On April, the continental ceremony of the Prix Versailles 2018 took place in the International Center of Conférences d'Alger with the announcement of the selected projects in shops, shopping centers, hotels and restaurants for the "Africa and West Asia" and "Europe" regions.

The 24 new projects are now incorporated into the list of 46 continental winners -from Central America, the South and the Caribbean; North America; Central Asia and the Northeast; and South Asia and the Pacific regions- resulting in 70 projects that will compete in the 2018 Prix Versailles World Final at the UNESCO Headquarters.

See the selected projects after the break.

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French designer, Nathanaël Abeille's metalized pieces in 'Proyecto Reflexión' shows how a building could reflect sunlight and share it with another building in some of the narrow spaces of Villa 21 de Barracas, Buenos Aires. These "metal bricks" came about as a combined team effort with architects Francisco Ribero and journalist Cecilia Fortunato.

Review the full project after the break.

From ceramic tiles and metal sheets for roofs to wooden decks and floating cement tiles for roofing, roofing materials not only contribute to the drainage and protect the lower layers from solar radiation and wear, but also have an important aesthetic function.

Currently, when choosing the roof covering, you can find a wide variety of materials and dimensions, each with specific characteristics, determined by the type of roofing, the location of the project, and its future maintenance.

Review a catalog of options to incorporate creatively into your designs, below.

On Saturday in Santiago, Chile, the Prix Versailles Committee announced the continental winners of its annual awards celebrating built commercial architecture.

Ten winning projects in Central America, the South and the Caribbean and twelve in North America are awarded in four categories: stores, shopping malls, hotels and restaurants. In May, built projects in Africa and Asia will be awarded in Algiers and Beijing. The European winners will be announced in Paris.

Check a gallery of the continental winners projects, below.

Continental Winners Central America, the South and the Caribbean:

Frequently imperceptible to the inhabitant, the architectural plans of landscape designs are unquestionably the best tool for understanding certain relationships between elements and the strategic organization of the work. They are therefore an essential part of any good architecture project.

The distribution and type of vegetation, topography levels, the relationships between the preexisting urban or natural context, the possible routes and incorporated activities, and the materiality and the dimensional precision required for its construction are some of the considerations that are usually reiterated in this type of representation.

The result permits the communication of intentions in an organized way, while clearly exposing the concerns of the authors; for this reason, we invite you to review a series of different examples of architectural plans of public spaces that enables a comprehensive approach to the role of each project.

Even in the age of instant information, museums enthrall us. Lining the tourist guidebooks of cities across the world, art museums are a must-see destination for visitors and locals alike. However, as our methods of communication and archiving change, driven by science and innovation, historic institutions such as art museums must keep up.

In cities around the world, art museums are redefining themselves to respond to the contemporary, experimental demands of the 21st-century. In Buenos Aires, the architecture of art museums showcases a diverse catalog of form, materiality and atmosphere, blending the instant, flexible demands of the modern age with a historic role of archiving some of humanity's most evocative works.

Below, we paint a picture of Buenos Aires' diverse art museums, showcasing the changing nature of exhibition architecture in one of the world’s most energetic cities.

Gonzalo Viramonte has released a series of photographs that focus in on the use of bricks by engineer Eladio Dieste in his Atlántida Cristo Obrero church.

Viramonte shows us the essence of the project with an artful register that places the serial yet simple material element (the brick) at the forefront. This gallery also celebrates the potential and versatility of bricks by highlighting the artfully geometric interior and exterior spaces and the apertures that allow natural light to cast upon the walls, floors, and other surfaces. 

After a successful project in Uruguay—the first in Latin America—it's now Argentina's turn to build its first sustainable public school. The design will use the recycled materials of "garbage warrior" Michael Reynolds, the founder of Earthship Biotecture, and will be constructed as part of the program "A Sustainable School" in the unique biosphere of Mar Chiquita, in the Province of Buenos Aires, from March 1 to 28.

