Livability.com recently released a compilation of the 10 best downtowns in the USA. Based on a rubric analyzing entertainment, planning, architecture, and green spaces they have come up with a list atypical of the cities typically found at the top of similar lists. Each of the cities on the list has a distinct and unique aura. Starting with Franklin, Tennessee, and topping out with Indianapolis, Indiana at number one, the descriptions of each city are sure to provide ample insight into the inimitable characteristics that warranted their listing within the top 10 downtowns. Be sure to check out projects from the cities on the list here:

Five great industrial projects we published back in January this year for our 8th selection. Check them all after the break.

Biotechnology Industry / Marlene Imirzian & Associates Phoenix, Arizona has a burgeoning Biotechnology industry and in order to help fill the demand for skilled employees the Paradise Valley Community College plans to double its Biotechnology Program. The new Life Science Building provides new instructional space, housing the college’s Anatomy, Physiology, General Biology, Biotechnology, Microbiology, Marine Biology and Environmental Biology Programs (read more…)

Recent recipient of the 2011 Holcim Gold Award for the North American region, Lateral Office’s Arctic Food Network is a series of strategically distributed shelters addressing food security, biological and wildlife species management, and provides a safe navigation system across Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada.

Architect: Lateral Office Location: Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada Collaborators: InfraNet Lab, Dr. Claudio Aporta Advisor: Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders, and Youth Project Team: Mason White, Lola Sheppard, Nikole Bouchard, Fionn Byrne Start of Construction: May 2012 Images: Lateral Office

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Vitra presents an office of possibilities called Citizen Office – one in which employees control the way they interact with their work environment. Through the creative implementation of products and arrangements that stimulate the flexible use of space for each individual, employees can choose how their work will be most productive. This promotes physical and mental well-being and reflects positively on employee performance. According to Katharina Weisflog, Marketing & Public Relations Manager for Vitra, “feeling at ease makes people more motivated and productive” which is why at Citizen Office “the workers decide autonomously which rhythm and which form is right for their respective activity at which location”.

Click through for images of the working environment created within Citizen Office.

The first casualty was the large boy man with the soft hands. He had taken control of the tablesaw and was ripping ply for the little Asian girls with rectilinear eyewear and anyone else willing to let him. The bearded shop staff for some reason believed him when he said he knew what he was doing, &c, &c. That was soon revealed to be a mistake in judgment on their part when, after a number of successful, cocky rips, he tried a new technique and showed how close he could get his hand to the blade. The Asian girl who spoke in Ebonics shouted to be careful and he shouted back under his safety glasses that it was OK because the blade was outfitted with a laser thingamajig that would make it stop if his hand got within a mm of it or some small such dimension.

It was almost certainly her fault because the young man was at that moment trying to impress and seemingly in his element in the shop he slid his hand through the blade in one quick motion and the fingers popped off in quick succession, flying this way and that. The blood was immediately apparent and continued to flow freely out of the alien paddle that remained. His scream was more of a muffled grunting and crying as he concealed the paddle in his doubled over form amidst the sawdust. The Asian Ebonics girl immediately vomited while turning away and falling against a bandsaw. Others moved away. A few just stared transfixed. Some were dialing 911. The bearded shop staff ran in swearing and yelling what happened what happened and swearing some more and saying I thought you said you knew what you were doing and other accusations at the wounded boy as they obviously shifted blame onto him as the chief protagonist in his grave injury.

Chinese calligraphy is mainly based in three characteristics: status of mind, line and color. These tree concepts triggered ///byn original ideas for the Ordos Museum. A primary impression of non-organization is quickly overcome by a self-organized logic. Here, the museum volumes have found their own space in the park. The logics of placement come from many different aspects: orientation, functionality, targeted visuals, public space, creating a unique orchestrated sequence of spaces. More images and project description after the break.

