The Bankside Bikeshed proposal is a prototype for a lightweight bicycle storage shelter that can be installed through London’s South Bank. The project is by James Khamsi, whose goal was to design a new “MICRON” for London, a ubiquitous and interwoven aspect of the city.

More on this project after the break.

During the earthquake last week this video was taken from the inside of the Sendai Mediatheque. The interior is heavily damaged, however the structure appears to hold up quite well.

Photos and drawings following the break.

This week our Architecture City Guide heads to the “Mile-High City”. In the shadows of the Rocky Mountains, Denver’s architecture can be as dramatic and serene as its surrounding landscape. From the moment your plane touches down at the Denver International Airport you are immersed in state-of-the-art architecture. We have included a dozen places to go once you arrive. Where else would you visit? Please leave suggestions of buildings a Denver visitor shouldn’t miss.

The Architecture City Guide: Denver list and corresponding map after the break!

Alf Naman, Developer, and Erin Boisson Aries, SVP and Director at Brown Harris Stevens, announced that, the eagerly awaited residential tower by acclaimed Los Angeles architect Neil Denari, will be ready to welcome its first occupants on June 1st. Just as the High Line has reinvigorated West Chelsea, HL23 has participated in the radical transformation of the cityscape. HL23 now stands as a new beacon for the district that has firmly established itself as a major cultural hub. All interiors are scheduled to be complete to coincide with the opening of Section 2 of the High Line.

More information and photos of this project after the break.

Recently it was reported that the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) were confronting 200 illicit architects who never obtained any recognized architecture qualification and 100 more who are qualified but have not obtained registration. Believe it or not, Ireland has just started to aggressively protect the title of architect as of late 2009, enforcing the Building Control Act 2007.

Five amazing projects from November and December 2010 for our sixth selection of previously featured industrial architecture. Check them all after the break.

Geothermal Pump Stations / PK Arkitektar In 1990 Reykjavík Geothermal Heating Authority launched an open competition for a housing design for the hot water wells. PK Arkitektrar’s provided the winning design out of over 80 entries. This is the first of these buildings with others scheduled accordingly. These structures will stand as a symbol of the city of Reykjavík’s commitment to the utilization of the natural resources (read more…)

BIG shared with us their project E2 Ecology and Economy, for which they receive 1st Prize in a prequalified competition in Finland. More images and architect’s description after the break.

International architecture, urbanism and design practice Broadway Malyan has completed the design of its first theatre in China, the Kanas Lake Performance Theatre.The new theatre, set in an area of outstanding natural beauty in the Xinjiang province of North West China, is a multi-purpose theatre for the Provincial government. It will house a 1,200 seat auditorium for performance arts including theatre, opera, musicals and dance. The design draws on powerful yet simple forms, with the theatre auditorium enclosed within two protective wings wrapping the shell as if protected within clasped hands. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architects: Atelier 11 Location: Beijing, China Design Director: Xu Lei Design Team: Ding Liqun, Gao Qinglei, Liu Heng, An Peng Construction Drawing: Xu Lei, An Peng, Gao Qinglei, Ding Liqun, Li Lei, Liu Heng, Zhu Yin, Jin Ding Client: Beijing Shi Ao Co., Ltd. Project area: 51,199 sqm Project year: 2009 – 2011 Photographs: Atelier 11

Architects: Park Associati - Filippo Pagliani, Michele Rossi with Alexia Caccavella, Alice Cuteri, Lorenzo Merloni Location: Brussels, Belgium Client: Electrolux Appliance Spa Project year: 2011 Photographs: Courtesy of Park Associati

The Green Wall at The Green Building in Louisville, Kentucky is a painting of plants that also cleans the air. “Painted” by Tracey Williams, the Garden Designer that collaborated with (fer) studio, The Green Wall gives visitors a different perspective of plants and their wonderful details.

Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of Frank Harmon Architects PA in Raleigh, will be the featured speaker for the AIA Lecture Series in San Antonio, Texas, on March 30, beginning 6 p.m. in the historic Pearl Studio conference center on Grayson Street.

Paris based architecture firm, Arkepolis, has submitted their recent project, and entry for the Center for Promotion of Science in Belgrade for our readers. The architects description and additional images are available after the break.

For the University of Southern Indiana’s new University Center, Holzman Moss Bottino Architecture designed a local landmark for the campus that aims to promote interaction among students, faculty and the community. Constructed with mostly local materials, the project boasts a salvaged 28 ft.-tall, Indiana limestone arch to mark the main entrance and the exterior is clad in slabs of quarry-faced roughback limestone, which would have otherwise been used as scrap material.

