Produce personalized presentation boards that distill complex concepts into simple visual representations with a few helpful tools and effects.

Following excavation and engineering works on Dnipro’s metro line in 2016, Zaha Hadid Architects has begun construction on three new metro stations. The Teatralna, Tsentalna, and Muzeina stations, all designed by the renowned architecture firm, will connect the residential, commercial, cultural, and academic institutions in Dnipro’s eastern districts with the city center and the Dnipro-Holovnyi railway station.

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San Riemo Residental Building by ARGE Summacumfemmer Büro Juliane Greb is this year's recipient of the DAM Prize for Architecture, an annual award highlighting outstanding German projects. Selected from 100 buildings nominated by the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM), the San Riemo Residental Building was commended for an exemplary take on communal living and its spatial flexibility that can accommodate a wide range of dwelling scenarios. The finalist projects include OMA’s Axel Spinger building, Burger Rudacs Architekten’s John Cranko ballet school in Stuttgart and Florian Nagler Architekten’s , Research Buildings Bad Aibling.

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US office Populous has disclosed its involvement in the design to erect a new 65,000-seat stadium for Liga MX soccer club Tigres UANL, in the state of Nuevo León, Mexico. As communicated on its website, the plans for the stadium, whose delivery is scheduled for 2025, were announced at a press conference on January 14, 2022, with the presence of the Governor of Nuevo León, Samuel García, together with representatives of the club, Populous, UANL, Sports Synergy, and Ball Game.

Following the Seoul Metropolitan Government's announcement of reviving and expanding the city's Olympic Jamsil Sports–MICE Complex, Heatherwick Studio has proposed a dynamic multi-leveled pier that promotes notions of "community spirit, activity, equality, play, and togetherness". Titled The Leaf, the project will feature plant-covered platforms built on the Han River, and will offer visitors recreational and cultural spaces across a floating platform.

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African nations are fighting climate change with an 8,000 kilometer long Great Green Wall meant to combat the desertification of the Sahel region, home to over 100 million people. Spanning the entire width of the African continent, the movement aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million jobs in rural Africa by 2030. Stretching from Senegal in the West to Djibouti in the East, the project is the joint effort of 21 African nations that strive to restore the once lush region and protect the livelihoods of local communities.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) released a short educational film meant to teach young students aged 13 to 16 about the relationship between climate change and the built environment, exploring notions of sustainable design. The film introduces concepts such as embodied carbon, brownfield, green infrastructure, sustainable mobility and explains ideas such as adaptive reuse, retrofit, and the use of local materials. The scope of this learning resource is to empower young people to think creatively about how to address the climate crisis through design, helping raise a generation well versed in sustainability principles.

The Colombia Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai is thought of as an artefact with the ability to tell the past, present and future stories of the country's culture through its music. Supported by its geography and its cities, the pavilion designed by Pacheco Estudio de Arquitectura intersperses dense vegetation with water, representing the great biodiversity of its plant and animal world, and is composed of a reticular structure in three dimensions symbolising the urban centres that are constantly growing.

By proposing a route from the vegetable and aquatic floor to the open ceiling, the artefact is quickly identifiable from a distance and seeks to remain in the memory of those who visit it as a fresh, open space that reveals itself to all and finds itself in constant development.

Ennead Architects has been selected to design the new headquarters of electronics designer and manufacturer Xiaomi in Shenzhen. The winning design, which was a competition entry held in celebration of the company’s 10th anniversary, reflects the relationship between technology and daily life by integrating a digital interface into the fabric of the building. The structure resembles a Rubik's cube with a 360-degree LED screen surrounding the building’s podium, representing Xiaomi’s success and aspirations for the future.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the winners of the 2021 President's Medal and Awards for Research, highlighting the best research concerning architecture and the built environment. The President's Medal was awarded to John Lin and Sony Devabhaktuni from the University of Hong Kong for their research project As Found Houses, which explores vernacular practices in rural China. Two more awards were granted to the development of an ethics guide for architectural practitioners and a study of thin-tile vaulting in Cuba.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced the 15 winning innovations of its 2021-2022 Global Mayors Challenge. Hailing from six continents, the chosen projects "seek improvements in the areas of economic recovery and inclusive growth, health and well-being, climate and environment, and gender and equality". The winning cities include Istanbul, Rotterdam, Butuan, and Wellington, and will all receive $1 million and external support to develop their programs.

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Earlier this month, a series of cities worldwide have revealed various initiatives that would help them better understand the effects of climate change and shape a more environmentally conscious environment. From several American cities creating digital twins to help curb carbon emissions to the city of Brighton mandating bee bricks to foster biodiversity and Central Park becoming a laboratory for studying climate change adaptation in urban parks, cities take on a multidisciplinary and multi-scalar approach to environmental issues.

The United States Artists Fellowship Award is an annual grant that recognizes the "most compelling artists working and living in the United States, in all disciplines, at every stage of their career". Every year, individual artists are anonymously nominated to apply by a diverse group of scholars, critics, producers, and other arts professionals. Among the 63 recipients of 2022, 5 were selected from the fields of architecture and design with the aim of strengthening and enriching the industry and their communities.

