A zoo nursey in Chile, a winery in Argentina, and three really amazing houses in India, Portugal and Singapore. Just a few selected projects of what you may have missed last week. Check them after the break.

Cliff House / Khosla Associates The house is located in Chowara, a fishing village, 30 minutes from Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala, South India. Perched 200 ft. above an expansive stretch of green along the Arabian Sea coast, at the edge of a cliff, its most prominent feature is an asymmetrical sloping roof set against the fronds of a coconut plantation. Opening its embrace to the warm sea breezes, the home covers an area of 1397 sqm (read more…)

The goal of the workshop is to understand methods of translating geometry from Rhino/Grasshopper into Ecotect, and specifically, the process of shaping geometry that performs optimally within a specific location on earth. The workshop will begin by covering intro + advanced grasshopper techniques, followed by an introduction to using Ecotect to produce solar radiation studies, day-lighting studies, shadow analysis studies, climate analysis studies, and computational fluid dynamics analysis studies. The last stage of the workshop will cover the process of manipulating geometry in grasshopper via analysis/values obtained from Ecotect.

This year’s theme for the London Festival of Architecture, “The Welcoming City”, inspired Superblue Design to create an installation where all could sit together to enjoy the space, but also take an active role in making that place. Entitled Giant Knitting Nancy, the project is a metaphor for the “interwoven cultures, spaces and places that help make the London a distinctive place.” By collaborating with sculptor Dan Preston and jewelry designer Holly Packer, the team created a large-scale knitted structure which doubles as an “interactive architectural seating unit.”

More about the installation after the break.

Roots Architecture is an international workshop aimed at making the connection between humanitarian, emergency and other basic architecture provision in the developing world, and that of the world music community, as showcased at Womad. The idea is to inspire both the general public and the architectural and built environment communities both in terms of materials and projects .

A few days ago, we shared C. F. Møller Architects‘ winning entry for the Kristiansund Opera and Culture Center entitled Kulturkvartalet. This project shares its joint first place prize with Oslo based architecture and design office Space Group + London based Brisac Gonzalez. The team of Space Group and Brisac Gonzales have designed a 15, 000 m2 opera and cultural house with a 600-seat auditorium, library, cultural facilities, restaurants and a youth center. ”Our strategy is threefold: a full refurbishment of the building skin, an upgrading of the structure, and an extension of the top floor with roof terrace. The ground floor is conceived as a living room, with spaces for music, newspapers, studying, playing. The café opens graciously to Kongensplass – an urban garden,” explained the team.

More images and more about the winning proposal after the break.

With all the projects we feature, it becomes second nature to envision yourself occupying that space if not only to critique its success, but also to merely imagine what it would be like to live there. But, what if, instead of just daydreaming about living in a certain residence designed by your favorite architect, you could actually spend a week or two in a house designed by Peter Zumthor, or JVA, or even MVRDV? Living Architecture, a new not-for-profit organization, offers the chance to rent houses in different areas of Britain for a vacation starting at £20 per person per night. ”We are dedicated to introducing you to the best of contemporary architecture, as well as to curating unique and enjoyable holidays,” explained the organization.

Olson Kundig Architects share with us the T Bailey Offices in Anacortes, Washington, which explore the idea of using the client’s product— pipes used in wind turbine towers — in the construction of their headquarters. This 11,700 square foot office addition adjoins the existing heavy industrial manufacturing plant of T Bailey. All steel fabrication and erection takes place in the plant adjoining the project.

The general guidelines can be read on the website and is free of charge for students who wish to have their work published, both to help them find a job as well as help future architecture students get an idea of what a final project is as well as help them consider weather or not Architecture is their passion and which school fits best with their design concepts.

Mumbai-based iStudio Architecture shared with us their Brick House, a great project using bricks, stone, wood, bamboo and ferro-cement. The house, located in Wada, is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

More images and architect’s description after the break.

A sculptural installation by VeeV Design, entitled Field Rupture, rests upon the courtyard of a 1950s modern house in Berkeley Hills, California. Since the installation is applied over the topological surface, the shifting ground conceptually pushes the surface vertically, and, as the name implies, this action causes the surface to “rupture.” Using a laser cutter to produce the digital fabrication, the sheet metal formation seems to burst from the ground as a “figure of two planes pushing against one another.”

A reader recommended to us this fantastic video by Berlin-based DJ Efdemin (Phillip Sollmann). You can see amazing pictures and footage for Mies van der Rohe’s Lake Shore Drive Apartments. Video was made by Jutojo and Sollmann himself. Enjoy it!

Check out this quick video Jeff Durkin of Breadtruck Films produced while working for the San Diego design+build firm blokhaus about an experimental concept for shipping container architecture.