Preston Scott Cohen’s office sent us drawings of his Tel Aviv Museum of Art to add to the images of the recently opened museum we shared earlier in the week. Preston Scott Cohen explained, “Conceptually, the Amir Building is related to the Museum’s Brutalist main building (completed 1971; Dan Eytan, architect). At the same time, it also relates to the larger tradition of Modern architecture in Tel Aviv, as seen in the multiple vocabularies of Mendelsohn, the Bauhaus and the White City.The gleaming white parabolas of the façade are composed of 465 differently shaped flat panels made of pre-cast reinforced concrete. Achieving a combination of form and material that is unprecedented in the city, the façade translates Tel Aviv’s existing Modernism into a contemporary and progressive architectural language.”

Check out the drawings after the break.

Located next to their apartment-factory project in Suizhong, China, the design for the mixed-used development of residential units and sales center for the apartment-factory by YKH_LAB (to be converted later as a retail center for the residential development) is a part of the Korea Town development. Relevant to the core idea of its sister project Suizhong Apt-factory, the conceptual qualities of this project are in response to this relationship with 8 distinctive courtyards and roof gardens. Their mission was also to reflect the needs of the owner: to maximum density and marketable residential prototypes. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Institute of Multidisciplinarity for Art, Architecture and Design (IM) and Artgate Galleryare pleased to present an exhibition, Crisis & Design ver.1.0: Living in the Crisis Era, between Anxiety and Desire. The exhibition is on view at Artgate Gallery from November 17, 2011 through December 3, 2011. The exhibition and publication is made possible by the funding program for Next Generation Design Leaders supported by Ministry of Knowledge Economy of Korea and Korea Institute of Design Promotion.

Commissioned and curated by Changhak Choi, architect and founding director of IM, Crisis & Design ver.1.0: Living in the Crisis Era enlists twelve New York‐based architects and designers to envision solutions to issues of global crisis and examine its influence on daily routine. More information on the exhibition after the break.

JDS Architects have just shared with us their first French project in the city of Lille. The Euralille Youth Centre is a 6,000 sqm project that includes a youth hostel, offices and a kindergarten. More images and information after the break.

AD Review: From the Archives presents a wide array of architecture to feature today. While looking back over this particular week from years past we found museum and residential projects to highlight along with religious, institutional and educational architectural works.  From Poland to Israel, Chile and France, these projects are well worth a second look.

The rise in human population continues to exert enormous strain on earth’s ecosystems and finite resources. Scientific American recently devoted an issue to one solution among many needed to solve this worrisome situation. The cover reads, “We have seen a brighter future, and it is urban.” People living in dense urban environments “typically have smaller energy footprints, require less infrastructure and consume less of the world’s resources per capita.” But, what is the cost? There are always tradeoffs. Alla Katsnelson, from Scientific American, notes that city dwellers suffer “higher rates of mental illnesses, including anxiety disorders and schizophrenia” than their rural counterparts. All the factors underlying this difference are not known or well understood, but some of the possible causes appear to stem from the fact that urban environments are nothing like the ancestral environments from which our sensory systems evolved. As our hunter-gather ancestors learned during the Agriculture Revolution, our biology does not take kindly to rapid upheavals in cultural evolution. In a way, their experience somewhat parallels the one we face today. Put simply, the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent urbanization has been to our sensory systems what the agriculture revolution was to our digestive system.

On October 19th Charlie Rose interviewed OMA founding partner Rem Koolhaas (his fifth appearance on the show). The discussion ranges from Koolhaas’ current interest in the countryside, rather than the city, his firm’s newly completed Milestein Hall project at Cornell University, and the launch of the book Project Japan: Metabolism Talks written with Hans Ulrich Obrist and edited by Kayoko Ota. Watch the interview here.

Open Source Ecology

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What is design?

Conceived and promoted by the Ferrara Faculty of Architecture, Italy, with the financial support of the Fassa Bortolo company, the aim of the International Award for Sustainable Architecture, now in its ninth edition, is to contribute to the research of a system of development in the building sector. This represents one of the fields of human activity with the greatest impact on the environment, that is more sustainable than our current model, which has lead to a state of deterioration and pollution, bringing us to the verge of a global crisis of the Earth’s entire ecological system.

Opening in 2013, the Library of Birmingham will be a major new cultural destination, rewriting the book for 21st century public libraries. Designed by international architects Mecanoo, the Library of Birmingham will be located in the city’s Centenary Square. Recently, the author of the architectural videos blog shared with us his time lapse video of the building.

