President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s family has released their thoughts on the latest design changes proposed by Frank Gehry that were released in May. Most changes were “positive and welcomed” by the family, however they remain unhappy with the metal tapestries that surround the memorial. Gehry appeased the families concerns with the memorials original focus on the Kansas roots of Eisenhower by replacing the carved images on the stone reliefs with two sets of 9-foot statues that depict Eisenhower as a World War II hero and president. These statues join the remaining life-sized statue of Eisenhower as a boy, which remains in the center of the memorial.

More about the family’s response after the break.

The proposal by Amann-Cánovas-Maruri in the ideas competition for the organization and design of the access to the city of Murcia through El Palmar Avenue establishes a slanted axis that generates different urban scenes. In creating a sustainable action based on participatory urbanism and new high density urban nodes in contact with and related to the farmland, the architects generate public spaces that link together both sides of the boulevard. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Our friends from Italian design firm sTARTT have shared their most recent restoration project which transforms an abandoned warehouse into a spatial urban kaleidoscope. Situated in the historic center in Porfiri of the Latina Province, the area is marked by architectonic elements from the city’s earliest foundation that now co‐exist with “inconsistent” contemporary parts of the center. In that sense, the project seeks to bring a continuity to the context, as sTARTT has envisioned a way to allow users to appreciate the historic roots of their city within a contemporary atmosphere.

More about the project after the break.

Khoury Levit Fong shared with us their proposal for the GLOW/SHIFTboston Copley Square Competition. Their concept consists of an urban room, and hanging in the middle of it is a great chandelier. Dewdrop-shaped globes hang from a funicular mesh support, each illuminated by a wick-like row of low-energy addressable LEDs. It is light which is given weight and pulls down upon its supports to produce an inverted dome of scintillating light. Through the middle, the oculus at the center, the unobstructed sky is visible again. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The main goal of Sampling Architects for designing the interactive forest information center was to create a generic contemporary addition for the nationally famous National Park of Tervete. They believed the project should allow the discovery of the delight of ‘life of the forest’ through an educational center, but more importantly, creating a space for exchange of know-how of forest science between professionals, students and the general public. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Due to a devastating fire last November, New York architects HWKN (Hollwich Kushner) have been commissioned by FIP Ventures to redesign and rebuild the legendary Pavilion dance club of Fire Island Pines. Located just four miles off the coast of Long Island, the popular gay resort welcomes over 800,000 summer visitor each year. The wooden pavilion will be the harbor’s main attraction, welcoming visitors as they arrive by ferry with two, lively stories of outdoor terrace and a “Welcome Bar”.

“Although the new building will have the same envelope and mix of uses as its predecessor, the similarities end there,” says Matthew Blesso, developer and managing partner of FIP Ventures. “The Pavilion will be in context with other Pines architecture. It will be made of wood and be modern and casual, yet bold and iconic. It is the first thing visitors see when getting off the ferry, and we’ve envisioned it to be the heart of the Pines community.”

Award-winning architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali will design the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science announced today. “Renzo’s track record of creating iconic cultural landmarks combined with Zoltan’s success in transforming historically-significant buildings is a perfect marriage for a museum that celebrates the history and the future of the movies,” said Dawn Hudson, Academy CEO.

Remember the “Cosmic Quilt” kickstarter campaign we published a few weeks ago? Well, it was a success! With the help 20 students from the Art Institute of New York, The Principals were able to construct a reactive architectural environment just in time for the New York Design Week that took place May 19-21.

Continue after the break for more.

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“Within the boundaries of a society largely living above its own means, an unregulated banking system that plays by its own rules, and a government that idly stands by as millions of homes are being foreclosed upon, there lies an absolute truth: the direction we’re moving as a society has become unsustainable and toxic. This is the new promise of the American dream.” - Brad Ascalon

When you think of Suburbia, you inevitably think of the white picket fence. But the picturesque Suburbia you envision, never truly existed, and now, with an economy plunging, poverty rising, and people hurting, the truth has become too hard to ignore.

