What do you think of this interior renovation by Studio IDE? The 550 sq ft studio is designed as an overlapping of space, incorporating the client’s Pop Art lithographs as well as more private living areas. The swinging frames add a nice touch to the art display, and their arrangement makes one feel he is walking into “a gallery space wired for living rather an apartment space equipped to display art.” As the apartment opens toward Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan, Studio IDE wanted the space to conceptually become an “interweaving of form and space…of the incidental voids amidst the City’s oscillating texture below.” In this way, the art becomes a “spectacle of tranquility, a moment of pause similar to the calm found in looking onto the lake.” The video is arranged in an interesting style, as the independent sounds follow the shots of each space. The crisp detailing and materiality create a sophisticated space, both in terms of a gallery and living area.

Architects Mohammad Jabi and Liyan Jabi shared with is their proposal for the Affordable Housing for the Future Competition in Abu Alanda, Jordan. See more images and architect’s description after the break.

HOK has infused green strategies into Chicago’s Greenway Self-Park facility – a not so typical place to find sustainable ideas. While the 11 story energy efficient parking garage features a naturally ventilated exterior wall, a cistern rain water collection system, a green roof, and electric car plug-in stations, we can’t get over the dozen wind turbines made by Helix Wind that attach to the external structure.

More about the self-park and more images after the break.

Back in May, when American philanthropist, Eli Broad, announced his plans to build a new museum in downtown Los Angeles, six invited top architects competed for the commission ( Rem Koolhaas, Herzog and de Meuron, Christian de Portzamparc, Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Foreign Office Architects). Yesterday, Broad confirmed that Diller Scofidio + Renfro (one of just two invited firms who have not been awarded the Pritzker) will design the 120,000 sqf downtown museum.

In June, we featured Steven Holl’s latest Horizontal Skyscraper which hovers above a landscaped park in Shenzhen, China. Matthias Wolff, an ArchDaily reader and also a contributor to our Flickr roundups, shared some of his photographs of Holl’s building with us. Wolff, aka d.teil, shot these images at the complex’s opening this past December, when some of the complex’s components – such as the hotel – were still under construction. Since the grounds are open to the public, the project will truly affect a large scope of people, both natives and visitors of the area. Wolff’s photos provide a clear understanding of the building’s varying materiality, as well as its situation within the designed terrain. What do you think of Holl’s project?

Check out more photos after the break.

Japanese architects BAKOKO shared with us their project Kyoai Gakuen University, a new academic building located in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. You can see more images and architect’s description after the break.

Last week we had many different kind of articles. So in choosing the best from last week, we came up with a small “mix”. Your usual great project, another one in progress, a fantastic kind of wallpaper, an introducion to your architecture library and a funny story on zombies. Check them all after the break!

In Progress: Sperone Westwater Gallery / Foster + Partners We took a few shots of Foster + Partners’ latest addition to the Bowery – a new gallery to house the Sperone Westwater’s growing collection from prominent artists of different nationalities and ages. Sitting a few steps away from SANAA’s musuem, this new gallery’s CNC milled glass facade elegantly responds to its neighboring art museum (read more…)

Five of the architecture offices invited to participate will be presenting the results of their work to the public in an exhibition designed by Raumlaborberlin.

Check out this cool treehouse nestled into Maple trees near the Hudson River in New York designed by German-based Baumraum. Far from a child’s treehouse, this residence provides simple interiors with a touch of elegance. Constructed for a family with two children, the treehouse serves as an outlet for relaxation and is connected to their main residence via a slender wooden catwalk.

More images and more about the treehouse after the break.

As we told you in May, OMA + AMO will collaborate with Strelka, a postgraduate school for media, architecture and design in Moscow.

Now, the presentation of this very special partnership will take place at the Architecture Biennale 2010 in Venice on August 26th between 2:30 and 3:45 pm.

More information after the break.

Danish architects EFFEKT shared with us their project Nature Centre, a portal to the forest of Hareskoven in Copenhagen. The Nature centre was recently voted winner in the 7th cycle in the world architecture community, and shortlisted for WAF2010 in the category Future Projects: Education. You can see more images and architect’s description after the break.

This evening at 10 PM ET/9 PM CT, PBS will be broadcasting a 60 minute documentary of the late architect, Samuel Mockbee, and his design/build education program, Rural Studio. Deep in the heart of one of Alabama’s poorest areas, Mockbee’s students choose specific families as clients and work together to create their dream residences, community centers or prayer spaces. The students physically construct these spaces from simple materials, yet their innovative strategies and pure passion for design results in striking pieces of architecture. This inspiring documentary makes a strong statement about architects and the profession – showing a new perspective on who we should be designing for and how we should be designing. As our world is experiencing hardship after hardship, from earthquakes to monsoon floods, the video brings to light our responsibilities to use our talents to help each other. Be sure to check it out tonight – it won’t disappoint.

