An iconic piece of architecture recognized around the world, the Sydney Opera House was designed by Jørn Utzon, following a 1956 competition that attracted 222 competition entries. Since its opening in 1973, the building has redefined the ambitions of Australia and only last September celebrated its latest milestone: turning completely carbon neutral.

The history behind the Opera House and its creation is as rich as the architecture itself. In 1956 the New South Wales Government called an open competition for the design of two performance halls, for opera and for symphony concerts, hoping to establish Sydney as a major city. Danish architect Jørn Utzon won the competition with an entry that consisted of a few simple sketches that intrigued the jury.

3XN has designed a new multipurpose arena on the site of the former Olympic cycling track stadium in Munich’s Olympic Park. The Copenhagen-based firm was awarded the contract with German landscape and urban planning firm LATZ+PARTNER to design an 11,500-capacity arena that will serve as the home of German ice hockey champions Munich Red Bulls and German basketball champions FC Bayern Munich.

Manifesting as an oval structure, the sports arena “naturally and respectfully melds into the world-famous Olympic Park with its many iconic buildings.” A green roof combines with a façade of vertical lamellas to allow the scheme to blend with its urban context, with breaks in the lamellas forming glass-paneled entrances.

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Construction has begun on MVRDV’s “Downtown One,” a 140-meter-tall mixed-use skyscraper for the Albanian capital city of Tirana. Set to become Albania’s tallest building, the 37-story scheme is defined by its “relief of cantilevered houses and offices, which form a pixelated map of Albania, each representing a town or city.”

Situated in the center of the city, on the Bajram Curri Boulevard, the scheme intends to boost the economy of the capital through a mix of apartments, shops, offices, and restaurants. In addition to manifesting as a map of Albania when viewed from afar, the iconic cantilevers also generate spectacular panoramic views of the city and mountains, and create a connection between residents of this “vertical village.”

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In the design of the “Stump House,” situated in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, Brooklyn-based PARA Project was faced with unique constraints and unique possibilities. With local regulations imposing a 1,200 square foot footprint limit, 40-foot height limit, and provision for an adjoining 1,000 square foot uninhabitable structure, the design team was challenged to fit an extensive live-work space with little margin for maneuver.

In response, the design team, led by Jon Lott, stacked one structure on top of the other, with an uninhabited art studio at the lower level embedded in the sloping landscape. Combined with the above habitable space, the proposal creates a combined live-work program under a single roof, in-keeping with height and use regulations. Such was the beauty of their response, the Stump House has been awarded an Honorable Mention at the 2019 Architect Magazine Progressive Architecture Awards.

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Schmidt Hammer Lassen has announced details of their second U.S. project: the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, Massachusetts. An adaptive reuse project that will bring new life to Boston’s Commonwealth Pier, the 68,500-square-meter mixed-use project seeks to reactivate a historic maritime hub to create a new waterfront destination.

The largest pier building in the world when completed in 1901, the Commonwealth Pier will be reactivated with the introduction of new materials, increased daylight, and new points of connectivity. The exercise in adaptive reuse will contain flexible office space, dynamic event space, new retail, dining, and public amenities.

In 2020, the French city of Marseille is set to host Manifesta 13, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art. In preparation for the event, MVRDV has collaborated with thinktank The Why Factory (directed by MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas) in unveiling “The Grand Puzzle,” a 1200-page interdisciplinary pre-biennial research study of the urban potential for Marseille.

MVRDV produced the study through deep analyses of the city, such as interviews and spatial data, culminating in suggestions for possible urban interventions. As part of this engagement, the firm worked with The Why Factory, founded as “the think tank on the future city” at Technical University Delft, who collaborated with local architecture and design schools on the study. Having received overwhelmingly positive feedback, the work will now be “contextualized, analyzed, and refined as it becomes a tool for Marseillais to imagine possible futures for their city.” In addition, the study will serve as a point of inspiration for artistic and cultural interventions both before and during the Manifesta biennial.

Construction has begun on “The Spiral,” a 1,031-foot-tall project in New York’s Hudson Yards designed by Bjarke Ingels Group. The fifth supertall to be added to the area, The Spiral was commissioned by developer Tishman Speyer as part of the ongoing revitalization of the Midtown West region of Manhattan.

The tower is named after its defining feature - an "ascending ribbon of lively green spaces" that extend the High Line "to the sky," says Bjarke Ingels. The scheme will offer 2.85 million of office space, with the anchor tenant Pfizer occupying 18 floors, according to New York YIMBY.

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MVRDV has won a competition to renovate and extend the Palais du Commerce in Rennes, France. Developed in collaboration with co-architects Bernard Desmoulin and developers Frey and Engie Avenue, the transformation of the historic landmark will “signify a renaissance for both the building and its surroundings.”

The MVRDV scheme will reactivate both the Place de la Republique and the Palais, turning a former public building into a centerpiece of the city’s main commercial street as was originally intended. While being respectful to the existing building, the MVRDV proposal adopts a critical approach to its drawbacks, such as transparency and accessibility.

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US-based innovators HOZO Design C.O. have launched an Indiegogo campaign for the “first compact digital rolling ruler.” The “ROLLOVA” seeks to replace traditional measuring tapes with a compact gadget that measures curves and lines. The pocket-sized stainless steel body contains a 10000:1 high-contrast ratio OLED screen, displaying measurements of flat surfaces and curved objects.

With a maximum tolerance of +-0.4%, the rolling device is capable of measuring to a distance of 10 meters (32 feet). When measuring distances between corner to corner, such as window sills, the device’s offset mode adds either the radius or diameter of itself into the measurements, similar to conventional laser measures.