In this piece for the “Love It or Leave It” exhibition at New York’s Gallery R’Pure, going on now until June 1st, Brad Ascalon has inverted this typical Suburban symbol in order to comment upon the state of the American Dream – today, “nearly impossible for most Americans to realize.”

More Photos of Brad Ascalon’s “The Dream” after the break…

For more on Suburbia, check out our Burbs Going Bust Infographic and our popular Saving Suburbia series – Part I: “Bursting the Bubble,” on the damaging Suburban Myth.

Led by envir­on­mental archi­tect and anarch­ist, Marco Casagrande, representing the Aalto University Environmental Art Masters Program, stu­dents were to join in the cre­ation of a nomadic city on the ice, both weath­er­ing and embra­cing the cold and wind, and altern­at­ing bliz­zards and slush over the course of ten days. There were twenty of them in total. In addi­tion to Marco him­self, his wife, Taiwanese journ­al­ist Nikita Wu, his long time friend Norwegian archi­tect Hans-​Petter Bjørnådal, Czech MA stu­dent and carpenter-​extraordinaire Jan Tyrpekl, made up the organ­iz­a­tional team. The Lapland nat­ive believes in an almost cruel method to his medium, where human inten­tions come nat­ur­ally second to nature’s. It is with this in mind that one needs to approach his work­shop on the frozen lake of Rössvatnet in sub­arc­tic Norway. More of the team’s description, by Guoda Bardauskaitė and Suzanne van Niekerk, on the workshop after the break.

Jared Levy and Gordon Stott, formerly of Marmol Radziner Prefab, recently launched a new company that hopes to solve the endemic problem of prefab to date: price. They knew how to make beautiful, sustainable prefab. But now, with their patent-pending technology, which allows them to build modules to a whopping 95% complete at the factory, and ship them like shipping containers by rail, sea, or truck, Connect:Homes has figured out how to provide the same level of modern style at an all-inclusive price of $145/sf out of the factory. That’s all inclusive with no surprises. More images and architects’ description after the break.

3XN architects and Aarhus Architects in collaboration with Nickl & Partner Architechten, Grontmij and Kirstine Jensen Studio, has won the prestigious competition for the expansion of Copenhagen’s main hospital, Rigshospitalet, which is expected to be completed in early 2017. The winning proposal for Copenhagen’s most centrally located hospital extension ensures 76,000 m2 of efficient and timesaving logistics, while daylight, green spaces and views of the neighboring park contribute to the wellbeing of patients, staff and visitors. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Neri Oxman is an architect and founder of MATERIALECOLOGY with the MIT Media Lab. Her work focuses on computational strategies for form finding; she chooses to define and design processes that generate form. She has published numerous papers and has contributed to various texts. Her work has also been featured at the MOMA for the exhibit “Design and the Elastic Mind“, which she designed four systems of processes. In this lecture posted by PopTech, Oxman discusses what the processes of nature can teach designers and how computational strategies defined by materials and the environment can expand the possibilities of the generation of form through algorithms and analysis.

Follow us after the break for more.

Architects: S. Ghosh & Associates Location: Lucknow, India Team: Sudipto Ghosh and Sumit Ghosh (Principle Designers) as well as Mitesh Kapadia, Rashmi Vakharia, Naeem Rushnaiwala and Ketan Bhartia (Associate Designers) Terminal Area: 20,000 sqm. Site Area: 56,000 sqm. Total Cost: Approx. US $ 23 million Photographs: S. Ghosh & Associates

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Today we had the chance of attending the opening of this impressive exhibition. As we mentioned previously some weeks ago, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London prepared this event focused on the work of the British firm Heatherwick Studio, responsable for the last Shanghai 2010 British Pavilion, as well as the Rolling Bridge, or the New Bus for London that was just released in the 38 route. The exhibition comprises a large range of different scales of design, going from specific objects or furniture, to large infrastructural and urban projects. It will be open for the public from next Thursday 31st.