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Continuing its long-lasting collaboration with Prada, OMA’S research and design branch AMO created a cinematic scenography for the brand’s 2022 Fall Winter Menswear show. Yellow carpeting envelops the hall of Deposito at Fondazione Prada, reimagined as a theatrical setting with olive-green theatre chairs and stage lighting. In juxtaposition, sci-fi looking metal-clad tunnels bathed in neon lights emphasize “the uncanny relationship between the theatrical and technological atmospheres”.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has named Friendship Hospital in Bangladesh, designed by Kashef Chowdhury/URBANA as the winner of the 2021 RIBA International Prize, the biennial award highlighting worldwide projects that "demonstrate design excellence and social impact". The remote community hospital set within a riverine landscape translates the site's conditions prone to flooding into the central theme of the design, crafting a serene environment around the water element. The jury commended the project's thoughtful and innovative design within a modest budget, its use of local craftsmanship, and its climate-resilient response.

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New York City is under the threat of several geographical and social crises, most notably the rising sea levels, floods, storm surges, as well as the need for affordable housing. While previous and current New York mayors have announced several action plans to tackle the housing and climate crisis of the city, none of them were able to tackle these issues on a big scale, particularly after the pandemic worsened the situation as many citizens found themselves without a job and unable to pay rent. As a response, world-renowned architects and academics have proposed new urban developments and master plans that provide long term solutions to these crises.

Early last week, the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe announced the 40 shortlisted projects of the EU Mies Award, a prize that commends excellence in architecture, highlighting its contribution to sustainable development. In this context, and two years after the European Parliament voted to support the Green Deal, we review the steps taken by the EU in 2021 towards achieving its sustainability goals and shaping a resilient built environment.

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It’s a truth universally acknowledged that BIM is booming. It’s the future, and the AEC industry’s definitive move into complete digitization. In fact, in just four years from now, by 2026, the BIM market is projected to be valued at a jaw-dropping 10.7 billion USD. It’s no surprise then that young architecture professionals are looking to BIM for both financially and intellectually rewarding career paths.

Sou Fujimoto’s House of Hungarian Music, a contemporary cultural landmark dedicated to music in Budapest's City Park has officially opened its doors to the public. Considered as one of the most anticipated buildings of the year, the project is nestled within the park's trees, and is designed as an extension of its natural setting through uninterrupted glass volumes and a perforated roof structure. The museum offers a unique artistic experience combining landscape, architecture, and exhibition design, all dedicated to the creation of music and sound.

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Helsinki seeks to transform the Makasiiniranta area into an extension of its pedestrian city centre through a competition that will reshape a significant part of its maritime façade. The two-phase competition has shortlisted nine international groups whose proposals were made available for public feedback under anonymity. As most of the former industrial areas of the city have been redeveloped, Makasiinirantais is the last part of the old harbour waiting to undergo transformation and the most significant one, as it is considered a nationally valuable environment.

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In a building industry where topics such as quality and sustainability are high on the agenda amongst the leading players, the contract team at BoConcept London is gaining traction.

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The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina are joined by Jimenez Lai, Founder of Bureau Spectacular to discuss civic and infrastructural spaces in cities; collage architecture; what makes a living room, a living room?; his current project, “Citizens With No Places”; his book “Citizen of No Place”; living and studying at Taliesin West; and suburban developments.

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Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Museum of Architecture (MoA) have launched a competition to find three exceptional designs to create three treehouses across RBG Kew's UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of a larger ‘Treehouses at Kew’ Exhibition. 

‘Treehouses at Kew’ will be Kew’s main exhibition running from April to October 2023, and provide one of the most unmissable visitor experiences of the 2023 London cultural calendar.

Following California's Covid-19 health regulations in early 2020, Metro, the Los Angeles public transit agency stopped collecting fares on its busses as a safety precaution measure. However, the company's decision turned into the United States' biggest free-transit experiment, as ridership never dipped below 50 percent, even with the stay-at-home orders enforced by the government. Following 22 months of the decision and around 281 million fare-free transits, the company has decided to restart collecting fares, but is planning on using the information gathered throughout these two years to implement future improvements and introduce other free or reduced-fare programs in the city.

Muz Yer, a permanent public exhibition in Rennes, France, has invited 8 internationally-renowned architects to design birdhouses that highlight the relationship between contemporary architecture and nature. Each birdhouse serves as a response to one or more of the 13 bird species designated by the Birds Protection Committee (Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux - LPO), and raises awareness of the architectural heritage of Rennes and its urban ecology. The list of exhibitors includes Julien De Smedt Architects, ADEPT, a/LTA, Duncan Lewis, Marion Normand, Kengo Kuma & Associates, Tham & Videgard, and Dominique Perrault Architects & Gaëlle Lauriot-Prévost Design.

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