Special thanks to Maziar Behrooz for sharing this lecture with us! Filmed during a PechaKucha event at the Parrish Art Museum, we enjoyed a good laugh while watching and hope you do, too. Behrooz’s selections made us wonder, what’s your favorite “inconvenient” piece of architecture? Be sure to share your thoughts below.

Informality, which was first categorized and described in the 1970s, is now pervasive — across cities, in the places we live, work, and move through the everyday. For many, the informal is no longer a discrete sector appended to the workings of the “formal” city, but an integral effect of the structuring of cities and landscapes by contemporary economic, political, and technological change. Self-built architectures and urban agglomerations, ambivalent landscapes, nomadic and temporal spatial manifestations of informalized are situationally specific, but globally ubiquitous. Design Tactics and the Informalized City symposium, being put on by Cornell University on April 13-14, brings a discussion of this reality to disciplines that work on the city in material and spatial terms: architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, engineering, media and product design. More information on the event after the break.

The proposal for the Wimmer Medien Business Center and Urban Development in Linz, Austria by Atelier Thomas Pucher recently won the third prize in the international invited competition. Their main concept is the creation of a 33,600 m2 gross floor area central public space that recovers the mystical feeling of the Italian piazzas, offering flexibility to host the most variety of events and activities, like ice-skating, Christmas market or outdoors cinema. This piazza is also a central point for the social life of the building, providing outdoors spaces for the offices, significant synergies for the commercial area and a feeling of the life of the city to the apartments. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Papers, projects and drawings that consider and reflect on any aspect of the changing nature of architectural teaching, practice and research, at a national or international level are welcome. Topics may include emerging technological developments; the role of the architect today; and, the value of architectural training to such diverse fields as regeneration, disaster management and sustainable development. They welcome a short description of your proposed submission in the form of an abstract. This should be in English and should not exceed 500 words. Send us your abstract by e-mail to: scroope@aha.cam.ac.uk by 1st February 2012.

As the New Year begins, architects and designers everywhere search for the latest information in hopes to find inspiration to provide them with ample amounts of motivation. Unsure of my inspiration, I found myself reading Neither Restrospective, Nor Predictive: Dieter Rams & Design of Self on the Semantic Foundry WordPress. I was then reminded of the famous German industrial designer Dieter Rams and his ten principles of “good design”. The straightforward list lays down key points, clearly stating what makes a good design. This information is a timeless source of inspiration that most any designer can appreciate.

Continue reading for Dieter Rams Ten Principles of “Good Design”

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Architects: Gem Architects Location: Filothei, Athens, Greece Design team: Gounaropoulou Despina, Emmanouilidou Vicky, Bazos Petros Construction: Gemarcon Constructions Stuctural Design : Bazos Yannis Landscape Architecture: Greenways Landscape Architecture Photographs: Kostas Vergas

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Took some time off after New Year’s? Haven’t visited us since 2011? Don’t worry… here’s our brief selection of the best of last week. Check them all after the break.

COFCO Tianjin Showroom / L&A Design Group On 2009 COFCO (China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation) Tianjin Group organized a competition for its Tianjin showroom. The brief called for facilities of a real estate sale house and a wine display club, offering a wine taste room for COFCO’s own brand -The Great Wall red wine (read more…)

The 8 House in Copenhagen, Denmark, which allows its residents to bike all the way from the street up to its 10th level penthouses, receives the 2012 AIA Institute Honor Award for Architecture that recognizes achievements that elevate the general quality of the architectural practice. The 8 House which entails 650,000 ft² is honored by the jury panel for the buildings distinctive design and ability to contribute to the city and its surroundings.

“The 8 House masterfully recreates the horizontal social connectivity and interaction of the streets of a village neighborhood through a series of delightful accessible ramps in a mixed use, multifamily housing project. The skillful shaping of the mass of the facility provides an invigorating sculptural form while creating the ramped “pedestrian” street system and providing full depth dwelling units which are filled with light and views. People really ‘live” in this newly created neighborhood with shopping, restaurants, an art gallery, office facilities, childcare, educational facilities and the sound of children playing. This is a complex and exemplary project of a new typology”. 2012 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture Jury. More after the break.

