Concept Stadium by DCA (Design Crew for Architecture) is an exercise of reflection willing to propose an unconstrained answer, free from whether economic or programmatic concerns, in order to provide a prospective vision of what could be, in their opinion, the ideal rugby stadium. Today, stadiums are iconic shapes answering to the representation stake, as they are bearing the image of a club, a city, a region. But paradoxically, these formal thoughts are concerning the shell and therefore establish the singular stadium status as autonomous object, disconnected from its environment. Their designs aims to become a useful object with urban concerns. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The overall campus planning strategy for the Baidu Science and Technology Campyus by ZNA Architects consists of the ecological park and circular main street. By consolidating the green space, they try to achieve the maximized building boundary, to benefit from the surrounding park view while creating a grand gesture for the park. Additionally, to create a highly efficient and flexible office space, they designed a unique but diverse circular main street, to connect different work spaces, such as study, meeting, leisure, recreation and F&B area to form a community center. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Superbow Project, designed by Supermachine Studio, is a proposal for a sustainable city of its own. Using Nakornsawan, Thailand as a location to implement their vision of a giant hydraulic tool in the network, they place a new ‘Water’ city in between the two rivers to slowly generate a new way of living for Nakornsawan’s people. The city, located by 2 rivers Ping and Nan, is usually flooded every year, but in 2011 the water broke the protecting levee into the city’s center. The whole town of Nakornsawan sank into one meter plus deep water. Therefore, this project aims to build a massive hydraulic tool that is habitable as an extension of the city or as a new city itself that all of people in the old city can move into. More images and architects’ description after the break.

XTEN Architecture is planning a new, 65,000-square-foot hotel in downtown Los Angeles, California. The monolithic concrete structure will be carved by a system of slots and slices that bring light, air and views deep into the building. Equipped with a performance-based lobby, two subterranean bars, restaurant and a rooftop terrace featuring an infinity edge pool, this mid-rise hotel will surely attract some attention.

Continue after the break to learn more!

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Dominique Perrault has been selected to build a tower within the future Yongsan International Business Center in Seoul, whose master plan was designed by Daniel Libeskind. The tower, called The Blade, will reach 300 meters high. More images and architect’s description after the break.

For 25 years, George Lucas has had a problem. He’s been the Darth Vader of an evil developing empire.

Or so say his wealthy California neighbors. Since 1978, when he set up his corporate headquarters, Skywalker Ranch, on his property in Lucas Valley, Lucas has been attempting to get plans approved for a 300,000 square foot movie studio (which, while massive, would preserve 95% of the acreage and include plans to restore the topography). He’s been blocked by his anti-business, NIMBY neighbors every step of the way.

But far more interesting than Lucas’ defeat, is his plan for revenge.

Read More on how George Lucas is striking back on his NIMBY neighbors, after the break…

The workshop Filmare l’architettura, just concluded in Florence. It took place in the home-studio by Leonardo Savioli and was aimed at educating videomakers in documenting the architectural space. The results of this experience, promoted by the Region of Tuscany, produced by Festival dei Popoli and led by Filippo Macelloni, will be presented to the public on May 15 at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence.

Last month we shared with you Jimenez Lai’s vision to transform the Architecture Foundation’s Project Space in London with a cartoonish architectural installation of Super Furniture inspired by the exhibitionism of Hugh Hefner with the live-art of Joseph Beuys. As his first solo exhibition outside of North America, the Chicago-based architect plans to inhabit the Hefner/Beuys House for a few weeks, acting as a 1:1 comic book that people can literally become a part of. You may remember his past projects of the Super-Furniture Series, including the Briefcase House, which he has continued to live in for the past three years, and White Elephant (Privately Soft).

LEGO has unveiled their latest model in the Architecture Landmark series: the Gate of Exalted Ceremonies in Seoul, better known as the Sungnyemun.

Sungnyemun is the series first Asian landmark and one of the most complete examples of Joseon Dynasty architecture. Standing in the heart of Seoul since 1398, Sungnyemun was once one of three major gateways through Seoul’s historic city walls. It is listed first among the National Treasure of South Korea.

Sungnyemun is the fifteenth model in the LEGO® Architecture series, which uses the LEGO brick to interpret the designs of iconic architecture around the world.

Studio Mode / modeLab is putting on the Scripted Design Workshop June 9-10, which will introduce participants to the fundamental concepts for designing with programs in Python for Rhinoceros. As the next installment in the coLab Series, they are welcoming Skylar Tibbits | SJET to modeLab as the lead instructor for this workshop. In a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment, participants will be introduced to concepts such as syntax, data types, and variables as well as the creation and manipulation of computational geometry through the Rhinoscript/RhinoCommon libraries. Workshop curriculum will additionally cover techniques for storing and retrieving multi-dimensional data, as well as controlling the flow of scripts via functions, conditional statements, iteration, and recursion. For more information, please visit here.

With over a million visitors annually, Stockholmsmässan in Älvsjö is one of the world’s leading organisers of exhibitions, conferences and public fairs. The new entrance, designed by Rosenbergs Arkitekter, starts construction this month and is expected to be completed by fall 2013. Their design features a high, smooth cantilevered roof floating on tall glass sections and is marked by a prominent new building. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Greek firm, KLab Architecture, has designed a series of suites for Mykonos, one of the most popular summertime destinations (the island’s population rises from 10,000 to 50,000 seasonally). As is typical of KLab’s work (check out their Urban Cubes project previously featured), their hotel project looks to the vernacular language of island’s vocabulary and capitalizes on the environment’s relationship between the landscape and the sea, to formulate a modern interpretation of the cycladic architecture that has evolved over centuries.

