Greg Tran shared with us his amazing video, ‘Mediating Mediums – The Digital 3d’. The video was the Thesis Prize Winner in Harvard Graduate School of Design 2011. You can see the short version above, and if you want to check to complete version, you can watch it here: Mediating Mediums – The Digital 3d (Full Version).

live streaming video

Last week, Renzo Piano attended the opening of his newest addition to the site of Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France. Commissioned by the Association Oeuvre Notre Dame du Haut, Piano was asked to design a small visitors’ center and convent for the Poor Clare nuns who live on the grounds. When first announced in 2008, the project was in the midst of controversy as an online debate of petitions against the project – signed by Moneo, Meier and Pelli – was sent to France’s minister of culture, only to be countered with a petition in support of the project, including names such as Fuksas and Ando. Even with the conflict, Piano remained cool and collected…and a perfect fit for the job. In addition to his personal love of Le Corb’s project, Piano’s works have a certain air of sensitivty about them, a characteristic that would produce a work not to overshadow nor compete with, yet respectfully support, Corbusier’s masterpiece. “I love Le Corbusier’s building. For me, it’s a masterpiece. He made one of the most beautiful places of meditation in the world,” Piano told Arch Record.

More about the convent after the break.

The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) today held a community open house to present the schematic design for its new facility to the public. The project, designed by the renowned New York City-based firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), will unite a repurposed former UC Berkeley printing plant at 2120 Oxford Street with a new structure. More information and images after the break.

BNKR Arquitectura started this proposal with a simple but relevant question: How to conceive an icon landmark for Taichung? Their research explored a wide range of conceptual references in order to find an artistic expression that was coherent with the Taiwanese culture and society. Their main goal of this multifunctional landmark is to blend with the city, not in aesthetic terms but in the ideas of appropriation and belonging. More images and architects’ description after the break.

IN&EDIT Architecture shared with us their proposal for the Passenger Terminal Building international competition which included four vehicular bridges across the Shenzhen River. The project aims to emulate how trees are organisms that stand by themselves, so their shape has an inherent, structural rationality. As a result, public flow through the trunk and roots will guide pedestrians from one riverside to the other. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The question is whether to move forward, backward, or to remain in place. The house would be the place but now that his father had died the house was a question. Dean had been in and out of it, back and forth, for the past few months. He’d fixed some things. A coat of paint here and there. At first in preparation for his father to come home. Later for himself. Later still just for something to do.

With death comes division. The body’s cells, alarm clocks ticking down. All property follows the body into division. Collected things get distributed to other houses, other relatives. There are the morbid Craigslist strangers, those death shoppers who flock to death sales. They are related to garage sale prowlers and trash-heap diggers. They come baring claws to fight over the dead’s things, assigning new ownership and purifying.

Chris Burden’s massive kinetic sculpture, Metropolis II, will debut at at LACMA this fall. The project took Burden and his chief engineer Zak Cook four years to complete.

Our Flickr Pool has now more than 56,000 photos! As always, remember you can submit your own photo here, and don’t forget to follow us through Twitter and our Facebook Fan Page to find many more features.

The photo above was taken by toxophilite in London, England. Check the other four after the break.

Architect: Mecanoo architecten Location: Birmingham, England Photographs: Paul Reynolds, Mecanoo architects

Highlighting fashion one more time this week (take a look at An Architect’s Dress Code) we wanted to share with you this Le Corbusier inspired design. Taking a nod from one of architecture’s greats the Corneliani man for Fall/Winter 2011 is an interpretation of the Swiss architect and designer Le Corbusier’s timeless elegance and the ‘talking jacket’. Setting a scene reminiscent of a 1940s movie set the Italian brand’s new collection is described as ‘a suit with peak lapels, a soft, enveloping, deconstructed overcoat, thick glasses and a bow tie symbolise with an eccentric touch a sophisticated and relaxed chic.’

This year’s speakers include Jeanne Gang, Tom Kundig, Michael Maltzan, David Salmela, Brigitte Shim, Borja Ferrater, and Peter Walker.

The 2011 MDC will take place at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on Oct 7-9th. A complete conference schedule can fe found at the AIACC Monterey Design Conference website and to register click here.

During the MDC there will be a guided Modern Home Tour which will include visits to projects by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Bernard Trainor + Associates, Jonathan Feldman, among others.

As a teaser, you can read interviews with Jeanne Gang, and past speakers Thom Mayne, Neil Denari and Lawrence Scarpa.

More details after the break:

HENN have won the first prize in the international competition to design the Haikou Tower in Haikou, China. More information and images after the break.

Editor’s note: We welcome Bob Borson to ArchDaily. We will be presenting periodic updates from his popular blog Life of an Architect, generating a space for conversation among architects.

So school started a few weeks ago and architecture students are back in the studio environment – Aaahhhhh (breathing deeply) the familiar smell of despair, B.O. and basswood. There are a few things that I thought I would share with all you new studio rats. These are things you will probably have to figure out for yourself but I wish someone had told me some of these things when I was still spending 35 bazillion hours a week up at studio. There are many different experiences people might value from their time spent with other future architects but I would like to expose some commonly held urban legends associated with architecture and design studios.

