The prestigious recognition of France’s Legion of Honour, was recently bestowed upon MVRDV’s Winy Maas. A French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, on 19 May 1802, it is the highest decoration in France and was given to Mass by French Ambassador to the Netherlands Mr. Jean-François Blarel.

Thinking of going out for a bite tonight? Here are five great restaurants to get you inspired! Check them all after the break.

Cave Restaurant / Koichi Takada Architects We aim to change the way we eat and chat in restaurants. The acoustic quality of restaurants contributes to the comfort and enjoyment of a dining experience. We have experimented with noise levels in relation to the comfort of dining and the ambience a cave like environment can create. The timber profiles generate a sound studio atmosphere, and a pleasant ‘noise’ of dining conversation, offering a more intimate experience as well as a visually interesting and complex surrounding (read more…)

Animal Architecture wants to hear your ideas. Animal Architecture (formed in 2009) is dedicated to providing a forum for addressing the myriad issues arising from the complex interactions between animals and human society. The lens of our focus is Architecture. The aim of our study is to again see ourselves as partners in an intimate and reciprocal relationship with larger (sometime smaller) ecological forces.

Yamasaki Ku Hong Associates Design Lab has been awarded first prize for the invited design competition for a new landmark shopping center in Buyeo, Korea. Additional images of the project and the architects process can be viewed after the jump.

Maxthreads Architectural Design of Edinburgh has shared with ArchDaily their second stage design proposal for the Kaohsiung Port Station Urban Design competition, additional images and text after the break.

Our friends from myLapse shared with us a timelapse video on the construction of Diagonal ZeroZero Building, designed by Enric Massip Bosch in Barcelona. The video was made with more than 500,000 photos, 600 hours on site, 400 hours of post production and more than two terabytes of material. Hope you enjoy it!

About an hour car ride outside of Madrid, Spain, is a tiny rural village that just a few years ago had high hopes for an abundant housing market. Yebes is now an example of the economic crisis that has affected the growth of cities. With an excess of 250 row houses, of which only 50 are settled, bad debt has caused these new homes to fall into disrepair with concrete chipping off the buildings, stolen piping, radiators and doors and ghostly empty streets.

Read on for more information after the break.

Through May 17th, Tomas Saraceno’s ‘Cloud City’ at the Carpenter City is one of three major works of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design exhibition, The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is an “exploration of the emerging domain of experimental spatial practice where the concerns of art, design, and activism are powerfully converging today.”

Arup, the engineering firm behind dozens of architectural masterpieces [check out our coverage of ARUP here], has opened three new architecture offices, officially known as Arup Associates. Stretching to Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzehen, the overseas expansion marks the first of its kind for the 65 year old practice. These offices will employ about 15 architects and 12 engineers. While Arup’s London office has faced declined in the recent years, the Chinese offices are already thriving with the design of a campus for Nokia and an insurance building for Ding He in Shenzhen. Declan O’Carroll, Arup’s head of global architecture, told the British publication Building Design, “The traditional model of the Western international practice has been to have a shop window in developing countries but with the work executed back at home. We are looking at a much more fluid, unorthodox model.”

Pratt Show 2011 is designed to give industry professionals and the public a chance to see the best work of students in Pratt’s design programs, many of whom will go on to become masters in these industries. Pratt Show 2011 will also feature for the first time products designed in collaboration with corporate sponsored studios and iconic corporations such as Barnes & Noble, Cabot Wrenn, Cotton Incorporated, Nachtmann, Umbra, and West Elm.

Houses, museums and forgotten Yugoslavian monuments. All part of our selection of the best from last week. Check them all after the break.

Concrete Slit House / AZL architects Concrete Slit House is a contemporary concrete residence enmeshed within a quiet Kuomingtang-era neighborhood in central Nanjing. The entire structure and roof are made from concrete pressed into a custom mould, handmade from five-centimeter horizontal wood strips to remain in scale with the adjacent century-old brick buildings (read more…)

The exhibition will show ten of OMA’s Masterplanning commissions which are now either on-hold or discontinued: an urban regeneration project in White City, London, a project for the ‘Nuova Bovisa’ science city in Milan, and a selection of projects in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Herman’s Square, the new business residential building by Arhimetrics + Enota, is located at an important location in the old city centre in Celje. The land intended for construction is a part of a larger degraded non-built up area, which was somewhat forgotten for decades and exempt from the development of the city. Through the years a very heterogeneous structure evolved around this “wound” in the urban tissue, which was untouched for a long time. It is now surrounded by a range of modern construction in an area that has extensive open space intended for a future park along the Savinja River.

