The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver is on track to open in the summer of 2011. CIRS aims to be the most innovative and high performance building in North America, a “living laboratory” where professors, students and partners demonstrate leading-edge research and develop sustainable design practices, products, systems and policies. The building will push the frontiers of sustainable construction materials and building techniques. It will draw much of its heat from the ground, electricity from the sun, ventilation from the wind, water from the rain–all while reducing the university’s energy use and carbon footprint.

The aim of Influx_Studio was to create a unique zoo experience that would implement a new urban function and redefine the typical layout for wildlife sightseeing for its visitors. Through their dynamic, vertical attraction in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a new kind of building is conceived with hopes of inspiring other architects around the globe as well as increasing awareness to the diversity of ecosystems. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Located on an 80 acre field station on the prairie of Muncie, Indiana the Straw Bale Eco Center was a community project between Ball State University Department of Architecture students, professors, building professionals, elementary school students and the general public. The classroom and ecology center was a project of complete collaboration, resulting in immersion learning, education outreach and research initiatives, it is the first carbon neutral load bearing straw bale public building in the region.

The Straw Bale Eco Center was awarded the 2008 Merit Award for Excellence in Architectural Design by AIA Indiana, 2008 Alternative Power and Energy Award, 2008 Accent on Architecture Award, and 2007 Green Building Initiative Award.

More photographs and drawings following the break.

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Architects: Students of Ball State University Department of Architecture; Faculty Coordinator Timothy Gray, Gray Architecture Location: 5800 Bethel Avenue Muncie, Indiana Client: Field Station Oversight Committee, Ball State University Project Area: 500 sqf Project Year: 2008-2009 Photographs: Courtesy of Gray Architecture Drawings: Dan Bajor

Amazing beach houses in Chile, The Netherlands, Australia, Mexico and USA. Check our 4th selection of previously featured beach houses after the break.

House in Huentelauquen / Izquierdo Lehmann This beach house is located on a rural setting in Huentelauquen, Chile, facing the sea from the border of a plain plateau exposed to the strong winds, 40m over the beach. The house was located along this border, sunken to disappear into the landscape, in which only 5 chimneys arise as sea lookouts (read more…)

This article is co-authored by Sherin Wing

1] Even if your boss is your friend he may have to axe you to save his business.

2] Read the book, On Bullshit, by Harry G. Frankfurt. Carry it with you. It’s pocket-sized.

3] Do not drink at work and especially do not get toasted around your colleagues under any circumstances.

4] No matter how highly you may think of yourself you may still be a minion in the eyes of others who hold more power than you.

5] Once you leave architecture school not everybody cares about architecture or wants to talk about it.

6] All eating habits and diets acquired during school should be jettisoned.

7] The hygiene habits you kept in architecture school are inappropriate for real life; bathe regularly and change your underwear.

8] The rush and exhilaration you experience in studio may be inversely proportional to how much you will enjoy working for a firm.

9] It’s architecture, not medicine. You can take a break and no one will die.

10] Significant others are more important than architecture; they are the ones who will pull you through in the end. See 49.

Keep reading after the break.

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund just awarded $816,472 to Architecture for Humanity for the Haiti Rebuilding Center to support reconstruction and livelihoods in Port-au-Prince, a town that was catastrophically affected by an earthquake at the beginning of the year. As a result, many large buildings were either severely damaged or destroyed. This fund will not only aid in the rebuilding process, but will benefit thousands of who were suffering since the natural disaster. Additionally, this grant will enable small and growing Haitin businesses to participate in post-earthquake reconstruction and ensure rebuilding incorporates better design and engineering. More information after the break.

Office disputes happen all the time, it’s in our architect’s DNA.

The architectural proposal for the block of buildings at No.8, No. 9 and No. 10 Franciscan Square deals with restoration and addition to an existing structure offering new possibilities in terms of usage and spatial arrangement. The essence of idea lies in the nature of the historical environment of the Old Town of Bratislava seen in the principles of layering of new shapes, volumes and functions. In this case the oldest layers go back to Middle Ages when the foundations of the town were laid.

The 21th century layer is added in the form of new feature respecting the old structure without being replica of historical fabric. This so called “leg” connects all levels terminating at the highest level creating its own world at the top.  Follow the break for more renderings and a brief of Frantiskanske Square.

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Architects: AOCR Location: Bratislava, Slovakia Design Team: Michal Vrsansky, Pavol Senecky, Petr Navrat, Vladimir Vrsansky Cooperation: Jana Stykova, Romana Kukulova, Rastislav Miklus Renderings: Michal Vrsansky

Yesterday, FIFA announced the nations that will host the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup™. Russia will be hosting the most important soccer event in the world in 2018 and Qatar will do so four years later. We’ve already featured Erick van Egeraat & Mikhail Posokhin’s VTB Arena for Russia. Now, we want to share with you this video showing five stadiums for Qatar 2022. Enjoy it!

Take a look at Villa In Darvishabad by Pouya Khazaeli Parsa. This video directed by Mehrdad Emrani, provides a complete experience of the house, proportion and scale, and how the light shifts in the home throughout the day. Last month we featured this project – drawings, photographs and description can be found here.