The European Space Agency has teamed up with a group of architecture students to speculate on the future design of sustainable lunar habitats. From the ESA’s astronaut center in Cologne, Germany, the organization challenged the students to draw on extreme environments in remote places, and speculate on sourcing and producing materials on the Moon to build a sustainable habitat.

Giving consideration to sunlight, temperature, and terrain, the design team developed a system of inflatable modules that can land at the base of a small crater on the South Polar Region of the Moon, where they will gradually fill the cavity with lunar soil until the modules are effectively buried.

The OMA / Reinier de Graaf-designed Nhow Amsterdam RAI Hotel has topped out at its 91-meter height. The main hotel for the RAI Amsterdam convention and exhibition center, the scheme will offer 650 hotel rooms across 25 floors. Formed of three shifting triangular volumes, the scheme draws from a triangular advertising column on the Europaplein that once stood prominently on the site.

OMA was chosen ahead of eleven practices to design the project, which will operate as a hub for business travelers, tourists, and Amsterdam locals. The project has been 15-years in the making, as a larger 800-room proposal was once rejected by the city a few years back.

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Svigals + Partners has designed a Memorial Garden in honor of victims of gun violence in New Haven, Connecticut. Developed in collaboration with a partnership of concerned mothers, the scheme emerged from efforts by New Haven school teacher Marlene Miller Pratt, whose 18-year-old son was killed in 1988.

Working pro bono since April 2018, Svigals + Partners have designed the garden to be flanked by engraved stone pavers and lamppost wind chimes. Before culminating in a serene, protected, circular plaza, the scheme leads visitors past an original sculpture titled “The Lost Generation.” As visitors walk past, the sculpture depicts abstract human figures and are revealed and concealed depending on the visitor standpoint.

Dubai Holding has released details of the latest skyscraper planned for the UAE metropolis, designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill. The Burj Jumeira will soar 550 meters in the air, “inspired by the harmonious ripples of the UAE’s desert sand dunes and its flowing oases.” Inaugurated by the UAE’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on January 31st, 2019, the new tower will be built as part of a vast development known as Downtown Jumeira, “a city of the future distinguished by its intelligent design and cohesive infrastructure and network.”

The tower’s façade is to be covered in digital displays that can be utilized for various occasions and celebrations, with a 450-meter-high sky lounge and sky restaurant complete with interactive surfaces. The tower will also contain multiple observation decks giving visitors 360-degree panoramic views of Dubai, rising from a base designed in the outline of the Sheikh’s fingerprint.

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Danish architect and CEBRA founding partner Mikkel Frost has given a TEDx Talk arguing for the relevance of hand drawing in an increasingly virtual world. Titled “Let your fingers do the talking,” the talk presents hand drawing “not as a render killer, but rather as a lively and more open supplement to the close-to-nature visualization.”

During the talk, Frost explains the inspiration behind is drawing style, partly from the cartoon universe where messages are communicated with humor, few words, and simple expressions. A central part of the design process for every CEBRA project, Frost describes hand drawing as a visual language that is easily understood, open, and less conclusive that hyper-realistic visualizations.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has announced an October 2019 opening date of its Diller Scofidio + Renfro / Gensler-designed extension, which will offer 40,000 square feet of gallery space for the iconic institution in Midtown Manhattan. The expansion features two key additions, with the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio creating a double-height space for live and experimental programming, and the Paula and James Crown Platform offering experimental, creative pace to explore ideas, questions, and processes that arise from MoMA’s collection.

The project has not been without controversy, with considerable backlash generated from the decision to demolish the American Folk Art Museum in order to make way for the new expansion. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in January 2014, DS+R principal Liz Diller embraced the criticism, saying “we would be on the same side if we didn’t know all the details that we know.”

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Design group ENSSO has launched a “scale ruler fountain pen” for architects, featuring 12 imperial and metric scales. Having launched on Kickstarter, the pen is now available for pre-order, made from 100% space-grade aluminum.

Laser-engraved into the solid matte black aluminum are 12 scale markings, denoting 1:20, 1:50, 1:100, 1:200, 1:400, and 1:500, as well as 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 1. A German-made nib manufactured by Peter Bock Co. is available in fine, medium, or broad stroke.

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The World Trade Center site is to create a memorial honoring the thousands of people who have been affected by illnesses related to the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks in New York City. As reported by Curbed NY via The New York Post, the Memorial Glade site will honor rescue, recovery, and relief works as well as survivors and downtown residents who got sick or died from 9/11-related illnesses.

The tribute, designed by 9/11 memorial architects Michael Arad and Peter Walker, will include a path lined with six granite slabs pointed towards the sky. According to the museum, the 17.5 ton stone monoliths “are worn, but not beaten, symbolizing strength and determination through adversity.” The pieces will also incorporate steel fragments from the World Trade Center.

Open House Worldwide has published their 2019 calendar, detailing the 43 cities set to take part in the international event. The festival, founded in 1992, is the world’s longest-established, largest, and fastest-growing network of urban architecture festivals for the public. Open House offers a simple yet powerful concept: to democratize urban architecture through free access to public and private buildings over a 48-hour period.

Newcomers to the 2019 family include Brno (Czech Republic), Tallinn (Estonia), Valencia (Spain), and Naples (Italy). By 2020, it is anticipated that 50 cities will take part in the event, which reaches nearly one million people globally each year. Previously, ArchDaily has attended and covered Open House events in London, Dublin, and Belfast, all of which are returning for the 2019 edition.