Ivan Toth Depeña’s light-based installation “Reflect” was permanently installed in the Stephen Clark Government Center Lobby in Miami in November, 2011. Commissioned by the Miami-Dade Art in Public Places initiative, the work illuminates the dynamism of the lobby space and encourages a sense of discovery in the visitors.

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Sunday implosions marked the end of the Houston historic landmark. Originally opened in 1952 by the Prudential Insurance Co., the building represented a new era of national and international dominance for the city of Houston. Serving as the southwest regional office for the insurance company until the 1970s, the 20-story building was the tallest high-rise office building outside of downtown Houston.

Continue reading for more information on the historic Prudential building.

Architectural photographer Cristobal Palma shared with us another clip of the Pabellon Ultraligero Centrifugo installation by Clavel Arquitectos, on view at the Shenzhen Civic Square. This is part of a series of installations for the 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Urbanism / Architecture Biennale, open until February 18th, 2012.

More videos by Cristobal Palma at ArchDaily:

LYCS Architecture won an invited competition for a 32,000 sqm testing and assessment research center in the city of Shenzhen. It is a mixed-use building including offices, residential and commercial. The project conceptually begins with the traditional Chinese urban design idea of a ‘miniature city’ and divides the site into 10 equal volumes. Then, the volumes are aligned corresponding to the scattered programs across the landscape. More images and architects’ description after the break.

In his State of the State address last week, New York Governor Cuomo introduced the notion of replacing the Jacob Javits Center along Manhattan’s West Side with a new convention center in Queens. Such a plan envisions a 3.8 million-square-foot exhibition center at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Jamaica, Queens – a project that would become the largest convention center in the United States and a major urban redevelopment project. Through a joint-partnership with Genting Americas, the government would provide the land and Genting would provide the $4 billion to finance the convention center. “Let’s build the largest convention center in the nation, period,” Mr. Cuomo said. “It will be all about jobs, jobs, jobs, tens of thousand of jobs.”

More about the Convention Center after the break.

Shanghai Zhangpu civic center, designed by Kalarch Design Group, is an administration and government complex organized like a city and structured in three concepts, government, business and public services. The overall circular layout is based on the shape of local traditional jade ware, which symbolizes peace and harmony. The open layout with a central courtyard also expresses their hope for a more modern and friendly government. More images and architects’ description after the break.

This time we are presenting you Thomas Mayer, Swiss architectural photographer who works for some of the worldʻs finest architects such as Frank Gehry. He learned photography in Zurich and came to Germany in 1968 where he worked until 1974 as a specialised photographer for car advertising in studio and on location. In 1974 he started to do editorial photography for Germanyʻs finest magazines such as GEO, Stern, Merian, ZEIT-Magazin, Der Spiegel and more. In cooperation with famous designer Otl Aicher he worked for companies like BMW, Lufthansa, West-LB and started to do architecture features for ERCO Lighting from 1977 until today. A long term documentation about Frank Gehryʻs Neuer Zollhof Dusseldorf 1989 – 1999. A documentation on the development of the world heritage site Zeche Zollverein 2002 – 2007 includes the development of the Zollverein School from competition til finalisation of the building.

Thomas Mayerʻs work has taken him to many places in the world and has been published in magazines, books, exhibitions and Calenders. Besides his craftmanship and strong sense of composition, his work can broadcast a visual sense of humor. He is a storyteller who does not need to resort to pathos or trickery but finds beauty in man and structures and in light and shadow instead.

