Designers in the Northwest and Pacific Region create some of the world’s most sustainable buildings. What Makes it GREEN? (WMIG?) celebrates your achievements and the interdisciplinary teamwork required to meet the 2030 Challenge. Through live interviews with shortlisted project teams on April 18, WMIG? will educate and inspire the larger design community with creative solutions for sustainability.

The spring 2012 lecture series at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture started on February 13th with Patrik Schumacher and concludes with the ‘Transactions’ lecture on April 9th. All lectures are free and open to the public and take place at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media + Performing Arts Center at 6pm unless otherwise noted. More information on the lecture series after the break.

Opening this Saturday, February 18th, from 6pm-8pm at the STORE gallery in Pioneer Place, the ‘Toward a Nomadic Architecture’ Exhibition will be taking a look at the nomadic movements of different cultures. Centered around an academic course on the topic of nomadic architecture, students at Portland State University’s Department of Architecture, their research and investigations have led them to the presented work which can be seen in their exhibition. More information on the event after the break.

As a young architect and recent graduate of Kansas State University, Nicholas Kreitler shares with us five important recommendations for every graduate entering into the “real world”. Please feel free to add your recommendations in the comment section below.

Every school has a dif­fer­ent way of teach­ing their stu­dents, some take an approach focused on the­o­ry, some do it on prac­ti­cal experience and some try to take a bal­anced approach. Each of these have their advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages, but I’m not look­ing to dis­cuss the cur­ricu­lum. I’d like to dis­cuss some of the things that were left out. Some­times there are just things that only real world expe­ri­ence can teach you. Now I am far from know­ing every­thing, if I know any­thing at all, but I have a seen a few glim­mers of hope on the hori­zon and that con­tin­ues to keep me moti­vat­ed. I have found that we are all search­ing for our place in this ever chang­ing world and a lit­tle advice is never a bad thing.

ArchDaily announced the winning proposal for the 2012 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program (YAP) earlier this month. In order to bring you full coverage of the annual competition, we are featuring the other four creative designs that competed against HWKN’s Wendy. Virtual Water, a collaborative design brought to you by UrbanLab, endrestudio and Method Design, formally manifests what is hidden in plain sight: RAIN. The project reveals and plays with thousands of gallons of summertime rainwater that would otherwise be discarded from the PS1 courtyard.

Virtual Water refers to water hidden in everyday products. A pair of jeans, for example, has a 3000 gallon Virtual Water footprint because 3000 gallons of water are consumed in the various steps of its production chain (growing the cotton, dyeing the fabric, etc).

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It is such a great pleasure for ArchDaily to promote David Stark Wilson’s photographic exploration Structures of Utility. We have feature Wilson’s firm WA Design on ArchDaily, but this book offer something uniquely different. Wilson traveled the back roads of California’s Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada foothills and captured the haunting beauty of utility buildings. These are buildings that would not otherwise be featured on ArchDaily, unless an architect did a remodel, but the photographs bring home the obvious point that design inspiration often lies far outside the realm of award winning and highly publicized buildings. The photographs are absolutely gripping. For a peak inside see more after the break.

CLIC Architecture shared with is us their first prize winning proposal in the Europan 11 Competition. Their proposal for Stains, France aims to connect, under an always changing seasonal landscape, all metropolitan scales from public space to housing issues, from global to local scales. The design also acts as the multi-modal hub (metro, train) for a three-dimensional subtle interconnection of public space, mobility nods and private business complexes. More images and architects’ description after the break.

As part of a resort development, the first prize proposal for Sanya Block 5 by NL Architects consists of 8 blocks of 6 stories on top of a ground floor with restaurants, bars and retail. Located in the Hainan Province and the southernmost city in China, Sanya is well known for its tropical climate and popular tourist destination. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Assael Architecture recently shared its vision for the Dreamland Margate, one of Britain’s most famous seaside amusement parks, into whether Thanet District Council will be allowed to compulsorily purchase the former fun park. Assael is the fifth architectural practice to be appointed and the only one to protect and reuse the Grade II* Cinema and Scenic Railway as part of a low density housing scheme designed to attract inward investment. Assael’s scheme for Margate Town Center Regeneration Company (MTCRC) will provide a vibrant cultural and amusement hub surrounded by its residential scheme of about 474 homes, comprising mostly high quality terraced houses. More images and architects’ description after the break.

In reference to Living Steel‘s 3rd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing, Glen Murcutt discusses his ideas surrounding the issue of sustainability. He emphasizes the strategies employed by the top contenders such as the planning of orientation, thermal performance, and human effort in addition to other variables involved in sustainable architecture. One particular method that Murcutt stresses is using materials that can dissolve back into the earth, citing earth walls as an excellent medium to build with and their inherent thermal mass qualities. Each team was invited to present their ideas in person, a variation from previous years which Murcutt believes led to the highest quality of work and diversity of the competition series.

ArchDaily announced the winning proposal for the 2012 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program (YAP) earlier this month. In order to bring you full coverage of the annual competition, we are featuring the other four creative designs that competed against HWKN’s Wendy. AEDS’s (Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio) proposal creates a 21st century urban oasis in the fabled courtyard of PS1. The design encourages visitors to meander through a maze-like field of objects, enticing them to take up different paths, creating distinct experiential moments. This anti-monumental, anti-plop art approach is acutely attuned to both the human scale and the elemental senses.

For perhaps the first time, the entire courtyard will be activated throughout the day and long into the night, inspiring a voyeuristic curiosity, a desire to explore and inhabit hidden “moments.” A stream of water carves a path between the objects, stitching together three main spaces defined by the experiences of Water, Mist and Vegetation. At night, diffused light is fragmented through the digitally fabricated patterns that perforate the surface of the objects.