This past week, the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority of Hong Kong unveiled OMA’s conceptual master plan for a new arts district (Koolhaas’ plan is one of three competing proposals). Divided into three villages, the 40 hectacre waterfront site places strong emphasis on the quality of the street life and the “cultural production where all aspects of the creative process are nurtured and made visible.” The master plan has been years in the making, as Koolhaas established an office in Hong Kong to better understand the culture and context, as well as collaborate with financial and culture experts to design a feasible plan to positively affect the communities involved. Rem Koolhaas commented, “Using the village – a typology every citizen of Hong Kong is familiar with – as the model for our plan allows us to absorb the massive scale of WKCD’s ambition into manageable portions and forge deep connections with Kowloon, whose vital urban energy will be the lifeblood of WKCD.”

Images and more information about the master plan after the break.

The current need for housing in Chile after the earthquake is a unique opportunity to re-think architecture. It has generated an exceptional scenario that demands for new proposals and solutions.

Architecture usually responds to definite problems with specific, unique and unrepeatable responses. Projects are configured as rigid and closed systems that can hardly be replicated with success anywhere else. At the same time, these architectonic solutions are linked with an ‘elite’, they are luxurious commodities that are specific-individual-crafted, normally at a very high cost.

After the break you can see Emilio Marin’s proposal regarding this issue, including diagrams, renders and the complete text description.

Paul Kaloustian Architect shared with us his project Q Weekend House, a villa for a Sheikh in Qatar who wants to visit the house for a few days each month to disconnect from everyday life. More images and architect’s description after the break.

LIKEarchitects shared with us their project BusStopSymbiosis. This project is one of the five artistic interventions selected by Scott Burnham to emerge in downtown Porto as part of the event Bairro Criativo* launched by ADDICT on 24 May 2010. It was awarded with the first prize. Competitors were asked to think of temporary structures for the public space aiming to improve people’s daily life in the city. See more images and architect’s description after the break.

The Schelling Architecture Foundation has recently named the winners of their Prize for Architecture and their Architectural Theory Prize. The award was bestowed upon Chinese architects Wang Shu & Lu Wenyu of Amateur Architecture Studio (for architecture) and the French architect Jean‐Louis Cohen (for architectural theory. We’ll bring you more details on their projects throughout the upcoming week, but first take a quick look at some of their buildings after the break.

Their goal with the competition is to raise awareness about their work with AIDS orphans in Uganda while promoting the local food/urban chicken keeping movements in the US. Winning designs will be awarded cash prizes ($500, $250) and will be modified for use in Uganda.

Daniel Andersson shared with us his project Icebergs. An iceberg only shows the tip above the water surface, the rest stays hidden below. These floating summer cottages in sheltered bays an lakes around Åland Islands, Finland investigates this concept. See more images and architect’s description after the break.

Wolfgang Roth Architekten’s new kindergarten building in Stuttgart, which houses space for the children and staff, features a prefabricated wood façade with light filled interiors to promote learning. In an attempt to bring the children closer to the exterior, the classrooms were designed around internal courtyards. Plus, each of the three larger classrooms have full glazing to flood the rooms with light, and allow the children to see the surroundings. The vertical slating on the exterior creates a more permeable division, giving the overall building a lighter aesthetic.

More images after the break.

Studio Mode/modeLab and Tietz-Baccon are pleased to announce the Material Intelligence: Intensive Design and Prototyping Workshop Reception in New York City, August 21, 2010. The workshop investigated the prototype within the history and culture of design through component-based aggregate systems. All prototypes were designed in an associative environment and iteratively tested utilizing digital fabrication equipment.

You don´t need to be in Venice to witness its Architecture Biennale 2010.

By downloading Biennale App for free, you can navigate through the different events and exhibitions, from the Vernissage to the conclusion of the Biennale.

More information after the break.

It’s been a while since our last selection of previously featured educational projects. With many more to choose from, there’s still many more selections to come. Check our fourth part after the break.

UQAM’s Campus / Tétreault Parent Languedoc & Saia Barbarese Topouzanov The urban planning of the campus acknowledges the diverse urban character of the immediate context at the heart of Montreal’s historic cultural artery. The master plan sets out to reweave a tattered piece of the urban fabric, with the eastern portion of the site previously occupied by a parking lot now engaged in the vital life of the city with the addition of three new pavilions containing the faculty of Biological Sciences, TÉLUQ, and a new student residence (read more…)

Five Academy of Art University Architecture students built more than confidence when they won a citation from the American Institute of Architects, East Bay (AIAEB). Students Justin Ackerman, Mary Telling, Justin Hanan, Shaum Mehra and Shanay Moghbel put their design skills and ingenuity to work creating a free-standing office space for a client.

More images and information after the break.