Read on for more information about the new project.

It is difficult to forget about the demolition of Clorindo Testa’s Commissariat of Santo Pipó and with it, the demolition of part of the Argentine architecture.

With the objective of addressing issues related to the rescue and protection of the forgotten and deteriorated buildings, the MMM3 (Modern Movement in Missions) of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (UNaM) held an exhibition on October 31 in the locality of A. Del Valle.

The exhibition is part of the 60th anniversary of other works of the architect in the Argentine northeast: the Tourist Paradores, three buildings located in A. del Valle, San Ignacio and San Pedro product of the architects Boris Davinovic, Augusto Gaido, Francisco Rossi and Clorindo Testa. 

The social design from Natura Futura Arquitectura for a greenhouse in the warm subtropical climate of Nayón, Ecuador, the proposal approaches the use of local material resources in the construction of low-budget productive structures for the development of the collective.

The project, materialized with bamboo, wood and greenhouse plastic, is based on the basic geometrical figure of the triangle, proposing sectors with different levels of illumination for different types of farming.

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There are a number of reasons to visit the architecture of Montevideo: the coastal city is the result of a complex interaction of historical factors that provided multiple trends and architectural styles, currently coexisting at par. Its streets and buildings tell the story of its past.

The city´s architectural sites are easily found walking around Ciudad Vieja (Old Town) or in the renowned Rambla. Below is a list of 15 sites that every architect should know of and visit.

Studio Akkerhuis' bamboo design for a mobile theater proposal off the Netherlands coast addresses the characteristics of the material in the construction of light, resistant, accessible and transportable structures.

The project, a compact space similar to a small amphitheater, allows reuse with different configurations in various places with its joints made up of ropes and screws.

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Designed by David Svensson, a total of 400 meters of a neon resembled warm white LED from GE is a work of art representing the pulse of city life in busy Stockholm station.

The project, a piece of suspended light, is built by metal profiles and a ceiling where the warm and white light of a series of LED strips is projected, in the quest to represent the basic visual language of the line. 

This modular design developed by the students of the Department of Architecture Sciences at Ryerson University proposes a public space to sit and relax that works as an extension of the walkway, appropriating and giving a new meaning to the parking spaces in the streets of Toronto.

The project, with a natural wave form, is built by a series of Accoya wood modules, which allow easy storage, reuse, and reconfiguration.

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Shipping container architecture has developed its own niche in both design and representation. Colorful or grungy? Economical or gentrified? Either way, you look at it, designing with shipping containers is a serious exercise in modular planning. The physical constraints of the object make designing projects with containers a complex task, which demands specific studies in spatial organization.

The responses using this element in architecture are great and diverse, so we have selected a number of different project plans, both helpful and inspirational, that rise to the shipping container-challenge of design.

Check out selection of 10 architectural project plans using shipping containers below:

This investigation by Kuan-Ting Lai, developed as part of his thesis on Reconfigurable Systems of Tensegrity at the University of Stuttgart, is an exploration of the capabilities of structural principles in creating transformable architectural structures.

The project, a prototype made of pneumatic cylinders and polycarbonate panels, explores different methods of reconfiguration based on the basic rules of tensegrity, demonstrating the potential to rapidly adjust the lighting or ventilation conditions offered by the structure.

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A design by Ashari Architects for an architectural installation in Iran is a direct response to the need to reconnect with the senses. The project, a pavilion built from a cube that holds a suspended brick volume, shows the potential of the use of this material by creating distinct atmospheres.

Understanding the structural aspects of architecture is an inherent task of the architect; sufficient structural knowledge allows designers to propose ideas such as large structural elements which offer an interesting response to a project's needs.

Steel trusses are an example of such a response, which demonstrate an ability to define spaces and structures that are truly complex and interesting.

Below is a list of 10 inspirational projects that use metal trusses as an essential element of design.