technology has made immense leaps in the last few years as equipment and specialized programming has been refined to produced fully occupiable and usable spaces. In previous articles, ArchDaily has discussed the numerous advances in 3-D printing technology and their potential applications. 3d-printed dwellings on the moon made of sand via D-Shape, full-scale rooms via the KamerMaker and a personal printer for your kids called the MakerBot are just some speculative and experimental prototypes that have emerged from extensive research and development. The designers of the next experiment in 3-D printing is design group, Softkill Design, which includes Nicholette Chan, Gilles Retsin, Aaron Silver, and Sophia Tang within the Architectural Association School's Design Research Lab at the 'behavioral matter' studio of Robert Stuart-Smith. Last year Softkill Design completed ProtoHouse 1.0, a high-resolution prototype of a house printed at 1:33 scale. Research prototypes were generously supported by Materialise.

More details on the technology and images of ProtoHouse1.0 after the break.

The AIA has appointed green-building leader Mary Ann Lazarus, FAIA, to a consulting position as a Resident Fellow. In this position, Lazarus will help guide and influence a program heavily based in sustainability and health as the AIA implements its ten-year pledge to the Decade of Design: Global Urban Solutions Challenge, a Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action. The purpose of the commitment is to document, envision and implement solutions that leverage the design of urban environments through research, community participation, and design frameworks. It is a commitment based in the interest of public health with special attention to the use of natural, economic, and human resources.

More about Mary Ann Lazarus's work and future at the AIA after the break.

Since the time of Vitruvius, we architects have pondered the effect that our work might have on those who use the spaces we design; unfortunately, however, we set ourselves up as universal models, judging what 'works' or not for the occupants, without any explicit evidence to substantiate those ideas. Of course, the profession has changed over the last three decades; the experience of the occupant is paramount, and evidence-based design - particularly when it comes to performative environments for work, health and learning - has risen substantially in importance.

But as much as we claim - as architects, interior and urban designers - to understand the people who will occupy the spaces we design, how much do we really? Where does our knowledge come from and how do we use it? Do we help contribute to the evidence? Do our clients (and, if they do, do they pay for it)?

Architectural Research Consultancy (ARC), a company that researches how the built environment affects the way people think, feel and act, is attempting to find out the answers to just these questions. And they're conducting a brief, anonymous online survey (it takes only 2 minutes) to learn more. They'll be publishing their data later in the year, and we'll be sure to share those results with you.

After coming to the realization that architects tend to talk way too much, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture devised a lecture format that ended up revolutionizing the way we present. For the past 10 years, PechaKucha 20x20 has inspired creatives from 600 cities to informally gather in dimly lit spaces around the globe and conduct 400-second presentations to their friends and colleagues. The beauty of PechaKucha Night is that anyone can participate - as long as they stick to the 20 image, 20 second format - thus providing ample amounts of stimulating information, ideas and inspiration in just a short, booze-filled night. Who wouldn’t like that?

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) College of Fellows has awarded Bimal Mendis and Joyce Hsiang of the Yale School of Architecture and Plan B Architecture & Urbanism, LLC the 2013 Latrobe Prize of $100,000 for their proposal, “The City of 7 Billion.” The research will study the impact of population growth and resource consumption on the built and natural environment at the scale of the entire world as a single urban entity. An antidote to the fragmentary analyses of current practices, this project will remove arbitrary boundaries and reframe the entire world as a continuous topography of development: the city of 7 billion.

The grant, named for architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, is awarded biennially by the AIA College of Fellows for research leading to significant advances in the architecture profession.

More on “The City of 7 Billion” after the break...

Silicon Valley visual-computing pioneer Nvidia has joined the expanding list of tech moguls seeking to transform their work environment into the physical manifestation of their innovative business model. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has released the first schematic renderings - designed by Gensler’s San Francisco office - that depict a pair of 250,000 square foot triangular motherships centered around collaboration - a complete contrast to the typical, dated office building commonly found throughout Silicon Valley’s “oddly banal” landscape.

More after the break...