In a single photograph, French photographer Franck Bohbot exposes the essence of each unique architectural masterpiece in a series entitled Respect the Architect that captures a telling moment within a variety of locations throughout Europe. Stylistically, the series embodies a homogeneous composition throughout while simultaneously revealing the unique story of each space. Bohbot embraces quasiperfect symmetry, creating a surreal quality and invoking a sense of curiosity with each image.

Continue after the break for more images. In case you missed it, be sure to check out this series: Parisian Theaters by Franck Bohbot.

The Envision Energy Headquarters, designed by AECOM, is located in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, China. Envision Energy is the leading Chinese wind turbine manufacturer that emphasizes in research, development, manufacturing, sales and maintenance. The new 3-story 3,000 square meter facility is a mixed use, multi-layered space which includes program of offices, dining facilities, galleries and exhibition spaces, an employee recreation lounge with karaoke room, theater, gym, massage room and game room. The facility supports all employees from skilled laborers to executive directors and encompasses the attitiude of the company, celebrating wind energy as the fastest growing clean alternative energy solution. The architects were asked to design the facility to express this technology.

Read on for more on the design after the break.

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Here’s a video on Mikkel Frost from Cebra presenting the Troldtekt Award 2012. More info on the award can be found here.

Designed by Michael Labory & Bertrand Schippan to be a city landmark, their proposal for the Amsterdam Pedestrian Bridge is made not only for crossing, but for the city’s life. The tulip, symbol of the Netherlands, turns out to be the evident choice for a city like Amsterdam. Its recognizable shape among thousands becomes the landmark that makes Hermitage a unique destination, an address never to be confused, while offering many activities to the inhabitants. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Last week, we shared a great series of modular summer residences by Visiondivision that ranged from a small cabin to a massive castle. In the meantime, the firm has also been working on a competition proposal to replace a church in Våler, a small Norwegian town, after a devastating fire. For a firm that typically takes a standard design approach and then reinvents it or inverts it to form a completely new paradigm, we were impressed by their ability to bring a simplistic elegance to this religious structure.

More about the church after the break.

Located in natural surroundings close to the mountain, river, and wetland in the west south suburb of Beijing, Atelier 11’s proposal for the main pavilion of the Expo aims to create an artificial landscape. Rather than a manmade construction, their design echos the park’s site condition and the Expo’s particular theme. Simplistic form, unique spaces, and flexible planning become elements that both facilitate and influence one another in the overall design. More images and architects’ description after the break.

MenoMenoPiu Architects shared with us their winning proposal in the Classic Siftung Weimar international competition for the New Bauhaus Museum. The building is conceived as an open square at the crossing point of the three main city forces, old and new city and the park, a flexible “object” that allows different activities inside and around it. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Marciano Architecture shared with us their proposal for the ‘Stavia 2012′ competition. Located in Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland, the thin blades of the hotel fit the smooth landscape of the lake to create a suspended, stretched design towards the horizon. The project celebrates the meeting between the landscape of the park and the lake, nature and water, in a staging of the exchange, the pleasure of vacationing. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Inspired by the local materials and culture of Mahabalipuram, an Indian fishing village famous for sculpture, American Artist Janet Echelman stumbled upon a material that would change her art, and life, forever. One evening, while observing the fishermen’s nightly routine of bundling their nets, Echelman imagined a new type of sculpture – a volumetric form that could be the scale of a large building but remain light enough to ripple in the wind, constantly reshaping the net and creating ever-changing patterns.

With a sophisticated mixture of ancient craft and modern technology, Echelman collaborates with a range of professionals including aeronautical and mechanical engineers, architects, lighting designers, landscape architects, and fabricators to transform urban environments world-wide with her net sculptures.

Continue after the break to view some of Echelman’s most famous projects.

In this TEDx Talk, Jason Roberts – known as the “The Bike Guy” in his Oak Cliff community outside of Dallas, Texas – gives his audience a how-to guide in improving a community one block at a time as part of a project called “The Better Block“. The project did not start off as an organization with vast goals and strong following; instead it started off with Roberts’ interest and desire to develop his community into one that had a legacy apart from the highways and overpasses that dominate the landscape. Inspired by the rich history and existing street life of European cities with their historic buildings and monuments, plazas, and vistas; Roberts started small and eventually built a foundation and organization that is now nationally recognized and used as a tool to develop cities across the country.

Read on for more after the break.

The Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris recently announced Los Angeles based, Ball Nogues Studio as the winner of the 2012 edition of the “Pavilion Spéciale” competition in Paris, France. The Pavilion Spéciale is an installation that can be arched and curled at full scale with a small crane to form different types of space for the site. The installation will create a sense of place while providing a respite from the sun and rain. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The 2012 Spring Lecture Series, put on by the architecture department at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art is currently in progress until April 18th. Upcoming lectures include Iain Low, ‘Architecture Week’, in celebration of the new building for the architecture department, featuring Daniel Kelley and Skip Graffam, Timothy McDonald, and will conclude with Pedro Gadanho. For more information on the lectures, including specific dates, times, and locations, please visit here. The lecture poster can be viewed after the break.

The first prize winning proposal in the competition for a new cancer counseling center by EFFEKT, in collaboration with Hoffmann and Lyngkilde, is designed as a cluster of seven small houses around two green outdoor spaces. Each house has its own specific function and together they form a coherent sequence of different spaces and functions such as a library, kitchen, conversation rooms, lounge, shops, gym, and wellness facilities. More images and architects’ description after the break.

