Among the guests, there will be architects and structure designers, winners of 9 important awards, such as Residential Property Award 2011, The Emirates Leaf Glass Awards 2011, World Architecture Festival 2011 and European Steel Design Awards 2011. Alongside these experts, there are also going to be present world leaders in glass field – Saint-Gobain Glass, Guardian and AGC – and leaders in curtain walls – Permasteelisa. We invite you to INGLASS to meet those who will create tomorrow’s architecture. More after the break.

We recently received a book we wished we had earlier, Writing About Architecture. Lange’s book pulls from “lessons learned from her courses at New York University and the School of Visual Arts.”  ”The book offers works by some of the best architecture critics of the twentieth century including Ada Louise Huxtable, Lewis Mumford, Herbert Muschamp, Michael Sorkin, Charles Moore, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Jane Jacobs to explains some of the most successful methods with which to approach architectural criticism.” The book “could serve as the primary text for a course on criticism for undergraduates or architecture and design majors.” We here at ArchDaily are now using it as a resource. We have a feeling the pages will be worn through pretty quickly.

Designed for the Boral Brick Awards 2011-2012, ‘The Urban Cloak’ proposal by Jonathan Gibb is an addition to an existing inner city 2 storey brick building, to adapt and add a multi-levelled apartment building. A cloaked figure; standing amongst the debris of style, industry and waste: veiled by a multiplicity of individual bricks, reading as one. At once a sun and rain screen, and veiling against on-lookers sight. The existing building is left, but affected by the new. Its old roof is discarded and the paint of the facade shed, revealing the identity of the brick. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Memory Cloud is the winning commission awarded to RE:site (Norman Lee and Shane Allbritton, Artists website: www.resitestudio.com) and METALAB (Andrew Vrana, Joe Meppelink and Michael Gonzales, Architecture + Fabrication) by Texas A&M University for the new Memorial Student Center 12th Man Hall. Through a competition and short-list interview process the team demonstrated the ability to harness the potential of programmable LEDs, remote sensing, parametric design and digital fabrication to create an open ended narrative of the story of the University through animated silhouette imagery of past and real-time present student life on the campus.

Memory Cloud will be installed in December of 2012. Continue after the break for more images, video and the designer’s project description.

If you are in the Bay Area this weekend, we recommend you stop in at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and check out their current exhibit The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area. This exhibition is the first of its kind, featuring Buckminster Fuller’s most iconic projects as well a focus on his local design legacy in the Bay Area. Though he was never a resident, Fuller’s ideas inspired many local experiments in the realms of technology, engineering and sustainability. Continue reading for more information.

+ 16

As you may have heard,The New Yorker’s Architect Critic, Paul Goldberger, is leaving for Vanity Fair.

If this registers no reaction from you, let me explain why it should. Paul Goldberger is the crowned prince of criticism. He began his career at The New York Times in 1972, where he worked under Ada Louise Huxtable, our reigning critical queen, and where he won a Pulitzer Prize. In 1997, he switched media empires:

“I thought it was as perfect a life as you could have,” Goldberger told The Observer, “to spend half your career at The Times, half at The New Yorker.”

But, after years of “fighting for adequate space” in an increasingly shrinking column, Goldberger won’t be finishing his writing days as Architect Critic of The New Yorker, but as Contributing Editor of Vanity Fair.

Many will conclude that this is a death knell for architecture; that if architecture cannot justify its own column at The New Yorker, one of the most influential publications in the world, then it must no longer be deemed relevant. This is what happened when Michael Kimmelman, an Arts reporter with no architectural training was appointed to cover architecture at The Times. Critics tweeted: “NYT to Architecture of NYC: Drop Dead” and “Architecture: you’ve been demoted.”

I too will add a cry to the din: “The Architecture Critic is Dead!” But you know what? Good riddance. Because criticism hasn’t died the way you think. It’s just been changed beyond recognition. And frankly, for the better.

Read more on the transformation of architecture & its criticism after the break…

The Aliah Project, a hotel for a green World Cup, designed by Hiperstudio + Arkiz has been awarded as the winner of a competition organized by Aliah, a company which promotes sustainable development through practices and businesses that are profitable with a positive socio-environmental impact. A sustainable luxury hotel complex for the 2014 World Cup, their design serves as a model of sustainable architecture by disseminating innovative concepts that promote a green lifestyle. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The proposal for the new church in Våler by We Are You plays an important role in the landscape marking a new chapter in the history of Våler and presenting itself as a public meeting place for the people. This is demonstrated through its archetypal form and somewhat enigmatic exterior which create these expectations. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Three companies demonstrated their commitment to the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. by recreating significant works in LEGO® bricks in the spirit of the Museum’s current and landmark exhibition LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition. These three new models, containing more than 77,000 LEGO® bricks join the gallery already showcasing LEGO® models of 15 of the world’s most iconic buildings.

The original 15 were created by LEGO® certified professional Adam Reed Tucker, one of only 11 LEGO® certified professionals in the world. The Museum’s LEGO® Architecture exhibition is among the most popular in Museum history and has had more than 214,000 visitors since it opened in July 2010 and will be exhibited until September 3, 2012. More information on the exhibition after the break.

As cities grapple with budget cuts and rising infrastructure costs, the value of removing costly freeways has been gaining more attention. Boulevard conversions are now being considered as a cost-effective, practical alternative to rebuilding expensive expressways. At first, most residents gasp at the thought of removing their local freeway and for good reason; it seems counterintuitive. Nobody likes it when their drive home is prolonged due to heavy bumper-to-bumper traffic, so we should make our freeways wider! Not tear them down…right?