More on this project after the break.

This is a vertically integrated neighborhood 22 stories in height consisting of 140 residential condominiums. The basis of the building design was to develop a vertically integrated neighborhood, with an emphasis on identity, connectivity to neighbors and gathering spaces.

Architect: Circle West Architects Location: 948 + 1000 East Apache Blvd. Tempe, Arizona, USA General Contractor: Wespac Construction Structural Engineer: Paul Koehler Civil Engineer: Site Consultants Electrical Engineer: CR Engineers Mechanical & Plumbing Engineer: Professional Consulting Engineers Project Area: 375,000 sqf Project Year: 2006 Photographs: Courtesy of Circle West Architects

2×8 Mission: The AIA|LA Academic Outreach Committee, having established the AIA|LA AOC Scholarship Fund and awarded prizes and scholarships since the inception of 2×8 in 2002, is working aggressively this year to solidify a long-term endowment towards to recognizing and supporting future generations of emerging Architects. Winning students will take home scholarships in varying amounts. So far, 2×8 exhibitions have raised close to $100,000 in scholarship funds redistributed to California design students. Remaining donations are put toward an ever-growing endowment established for future student scholarships.

Corazon Sur Pueblo is a proposal for a Library Park that will function as the heart of Puebla, Mexico, a city where infrastructure, services, and education are scarce. Rondero Carpena Arquitectos, Luisa Marti and COR & Partners envision an architectural program that will revive vital parts of the neighborhood and create a sustainable social system where the people will experience increased quality of life, education, and an expansion of opportunities.

Read on for information on this proposal after the break.

Silvertree, designed by Studio RHE, is a landmark 24-storey ‘green’ apartment tower located in London’s Royal Docks. It has been granted planning approval and will commence construction in summer 2011. The mixed-use tower will house 161 high-quality 2-3 bedroom apartments, retail and office space and a cafe.

For more on this project, read on after the break.

Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Three to Now’ is part of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design exhibition, The Divine Comedy. On display at Gund Hall through May 17th this major work is a piece of an “exploration of the emerging domain of experimental spatial practice where the concerns of art, design, and activism are powerfully converging today.”

Are you ready to be an entrepreneur? Whether converting your freelance stance or pivoting from corporate to sole proprietor, it is important to understand the local challenges and options for your business. The evening will begin with cocktails and networking followed by a presentation on starting your own business.

Australian practice INDEX Architecture has been shortlisted in the “Urban Landscaping in Kiev for Euro 2012” competition. The competition, which was recently completed at the CANaction 2011 Architecture Festival in Kyiv, sought submissions tackling some of the latent urban problems facing the city today and proposing solutions that could be achieved in time for the EURO 2012 football tournament, which the Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland. INDEX’s proposal sought to reconnect the city of Kiev with its waterfront area and the Dnieper River in a project called “Eroding the Edge.”

Read on for more after the break.

The Groundbreaking Women in Construction conference, May 9th and 10th, is an opportunity for business owners, entrepreneurs or women rising through ranks in construction, design or engineering firm, to join national and global women leaders for Engineering News-Record’s second annual leadership conference for women.

The design of a resort in Lago do Manso, by ABA, arises within the role of private investments for the 2014 World Cup in the region of Mato Grosso. The need for the creation of hotels with quality and dimension to host this event, as well as the potential that the Lago do Manso and the Pantanal region have in terms of tourism, spurred the creation of this venture. More images and architects’ description after the break.

In March of 2011, a design-build class from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) received a grant in support of their efforts to design a shelter for disaster relief. The money from the grant was used to travel to Haiti to see conditions on the ground, 14 months after the earthquake that reportedly amassed some 230,000 fatalities.

The goal of the trip was to investigate the myriads of different shelter construction projects still ongoing as Haiti transitions from the emergency tents and tarpaulins that still populate the landscape, into temporary housing for the foreseeable future until permanent housing can be provided through rebuilding.

One of the more ambitious and impressionable projects we came across was the UberShelter.

The Horbury Hunt Award recognises excellence and innovation in built projects. Also recognising the collaboration of a project team to deliver architectural outcomes. The Award rewards innovation and craftsmanship in brickwork and recognises the contribution of all parties in that process. The Horbury Hunt Awards includes commercial as well as residential and landscape built projects.