How to visualize architectural concepts in SketchUp using D5 Lite for faster design exploration.

UPDATE: OMA has reportedly withdrawn from the competition.

The city of Arnhem, the Netherlands, has revealed an impressive shortlist of five firms who will compete to design a new cultural building for the city, The Arts Cluster, which will combine the Museum Arnhem and Focus Filmtheater Arnhem. 

The five firms selected from 44 entries are: Architecture Studio HH with SO-IL (United States); ABT with the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG, Denmark) with Allard Architecture; Kengo Kuma & Associates(Japan); NL Architects; and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).

OMA has won an international competition to design Pont Jean-Jacques Bosc, a bridge across the river Garonne in Bordeaux, France, that will link the municipalities of Bègles and Floriac. The 44m by 545m bridge, which will act as "a generous new public space" and "an urban planning intervention" for the city, giving priority to pedestrian traffic, is the first to be realized by OMA. It is scheduled for completion in 2018.

According to Clément Blanchet, director of OMA France, the bridge "is not the ‘event’ in the city, but a platform that can accommodate events of the city [...it] may be the least technical, least lyrical, but [it is] the most concise and effective structural solution.”

The architect's description of the project, after the break...

To celebrate the launch of ArchDaily Materials, our new product catalog, we've rounded up 10 awesome projects from around the world that were inspired by one material: concrete. Check out the projects after the break...

The academic and critic Kenneth Frampton, who in the 1980s was instrumental in disseminating Portuguese architecture, as well as the idea of "critical regionalism," around the world, has won the third ever Lisbon Triennale Millenium BCP Lifetime Achievement Award, which distinguishes a person or practice whose work and ideas have been influential and continue to have a profound effect on architectural thinking and practice today.

"It is an excellent ending to this year's triennale, to give the Career Award to someone who has devoted his life to thought and architectural culture, demonstrating once again that architecture does not live only as built works," says André Tavares, director of the Architect's Journal and coordinator of the publisher Dafne.

UPDATE: OMA has provided more information and images of their proposal, see them after the break.

BIG, Büro Ole Scheeren, and OMA have been announced as the three finalists in the competition to design the new Media Campus for AXEL SPRINGER SE in Berlin, Germany, beating out Kuehn Malvezzi and SANAA. The final ranking will be released in January.

The new campus will be located on the historic site of the former Berlin Wall, what was once a no-man’s land. All three proposals address this contentious history as well as the demands of a 21st century workplace. President of the jury, Prof. Dr. Friedrich von Borries, proclaimed that: "All three projects show how fascinating architecture can be today. No matter which of the three proposals will be realised: The competition is already an enrichment of Berlin's building culture." See all three proposals, after the break...

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French developer Christian Bourdais has enlisted eight architects to develop vacation homes on a 50-hectare nature reserve about two hours south of Barcelona. So far, so normal. However, each participant in the "Solo Houses" experiment was given what every architect dreams of (and hardly ever receives): carte blanche. The results, from the likes of Sou Fujimoto, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, and more, are stunning. See them all after the break...

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Despite six months of steady increase, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) for November revealed a slight decrease in demand for design services. The November ABI score was 49.8, down from 51.6 in October (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 57.8, down from 61.5 the previous month.

“This slight dip is likely just a minor, and hopefully temporary, lull in the progress of current design projects,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD.  “But there is a continued uneasiness in the marketplace as businesses attempt to determine the future direction of demand for commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings.”

More highlights from the November ABI, after the break...

The Parramatta City Council has announced Sydney firm Johnson Pilton Walker as the unanimous winner of the Parramatta Square Design Competition, beating a shortlist (curated from 73 submissions) that included Sydney based Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp, Bates Smart, and Italian practice Mario Cucinella Architects.

The 53-storey commercial towers will provide up to 140,000 square metres of office space to Parramatta's central business district as well as act as centrepieces for the future Parramatta Square, in the heart of the CBD. 

See images of the towers, which feature a unique floating "public space in the sky," after the break...

Praça das Artes, designed by Marcelo Ferraz and Francisco Fanucci (Brasil Arquitetura) and Marcos Cartum, has won Building of the Year at the Icon Awards in London. The project competed with works by great names in international architecture: Herzog & de Meuron (with their Parrish Art Museum in Long Island, New York), Renzo Piano (The Shard in London), SANAA (the Louvre-Lens, in the north of France) and Hugh Broughton Architects (the Halley VI Research Station, the world’s first relocatable research facility, located in Antartica).

December has been a month of disappointment for fans of Frank Lloyd Wright: first, a plan to build a house designed by Wright and adapted for the English countryside has been rejected by Wraxall Councillors (Bristol Post), who believe that Frank Lloyd Wright "can't be that influential". This was followed by the news that SC Johnson, the company for whom Wright designed the famous Johnson Administration Building, is trying to stop the high profile Sotheby's auction (ArtInfo) of a desk and chair designed for their building - claiming that the items were in fact stolen from them way back in the 1950s. More on the Bristol rejection here and the Sotheby''s controversy here.

Earlier this month, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios released new images of the Southbank Centre, the most detailed renderings yet of the highly controversial redevelopment. Among the most significant alterations are a change to the exterior of the crowning glass box, a slight reduction in the size of the "liner" building (to preserve views of the Houses of Parliament from the neighboring National Theatre), and adjustments to various columns to preserve routes through the site.

Read on to find out more about the changes to the design..