The series of a pavilions with different public functions and programs by AWP + HHF Architects are part of a future 113 hectare large public green space along the Seine river, in Carrière-Sous-Poissy, at the end station of the RER line A and close the renown Villa Savoye from Le Corbusier. The Park designed by the Paris based landscape architects Agence TER will be a public park and ecological showcase for local residents and a leisure destination for people living in and around Paris. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Portland State University’s Department of Architecture recently announced that architect and professor Gilles Saucier will deliver the third presentation in their inaugural lecture series, titled “Firsts,” given by the department. Saucier is currently a design partner of Saucier + Perrotte Architects in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and an invited professor and critic at a number of Canadian and American universities, most recently at MIT in 2011.Saucier will speak on Thursday, February 23, at 7pm, at Shattuck Hall Annex on the Portland State University campus. These lecture series, which are free to the public, explore the concepts of origins and beginnings, long a subject of interest among architects. More information on the event after the break.

Tickets are now on sale for the 38th annual Wright Plus – an internationally renowned architectural housewalk featuring rare tours of eight private residences designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his contemporaries, along with three landmark Wright buildings. Participants will enjoy in-depth research of the homes’ history and architecture, including discussions of the original occupants’ lifestyles. Hosted by The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, the tour will attract visitors worldwide for an intimate look into the famous architectural styles lining the streets of Oak Park, Illinois on Saturday, June 2nd.

Continue reading for more information about the tour.

Viewpoint’s Veenarat Laohapakakul interviews Architecture for Humanity’s co-founder, Cameron Sinclair. Sinclair begins the interview by stating, “I became an architect because of bad architecture”. He dreams of holistic design that allows for communities to grow together, believing a truly sustainable building should be an important piece of the social fabric within a community that helps achieve economic stability. “Quite often our buildings are not super beautiful, their not slick, but their loved.”

The interview discusses topics such as the mission of the organization, past and current projects, the second edition of the much anticipated Design Like You Give a Damn, the Open Architecture Network and much more. Continue after the break to view parts two and three of the interview.

Mellat Bank, with its 3000 branches in Iran, is considered one the most important Iranian banks. Due to the tough competition among the Iranian banks for renovating their image, in January 2009, Mellat Bank management asked the above mentioned designers to design a new façade for its branches. In order to evaluate the sociological, technical and visual consequences of such new corporate concept, the bank decided to apply it first in the façade of an existing branch. More images and project description after the break.

The project by CHYBIK+KRISTOF Associated Architects for the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology is based on the idea of maximal respect to the character of the park’s locality in the city center for which it is designed. It is a complex of separate pavilions based on the floor plan of the existing built-up area of provisional assembled buildings, so-called likusáks. The concept of the project presupposes an interaction between education, culture and the public. Its realization will significantly contribute to revitalize the neglected eastern part of the park on Kraví hora. More images and architects‘ description after the break.

Ocubis Ltd, development manager for owners Laffly Ltd, has announced that planning permission has been granted by the London Borough of Camden in early December for the comprehensive renovation and redevelopment of 150 Holborn, situated at the corner of Holborn and Grays Inn Road. The building designed by Make Architects, which is located immediately adjacent to Chancery Lane Tube station, will be substantially remodelled and extended to create 80,000 sq ft prime office space and six one, two and three-bedroom apartments, which together complement the existing 30,000 sq ft of retail space at ground-floor level. More images and project description after the break.

Join Professor Martin Fischer in a free online course on Making Green Buildings. Starting this month, the class will focus on improving sustainability within the built environment. In this course, you will learn how to manage project teams in order to better design and construct sustainable buildings. The free course aims to spread the knowledge of the sustainable building process so everyone may participate. “Such integrated and holistic project management approach requires a new mindset and novel methods, which are taught in the class.”

Continue reading for more information on the professor and the course.

Haiko Cornelissen Architecten recently unveiled their picNYC table with a live grass table top. Inspired by wave of urban farming initiatives, the picNYC takes this concept into the house at a micro level. A folded lightweight aluminum table top and legs provide the necessary structure to support the stone drainage bed, soil and grass. With the grass option, spilling water while dining no longer becomes an issue, but rather a necessity. However, should one require a finely groomed lawn on top, the grass will need to be cut by hand. Other options suitable for the picNYC include an endless opportunity for planting with a wide range of greenery ranging from flowers, to fruits and vegetables.