More about the hotel room design after the break. 

In honor of One World Trade Center becoming the tallest building in New York, EarthCam has released an exciting time-lapse movie showcasing the construction progress from 2004-2012. In just a couple minutes, you can witness years of construction. Not only is the process a moving one on an emotional level, but also sheds hope on a site that holds such strong meaning in the U.S. for a time in history that will never be forgotten.

AA DLab experiments thoroughly on the possibilities of digital design tools and rapid prototyping techniques as highly integrated systems of design development. It is an intensive computation and fabrication oriented workshop that is structured around a general theme in each consecutive edition.

Starting from 2012, DLab will be launched as a series where one of the most potent vehicles for emphasis in architecture, color, will take a twist and exist beyond the field of visual compositions and sensations, becoming the common denominator for the generation of diverse computational proposals. In 2012, DLab takes on the color of Green as the shade of meaning and the design vessel for a number of rigorous experiments carried out using algorithmic design methodologies and digital fabrication techniques.  Associated with the concepts of regeneration, emergence, and growth through its broad existence in nature, Green will serve as the inspiration for observing natural and biological structures of differing scales, followed by their abstraction and interpretation into elaborated design proposals. In this setup, Green surpasses being a representational/graphic instrument and stimulates creative processes of meaning, interpretation, and realization.

2/3 of the world population have no link to professional architecture, it means 4.400.000.000 of people has not relation with academic knowledge of architecture. This book tries to explain how this knowledge can come to everywhere of our planet and how it can support to improve the lack of quality of life for natural disasters or social conflicts of millions of human beings.

Pegasus Global Holdings, LLC, a private international technology development firm, has announced plans to build a new billon-plus dollar city capable housing 35,000 people Lea County, New Mexico. However, no one will live there. The vacant city will be a full-scale, fully functional test city, dedicated to enabling and facilitating the commercialization of new and emerging technologies. Looking for a place to test out that self-driving truck? Look no further. The Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation (CITE) will provide 15-square-miles of resident-free cityscape in the middle of the New Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert.

Continue after the break to learn more about CITE.

The Nardini Grappa Distillary was completed in 2004, designed by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas in Bassano del Grappa, Vicenza, Italy – the first impressions of the complex are two otherworldly inflated disks hover over a pool of water. Supported on stilts, the glass and steel envelope reflects the water below. Visitors stroll over paths that criss cross over the pool. A descending ramp leads into the 100-seat auditorium below, forming a natural canyon. Underwater lights illuminate the surface, creating a shimmer across the grounds of the distillery and reflected in the floating volumes above.

Come back after the break for more.

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The design for the Qingdao Master Plan, designed by HAO/Holm Architecture Office + Archiland, seeks to further develop and expand the existing elements of the city. Situated within the city of Qingdao and conveniently located five minutes from the airport, the site is divided into three main areas. To take advantage of this, the design takes its starting point around a sunken cultural path that leads visitors through the entire programmatic experience of the new master plan. More images and architects’ description after the break.

London-based architecture practice, Jump Studios, recently completed the interior of a submarine for the first ever Guinness deep-sea bar, which recently plunged the depths of the Baltic in the Stockholm Archipelago. Jump was asked to create an interior for the vessel (fitting a space approximately 11m2) that reflected the Guinness brand statement ‘Alive Inside’. And the solution was a fluid concept, constructed from GRP (glass reinforced plastic), that captures the feeling of being ‘immersed in a dynamic, flowing experience’. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The winners of the Wienerberger Brick Award 2012 have been announced at a ceremony in Vienna’s City Hall. Five international architects were awarded for their outstanding work, for projects using brick as a construction material. The five-person jury chose South African architect Peter Rich as grand prize winner and winner of the category “Special Solution with Brick” for the Mapungubwe Interpretation Center in South Africa. Additionally, the accompanying book “Brick’12” features the award-winning buildings as well as the 45 other nominated projects from 28 countries and five continents, presented by renowned architecture writers from around the world. More images and information on the awards after the break.

General Manifold is an immersive architectural environment installed in the abandoned Federal Screw Works factory complex in Chelsea, Michigan. This installation was the centerpiece of a collective exhibition organized by the architectural collaborative Spatial Ops and students from their Meta Friche research seminar at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

Continue after the break for images and the architect’ project description.

PBS has released their selections of the top ten buildings that have changed the way Americans live, work and play. From Thomas Jefferson’s 224-year-old Virginia State Capitol to Robert Ventui’s postmodern masterpiece the Vanna Venturi House, each building on the list will be featured in a new TV and web production coming to PBS in 2013. Continue after the break to view the top ten influential buildings and let us know your thoughts!

The design of the new Swiss Embassy in Yaoundé, designed by Matteo Cainer Architects, pays tribute to its renewed presence in the Cameroon and a respect for the uniqueness of the site. The resulting proposal is an elegant ensemble that encapsulates the identity and self-image of the Swiss people and their values. The calm external simplicity of the proposal conceals an inner complexity while achieving a sustainable design, which was another key in the process. More images and architects’ description after the break.