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A short time ago we received the book Alvar Aalto: The Mark of the Hand. Before you Aalto fans get jealous of our newly acquired treasure, we want you to know that we received several copies and will be doing a giveaway in the near future. So keep yours eyes out, here and on our facebook page. The book is a collection of conversations recorded between members of Aalto’s atelier. It is a unique view into the process of this great architect and his team. It shows the personal side of Aalto, both the bad and good. Sometimes we get lost in the artistry of his works, and it is nice to see the context in which the works were developed.

Lund + Slaatto Architects, in collaboration with schmidt hammer lassen architects, were recently awarded second place in the competition for the extension of the Stavanger Museum of Archeology. Though very vibrant and active, the premises of the museum are currently unsuitable and small. Therefore, the aim of the competition was to create an extension that forms the museum’s new main facade and which primarily provides space for the exhibition and education. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The project of the Shanxi opera house in Taiyuan, designed by Arte Charpentier Architectes, is at the heart of challenges such as the rapid development of the city and imposing reflections on its planning and scope. Situated in the new district of Changfeng, in the heart of a green island, it participates in the creation of a new centrality for the city. More images and project description after the break.

The world-renowned architect, engineer and artist, Santiago Calatrava was recently commissioned by Yuan Ze University in Taiwan to design an ambitious new building complex for its campus. The ambitious project, which will consist of a Performing Arts Center, a new Art and Design School and the Y.Z. Hsu Memorial Hall, which is dedicated to the university’s founder, Mr. Yu-Ziang Hsu, will mark Mr. Calatrava’s architectural debut in the country. More project description after the break.

Nearly two years after OMA was announced the winner of a two-stage international competition, the construction of the new Taipei Performing Arts Center has commenced. This ambitious project, led by OMA partners Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten, generated a lot of debate among architects when it was announced back in 2009 due to its particular form. Morphed by a series of programmatic operations, the form intersects three types of theater in order to accommodate a variety of performances.

The Proscenium Playhouse, which seats 800, is expressed on the exterior as a large sphere while the other two theaters, respectively capable of seating 1,500 and 800, are represented as peripheric cubes. All the stage accommodations are brought together within the central cube, allowing for more flexibility as theaters can be used independently or combined, thus expanding the possibilities for experimental performances – an art that is very strong in Taiwan. At the same time, and in a similar way as OMA’s CCTV building in Beijing, China, a “public loop” channels circulation through the building, exposing the spaces that make the TPAC work, areas typically are hidden from the public but are as revealing as the performances themselves.

In this aspect, the building is like a machine at work with its engine exposed, somehow reminding me of OMA’s Prada Transformer – a machine-like building (the anti-blob) that changed its configuration to host different types of events.

The 180 million dollar project is set to be completed in 2015. More details, including sections and updated renders, after the break:

We have just passed 70,000 photos in our Flickr Pool! 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 Vesper Hsieh in Tenerife, Spain. Check the other four after the break.

RIBA President Angela Brady discusses design in 2012 with British architect Richard Rogers. Together, they discuss the important issues surrounding housing and cities, both agreeing that “intensification is critical”. Homes built within a compact city are said to be five times more efficient than those built outside the city. This realization is an important fact that should guide government officials, builders and architects to work together towards more intelligent and beneficial growth patterns.

The controversy surrounding Frank Gehry’s proposal for the Eisenhower Memorial has just reached new heights as the Chicago Tribune’s Blair Kamin has recently published a 1,500-word essay, written by the influential neo-traditionalist architect Leon Krier, that bashes Gehry’s proposal and ideology. Krier calls Gehry a “greatly confused artist” who’s “style is a century old” and “seems “innovative” only to the ignorant”. Kier continues to claim the commission who appointed Gehry’s design “shares his [Gehry’s] intellectual confusion and distaste of classical Washington D.C.” Continue reading for more.

The ‘Now Boarding: Fentress Airports + the Architecture of Flight’ exhibition, opening July 15 until October 7 at the Denver Art Musuem, will take visitors on a multi-media tour of airport design of the past, present and future. Visitors will journey through six airports designed by Denver-based Fentress Architects, encountering sketches, renderings, photographs, video installations and large models of these technically advanced public spaces. More information on the exhibition after the break.

Last September, we attended MoMA’s PS 1 Open Studio event to catch a glimpse of the collaborative projects of five multidisciplinary teams focusing on how to re-think, re-organize and re-energize the concept of an American suburb in the wake of the foreclosure crisis. When we visited, the teams were in the final stages of their designs and preparing to send their visions to the Museum of Modern Art for the exhibition “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream. One of the team’s we talked with was WORK Architecture Company about their Nature-City proposal, an extension of the suburb whichhas been designed in an abstracted way to serve as a plug in model to create cities elsewhere.

More about Nature-City after the break.

Architect: Koichi Futatsumata from CASE-REAL Location: Kumamoto, Japan Use: Hair Salon Completion: 2010 Scale: 2 story Flooring area: 118.0m2 Photographs: Shiraki Yoshikazu

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The proposed pavilion, designed by CLP Arquitectos, for the Archi competition, consisted of 20 m2 of floor space to be constructed in a protected natural area in Muttersholtz, Alsace. With a limited budget of 7000 Euros, the commission allowed them to seek for a precise and careful architecture. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Modern was probably dead to begin with.

But, in his youth, he achieved fame by removing elements, simplifying, and arranging order. We were infatuated with his purity. With Modern, we stood in front of a blank canvas that seemed to clear away our past regressions, and promised a future of precision and clarity. Modern was singular and lovely, like silence.

At his height, he traveled extensively, leaving simple white calling cards as far aboard as Switzerland and Barcelona.