The Mies van der Rohe Society recently released their newly designed website. Some of the features we like are the detailed building biographies, sketches, models, 3D renderings, and photographs that showcase the buildings Mies designed.

We shared PRAXIS’ ninth issue with you a few days ago, and we are excited to feature their tenth issue today. Entitled Urban Matters, this issue focuses on the challenges hyper-metropolises present – specifically, as editors Amanda Reeser Lawrence and Ashley Schafer comment in their introduction, how “to mediate between expansion and liveability” to define and shape the ever changing, and ever growing, urban condition. Architecture and the urban are encouraged to be in constant dialogue; an interconnected network which balances the macro “environmental, topographic, social/political, and technological” to form, and potentially, uplift the micro urban quality of our metropolises.

Defining the City The construction of a city involves how is it defined, understood and experienced. These processes and definitions diverge wildly depending upon one’s location: East or West. Heretofore, western architects have subjected analysis of “The City” in China, indeed all of Asia, to a set of western-privileging universals for both physical and epistemological constructions.

More after the break.

This years architectural events in New York are bound to have a meaningful effect on the years to come; the decision by NYU to add another tower complementing I.M Pei’s existing Silver Towers complex (rather than their initial plan to demolish them), the opening of the first section of Brooklyn Bridge Park coupled with the completion of the High Line has re-established New York City as a key model to reference when it comes to designing urban public space, and finally construction began on Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, by Louis Kahn, to name a few.

From transportation, urban planning, exhibitions, residential and office buildings follow the break to see the New Yorkers list of some of the most influential decisions surrounding architecture over the past year in New York.

A couple days ago, we featured Wolfgang Tschapeller‘s entry for the international competition initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. Now, Milos Zivkovic, Nebojsa Stevanovic, Janko Tadic, Aleksandar Gusic and Slobodanka Tadic have teamed up for this competition and shared with us their entry for The Center for Promotion of Science where they aim to mitigate the many problems New Belgrade creates for its citizens by creating different environments through a continuous movement within the space. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Now, they are presenting an eBook in continuation to the original, with more insight from more women professionals, plus a few talented emerging ones. The eBook is in PDF and a portion of the sales will go to the fund. To find out more about the fund click here. You can find the eBook here.

Recent graduates of the University of Western Australia shared with us their 5th year work studying Soviet Constructivism by researching, analyzing and reproducing various significant buildings from the movement. Additional images of the collection are available after the break.

Interesting book on patterns in architecture written by Paul Andersen and David Salomon.

We first heard from Paul, founder of !ndie Architecture, when he was on the short list for the 2009 P.S.1 YAP competition with his entry Lawn Life, a surburban-inspired synthetic turf lawn related to Paul’s studies on suburbia.

The book analyzes projects from several firms (Atelier Manferdini, BIG, Ciro Najle, EMERGENT/Thomas Wiscombe, Foreign Office Architects, Jason Payne and Heather Roberge, Herzog & de Meuron, J. Mayer H. Architects, Reiser+Umemoto, Responsive Systems Group, and !ndie architecture) to discover the relation of patterns in architecture at several scales.

Full index, editorial and photos after the break.

As 2010 comes to an end we wanted to share with you some of the highlights from Architecture for Humanity. AFH has been involved in fifty three projects this year, completing a project on each continent. Follow the break for AFH’s 2010 By The Numbers.

Five amazing photos for our last Flickr Round Up of the year! 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 asli aydin in Lausanne, Switzerland. Check the other four after the break.

Buensalido Architects, based on the city of Makati, Philippines, shared with us their proposal for an airport competition in Caticlan Island, the gateway to Boracay Island. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Luis Banazol submitted this proposal for the International Competition for the design of the Intercontinental, a hotel and business center in Yerevan, Armenia. The concept for the building comes from the perceptions of the connection between art and technology. It is derived from the architect’s own reflection on art that expresses the way people live and think, and technology as that which transports us beyond that expression. The Intercontinental is an architectural proposal in space and light with the users as the net of expressions that gives technology the meaning to exist.

