Peruvian architect Carlos Bartesaghi Koc shared with us his project Systemic Agro-Tourism, for which he received an Award of Merit in the 2009 URBAN-SOS Competition. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Only a few days left till we reach 25,000 photos on our Flickr Pool. And with a lot to choose from, here’s our 18th selection of the best. Check the other 17 right here. 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 jmhdezhdez in Barcelona, Spain. Check the other four after break.

This documentary film explores the fascinating life and complex legacy of architect and city planner Daniel Hudson Burnham, famous for designing the Flatiron Building in New York, Union Station in Washington D.C., and the 1909 master plan for Chicago, among others.

I recently paid a visit to the smallest office I have ever set foot in. It was actually a tiny one-bedroom apartment overlooking a pool. Its location, and the maneuvers I had to make to gain access, gave it the ambiance of secrecy. This must be what it feels like to visit a safe house, I thought.

Significant things are going on here. You may learn of them soon enough so, excepting one thing, I will not break the mystery. On one wall, in the very center of the wall, there hangs a small oil painting. The subject: a shipwreck in turbulent seas. It was done in blues with a very purposeful, skilled hand. It is not famous but could have been had it gotten into the right hands. It reminded me of Fitz Henry Lane’s “A Smart Blow (Rough Sea, Schooners),” 1856.

I asked the architect if he had done this. No, he said. He then told me the story of how this painting was the first beautiful thing that had ever transfixed him. When he was five or six, he used to sit and stare at it endlessly. This reminded me of how I used to stare out at the thunderstorms from my grandmother’s window, feeling like I was in the midst of them. As a child, he must have felt transported by this painting the way I was by that surrounding sky.

Photographer Patricia Parinejad shared with us some photos of the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale designed by Dominique Perrault Architecture. You can see more images after the break.

Peaking above some contemporary New York favorites – such as Gehry’s IAC Building and Field Operations + DS+R’s High Line – Jean Nouvel’s 100 Eleventh Avenue adds yet another touch of character to Manhattan’s West Side. ArchRecord‘s great pieces on curtains walls gave us a better look at Nouvel’s textured glass curtain wall.

More about the curtain wall after the break.

Italian photographer Marco Zanta shared with us some great photographs of the exhibitions currently showed at the Venice Biennale.

Yaohua Wang shared with us his project An Open Appeal for China, designed along with Scott Chung, Jiaohao Lu, Xiaoxuan Lu, and Lennard Ong. They recently received 2nd Prize in the AIM International Architecture Competition. More images and architect’s description after the break.

WORK ac was one of the first practices we interviewed here at ArchDaily. When we visited their office they were working in P.F.1 (Public Farm 1), their awarded entry for the 2008 P.S.1 summer installation – one of the best installations I’ve seen so far.

An interesting part of the conversation was on how they worked with a mixed group of experts for this project, bringing more into the discussion and finally into the installation. This becomes the central part of the book, with over 150 pages dedicated to a series of interviews with the parties involved, from structural engineers to growing soil experts, telling the story of the process behind P.F.1. This section is structured as a story, but you can still read it picking from any random page. Interesting interview format with no questions, just “answers” that become the narrative of the project.

On the appendix we found a series of recipes for the vegetables that grew on the urban farm, and also a foreword with an interview by Winy Maas with Dan Wood and Amale Andraos.

WORK ac has also edited 49 Cities, a highly recommended guide to unrealized urbanism.

More info on the book after the break.

The jury for the Museum of the Second World War Competition in Poland have recently announced the winner. Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat received 1st Prize and will design the new museum in Gdańsk, the city where the war broke out. 2nd Prize was awarded to Polish architects Piotr Płaskowicki & partnerzy Architekci and 3rd Prize to Greece-based BETAPLAN S.A.

See more images and justification of the jury for the winner after the break.

d3 is pleased to announce the winners of the Natural Systems international architectural design competition for 2010. The program, developed by co-directors Gregory Marinic and Mary-Jo Schlachter, invites architects, designers, engineers, and students to collectively explore the potential of analyzing, documenting, and deploying nature-based influences in architecture, interiors, and designed objects.

The competition calls for innovative proposals that advance sustainable thought and performance through the study of intrinsic environmental geometries, behaviors, and flows. By identifying, examining, and applying their structural order on form and function- -bottom-up, performance-based solutions for limitless building typologies, functional programs, and material conditions may be realized.

The competition awarded four prizes and eight special mentions. You can see the four prizes after the break. For complete list of special mentions, go to the competition’s official website.

Continuing our coverage of Kazuyo Sejima’s exciting 2010 Venice Biennale, the International Jury of the exhibition has recently awarded a Golden Lion for the best project of the ‘People Meet in Architecture’ Exhibit to Junya Ishigami+ Associates, a Golden Lion for the best National Participation to the Kingdom of Bahrain, and a Silver Lion for a promising young participant to OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen + Bas Princen. We’ve featured Ishigami + Associates’ work previously on AD, and his Venice exhibit explores similar ideas about transparency and structure evident in his elegantly simplistic Kanagawa Institute of Technology.