Vert House, a low-cost sustainable house design, has been approved and adopted by Houston Habitat for Humanity. Designed by Yonatan Pressman and Courtney Benzon, graduate architecture students at Rice University, the 1,300 square-foot, 3-bedroom house will be constructed by Rice students and alumni in Spring 2012 as the Rice Centennial House, a student initiative in honor of of the university’s centennial celebrations. The design will also be added to Houston Habitat’s portfolio of home designs for additional builds in the future. More information on the project after the break.

During the last week of August, the first installment of Spielberg’s Rising aired on the Discovery Channel. Throughout the three hour segment, the documentary played to viewers’ emotions by sharing family members’ stories of that day and introducing us to a few iron workers who are slowly, but surely, bringing the Freedom Tower to life. The documentary also featured amazing visualizations showing the complex while designers’ discussed the strategies behind the project. Back in 2002, dbox: a branding & creative agency, with studios in New York, London and Taiwan, became involved with the WTC and has been working on one or more of the projects at the site. In collaborated with KPI, executive producer Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks, dbox provided brand identity, graphics, CGI and aerial cinematography for the Rising series which affords us glimpses into the future and reveals to the world the renewed skyline of New York. We love the sunlight catching the edge of the sleek Tower and, for those familiar with the PATH at the WTC, the atmosphere shown in Calatrava’s transit hub leaves us anxiously awaiting its completion. Take a look at the images and let us know which is your favorite.

View more illustrations after the break.

Idyllically located on the mud flats of the Exbury bank of the Bealieu River, The Egg is a project that young architectural practice, Perring Architecture + Design (PAD), are developing in partnership with ArtSway, a contemporary visual arts organization based in the New Forest . The project was initially conceived to bring together architects, artists and engineers to collaborate on exploring new models for rural architecture, through a series of temporary buildings in the New Forest National Park. The buildings will be a resource for interaction and debate on issues of sustainability, recycling, energy conservation and rural development, with artists’ inhabitation and activity as the catalyst. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The winners of the 3rd International Holcim Awards competition for sustainable construction projects and visions from Africa Middle East have been announced at a ceremony in Casablanca. A total of USD 300,000 was presented to ten outstanding projects submitted by architects, planners, engineers and project owners. The winning projects illustrate the broad scope of applying sustainable approaches in construction including school infrastructure, community renewal, urban redevelopment, and energy-efficient design. More information on the awards after the break.

The New Taipei City Museum of Art conceptual design proposal by Yi-Hsiang Chao Architects and Infinite Studio was initiated from a basic question: How does a museum allow the public to experience a seamless fusion between life and art? A museum is usually located at a specific place and carries certain cultural tasks. Corresponding to the competition’s objectivities, is it a dilemma or a contradiction to expect a museum to allow lives happen seamlessly with the architecture? More images and architects’ description after the break.

The second iteration of stillspotting nyc–a two-year multidisciplinary project that takes the Guggenheim’s programming into the streets of New York City–features Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and U.S. and Norway–based architecture firm Snøhetta in collaboration on urban soundscapes around Lower Manhattan. To a Great City, the Manhattan edition of stillspotting nyc, will be open to the public for two extended weekends on September 15–18 and 22–25, 2011. The installations explore the relationship between space and sound.

Five great projects from nearly two years ago for our 8th selection of previously featured institutional projects. Check them all after the break.

Rothoblaas limited Company / monovolume The Rothoblaas office is a large scale commercial operation specializing in assembling systems and power tools for the woodworking industry. Warehouse and commissioning are situated on the ground floor and a showroom can be found on the upper floor. The aim of the project was to create a compact building with a high level of recognition (read more…)

Architect Jennifer Bonner‘s installation at the Woodbury Hollywood Gallery.

“Bonner filled the gallery with water in order to provoke a discussion of crisis, flood, drought, and watershed geographies. This piece is not only timely, but critical. The question of flooded environments is not an abstraction but a reality. In an arid climate such as Los Angeles, the wet, hot, and humid installation heightens awareness of other environments and potential future scenarios.” -Mimi Zieger

Gowanus Lowline Competition: Connections will be exhibiting winning entries from the Open Ideas Competition on Thursday, September 15th, 6:00 – 9:00 pm at the SET Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Check out the winners here: Gowanus Lowline Competition Winners. The competition was framed with the goal of inspiring projects that questions and confronted urban development in postindustrial sites. The open-ended program asked for a “pedestrian-oriented architecture” that engaged the canal and the watershed, long neglected as an industrial and manufacturing zone. This competition is a first of a series that focuses on the connections in and around the canal. As it is right now, the Gowanus Canal is just out of reach, and with its levels of contamination – which the EPA is begining to address – it may be for the best.

The EPA estimates that in 2009, the United States produced approximately 486 billion pounds of solid waste, most of which could have been recycled. And where did all that solid waste go? Right into our landfills, not too far from where we live and work. The same year, 34% of municipal solid waste was recycled (compared with only 10% in 1980) but the problem remains that, according to Chemical & Engineering News, most product-design methods used today are short-sighted. Most of these products were not designed with an end-of-life solution in mind, therefore most cannot be recycled or reused.

Read on to find out what this means for design after the break.