Named One of the Best Inventions of 2011 by Time Magazine, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s (SOM) Al Hamra Firdous Tower will be the tallest building in Kuwait. The iconic structure appears to fold into itself, creating an efficient form designed to maximize views and minimize solar heat gain. The commercial complex will be complete early this year and is comprised of offices, a health club and a high-end shopping mall with theaters and a food court. Continue reading for the architect’s project description.

Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Client / Developer: Al Hamra Real Estate and Entertainment Co., Mr. Abdulaziz Alhumaidhi Location: Kuwait City, Kuwait Site Area: 10,000 m2 Size: 195,000 m2 Height: 412 m (74 stories) Completion Year: 2011

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Now accepting residency applicants, the MacDowell Colony’s mission is to “nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination.” Artists from a wide range of disciplines, including a long list of architects, have experienced the MacDowell Fellowship, receiving a studio, accommodations and three meals a day for up to eight weeks with no residency fees. The experience is very private. Each individual is given their own studio to live and work in solitude, as no studio is visible from another. Meals are shared at the Colony Hall. The sole criterion is artistic excellence.

Continue reading for more details.

Last Thursday, the iconic Theater ‘t Speelhuis designed by Dutch architect Piet Blom was destroyed by a large fire, additionally damaging the eighteen cube houses surrounding it. The theater is considered a treasure to the residents of Helmond. Despite the local outcry to rebuild the Theater’s Playhouse, Mayor Jacobs is uncertain on whether that will happen, stating it would be “difficult”.

Skolkovo Innovation Center (‘Russian Silicon Valley’), a high-tech hub to be built at Skolkovo near Moscow, Russia, is intended to concentrate international intellectual capital, thereby stimulating the development of break-through projects and technologies. The modern approach to residential buildings often creates a feeling of isolation. A person has his or her own apartment and a little garden, while neighbors are perceived as competitors. The new residential area, including apartment houses and townhouses, designed by Arch Group, is designed for temporary accommodation of the scientific elite shown in the apartment houses while the townhouses feature a multi-layered environment. More images and architects’ description after the break.

In 2007, Zaha Hadid won an international design competition for the Broad Art Museum on the campus of Michigan State University. The 4000 m2 building, which is donated by alumnus Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, will provide ample space for large art installations and galleries dedicated to “international contemporary culture and ideas through art.” The design takes cues from the surrounding topography as the volume seeks to extend and emphasize existing circulatory and visual connections. Manifested in a series of pleats, the building’s abstracted connections create linear perpsective lines that change are the vistor moves past and through the building, “creating great curiosity yet never fully revealing its content,” explained Hadid. Ground breaking began in March of 2010, and now, construction is nearing completion on the project, which is slated to open in April of this year.

Check out more construction photos, along with the competition proposal renderings, after the break.

Between the canal and the railway, the site of the prize winning project proposal by RNDM Architecture is currently enclosed. Therefore, their project strives to reconnect it with the city, which is why they rely on strong structural elements to both organize the territory and make it attractive. The design is set up as a new urban landscape that draws on elements of identity that constitute the urban tissue of old Toulouse. More images and architects’ description after the break.

It’s been a while since the last Architecture photographer we featured here in ArchDaily, but we are back presenting one of the most experienced photographers in North America: Brad Feinknof.

As he states, his passion for photographing architecture stems directly from the influence of his grandfather and father, both successful architects practicing in Columbus, Ohio. He has personally been shooting photography for over 20 years, since graduating from Cornell University with his undergraduate degree in Design. Brad went on to spend his post-collegiate years in New York City assisting prominent photographers Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Arnold Newman and Joyce Tenneson. Today, many of the ideals Brad obtained from his New York experience carry over to his clients; — the consistent pursuit of perfection, extreme attention to detail, uncompromised professionalism and the utmost quality in service.

Following his return to Columbus, Brad established feinknopf photography, rapidly growing an established clientele among architectural, engineering and construction firms. In serving these clients, Brad has traveled throughout the United States shooting projects, many of which have been published in major publications. From the multitude of projects I have shot of the years over 100 have gone on to be AIA award winners.

Open Call for Ideas: How much does your building weigh? put on by COAC (Col·legi Oficial d’Arquitectes de Catalunya) challenges teams to take action and explore your city, searching for non-consolidated urban spaces in need of activation! Focusing on the design and realization of mobile, elastic and inflatable structure(s), these ‘inflatable activators’ could literally be anywhere in your cities! They could be located along road infrastructures and they also could colonize strategic urban nodes or plazas but most importantly they temporarily transform them into active spaces.

The first stage in the Augmented Structures project by Salon2 is the Augmented Structures v1.1: Acoustic Formations / İstiklâl Caddesi installation which reanimates phenomena (architecture, sound and visual arts) that appear to be completed and concluded. The acoustic memory of İstiklâl Caddesi is first transformed into an architectural surface and then this solid form becomes a dynamic visual performance through a 400m2 installation on the facade of Yapı Kredi Bank Culture Building. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Through April 15th, the Museum of the City of New York is exhibiting The Greatest Grid: The Masterplan of Manhattan and The Unifinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan. The two exihibits are in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 that transformed New York City into the city of endless streets and avenues we know it today, and speculations as to what the next 200 years will mean for the city.

More on the exhibits after the break.

After studying at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, Mark Raymond returned to Trinidad in 1993 to focus on a range of architectural, urban design and planning projects throughout the Caribbean. You may have seen him lecturing at the Caribbean School of Architecture in Kingston, Jamaica, UNPHU in Santo Domingo, London Metropolitan University and Yale University. In this video, he discusses innovation architectural, urban and landscape design and how they may ensure a sustainable future.