Italian architects studio wok shared with us their social housing project for Milan, which received an honorable mention in the “AAAarchitetti cercasi 2010″. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Contrast Designs presents their development for the competition of the rehabilitation of “Sednaoui Al Khazendar,” a building in the midst of two historic periods of Cairo’s history. It stands as a relic of Egypt’s history, below which the bustle of everyday life, of car traffic and street vendors, fills the space.

More on Contrast Designs competition entry after the break.

Today, FIFA announced their selection of nations for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup™ host at the Zurich Exhibition where it was decided that in 2018, Russia will be hosting the FIFA World Cup™. Designed by Erick van Egeraat and Russian partner Mikhail Posokhin, architects of Moscow’s new VTB Arena are thrilled to hear of this decision. “What wonderful news! What a start for this new Russian masterpiece to be the center of the 2018 FIFA World Cup™!” says architect-director Erick van Egeraat when presented with this latest news. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Architectural competition Griffintown Interrupted seeks to revive Montreal’s oldest industrial neighbourhood and has attracted submissions from over 40 teams around the world. Architects and designers from 10 countries have come forward to propose innovative, temporary structures for one of Montreal’s most hotly debated neighbourhoods.

In a recent competition back in September of this year, Slavko Lekic’s Sports Center in the municipality of Ulcinj, Albania takes advantage of its location with its unique position to the coastland. Lekic’s solution became an oasis in order to combine the spaciousness of the coastal beaches with the richness of the surrounding vegetation. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Reexamining an ‘icon of the American landscape’ architects Austin + Mergold have created an innovate solution to pre-fabricated housing. A typical metal grain dryer offers an interior footprint of roughly one thousand square feet, thirty-six feet in diameter. The Philadelphia based, Cornell University graduates, have developed a design that instantly assembles off-the-shelf. The soup can-shaped 2,000 square foot single family starter homes are constructed from 14 gauge galvanized corrugated steel exterior, have 2 or 3 bedrooms, an optional green house, and can have one or two levels accordingly. Austin + Mergold recently partnered with Hometta where plans for House-in-a-Can will soon be available. Follow the break for more drawings and sketches.

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Architects: Austin + Mergold Project Area: 36-foot diameter American grain dryer, 2,000 sqf

Deep in suburban southern California, the future of architecture has already arrived. This future is not just about more complex forms and compound geometries. It is not simply about software but how to make what is generated with software a reality. It is about processes, ways of working, and materials. It is also about more control for the architect. This is what Guy Martin had in mind when he started his own firm.

Guy Martin Design, is quite possibly the most famous firm you have never heard of. He’s the guy who figures out how to make some of Philippe Starck’s more complicated creations, translating the digital into the physical.

Mr. Martin works behind the scenes in a non-descript warehouse with no windows. Thankfully, he has a huge ventilation system. He spends most of his time here with Marie, his robot accomplice. He’s moved up in the world. He used to operate out of a shipping container (also without windows) in the parking lot of SCI-ARC—until he graduated and was asked to leave and take that damn container with him.

Keep reading after the break.

“House of Families” is a project for the Greenland Self Government and Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq to provide housing for disadvantaged young women with children in Nuuk, Greenland. The architects, Fantastic Norway, who designed the building are part of a larger group led by Dahl & Uhre architects and TNT Nuuk architects and including MDH arkitekter, 42 architects + Regional associates, M: ARC and Arkitekti Helena Lennert in the development of Nuuk.

For more on this project read on after the break.

The areas for expansion are either through the current high density processes, which begin to populate flood plains, or to move eastwards denseifying east London breaking through the green belt towards the Thames estuary, where a new second generation London could rise from the waves. The idea is not new, the Thames estuary has been the topic of intense debate through the possibility of building a floating island airport off the coast of Kent, and a nature reserve with a flood gate connecting Essex and Kent in its core via a high speed monorail. These radical approaches cannot be discarded without intense exploration, could the next east London generation be a floating one?

This competition is unique among international awards programs for honouring the client’s role in the design process. The prize recognizes the contribution of the client’s vision, openess, flexibility, and commitment to good design. After just seven editions, the Dedalo Minosse Prize for Commisioning a Building has already become one of the most important architectural awards in the world. In this moment they are working for the 8th edition that will be awarded on June 24th, 2011 in Vicenza, Italy where there will be four main prizes and other several awards according to the rules of the Prize.

We’re happy to share JAJA Architcts’ lastest project – a proposal for a moon bridge that intends to unify the waterfront city of Kaohsiung for their Maritime and Culture Center. For the competition, the architects focused on the city’s love of the river, creating a form that gracefully sweeps across the Love River adding programmatic activities and a programmed landscape to the riverfront.

More about the bridge after the break.

For our 3rd part, we have stadiums from Croatia, Kazakhstan, Ireland, Switzerland and Slovenia! Check them all after the break.

Arena Zagreb / UPI-2M Arena Zagreb is the multifunctional indoor arena with 15.000 seating capacity built to host the 2009 World Men’s Handball Championship. It is located in the south-western part of Zagreb, Croatia. Thanks to its iconic design and position at one of the main city entrances, it has immediately become a landmark of the city (read more…)

On last week’s Family Guy episode the characters go to NY, illustrated by the Highline with the Standard Hotel.

A month ago we featured CCCloud, Kengo Kuma‘s first built work of architecture in Italy, completed on September this year. Now, we share with you an interview with Kengo Kuma on his ceramic tiles monument for Casalgrande Padana. Enjoy it!