We all know the mantra first expressed by French novelist Gustave Flaubert and later by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, “le bon Dieu est dans le detail,” (God dwells in the details.) But what is a detail? Is it merely a fetish as Greg Lynn, Zaha Hadid and Peter Cook argue? “Is detailing nothing more than small-scale architectural design, requiring a bit more technical knowledge simply because it occurs at the end of the process?” asks Edward R. Ford. If there is anyone that knows details it is Edward R. Ford, and he tries to answer this seminal question in his latest book. He is the author of several other books including The Details of Modern Architecture, volumes 1 and 2, but he never answered the question of what a detail is in those two influential works.

As an attempt to translate the history and dignity this space possesses, the design proposal for the New Våler Church by Martina Engblom & Ragnar Eythorsson presents visitors with an upraised monolithic structure, calling attention to what lies underneath to create a space for reflection. In calling attention to its existance, or lack there of, the substructural remains of the old church becomes the presumption for the new church. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Pratt Manhattan Gallery has unveiled their exhibition “Bright Future: New Designs in Glass” featuring innovative and mesmerizing uses for the centuries-old material. The exhibit, which features furniture, tableware, architectural elements and lighting designs, will be on display until May 5th, 2012. The artists and firms featured here displays a refined use of glass in conjunction with metal, concrete and pigment to evoke its qualities of flexibility and transparency. In conjunction with this exhibit, Pratt will be hosting a free panel discussion: “Glass, Light and Public Space” on April 5th at 6pm in Lecture Hall 213 of Pratt’s Manhattan Campus at 144 West 14th Street, Second Floor.

Read on after the break to see previews of the exhibit and for more on the panel discussion.

Whether you would like to admit it or not, most of us share a similar fetish for Legos, Tinkertoys and any other awesome “childrens” toy that most likely helped us create our first “masterpiece”. Well, you will pleased to know that F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab have created the Free Universal Construction Kit: a matrix of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten popular children’s construction toys. By allowing any piece to join to any other, the Kit encourages totally new forms of connections between otherwise closed systems – enabling radically hybrid constructive play, the creation of previously impossible designs, and ultimately, more creative opportunities. As with other grassroots interoperability remedies, the Free Universal Construction Kit implements proprietary protocols in order to provide a public service unmet—or unmeetable—by corporate interests.

The Free Universal Construction Kit offers adapters between Lego®, Duplo®, Fischertechnik®, Gears! Gears! Gears!®, K’Nex®, Krinkles®, Bristle Blocks®, Lincoln Logs®, Tinkertoys®, Zome®, ZomeTool® and Zoob®. Adapters can be downloaded from Thingiverse.com and other sharing sites as a set of 3D models in .STL format, suitable for reproduction by personal manufacturing devices like the Makerbot (an inexpensive, open-source 3D printer).

While we are at it, don’t forget to try and win Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House from LEGO® Architecture! The giveaway closes Sunday, March 25th at 11:59 EST.

Compared to the design of a secular building, where the focus primarily lies on the programmatically and functional aspects, Studio DMTW believes a church has additive characteristics which need to be considered. Their design combines both the history of the place and all requirements that are imposed on a contemporary church with a high symbolic value and aesthetics and is thus entitled to the new living center for the Våler community. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The proposal by LÜPS for the Energy Center, Woodchips Energy Plant at the the convent of arch abbey St. Ottilien aims to stand out from the existing, architecturally less appealing buildings. Above a massive concrete architrave block, a transparent facade arises, made from frame-less polycarbonate sheets, allowing a view onto the wooden branch-like structure inside the building. Lying in the north of the convent grounds, between agriculture and hen-houses, the energetic project finds its importance represented by the impression one gets of the newly constructed building. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Nominations are now being accepted for the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s (CTBUH) 11th Annual Awards program. They are asking all interested candidates to submit your tall building projects for consideration for one of the Council’s Best Tall Building awards, and have your projects profiled in the Annual Awards Book and promoted around the world. In addition to the regional Best Tall Building Awards, the Council announces two new awards this year: the Performance award and the Innovation award. Deadline for receipt of nominations is April 30, 2012, at which time the Awards Committee will deliberate and choose the winners. More information after the break.

Hilton Worldwide and Schiphol Real Estate, Schiphol Group’s real estate subsidiary, have today signed an agreement to introduce a new landmark 433 guest room Hilton Hotels & Resorts hotel to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, to be designed by prominent Dutch architects, Mecanoo. The new cube-shaped building, which will feature rounded edges and a diamond-shaped façade with diagonal lines, has been designed with a view to it becoming an airport landmark. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Mark Foster Gage, from the Yale University School of Architecture and Gage Clemenceau, has put together a wonderful collection of text that together shed light on the various ideas about beauty through history. Gage’s added commentary helps relate each of the text to contemporary thinking on architecture and design. The text range from Plato, Aristotle, Vitruvius to Nehamas and Zangwill. (I, personally, found the last piece by David Freedberg and Vittorio Gallese very intriguing. It bridges many of the theoretical positions with advancements in cognitive science.) If you are interested in the theoretical side of architecture but don’t where to start or you prefer the practical side over the theoretical this book is a good one to have under your belt. It gives you the basics from which you can expand upon, if you are so inclined.

You can see an ArchDaily interview with Gage here, and some of his work here.