So far, I’ve cited the merits of the playground – the loudest, craziest, most running-aroundiest environment for kids you can imagine – as a point of inspiration for school design.

I’ve espoused the potential of community-oriented schools to motivate learning and, somewhat grandiosely I’ll admit, change the world.

I think I’ve uncovered a bias. In me, and in architecture at large.

For years, Western culture has valued and rewarded natural born extroverts in its effort to breed out-going, sociable, go-get-’em type citizens. (For two intelligent, chuckle-inducing narratives on the plight of the introvert, check out Jonathan Rauch’s touchstone piece in The Atlantic and Susan Cain‘s fabulous TED Talk).

In my zeal to present solutions to the obstacles facing education, I too got caught in the trap. To rectify this situation, I will – once again – examine schools; but this time, I take a more balanced approach. Today I take into account that bullied, forgotten group: introverts.

Singapore Airlines invites interested private sector companies and/or entities to participate in the Pre-Qualification Exercise to demonstrate their capabilities for the Proposed Development of a New Design Concept for the Silver Kris Lounges.

Rio de Janeiro will be bustling with activity very quickly, beginning with the World Cup in 2012 to the Summer Olympics in 2016. Earlier, we shared AECOM’s winning master plan for the complex and it was recently announced that American golf architect Gil Hanse was chosen as the designer for the Rio 2016 Course. Hanse’s work has included major courses scattered around the country, from Boston to LA, and now he is bringing his talent to South America. This Olympics will mark the first time golf has been an official sport since the 1904 Games in St. Louis, and thus, Hanse has his work cut out for him in designing not only a top course, but also the first of its kind for such an event. After ousting Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam for the job, Hanse will team with pro-golfer Amy Alcott to design the course in the Barra da Tijuca part of Rio. “We will strive to produce a course that will maximize the benefits of the site while creating an identity that is in keeping with the natural terrain, vegetation and wildlife indigenous to what we believe will be transformed into a “picturesque” landscape which will make the people of Rio proud,” explained Hanse.

More about the course after the break. 

Architects Đordje Alfirević and Ana Čarapić shared with us their proposal for the Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina. As a response to the site conditions, their design is positioned in the center of a park with a uniformed impact on the surroundings from every direction. The circular form establishes a gentle dialog with the environment by means of creating an illusion of neutral form that continuously pulls back, yet on the other hand its compact and abstract volume makes a distinctive and strong landmark. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architect Rem Koolhaas – author of Delirious New York – and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist – known for his exhibitions and his “endless conversation” with hundreds of artists and thinkers, racking up 2,000 hours of interviews since 1990 – will discuss their new book Project Japan, part oral history and part documentation of Japan’s radical mode of nation building. The event will take place March 8th at 7:00pm at the NYPL (New York Public Library) in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. More information on the event after the break.

Arup recently won a major contract to design one of Europe’s largest hospitals in Vienna, Austria. The Krankenhaus Nord Wein hospital win marks another milestone in the international recognition of the firm’s expertise in the field of healthcare. Construction work has just started on the 800-bed facility, which will cost over €500m to build and a similar amount again to fit out to the world-class standard specified. Arup’s healthcare design team in Ireland worked in close collaboration with an Austrian partner to win the design contract for the facility, which will be sited on the east side of the River Danube. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architects: Aulík Fišer Architects Location: ZaBrumlovkou, Prague, Czech Republic Realization Company: PSJ a.s. Total Floor Area: 1,210 sqm Total Volume: 9,400 m3 Project: 2006-2007 Realization: 2007-2009 Photographs: Courtesy of Aulík Fišer Architects

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Understanding that environmental responsibility is an integral part of design excellence, Perkins + Will’s new Atlantic office, known as 1315 Peachtree, serves as an example on how current technologies can be used to achieve LEED Platinum Certification, meet the 2030 Challenge and help reduce toxic materials from our building products.

1315 Peachtree is an adaptive reuse of a 1985 office structure transformed into a high performance civic-focused building. Located in the heart of Midtown Atlanta across from the High Museum of Art, the new building continues to house the Peachtree Branch of the Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library and introduces a new street-level tenant space occupied by the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA). The Perkins+Will Atlanta office occupies the top four floors with office space for up to 240 employees. Continue reading for more information on the highest LEED score building in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Help choose which architectural masterpiece will become the next LEGO® Architecture model. The numbers are close! Top nominees include the classic Rietveld Schröder House (Utrecht) by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld, The MAXXI (Rome) by Zaha Hadid, The Ennis House (Los Angeles) by Frank Lloyd Wright and Nakagin Capsule Tower (Tokyo) by Kisho Kurokawa. Cast your votes HERE and tell us which building is your favorite!

No other profession can make the proverbial male measuring contest more visual and dramatic than architecture. Whether it is about being the tallest, most lavish, most modernist, most minimalist, most post-modernist, or most deconstructed, too many, but not all, of history’s celebrated architects come across like a bunch of juvenile boys standing on a stream bank trying to project their urine further than the next. Even with noble ambitions, their narcissistic “fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love,” have often put them out of touch with the plight of their fellow human beings. I will offer a simple and very unoriginal solution to this problem; hire more female architects.

We have already introduced you to the Night Club Hotel: Bubble X (2nd place) and Elevated Night Club (3rd place) winning entries for the Night Club Hotel in Hong Kong by vGH Company and Urbanplunger respectfully. We now unveil the first place proposal, submitted by Hong Kong based architecture firm YS Groundwork. Extremely Negative is concerned with distancing itself from the typical design solutions that produce mega-structures and commercial towers. Instead, the team decided to invert the structure creating a void below grade that can be occupied at multiple levels with programs such as an open air disco, a hostel and a monastery.

