As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage, we present the completed Russian Pavilion. To read the inital proposal, refer to our previously published post, "Russian Pavilion at 2018 Venice Biennale to Explore Rich Railway History."

The Russian Pavilion highlights the past, present, and future of Russian railways. The exhibition shows railways as a response to a landscape which is in many places uninhabitable, allowing the people who use them to explore Russia's expansive territories.

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Architecture, in its realized form, is neither the vision or the labor of a singular person. It is a practice which is inherently group and firm-oriented in its processes. But architecture as we know it is only celebrated after it is completed, and is very rarely celebrated for how it gets made. Few awards recognize the vast network of people that enables those at the very top of the field to put their name to completed works.

Recent controversies have only thrown more light on this state of affairs—from the petition to have Denise Scott Brown retroactively recognized for the work that won her husband Robert Venturi the Pritzker Prize in 1991 (which was ultimately rejected by the Pritzker) to revelations earlier this year about the way architects like Richard Meier have abused the power afforded to them by their personal success.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage, we present the completed Croatian Pavilion. Below, the curatorial team describes the exhibition in their own words.

Cloud Pergola / The Architecture of Hospitality at the Croatian Pavilion is a collaborative site-specific environment conceived by the pavilion curator, Bruno Juričić. as Cloud Pergola is an installation crossing the boundaries of architecture, art, engineering, robotic fabrication, and computational models. The exhibition is structured through an interplay of three interventions: Cloud Drawing by Alisa Andrašek in collaboration with Bruno Juričić, To Still the Eye by Vlatka Horvat, and
Ephemeral Garden by Maja Kuzmanović.

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Woods Bagot have announced that they will be leading a redesign effort for the abandoned Hongqi Zhen Sugar Factory in Zhuhai’s Jinwan District. Due to be completed in three phases over the next ten years, their master plan for the almost 80,000 square meter site includes designs that will revitalize the area and transform it into an integrated tourism, cultural and leisure park.

The European Commission and Europe Nostra announced the winners of the 2018 EU Prize for Cultural Heritage/ Europa Nostra Awards. The 29 winners from 17 countries have been recognized for their achievements in four categories: conservation, research, dedicated services, and education, training and raising awareness. The winners will be honored at an award ceremony at the first ever European Cultural Heritage Summit on June 22. 

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Estonian Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words. 

Estonian Pavilion curators, Laura Linsi, Roland Reemaa and Tadeáš Říha, explore the spectrum between the explicit representation of the monument and the implicit politics of everyday architectures: from the triumphal column to the pavement beneath it, through all that is in between. The title itself – Weak Monument – is an oxymoron, a rhetorical device that offers fresh perspectives on how to recognize politics in any built form.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Australian Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words. 

The Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) will present Repair at the Australian Pavilion during the 16^th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Creative Directors Mauro Baracco and Louise Wright of Baracco+Wright Architects, in collaboration with artist Linda Tegg, have curated a multi-sensory living installation for the Pavilion, designed to disrupt the viewing conditions through which architecture is usually understood.

Archstorming have announced the winning projects of "Coexist: Rethinking Zoos," their recent competition to design a concept for the zoo of the 21^st century. The call for entries asked participants to redefine the traditional zoo and transform the space from something that is not only an exhibition of animals, but also an educational tool, and a place for research and conservation. The team of international jurors selected three winners from more than 40 countries that submitted ideas.

The site for the proposal was the zoo in Barcelona, which has committed itself to prioritizing the welfare of its animals. To promote the well-being of the animals and nature, the winning teams designed imaginative alternatives to the traditional zoo methods of interaction, such as non-intrusive paths and even 3D virtual animals. The winners show that there are new ways for visitors to understand animals that are both ecologically friendly and sustainable.

Check out the winning submissions after the break.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage, we present the proposal for the Israeli Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words. 

In Statu Quo: Structures of Negotiation is the theme of the Israeli Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Curated by Ifat Finkelman, Deborah Pinto Fdeda, Oren Sagiv and Tania Coen-Uzzielli it traces the complex mechanism of the 'Status Quo' within shared holy places in Israel-Palestine, which functions as a controversial and fragile system of coexistence.

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A collaboration between Moriyama & Teshima Architects and Acton Ostry Architects have been announced as the winner of the competition for a new timber building in Toronto. Their proposal beat out several other notable firms including Shigeru Ban, who is known for his timber constructions, Patkau Architects who worked with MJMA, and Provencher_Roy who partnered with Turner Fleisher. The winning design scheme, called The Arbour, will be a net-zero tower to house a new school of computer technology as part of an expansion at George Brown College.

Japan-based Moriyuki Ochiai Architects have designed a cluster of tea rooms located in a rural area known as Bisei, in the Okayama Prefecture. This town is known as both the place where green tea was introduced to Japan and as a "sanctuary for stargazing", which inspired the firm's design to create a strong connection between the tea rooms and the surrounding scenery. 

IND Architects has plans to transform the symbolic Shcherbinka water tower in Moscow, Russia into a revitalized area for residents to socialize. Since the water tower has been only slightly altered over time with the overall form and silhouette remaining the same, the design team has decided to create a place that will both aim to recall old memories and create new ones. 

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Three award-winning architecture firms, Lemay, Perkins+Will, and Bisson Fortin, will design a new 67-km sustainable system of light-rail train stations for one of North America’s largest public transportation projects, the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) in Montreal. This system of train stations will be designed as part of NouvLR General Partnership’s recently won contract and will connect Montréal-Trudeau International Airport with the city’s downtown area, as well as the north and south shores of the region.