As part of their annual survey of the world's largest architecture practices, this year BD has also included a survey to help them quantify which countries are best suited for women with careers in architecture - particularly those who wish to work for large companies. In order to create these rankings, they found the ratio of male to female architects in various countries, and also sought out publicly available data on maternity and paternity leave requirements, and the average cost of childcare as a percentage of average wage. You can read more about their sometimes surprising results after the break.

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The Morpholio Project, the team of architects and designers behind Morpholio (for building/sharing your portfolio) and Morpholio Trace (the app that lets you draw on top of images as if using tracing paper), have just launched Trace 2.0. The new version introduces three fantastic new tools that hope to "put [the design] process in hyper drive."

As Co-Creator Anna Kenoff puts it: “The goal of the app was to embrace and enhance the fast paced and messy process of idea building, bringing back hand drawing to a culture no longer beholden to the desktop computer.” 

Check out the three new features of Trace 2.0, after the break...

Helene Combs Dreiling, FAIA, executive director of the Virginia Center for Architecture, has been inaugurated as the 90th president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). She succeeds Mickey Jacob, FAIA, in representing nearly 83,000 AIA members.

“During my term as president, I want to look towards the future of our profession and society in general.  We need to stimulate research to benefit the design and construction industry, emphasize a culture in firms that nurtures emerging professionals and promotes diversity and inclusiveness for under-represented groups, and advance the profession in the eyes of the public,” said Dreiling. “Ultimately, our efforts will be focused on bringing a shift to our own professional culture – the way we think, act and behave to transform the way that our culture regards architects and architecture.”

The Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation has unveiled three shortlisted proposals for Moscow’s National Centre of Contemporary Arts (NCCA). The competition, now in its second and final stage, has selected these finalists from a longlist of ten, leaving behind proposals from Steven Holl Architects and other well-respected practices.

Planned to become Russia’s main national institution for contemporary arts, the NCCA will host a variety of permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as lectures, professional conferences, concerts, performances, studios, art education facilities and more.

The three shortlisted finalists (and projects) are: 

Many architects enter the profession with hopes of creating something that outlives them, something that is bigger than themselves, that can advocate for a better world. Oscar Niemeyer was such an architect, one who fought for designs that would serve everyone. The master of Brazilian architecture passed away one year ago after complications from a previous kidney condition. In honor of what would have been his birthday today, we’ve rounded up a few of his masterpieces, from his elegant and curvy Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, his collaboration on the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the traditional spectacle space of his Sambadrome, the spiraling Niemeyer Center in Aviles, and the powerful parabolic expression in his Cathedral of Brasilia. Enjoy!

Inspired by our wildly popular article "Why Japan Is Crazy About Housing," CNN has interviewed Tokyo-based author and architect Alastair Townsend in order to dig a bit deeper into why radical design has become more common in Japan. The video features interviews with the residents of House T by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects, who share what it's like to live in a multi-storied home with step ladders and no walls, as well as Sou Fujimoto, who takes us on a tour of his whimsical, tree-house inspired House NA. Watch the video after the break.

Videos

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism has produced a new report examining urban health in eight of the USA’s largest cities, which has been translated into a collection of meaningful findings for architects, designers, and urban planners. With more than half of the world’s population living in urban areas - a statistic which is projected to grow to 70% by 2050 - the report hinges around the theory that “massive urbanization can negatively affect human and environmental health in unique ways” and that, in many cases, these affects can be addressed by architects and designers by the way we create within and build upon our cities.

Satellite, an independent print magazine focused on cities, culture, and politics, is seeking submissions for its upcoming issue. Approximately a third of each issue focuses on a different city: to date, they have covered New Orleans, Montreal, and Toronto, and are now starting work on New York. They're therefore particularly interested in submissions pertaining to that city, but are happy to consider other topics as well.

In her article for BlouinArtInfo, Janelle Zara wittily recounts her experience at an architecture event in which 70% of the audience left before the night's end. The event? A talk, held last week in Miami’s Design District, between Kanye West and Pritzker laureate Jacque Herzog. Despite the audience's clear lack of interest, Zara insists the skippers missed quite the conversation: "Herzog’s half of the conversation lent it its gravitas; Kanye’s token Westisms provided the candy-coated sprinkles on top." Read the full post here.

Northwestern University has selected Perkins+Will to design the new 600,000 square foot Biomedical Research Building for the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Planned for the site of Bertrand Goldberg’s recently demolished Prentice Woman’s Hospital, the new building will “anchor the University’s research facilities and be the hub of a world-class research and development enterprise that attracts innovation and entrepreneurship.”

US and Umicore Building Products, USA Inc., a leading specialist in innovative zinc products manufactured and sold by the Building Products Unit of Umicore, announced earlier this year the sixth edition of the Archizinc Trophy contest. The bi-annual contest, open to architects throughout the world, rewards the most attractive creations for the quality of their architecture and their integration into the environment. The competition aims to highlight zinc through appropriate new applications and awards prizes in five building categories: individual housing, collective housing, public buildings, commercial buildings, and people’s choice.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced today their decision to posthumously award the 2014 AIA Gold Medal to Julia Morgan, FAIA (1872-1957), “whose extensive body of work has served as an inspiration to a generation of female architects.”

“Julia Morgan is unquestionably among the greatest American architects of all time and a true California gem,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in her recommendation letter. “Morgan’s legacy has only grown over the years. She was an architect of remarkable breadth, depth, and consistency of exceptional work, and she is widely known by the quality of her work by those who practice, teach, and appreciate architecture.”