More on this project after the break.

Paolo Cucchi Architects, based in Italy and Malaysia, shared with us their proposal for the Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Service Centre International Competition. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Design Initiatives, an innovative, award-winning architecture practice based in Los Angeles, California and Sofia, Bulgaria, shared with us their proposal for A Room for London, a competition for a temporary demountable hotel room for up to two guests on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London during the Olympic year of 2012. Designed as a boundary structure floating in space between ground and sky, their proposal employs the dialectical contrast of active OR passive. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Check out this video of a tour through Taliesin West, FLW’s desert masterpiece and architectural campus for apprentices.  Located in the Sonoran desert of Scottsdale, Arizona, the project sits in perfect harmony with its surroundings with regards to scale, materiality, and aesthetics. Dating back to the 1930s, Taliesin has been a place of learning, and currently, the building serves as the main campus of the FLW School of Architecture and is home to the FLW Foundation.

New Year’s Resolutions for principal of a firm (in this case, size does not matter).

1. Be honest with my employees.

2. Be respectful to my employees and open to their suggestions.

3. If absolutely necessary for economic reasons, I resolve not to lay off any employees but instead to furlough them—as well as to furlough or reduce my own salary. And I resolve not to exploit them by demanding that they work on their furlough days.

More after the break.

The International Garden Festival at Les Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens presents temporary gardens at the cutting edge of garden design, landscape, architecture, design and environmental art. This year’s theme for design was “Secret Gardens.” First launched in 2000, the International Garden Festival is host to innovative ideas and has presented over 80 gardens by more than 200 designers from fifteen countries and has attracted more than 800,000 visitors. This showcase of a wide range of projects has featured budding designers from a range of different fields. Out of a total 194 proposals submitted by over 500 architects, landscape architects, designers and artists from three countries, the jury selected the following three designs.

After the break, images from 2011′s three selections of “Secret Gardens” from The International Garden Festival.

Atelier Cosmas Gozali (Arya Cipta Graha) shared with us their proposal for the BMW International Stadium Competition in North Jakarta, Indonesia, for which they received 3rd Prize. More images and architect’s description after the break.

The Ministry of Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia initiated an international competition for a Centre for Promotion of Science and the urban development of Block 39 in New Belgrade in Serbia. This design aims to be an institution of service and a national bank of knowledge in the field of science for the general public. An international jury unanimously selected Austrian architect Wolfgang Tschapeller’s project as the winning entry. More images and architect’s description after the break.

This week we are featuring San Francisco for our Architecture City Guide series. Thank you to all of our readers for adding their can’t miss buildings last week. We hope to see your comments below this week too.

Follow the break for our San Francisco list and a corresponding map!

Competing against shortlisted firms Shigeru Ban, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Smiljan Radic, and Mauricio Rocha, Snøhetta was awarded first prize for their museum design for the University of Guadalajara. Scheduled to begin in 2011, the new Museum of Environmental Science will be part of the cultural district adjacent to the main campus and planned wilderness preserves in Mexico. Snøhetta’s winning design was developed in collaboration with ARUP for structural MEP, sustainability, acoustics and theater planning.

More images of the winning proposal after the break.

While we have featured dozens of small residences and minimalistic projects on AD, these studio apartments by Tokyo-based firm AAT+Makoto Yokomizo Architects are confined within an exceptionally limited area and designed in an exceptionally minimalistic fashion. Sharing a motorcycle garage on the ground level, the transparent residences float above the street and put each unit’s activity on display.

More about the residences after the break.

Five great kindergardens in Europe for our fifth selection of previously featured projects. Check them all after the break.

Rosales del Canal Kindergarden / Magén Arquitectos The Kindergarden in Rosales del Canal is located in an area of residential growth in the south-west of Zaragoza. This is the first phase of an educational facility that will be completed with the primary education building. In agreement with the criteria on accessibility and preferably south-facing orientation of teaching spaces, the three buildings – Kindergarten, dining hall/gymnasium and primary – are arranged in a U-shape on the perimeter of the plot (read more…)