Architecture News

Robert Konieczny + KWK Promes' National Museum in Szczecin - Dialogue Centre Przełomy has been named the World Building of the Year 2016 as the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Berlin comes to a close. The project consists of an atmospheric underground museum below an expansive, undulating public plaza, adjacent to Barozzi Veiga's Mies van der Rohe Award-winning Philharmonic Hall Szczecin.

The National Museum in Szczecin - Dialogue Centre Przelomy is now the ninth project to hold the World Building of the Year title. Last year, the award was given to "The Interlace" by OMA and Buro Ole Scheeren.

Winners of the year's Future Project, Landscape, and Small Project awards were also announced. Read on to see the winning projects with comments from the jury. 

Hangzhou AN Interior Design's design for the retail brand Heike has been named the world's best interior of 2016. Announced at the INSIDE World Festival of Interiors in Berlin, which took place alongside the World Architecture Festival, the winner of the prize was selected from among 9 category winners, which in turn were picked out of a shortlist totaling 62 projects. The Black Cant System was also the winner of the retail category.

Described by the designers as a "glum interior" with a "futuristic melancholy atmosphere" for the retail brand, the centerpiece of the design is a large, dark wedge housing many of the store's functional components such as fitting rooms and staircases.

Read on for more images of, and for the full list of category winners.

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Matt Emmett’s photograph of the East London Water Works Company covered reservoir in Finsbury Park, built 1868, has been named the winner of the 2016 Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Award. Announced on the final day of the World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Berlin, the image was notable for being the first winner to feature a historic location as its subject, and drew comparisons to a Piranesi print.

Rafael Viñoly Architects, Richard Meier & Partners Architects, and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) have been tapped to design towers for “Waterline Square,” a new luxury residential development located along the Hudson River in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The three buildings will fit into five acre masterplan between West 59th and West 61st Streets on Riverside Drive, just two blocks north of BIG’s recently completed VIA 57 West.

The New York Public Library has revealed the first renderings of Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle’s renovation of the NYPL’s Mid-Manhattan Library at the corner of 5th Avenue and 40th Street, diagonally across from the library’s main branch, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Bryant Park. The $200 million project will increase seats, expand services and add public space to the building, which receives 1.7 million annual visits and constitutes the NYPL’s largest circulating branch.

“New Yorkers will soon have the central circulating library that they need and deserve,” said NYPL President Tony Marx. “This library will transform lives by providing books, classes, and programs for New Yorkers of all ages, and it will transform our city – as it will be a model for how libraries can strengthen communities.”

The Government of the United Kingdom and competition organizer Malcolm Reading Consultants have announced the ten architect teams selected to envision designs for the new National Memorial to the Holocaust, to be located next to the UK Parliament. Designs will encompass a “striking” new National Memorial in Victoria Gardens, as well as a possible below ground Learning Center.

The 10 shortlisted teams were selected from nearly 100 entries from teams across the globe by a jury made up of notable figures in British culture, religion and architecture, including Director of Stanton Williams Architects, Paul Williams; former Serpentine Galleries Director Dame Julia Peyton-Jones; and National September 11 Memorial and Museum Director, Alice M Greenwald.

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The California College of the Arts (CCA) has selected Studio Gang out of three finalists to design an expanded art and design college campus for the school in San Francisco. Currently split between San Francisco and Oakland, CCA’s expansion in San Francisco will allow all of the school’s programs to be housed in one location.

Over the next five years, Studio Gang and CCA will collaborate to create a new campus to host 2,000 students, 600 faculty members, 250 staff members, and 34 academic programs, and to be a model of sustainable construction and practice.

As the second chapter in his series, Iconic Norway, Alejandro Villanueva has released a time-lapse of the Trollstigen Visitor Center, a project by Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekters for the Norwegian Public Roads Administration in Oslo, Norway.

This month London's Design Museum will officially open its new home on Kensington High Street. The project, which has been redeveloped and designed in collaboration with Rotterdam-based practice OMA and London-based studio Allies & Morrison, has seen a Grade II* Listed Modernist monument sensitively restored into contemporary galleries. For John Pawson—who has been commissioned to create "a series of calm, atmospheric spaces" ordered around a large, oak-lined atrium—this scheme marks his first major public work.

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MoMA P.S.1 has named five finalists competing in the 2017 Young Architects Program (YAP).

Now in it’s 17th year, the competition was founded to offer emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design a temporary, outdoor installation within the walls of the P.S.1 courtyard for MoMA’s annual summer “Warm-Up” series. Architects are challenged to develop creative designs that provide shade, seating and water, while working within guidelines that address environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling.

The second group of winners of the World Architecture Festival’s (WAF) 2016 category awards have been announced today on day 2 of the event, held this year in Berlin, Germany.

The 16 Day 2 winners will now go on to compete against the 14 Day 1 winners for the title of 2016 World Building of the Year. The projects will be presented in front of a Super Jury, which includes Kai-Uwe Bergmann (BIG), Louisa Hutton (Sauerbruch Hutton), David Chipperfield, Ole Scheeren, and ArchDaily's co-founder and Editor-in-Chief David Basulto.

Check out the Day 1 winners here and view the Day 2 winners after the break.

President Obama has named architects Frank Gehry and Maya Lin among the 21 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. Established in its current decoration in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, the award is presented to “individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

Zaha Hadid Architects has unveiled the design of the Guangzhou Infinitus Plaza in Baiyun New Town, Guangzhou, China, coinciding with the project’s groundbreaking ceremony. The 167,000 square meter complex will consist of two building footprints, connected in the air through twin green-roofed skybridges to create a vertical campus for LKK Health Products Group (LKKHPG) and the Infinitus health products brand.

Employing ZHA’s trademark flowing forms, the building design follows the concept of the infinite, arranged as a series of endless rings that enhance connectivity and following the form of the symbol for infinity “∞”.

Competition organizers Bee Breeders have just announced the results of their Trans-Siberian Pit Stops Competition. At 9,289 kilometers, the Trans-Siberian Railway connects Moscow to Russia's far eastern cities. While it historically attracted many adventurers who would later write about their journeys, the railway is largely used for domestic travel today.

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This edition of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, explores London's new Design Museum – a significant expansion for the institution at an entirely new location in West London. The interior spaces of the former Commonwealth Institute Building in Kensington, which is Grade II-listed, have been renovated by John Pawson. Alongside the museum’s Deputy Director, Alice Black, the Monocle team investigate the thinking behind the relaunch and how the spaces are designed to accommodate a shifting audience.

Australian office Bates Smart has unveiled their design for the new Australian Embassy to the United States to be located in the diplomatic heart of Washington, D.C. Developed in partnership with local firm KCCT, the new building will provide the embassy with a contemporary workspace with views to the White House.

BIG and Heatherwick Studio have been selected as the architects for the new Google Headquarters at their King’s Cross campus in London. The ten story, 650,000 square foot building will be the first wholly owned and designed Google facility to built outside of the United States, and is part of a campus expansion plan that will eventually contain offices for 7,000 employees.