The film highlights the theoretical building’s construction technique, specifically how the shipping container module can be subtracted to create space.    What begins as a solid mass is soon defined by the carved out voids that become the main interior spaces.

Be sure to watch Durkin’s other films he has shared with us here.

Back in 2003, young Dutch architect Rem D. Koolhaas (nephew of “the” Rem Koolhaas) teamed with seventh generation shoemaker Galahad Clark to launch United Nude, a stylish shoe brand rooted in conceptual design, elegance and innovation. Since then, the brand has been quite successful, selling in over 35 countries, and recently, Koolhaas opened a flagship store in Shanghai. Similar to New York’s Fifth Avenue, or Paris’ Champs-Élysées, the store is situated in Shanghai’s prestigious retail strip and the flashy design draws all the attention to the shoes.

More about the store design after the break.

A while ago we told you about Rebuilding a Sustainable Haiti, a symposium on planning strategies that can lead to a more socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable future in Haiti, hosted by the Institute for Urban Design on June 4.

It may look beautiful from the outside. But does it look great inside? Have a look at our fourth selection of previously featured interiors projects. Check them all after the break.

LEGO Group’s Development Department / Bosch & Fjord Bosch & Fjord have designed a space for LEGO Group’s Development Department in Billund that is both visually and socially stimulating for its employees and visitors. As a multinational workplace, cooperation and knowledge sharing is essential for the employees and thus the interior design of their department. A reception area, café and group of meeting rooms were designed to meet these needs (read more…)

It’s that time of the year. Architectural Record has published their list of Top 250 architecture firms. The companies are ranked according to revenue for architectural services performed in 2009 in $ millions.

The list is compiled from a survey conducted for Engineering News-Record’s annual Top 500 Design Firms Sourcebook. As last year, number 1 was for AECOM Technology Corporation, an engineer-architect firm from Los Angeles, California.

The firms classify themselves by:

A = Architect AE = Architect-Engineer AP = Architect Planner EA = Engineer-Architect AEC = Architect-Engineer-Contractor

See the top 25 after the break.

RAU and Powerhouse Company developed H2Otel, a luxurious and completely sustainable hotel for Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The project, a prototype for luxury hotel typologies, is shown at the National Design Triennial ‘Why Design Now?’ at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

More images, a video and architect’s description after the break.

Serero Architects’ winning design for a library and auditorium for the University of Amiens incorporates a wooden “smart skin” that controls the internal space ambiance and frames views. Resting in the middle of the campus, the new building will “constitute a central place for exchanges and meeting around technologies as well as the catalyst of an intense campus social life” explained the architect.

Ozel Office, a practice based in both LA, California and Istanbul, Turkey, has designed a competition proposal for an Opera House for Izmir, a port town off the Aegean Coast. The competition challenged participants to see architecture as a “catalyst” that could potentially help the city re-center itself as a hub of economic activity and source of cultural significance. The collaborative effort within the office, especially led by Guvenc Ozel and Erdim Kumkumoglu, produced a proposal where the ”architecture becomes a catalyst that reinforces the relationship between the old city, the new city, the waterfront and urban culture. In short, our vision is a synergy of spatial, cultural as well as practical and contextual aesthetics.”

More images and more about the project after the break.

Steven Holl Architects has received the 2010 North Norwegian Architecture Prize for the Knut Hamsun Center in Hamarøy, Norway. The Prize is awarded annually to projects with special reference to, and significance for North Norwegian historical, cultural, economic and physical conditions.

So we’ve finally reach more than 20,000 photos on our Flickr Pool. You can see some really amazing pictures so our selections keep getting harder. You can see all of our previous selections 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 clarkmaxwell in Chicago, USA. Check the other four after the break.

Beginning February 2009, The AIA New York Chapter and its Emerging New York Architects committee (ENYA) launched a pilot Boot Camp Review program to get intern architects in shape for the Architect Registration Examination (ARE). In the summer 2009, AIANY added graphic vignette workshops to its class offerings, established an ARE Resource Library and several other classes and events to promote and encourage emerging architects to stay focused on the licensure track. The revenue from these programs was used to expand the existing programs and create new support programs for local ARE candidates.

New Zealand architect, Tim Stephens, shared his Huntington Urban Farm design with us. The farm responds to the lack of support for the sustainable practice of growing and cultivating one’s own food source, an important issue Stephens sees as becoming more prevalent as our population increases. The farm provides convenient access to individualized plots of land where users can produce their own food right in the middle of the town.

Architects, landscape architects, engineers, and other designers are invited to submit projects to the Architectural League’s New York Designs series. Projects of all types at any scale, either built (completed within one year of submission) or under construction in New York City, are welcome. Quality is the sole criterion for selection.