John Norquist, former Mayor of Milwaukee (1988-2004), current CEO of the Congress for New Urbanism and author of The Wealth of Cities, was recently interviewed by Next American City to discuss highway removal and “our congestion obsession”. Norquist’s best known achievement as Mayor of Milwaukee was demolishing the Park East Freeway – 1960s-era expressway that restricted access to the city’s downtown.

Continue reading after the break for more on this subject and to view the top twelve freeways pending their demise.

Imagine Jeanne Gang’s Starlight Theater. You are standing under the origami-shaped roof as it begins to open like petals on a flower. One moment you are sheltered by a heavy metal roof and the next you are staring up at the blue sky. Many expect architectural filmmakers have the goal of recreating architectural experiences such as these, however architectural filmmaker Red Mike disagrees. He believes film is not meant to compete with the actually experience of architecture, but rather “help communicate architecture for the betterment of architecture.”

Arizona’s Phoenix Children’s Hospital, designed and renovated by HKS Architects, is an 11-story tower facility that is one of the largest pediatric campuses in the country. The building is part of a larger campus and a part of Phoenix’s community, which was a factor in determining the aesthetics of the new architecture. The design team was challenged to enhance the campus, improving upon its existing planning and flexibility, and staying true to the facility’s vision of providing children’s care in a comfortable atmosphere.

More on this project after the break.

+ 23

Born in Munster – Germany and now based in Berlin, Christian Richters‘ working area is currently all over Europe, the USA and Asia, shooting projects for some renown architects like Bernard Tschumi, Toyo Ito, Zaha Hadid, UN Studio and David Chipperfield among others. He studied design and photography at the Folkwang Art School in Essen, but it was architecture that finally drove his career to the next level… And we are very lucky for that. He now works with VIEW Pictures, where you can check out his extensive portfolio of amazing architecture.

1. When and how did you start photographing architecture?

I have always been photographing – it started as a hobby when I was a young boy, and already then it was buildings, streets, industrial sites, ships which fascinated me.

After finishing my studies at Folkwang Art School in Essen, Germany, I initially mainly photographed historic architecture for books and magazines. In the early 1990s there was a shift towards contemporary architecture, and more and more architects were becoming my clients. This is what I am focussed on today, but I still maintain working on long-term historic projects for book publishers or NGOs.

New Finnish Architecture – The New Generation, taking place April 20-21 in New York, will include two events on young architects & architecture practices by Newly Dawn – Emerging Finnish Architects. The events introduce the most interesting young, up-and-coming Finnish architects and their latest projects, visions and ways of working. Social interaction, pleasant user experience and transparency have appeared as key elements in emerging Finnish architectural offices. The architects Janne Teräsvirta (ALA Architects), Anu Puustinen (Avanto Architects), Mikko Summanen (K2S Architects) and Tuomas Toivonen (NOW for Architecture and Urbanism) will offer a fresh look into some of their upcoming projects and the latest developments in Finnish architecture. More information on the events after the break.

theCharrette, an architecture and design publication written and produced by students at the Tulane School of Architecture, focuses on the power of journalism to expose and investigate themes, trends, and subtleties in an interdisciplinary context both within the city of New Orleans and at a larger international scale. You can check out their publication here, and look forward to a larger complimentary issue coming in May as well.

The Skanska: Bridging Prague International Design Competition, announced by reSITE Festival, ARCHIP (Architectural Institute in Prague) and Skanska, seeks to find new conceptions and proposals for the River Vltava, in Prague, Czech Republic. The scope of the competition is the Vltava riverbank and its immediate context from Libensky Most (Bridge) to the north to Zeleznicni most (Railway Bridge) to the south. This section of the river has really various character and quality on both riverbanks, which gives competitors a chance to select and work on a wide scope of places and areas. The proposals should use existing potential of the Vltava river, define its connection with the city – and lead to creation of attractive public spaces of adequate scale, living by a variety of activities. More information on the competition after the break.

gmp Architekten was recently awarded the first prize in the international competition to build the Culture Center in the newly created Changzhou city center. With a total floor area of 365,000 square meters, the building in this city of three million, between Wuxi and Nanjing, is six times the size of the Louvre in Paris. Reflecting elements of Changzhou’s southern Chinese culture and the city’s prominent water features, their design includes a number of museums such as an arts museum, a science and technology museum and a library, together with service facilities supporting the center for culture in the Xinbei district of the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Dr. Margot Krasojevic is known for using digital parameters to explore the psychological effects of architecture – materials and spatiality – on its inhabitants. The Hanging Hotel / Suspended Campsite is one such project that was completed in October 2011 for Holden Manz Wine Estate Cape Town in Massif de L’ Esterel, (Gorges Du Vedron) South of France. The project is an investigation in the choreography of perceptions of the environment around us. In this particular project, catering to rock climbers, Dr. Krasojevic uses compound glass and a prism louver system to alter how the climbers see their environment and stimulates different psychological experiences based on these subtle shifts in vision.

More on this project after the break.

+ 13

After remaining on hold since 2005, the General Services Administration (GSA) has reinstated plans to construct a new U.S. Courthouse in downtown LA. The 3.7 acre dirt lot at 107 South Broadway, down the street from Morphosis’ Caltrans building, LA’s City Hall, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, has remained dormant since 2007; shortly after the GSA abandoned Perkins + Will’s estimated $1.1 billion conceptual design due to rising costs. Now, plans for the courthouse have been scaled back and the GSA has just released the shortlisted teams competing of the project. Continue reading after the break to see who made the cut.

Created by Reiser + Umemoto for the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale, “Manhattan Memorious” explores what Manhattan could have been. The film visualizes several unrealized projects from Manhattan, including Buckminster Fuller’s dome over Midtown, Rem Koolhaas’ City of the Captive Globe, RUR’s East River Corridor, Paul Rudolph’s Eastside Redevelopment Corridor, Morphosis’ West Side Yard and others.