TESTING-GROUND journal invites contributions for its second issue, other sides.

What resides on the other side can cause fear, concern, intrigue, delight and fascination. Neighbouring and distant lands are destinations to visit, invade, occupy and separate ourselves from. Many territorial borders are marked with walls and fences or have settled along rivers and ridges of mountains. These socially and architecturally constructed landscapes contrast with cities and towns which unite otherwise separated territories. The second issue of TESTING-GROUND focuses on concepts, structures, devices and architecture which define or integrate difference.

UNSW Built Environment proudly presents its 2016 Master of Architecture Graduand Exhibition - 'UTOPIA REDUX'.

This year’s Master of Architecture program fosters a broad vision and a considered understanding of the socio-cultural and economic context which influence the making of architecture in conjunction with the concept of ‘utopia’, that has been a recurring theme in architecture marked by experimentation and interrogation of architecture’s ideological and societal purpose.

The expansion of non-stop processes of twenty-first-century capitalism has accelerated the proliferation of digital sharing platforms for the exchange of goods, information, and spaces. Today, apartments, cars, work-spaces, and all kinds of services can be exchanged, opening the possibilities for new understandings of the city. But the promises of the so-called “sharing economies” come along with controversies around the unequal consequences of such a process.

***CALL FOR PAPERS - Projections, Volume 13***

Conscripting Climate: Environmental Risk and Defensive Urbanism

Editors: Aria Finkelstein and Hannah Teicher

Paper submission deadline: January 16, 2017

As adaptation to climate change has become a concern for municipalities, resilience has largely replaced sustainability as the dominant environmental framing in planning discourse (Fainstein 2015, Vale 2014). This shift towards the “securitization of nature” (Davoudi 2014) coincides with the elevation of climate change on military agendas. In the military’s conception, climate change will not only contribute to security issues from resource wars to refugee crises, but will act as a “threat multiplier,” magnifying all existing forms

Empresa Portuaria Austral (the Southern Port Company) of Chile invites all Chilean and foreign architects to participate in the international competition for the design of the master plan and preliminary design of the Port of Mageallan´es´ new International Passenger Terminal in the city of Punta Arenas. All Chilean or foreign architects that participate must include on their team at least one architect that is currently a member of the Chilean Institute of Architects (Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile A.G.).

Russian architectural site Archplatforma.ru and Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing (Berlin) invite architects and artists of architecture to take part in ArchiGraphicArts 2016-2017 International Contest of Architectural Hand Drawings.

These 200 images show you the spectacular views from hundreds of New York City’s finest residences. Everyone loves an amazing view, and some pay millions for a property with views across Central Park, the East River, the Hudson River, or the Midtown skyline. In the jungle of glass, stone, and steel that is New York City, it is impossible to overstate the value of an incredible view. Tauber, a Manhattan-based independent photographer, shot these images over the last decade while shooting New York City’s finest properties for real estate firms, architects, interior designers, developers, and magazines.

Enter the world of fairy-tale towers, whimsical stairways, crow's nests, zip lines, and suspended rope bridges. Take pleasure in the details of hand-split oak shingles, thatched roofs, and cedar tongue-and-groove interiors. Made of sustainably sourced materials, Blue Forest's magical sanctuaries fit snugly between trees and branches often incorporating them into the building itself and sit lightly on the land.

Children with dreams of designing buildings will discover how architects actually work in this workbook, which builds on the concepts introduced in The Future Architect’s Handbook. It walks readers through the drawings created by Aaron, a young architect building his own home. Going a step further, children will learn the steps necessary to create their own drawings and build a model of their design, using an included tool kit consisting of graph paper and an architect's scale, pencil, and drafting eraser.

For those interested in creating a one-of-a-kind home in a condo or apartment building, this book offers a voyeuristic peek at the way people design, construct, and accessorize these often challenging spaces. Thirty beautifully photographed projects illustrate how their designers overcame the constraints of high-rise living to enhance the owners' comfort. Learn how one architect brought elusive light into the center of a condo in Washington, DC's Dupont Circle neighborhood, visit the "stair bridge" in a Vermont ski condo, and observe the visual tricks used to open a Florida penthouse to ocean views. See how designers are raising the bar

In those areas in which spontaneous and unauthorized construction is widespread, overwhelming good architecture, one should consider that informal phenomena are a tangible manifestation of the social relationship with built environment. Structural or decorative elements are figured out and crafted to quickly respond to two important needs: spatial appropriation and self-representation of the builder. Often lying in the grey area of building regulations. 

DBR presents PAUSE a competition in partnership with TED2017 ‘The future you’. This year TED is making the conference more explicitly personal. We are questioning what individual space looks like; the personal and private; the open and closed. How do we design an environment and experience that is nurturing, human, satisfying, and exciting?

Asia’s leading annual event on design, innovation and brands, Business of Design Week 2016, will commence on 30 November 2016 and end on 3 December 2016 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. This year, the Business of Design Week brings to Hong Kong the distinctive minds in the profession of architecture to share their views on development of a future city. This is the first year BODW is partnering with a U.S. city – Chicago.

Completed in January 1977, Richard Rogers’s and Renzo Piano’s Centre Georges Pompidou was initially received skeptically by critics, but the public soon embraced Beaubourg as an essential—and well loved—Paris institution. Francesco Dal Co’s lively intellectual biography, Centre Pompidou: Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, and the Making of a Modern Monument (Nov. 29, Yale University Press) explores the Pompidou’s history and the reasons for its success, from its genesis as a politically calculated response to the turbulent 1968 student protests to the role played by architects in its construction, as well as the historical influences and the engineering solutions that inform its design. 

Transnational projects for resource extraction have motivated the development of massive infrastructural corridors. The strategic siting of mining towns, petrochemical encampments, and industrial developments aims to integrate vast geographical and political entities. These experiments promise to advance economic development on a national scale, but their influence on regional and urban constructs tests the agency of architecture and planning at smaller scales.

The International Mass Timber Conference is a leading conference and expo on the use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and other mass timber in global design and construction and is one of the largest gatherings of CLT and mass timber experts in the world. The 2016 event drew 519 industry thought leaders and executives from 11 countries, and 56 exhibitors and 48 international speakers. Interest is high and the conference is expected to be even bigger in 2017.

Based on his experience in curating the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2016 in Venice, the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena inspired the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction to organize a debate on sustainability and security. Framed as one of this year Architecture Biennale’s discussions, the event will foreground topics that were raised in the context of the exhibition “Reporting from the Front” and expose them to “real life reports” from the forefront of architecture and related disciplines.

Growing security concerns, specifically pertaining to the world supply chain and global flows of construction materials as well as the