More images and more about the project after the break.

Awarded by the Interior Design Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), the prestigious Lawrence Israel Prize for 2011 has been awarded to David Rockwell. Given annually to an individual or firm whose ideas and work enrich FIT Interior Design students’ course of study. Past winners include Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis, Billie Tsien, and Charles Gwathmey.

A lot of great projects were featured last week. Like the MTV Headquarters in Berlin. Or Mies’ IBM Building in our AD Classics section. An Eco Resort in Tasmania, an amazing house in Portugal and Alibaba Headquarters in China to complete our selection. Check them all after the break.

MTV Networks Headquarters / Dan Pearlman MTV Networks’ personnel can rejoice: with the redesigned and newly organized reception, meeting and break room areas at MTV Headquarters, a long-held wish of employees becomes a reality and a once gloomy office complex on the Spree can finally function as the head offices (read more…)

Formerly called “Dagouyi” and built in 1908, Kaohsiung Port Station was the first train station in Kaohsiung and a terminal station of Taiwan north-south railway line. The freight service of the Station was terminated in 2008 that put an end to the train service of Kaohsiung Port Station. So Kaohsiung Port Station has witnessed the centurial history of Taiwan railway.

Mak Architects has submitted their proposal for the Kaohsiung Library Competition. The 38,000 sqm library, which will become the region’s main library, placed third in the competition. More images and a complete press release after the break.

Pratt Institute School of Architecture will feature four lectures this month as a part of their 2011 Spring Lecture Series. Architects and Artists will lecture about their influences, works, and careers at the Institute’s Brooklyn and Manhattan campuses. The lectures are free and open to the public.

The new addition to the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California, which spans 40 years of design and construction, is the Red Building by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. The first phase of the three-part composition is the Blue Building was completed in 1975 by Cesar Pelli when he was Partner for Design at Gruen Associates. The Green Building and an outpost for the Museum of Contemporary was added in 1988. The Red Building is a programmatic addition to the showrooms and museum of the first two structures.

More on this project after the break.

Songdo International Business District (IBD) occupies over 1,500 acres of reclaimed land on the West Coast of Incheon, Korea. This waterfront master plan includes a diverse array of programmatic elements and is designed to be a pedestrian friendly city with walkable streets and an urban density that allows for an active street life. Signature features include, the New Songdo City First World Towers, Northeast Asia Trade Tower, the 100-arce Songdo Central Park, and the Songdo City International School.

Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox Location: Incheon, Korea Photographs: H.G. Esch, KPF, Jaesung

For WORKac’s skyscraper design for the Shenzhen Metro Tower, the architects created a new a new kind of mixed density to promote a sustainable and a diverse stacked city. This vertical city holds places places of intense urban interchange that combine infrastructure, mixed uses, and public space. Located at an intersection with a horizontal crossroads of major boulevards, this vertical interchange between the underground metro, ground-level bus station, shopping podium and the offices and hotel above will essentially be linking the metro with the sky. ”We call this tower the Interchange – a vertical city that twists together natural green space with ecological systems, structural and functional efficiency with dramatic new forms and technology, while linking the underground to the sky,” added the architects.

More about the project after the break.

Debate continues on the design for the Glasgow School of Art by Steven Holl Architects in collaboration with Glasgow based JM Architects. Last month William J.R. Curtis shared his critical thoughts on the new extension, referencing the diagrams by Holl as ‘cartoonlike’, the surface choices of glass ‘monotonous’, and the external volumes as ‘clumsy’. As we all know architecture is subjective and debate should be welcomed, hopefully resulting in a smart discussion focused on providing the best design solutions for a project. A critique of an extension to a building with such importance as Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, a design that masterfully manipulates light into spaces and skillfully the nature of different materials, is expected. However, this review almost seemed personal and a bit uninformed. Curtis, during his critical rant even asks “where was the client during these intervening months?” referring to the initial announcement and presentation of Holl’s winning design and then later released drawings.

Continuing, “The unsatisfactory state of Holl’s proposal perhaps reveals what may happen when a star architect drops in from another planet and blinds a building committee with the “smoke and mirrors” of popularized phenomenology. Some good old Scottish common sense would have been in order to insist on greater rigor and a more appropriate response to the context.”

Holl took time to respond to Curtis’ article stating, “We welcome criticism as long as it’s based on an accurate understanding of our design. Unfortunately William Curtis’ article is not knowledgeable about our design,” and Holl also shares specifics about both the design material choices for the new extension (his full response following the break).

The Academy of Art University, the nation’s largest private accredited art and design university, has announced the addition of the School of Landscape Architecture.