More images from this proposal after the break!

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A carefully selected presentation of over 170 of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries, Frieze Art Fair New York 2012 will take place May 4-7. Employing a distinct snake-shaped structure, Frieze New York will be designed by New York-based SO – IL architects. Sponsored by Deutsche Bank, the event will benefit from the same architectural approach that has made Frieze Art Fair, London one of the world’s leading art fairs. More information on the event after the break.

The year 2011 was a great one for ArchDaily, and all thanks to you. In terms of web traffic, in our network we grew to more than 200,000 daily readers who viewed 350 million pages during 2011. Our social media reach has grown to nearly 500,000 Facebook fans, more than 60,000 followers on Twitter and an ever growing presence on Flickr, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, all connecting with architects around our passion: Architecture.

Taking place at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, the Columbia Building Intelligence Project Think Tank organized by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP). With the theme of ‘Vectored Resources,’ their seventh Think Tank in Toronto on March 8th from 1-5:3opm will involve rethinking the future of the building industry into four 60-minute sessions followed by roundtable discussions. The discussion panels for this event include Materials and Processes, Assemblies and Systems, Design and Development, and Development and Policy. For more information, please visit here.

[AC-CA] recently announced their competition, New Contemporary Art Museum, with the aim of a design for a new art museum in the heart of the city. As the capital of Argentina and located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, the city is an important economic center. Its architecture is a combination of different styles which gives it a unique architectural beauty. The deadline for submissions is July 5th. More information on the competition after the break.

Today’s entrepreneurs are redefining what it means to be visionary in a slow economy. Using every available resource to create new assets, marketing through social media is becoming an important part of the strategy to reach our audiences.

Coordinated by the New York Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects, nycobaNOMA, and sponsored by Mohawk Industries, Inc., the B*Session event, The Business of Communication: Social Media and Content Marketing, will take place on March 21st at the Mohawk New York Showroom. More information on the event after the break.

In this interview by Jan Schevers and Esther Schevers, Stephen Bates of Sergison Bates architects discusses how education is tied to exploration and research. As a professor at TU Munich, each semester offers an opportunity to take on new themes in architecture that allow him to break conventions that come up in practice and are oftentimes associated with the ways in which his students have been taught. More discussion after the break.

The ASM International World Headquarters, originally constructed in 1959, is an architectural composition by two influential designers during the mid-twentieth century: John Terence Kelly, who studied under Bauhaus-founder Walter Gropius, and R. Buckminster Fuller, well known for his geodesic domes, environmentally-conscious designs and the dymaxion car. The complex includes the building, dome and garden on the 45-acre site known as Materials Park. The renovation, led by The Chesler Group and Dimit Architects, brings new life to Kelly’s building. According to Architectural Record, (Snapshot, Laura Raskin), Michael Chesler of The Chesler Group, campaigned to salvage the architectural marvel, giving it a place in the National Register of Historic Places and using tax credits to fund the renovation.

Pictures and details of the renovation after the break.

There are a lot of different approaches to making buildings more efficient with finite resources, and some of them have been highlighted in this series. Strategies like green roofs, passive heating and cooling, as well as more advanced technologies like newer materials to fabricate solar panels, are all important developments. And as we have seen, different architects and designers have deployed these strategies successfully. Most often, however, these strategies are just applied to a single building. It’s rare that an entire campus will be built using multiple strategies that try to re-use, preserve, and even incorporate such approaches into the curriculum.

Enter Muse, located in Calabasas, California. The brainchild of actress Suzy Amis Cameron and rebuilt by Ecovations, a design/construction/consulting firm, the school exemplifies a sustainable approach on a grander scale.

Let’s begin with the obvious: kids like to climb, and run, and get their hands on anything that could (and probably will) break. They like to explore and imagine, create and destroy and create again.

Thankfully, a movement in the world of Education has begun to account for this reality (see:Ken Robinson’s seminal 2007 TedTalk), to leave behind the antiquated schema that children are little adults, and to engage students’ creativity, energy, and need for expression – a task often complicated by the physical constraints of a traditional classroom.

When designing a classroom, architects are keenly aware of the importance of the physical conditions of a learning environment (temperature, crowding, even permeability to the community) on a child’s psyche. [1] However, as much as we depend upon studies to help us design the “correct” environment, what we ultimately need is a practical, playful perspective that understands what excites and engages children.

We need a source of inspiration. To look at spaces that welcome interaction with the environment and encourage the free reign of energy and imagination. We need the playground.

Located in the small village of Jukkasjärvi in northern Sweden 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, ICEHOTEL may be the epitomy of ephemeral and temporal architecture. The world’s first and largest hotel built out of snow and ice is an inhabitable work of art that takes on a new form each year. The existence of the ICEHOTEL is entirely reliant upon the climate and Torne River, from which the 4000 tonnes of ice are harvested each year between March and April. The architecture is a form of exhibition as well. Each year artists are handpicked to design and build the Art Suites within the ICEHOTEL. The whole process invoved about 100 people and is constructed between November and December.

RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) recently announced the finalists in their Cronton Colliery Competition. The challenge to design a pioneering new visitor destination on a former colliery has inspired creative teams across the world to push the boundaries of landscape and architecture. Hassell, Hawkins/Brown, Michael Lee Architects and Edward Architecture & Matthew Riley are the four of the most inventive schemes that have been invited to the final stage for the chance to see their vision become a reality. More images and information after the break.