With the theme of ‘No Precedent’ this year, the annual Architectural League Prize competition invited young architects and designers to submit their work. Projects of all types, either theoretical or real, and executed in any medium, are welcome. Driven by the desire to create, to be heard, to keep busy or to fulfill untapped and forbidden niches, young architects are a self-defining generation. They are unwilling to wait their turn or to follow in footsteps. It has become normative for young architects to cast aside unfit precedents, codes, rules, and primitives, restlessly defining their projects, their problems, their methodologies, their users, and their spaces of intervention. Their work becomes uncategorizable, suggestive, and speculative; it’s on the brink. It’s neither here nor there, but fodder for the future. The competition deadline is February 15th. For more information, please visit their website here.

Office Jarrik Ouburg (OJO) shared with us their plan for the urban redevelopment of the ‘Havenkwartier’, the harbor of Deventer. Although the harbor will continue to function as a place for transhipment of goods, it has lost one of its biggest customers: the grain silo. The building dates from 1961 and was the first building in Europe to be constructed with a sliding formwork. Although it is not in use anymore, it still is the pivot in the existing urban ensemble at the moment. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Urban Community of Bordeaux (CUB) and MVRDV recently presented the master plan for Bastide Niel, a 35ha extension of Bordeaux’ city center onto the right bank of Garonne River. The dense urban master plan will offer 3200 homes, offices and urban amenities, respect the existing fabric of the city and become one of the largest zero energy neighborhoods in the world. Construction is to start in 2014. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Although Kish Island is currently a developing region, it can be observed as two main zones; one of which is based on former developments of the Island in previous years, and the other is the currently developing parts. The project for an office and hotel complex by Hooman Balazadeh and team is located at the threshold of the developing zone and the former developed zone. This role facilitates it to collaborate with the two zones and also work effectively with future developments. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Flight Assembled Architecture exhibit

We have talk a lot lately about Michael Graves, his Wounded Warrior Home Project and his thoughts on hospital room design, mentioning briefly about his initiative to create beautiful and functional furniture for hospitals. This video takes a closer look at the furniture Graves has designed for Capital Health, including discussions and reviews by healthcare professionals.

At the virgin beach front area where Min River meets the Pacific Ocean, and adjacent to Fuzhou Changle Airport, Netdragon Websoft Company is building their brand new campus. Nearly 700 employees and their families will relocate from the center of Fuzhou city to here. OPEN Architecture is commissioned to design a new living quarter for them on a 50,000m² piece of land that used to be an eel farm. This is a very interesting and young community of people. Their work is to create wonderful virtual worlds that entertain millions of people. In real life and on this land of their new dreams, they need a unique living area and a brand new collective life style. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The design for the ‘Wafra Living’ complex by AGi Architects won the first prize in the future project/residential category in the WAF 2011 competition. The proposal consists of a high rise building set back from the street and an L-shaped building defining the street edge, conceived to maximize privacy within the community, whilst providing ample natural light and usable indoor and outdoor common spaces. Cuts have been made in the front building in order to provide better views for the lower floor apartments in the back tower. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Located at the southeast of the historical city center in Havenkwartier Deventer, the site for the project by Erwin Schot, Eloi Koster, Bas Meijerman and Elmar Hammers is marked by a remarkable building: the Hoge Silo. Accompanied by the Zwarte Silo, an elevator building and several other industrial buildings, the Hoge Silo and the present inhabitants of the harbor area form the basics of an unusually different residential and working environment. Their new urban design for the area focuses on the preservation of this genius loci. It emphasizes the existing qualities of the built environment and searches for a new social cohesion for its new inhabitants: entrepreneur, student, artist or starter. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Duccio Malagamba shared with us his photographic work on Herzog and de Meuron’s Museum der Kulturen. His photos not just provide us with more images on this exciting design, but allow us to really appreciate the stunning details and architectural elements shown such as its historic walls and beautiful rooftop of irregular folds.

After two years of reconstruction, refurbishment and expansion, it recently re-opened in early September of this year and continues to be one of Europe’s great ethnographic museums. More photos by Duccio Malagamba can be viewed after the break.

Foster + Partners Thames Hub proposal has continuously made progress throughout the year of 2011, however reports say the practice is facing some opposition in the new year. In early November, Foster + Partners revealed the £50bn project that plans to include a £20bn high-speed Orbital Rail line around London; a new £6bn Thames Barrier and crossing; and a £20bn international Estuary Airport, with annual capacity for 150 million passengers.

Urban Intervention is challenging you, the innovative designer, to create a multidisciplinary design team able to conceive the new vision for Seattle’s public space in the coming century. “Design ideas should harness Seattle’s history of innovation and civic engagement to inspire the next generation of great public spaces, connecting interaction and innovation to meet the challenges of the future”.

The 9-acre site is located within the 74-acre Seattle Center campus, neighboring the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Experience Music Project, Space Needle and other cultural assets. The top three finalists will receive $30,000, allowing them to further develop their ideas into the second phase. The grand prize winner will receive an additional $30,000 cash award.

Continue reading for more important dates and information.

The mayor of Montréal, Gérald Tremblay, recently announced the winning project in the architecture competition for the new indoor soccer center at the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex (SMEC). The jury has chosen the concept developed by Saucier + Perrotte & Hughes Condon Marler Architects from among the four submitted by the finalist firms. The daring and creative project is one more step toward the completion of this long-awaited project, which will provide Montrealers with access to a sports center that is not only functional but boasts a modern design meeting the highest standards of quality. This public building, a testament to the talent of our local architects, will be incorporated into the SMEC, one of the largest parks in Montréal. More images and project description after the break.