More about the project, including a video from Domus about Ishigami’s project and beliefs.

Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects shared with us their exhibition at the Venice Biennale, showing two buildings with a similar size are located in two different contexts. A light grey concrete piece rests in the middle of a natural scene. A cooper oxide green concrete prism stands in the middle of a suburban setting. Two opposite conditions which are presented by a disproportionate relationship between figure and background. The proposed constructions are reproduced as small sculptural models. The landscape is recorded in a huge panoramic backlight photograph. The objects, autonomous from their location, seem insignificant in front of the monumental effort of trying to capture most of the details and complexities of the surroundings.

Great projects often come from competitions. You don’t believe me? Check our fourth part of our previously featured awarded competition projects after the break.

3LHD to design private medical center in Croatia Close surrounding and historical site of Firule area are one of the most enjoyable Split’s living, working and recreation environments. Extraordinary location for the polyclinic is one of its greatest advantages. Placed near existing hospital complex on Firule, close to the sea and fresh air gives it even more importance and value (read more…)

1 October 2010 will see the starting signal fired for registrations for the 8th International Design Award 2011. Students of architecture and design have to submit their entries by 31 January 2011. The re-structured concept for the largest student design competition simplifies participation and rewards universities setting and submitting a term/semester project assignment.

It all began last year when Autodesk sent a survey to its customers asking how they imagined AutoCAD for Mac OSX. Then, back in May, we saw an early preview of the software running on Mac. This was a leaked version, and Autodesk didn’t say anything (we asked!) about it.

The San Ysidro Land Port of Entry is designed to be the port of the future, not only operationally, but also in terms of high-performance buildings.

Designed by the award-winning architectural firm, The Miller Hull Partnership, all three phases of the project are targeted to achieve LEED Platinum certification due to energy efficiency, water conservation strategies, and an integrated design process. Most notably is the potential of achieving net zero energy in all the occupied spaces, the first facility open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, to achieve this in the United States.

Complete press release and more images after the break.

In addition to being asked to design Baghdad’s newest banking headquarters as we reported previously, Zaha Hadid has also been recognized at the Structural Steel Design Awards. The awards, which are in their 42nd year, are bestowed upon those who attain excellence in both architectural and structural design with the use of steel. Hadid’s Legacy Roof (alongside Audi West London, the Infinity Footbridge in Stockton-on-Tees, and Dublin Airport Terminal 2) was awarded for its “heroic engineering achievement”. Working with Arup, Rowecord Engineering Ltd and Balfour Beatty Group Ltd, the team has designed an amazing structure to house the Aquatic Center for the Olympic Games in London. When we first introduced Hadid’s Legacy Roof, we were shocked by the fluidity the 160 m long and 3,000 ton roof could convey. Its dynamic curvaceous form is definitely a feat of engineering. The judges noted the project’s successful use of steel commenting that the roof ”has overcome severe program and constructional problems. A necessarily complex structure delivers the form and shape at the heart of what will become the emblematic and beautiful icon of the London 2012 Olympics.”

Last week we featured some photographs Patricia Parinejad shared with us of the Russian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. Now she sent us the Hungarian Pavilion, where architects created some really nice spaces with an interesting use of wood pencils hanging from the ceiling.

In what will be her first project for her native country, Zaha Hadid will design the new headquarters for the Central Bank in Baghdad. Earlier in the summer, Hadid prepared a conceptual presentation with a feasibility study, and this past month, Hadid travelled to Istanbul to discuss initial details with the bank’s governor, Sinan al-Shabibi. The bank, which is one of the first central banks in the Arab world, has the sole right to issue the Iraq’s national currency – the dinar.

The board of Sberbank, the leading bank of Russia, signed a contract with the Dutch Architect Erick van Egeraat for the realization of their new Corporate University, west of Moscow, close to the Novorizhkoye highway. More images and complete press release after the break.

You didn’t check ArchDaily last week? You may have missed an incredible horizontal skyscraper, an opera house by Zaha Hadid, a pavilion for La Biennale, a fantastic house in Spain and my own personal dream vacation house. Check them all after the break.

Paraty House / Marcio Kogan There is a legend which says that the region of the colonial city of Paraty and Angra dos Reis (between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) has 365 islands, one for each day of the year. Two boxes of reinforced concrete, rest fixed connected on the mountainside of one of these islands; two modern prisms between the large colossal stones of the Brazilian coast (read more…)

The Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities, with the PaBAAC – General Direction for the landscape, fine arts, architecture and contemporary art – and the Biennale di Venezia present AILATI. Reflections from the future, an exhibition conceived by Luca Molinari for the Padiglione Italia at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, where Studio Tamassociati will present his work in the category “Socially aware design”.