Event

Pratt Institute's School of Architecture will present "COLD war COOL digital," an exhibition of 20 scaled prototypes of modernist, pre-fabricated, and globally-distributed Cold War era housing systems that were created using contemporary 3D printing technologies (opening reception 2/18 at 6:15, details below). The exhibition will investigate architectural modernism and its global influence and will connect with contemporary prototype pre-fabrication methods and digital research in housing and skyscraper design. A symposium that explores the technical, aesthetic, and political aspects of prototyping and pre-construction in architecture will be held tonight in conjunction with the exhibition.

As a follow up to 'The Competition' trailer we published this month, architect Angel Borrego Cubero of Office for Strategic Spaces (OSS) announced that the documentary he directed and produced is going to be shown at Instituto Cervantes New York, as well as Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. The screenings will take place March 4th, 7:00pm and March 8th, 4:00pm respectively. The screening at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, an event curated by Daniel Ibañez, will be preceded by a small introduction given by director Angel Borrego Cubero, and followed by a discussion with the audience and professors from the GSD. For more information, please contact: pr@o-s-s.org

As part of the VIII Biennial Ibero-American architecture and urbanism exhibition, Note Gallery will be hosting the presentation of the new book "Itenerarios de Arquitectura 06 - Paulo Mendes da Rocha" by Catherine Otondo and José Paulo Gouvea on Wednesday, February 27th. Following the book presentation, the Architects Conference, featuring Cristina Guedes & Francisco de Campos and Ricardo Bak Gordon Architect, both winners of the VIII Bienal Ibero-americana de Arquitectura e Urbanismo, will take place Thursday, February 28th. Both events take place at the Boavista Gallery in Lisbon. For more information, please visit here.

Upon their recent selection to host the International Specialized Exposition in 2017 (EXPO 2017) with a theme Energy of the Future, National Company Astana and Mayor’s Office of Astana launched a sponsored international architectural competition for the development of a concept design of EXPO facilities, including an installation to serve as the symbol of EXPO 2017 in Astana. The objective of the competition is to get conceptual architectural and urban planning solutions and ideas for EXPO facilities. The competition began last week and will last until June 18.The winner will get award equal to 15 Million KZT (equivalent to US$ 100,000). For more information, please visit here.

Design saturates every facet of our lives. As the new MoMA exhibition states: design is a fundamental tool in helping people respond to change. Applied Design, running from March 2nd to January 31st, focuses on the various means and methods by which we design and the product of those varied paths that lead to innovation.

This year's Douglas C. Allen Lecture, presented by the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture, features Adriaan Geuze, one of the founders of West 8 Urban Design & Landscape Architecture. Founded in 1987, West 8 is an award-winning international office which has established itself as a leading practice within the last 20 years with about 70 architects, urban designers, landscape architects, and industrial engineers. The event takes place Wednesday, March 6th, from 6:00pm-7:30pm in the Reinsch-Pierce Family Auditorium. For more details about the event, please visit here.

Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good, the official U.S. representation at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2012), will travel to Chicago in May 2013, and is seeking new projects—urban interventions realized in U.S. cities in the past two years—with an emphasis on those based in Chicago and the Midwest region. The exhibition will be on view through Summer 2013. The exhibition in Chicago will feature a site-specific adaptation of the original exhibition design and will include many of the projects featured in Venice alongside dozens of new projects selected as a result of this open call for submissions. Submissions are due no later than March 6th. For more information, please visit here.

In the framework of New Culture Festival, 'Art-Ovrag 2013: Garden City', there is currently an open call for their open architectural international competition “Balancing Pavilion”. The event, which takes place annually in Vyksa, Russia, gathers the best modern art designers, architectures and artists in one place. The 30 best projects will be presented on the exhibitions in Vyksa city, Volga department of NCCA (Nizhny Novgorod) and State Museum of architecture named after Schusev, Moscow. The deadline to register is March 22nd and the submission deadline is March 30th. To register, and for more information, please visit here.

Going on now until March 31, the Olympiades, Paris exhibition at the Pavillon de l'Arsenal revisits the Olympiades district and its half century past rich in architectural thought, controversy, citizen debates and engagement at the heart of the city of Paris in general and the 13th arrondissement in particular. About 40 years after the construction of the first buildings, the historian and exhibition curator, Françoise Moiroux, explores the urban, political and social elements of vertical urban planning and platform architecture through the prism of the Olympiades area. More information after the break.

Opening tonight, February 20, at 6:00pm PST at the Perry Rubenstein Gallery in Los Angeles, Iwan Baan's 'The Way We Live' exhibition features captivating large-scale images of urban, architectural, and home environments that capture Baan’s singular vision. Baan’s artistic practice examines how we live and interact with architecture, focusing on the human element, which brings buildings, intersections, and public gathering places to life. Running until April 13, this is Baan's first solo exhibition at the gallery. More information after the break.

As part of the Nordic Cool 2013 Forum: Designing Nature: Art & Architecture in Cities and Public Spaces exhibition, which is on now until March 17, Bjarke Ingels, the internationally acclaimed Danish architect and founder and principal of BIG, will give a forum talk on February 24. At this free event, located at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, Ingels will share to the audience his views on development and challenges of sustainable design. Through a series of award-winning design projects, Bjarke and BIG have developed a reputation for designing buildings that are as programmatically and technically innovative as they are cost and resource conscious. More information after the break.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the biannual workshop series, Indesem (International Design Seminar) '13 is a week long workshop for students and recent graduates, accompanied by a publicly accessible lecture series featuring renowned architects and theorists reflecting on the current theme. Taking place April 19-26 at the Faculty of Architecture in Delft, the Netherlands, the fundamental idea of the seminar, with the theme of 'Scale Matters', is to create an environment where students and professionals can debate about the position of an architect. The outcome can contribute to the current architectural discussion. Competition to participate in the workshop is open for applicants until February 27. For more information, please visit here.

Taking place February 20-March 15, Grimshaw Architects will be holding their first exhibition staged in Asia, titled 'Equation'. The exhibition will explore how the natural environment provides inspiration for innovative architectural projects around the world. These projects adopt biomimicry for greater efficiency, acknowledge the importance of connecting building users to nature and work to harness natural systems which ensure that buildings conserve and replenish natural resources. Located at the Urban Redevelopment Authority in Singapore, this marks the sixth major exhibition of work from Grimshaw which continues on from this tradition. More information after the break.

It's that time of year again: the 2013 AIA National Convention is gearing up to provide architects with the latest technological, conceptual and design innovations over the course of a three-day conference in Denver, Colorado. This year's theme: Building Leaders, is an opportunity for architects to see leading achievements in the profession as well as build upon their own knowledge.