Over the past five years, the Make it Right Foundation in New Orleans has been realizing its commitment to build 150 affordable, green storm resistant homes for families living in the Lower 9th Ward. The foundation, established by Brad Pitt, has completed seventy-five homes with the time and efforts donated by local and international architects such as Gehry Partners, Morphosis, Kieran Timberlake, Pugh+Scarpa, and McDonough+Partners.

Photographer James Ewing shared the documentation of his visit to the Make it Right Homes of New Orleans, citing the designs he most admired by Shigeru Ban, Adjaye Associates, Hitoshi Abe, and BiLD.

More on Make it Right and the homes after the break.

After great lectures at the Escola da Cidade in Sao Paulo and the Center for Architecture in New York, this week ArchDaily is heading to Moscow to lecture at three important institutions: The High School of Design (May 31st), the State Museum of Architecture (June 1st) and the Strelka Institute (June 3rd).

More information about the lectures after the break, including links to register for each event.

We look forward to meet and connect with Russian architects and architecture students in Moscow!

Following with the list of films we propose every week, as The Belly of the Architect, Blade Runner, and Gattaca.This week we are going back to the times when technologies didn’t allow yet the sound or even color to be part of films. Metropolis, one of the classics by the German director Fritz Lang, is a film that shows a future where the city is structured in vertical layers according to the different social strata. Something that could be recognized in the current situation of several cities today… Do you know about any example? Do you think this will be the actual future pattern of our cities?

While the excitement builds for the Olympic Games this summer, London is also preparing for their Design Festival of mid-September. In a joint effort between Arup and Sound and Music, the installation at Trafalgar Square will focus on the idea of design you cannot see by creating a black rubberized portal that will transport visitors to inaccessible places and remote environments through a series of three-dimensional soundscapes created by leading musicians and sound designers. By isolating the sense of sound, visitors will be submerged in a completely new environment as they stand in one of the busiest squares in the world.

More about BE OPEN after the break.

With a seating capacity of 300 at its core, the Fulldome Experience Center, designed by FORMA, gives visitors a dynamic interactive space carrying both scientific and educational functions. It includes installations, exhibitions and game zones as well as a cafeteria, gift shop and conference room for the visitors’ comfort and versatility of the building. More images and architects’ description after the break.

We recently received the latest issue of Mark Magazine, one of our favorites. If you’re bored of cubic architecture, Mark (April-May) includes amazing work by Jurgen Mayer H and Jesko Johnson-Zahn built in Georgia (the country, not the state). This issue also includes work previously featured on AD: `circulation spectacle´ of the Adolfo Ibañez University by José Cruz Ovalle, Djuric Tardio Architectes‘ Eco-Sustainable House, Vaíllo+Irigaray Biomediacal Research Centre and many more.

More information and  full index after the break.

The aim of Bohuon Bertic Architectes for their gymnasium in Plabennec, France is to create an efficient tool in regard to the building’s use as well as for the surrounding area, making the project friendly, enjoyable, serene and identifiable. Characterized by horizontality, the site is a vast, dominant plateau that immerses the user in the scenery. The project interprets and synthesizes the characteristics of the place and programmatic datum resulting in two fundamental elements: the base and the volume-signal. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Co-Chaired by Xavier Costa from Northeastern University and Martha Thorne from IE University, the ACSA International Conference, ‘CHANGE, Architecture, Education, Practices’ will be held in Barcelona from June 20-22. The event will focus on schools and intellectual leadership as we transition to new economic scenarios and professional cultures in architecture worldwide. The relationship between schools and the profession can be very permeable and often imprecise. Each informs the other, at times leading to greater relevance, at other times leaving disconcerting gaps. The conference will focus on CHANGE, and will explore these issues in relation to seven themes, Civic Engagement, Academia, Practice, Technology, Cities, Globalization, Sustainability and one flexible open category. For more information, please visit here.