On November 9th at the World Financial Center, all are invited to watch twenty-six of New York City’s top architecture, engineering and design firms will spend one adrenaline-filled evening configuring over 100,000 cans of food into gravity-defying sculptures for Canstruction, an exhibition, design competition and canned food drive to help feed hungry New Yorkers in need during the Thanksgiving season. While admission is free, visitors to the exhibit are encouraged to support the cause by contributing high-quality non-perishable foods, such as tuna, beans, and canned vegetables.

An annual art show, design competition, and food drive all rolled into one, Canstruction® raises hunger awareness by challenging teams of architects and engineers to create larger-than-life pop art masterpieces made entirely out of unopened cans of food. The eye-popping results will be displayed from November 10 through 21 before being donated to City Harvest for delivery to local community food programs. More information on the exhibit and images of last year’s winners after the break.

Share WOHA’s excitement as they exhibit their broad array of works at the acclaimed Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM). Running from December 2-April 29, their first monographic exhibition will feature concepts of open structures which embrace aspects of community and permeability of form in response to climate and nature. More details on the exhibition will soon be available here.

Over 1,200 entires from 30 states and 10 countries submitted applications for the National Mall competition. Late last month fifteen design teams were chosen as finalists to advance to the second stage of this prestigious contest.

Hosting 25 million visitors annually, the National Mall will undergo an estimated $700 million restoration beginning in 2012. The competition has been broken down into three areas of restoration: Union Square including the Reflecting Pool and the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument Grounds, and the Constitution Gardens between the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

Among the finalists to move on to stage two of the competition, Diller Scofidio Renfro, Weiss/Manfredi, and Rogers Marvel Architects who are shortlisted for two out of the three areas of restoration, as well as Snohetta, Michael Maltzan Architecture, Ten Arquitectos, and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson who are finalists for one area of restoration.

“Entrants were evaluated on past design performance, philosophy, design intent, thoughtfulness, creativity and overall resume,” according to a release from the Trust of the National Mall. The jury, compiled of architects, professors and other members of the architecture community, included Michael Gericke of Pentagram NYC and Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne founder of Morphosis.

The second stage of the competition includes interviews of the teams conducted by the Trust for the National Mall and the National Park Service, and the last stage will include proposed plans for the restoration. The competition will culminate in May 2012 and the proposed designs from stage three of the competition will be available to the public prior to the winning design being selected.

Follow the break for a complete list of design finalists for the National Mall Competition.

There is something absolutely terrifying and exhilarating about the sight of a million people in one place. Tiananmen Square is that big. Or at least it seemed like it. Surely hundreds of thousands in the Square itself. But more than a million in the streets, by many estimates. The numbers came much later. At the time it was just massive. While the Square once set the logic of official Beijing, it had, at that time, been transformed into a sprawling encampment of protest.

It is 1989 and Dean is seeing the Square for the first time in many months. That morning he had arrived at the station on a filthy train packed floor-to-ceiling with stinking, sweating students from far-flung regions west. Remarkably, the trains were still running like clockwork as they delivered the ragtag throngs to the capital—even as martial law was being laid down. This was all before the gunfire and the tanks. The optimism of “eight-squared,” the pro-democracy movement, still swelled, even as hunger-strikers were passing out and garbage was accumulating. The journalists were swarming and it felt like a turning point. It was. Just not in the obvious ways.

The Art Institute of Chicago is hosting a retrospective for Bertrand Goldberg, famed architect of Marina City (1959–1967), two cylindrical corncob-shaped commercial/residential towers. The exhibition contains a range of Goldberg’s work; it begins with his work at the Bauhaus and the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition and follows his career into his visionary plans of a postwar America. The exhibition will feature architectural drawings, models, photographs, along with graphic and furniture design.

Follow us after the break for images of Goldberg’s work.

This short film by Pablo Casals-Aguirre captures the formal perfection and daily life within Louis Kahn’s architectural masterpiece, the Salk Institute. Kahn was commissioned in 1959 to design the inspiring facility for scientific research. The iconic facility became a designated San Diego Historical Landmark in 1991 and continues to attract daily admirers from all corners of the earth.

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