We continue our effort to bring you our best previously published works, this time, our Round Up features Educational Architecture. Enjoy it!

Into the Open: Positioning Practice is the official U.S. representation at the 11th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition explores how architects, urban researchers, and community activists are meeting the challenges of creating new work in response to contemporary social conditions. The exhibition also addresses factors challenging traditional methods of architecture, such as shifting socio-cultural demographics, changing geo-political boundaries, uneven economic development, and the explosion of migration and urbanization. At the same time, it will advocate for an expanded conception of architectural practice and responsibility. The sixteen practitioners included, all of whom actively engage communities in their work, demonstrate multifaceted responses to social and environmental issues.

This was sent to us by Klaus Olsen via our Facebook Group. The Danish architects JAJA have just revealed their new proposal for an office and shop complex in Sandnes – Norway. They have worked with Rambøll Aros on this 13,000m2 project.

The building is named after an ancient Viking Ship, which was called worm Lange. The ship was Norwegian, and it feels appealing to draw historical references to a piece of contemporary architecture.

For more details, click here.

More images after the break.

Belgium opened a new €20 million “zero emissions” polar science station in Antarctica on Sunday, returning to the continent to study climate change 42 years after closing its first base there.

On the occasion of the first edition of its Public Design Festival, esterni announces an international call for entries to search for ideas and projects for public spaces; among all submissions, 10 projects will be selected, carried out and presented during the festival, that will take place in Milan on April 18-26 2009. This unique opportunity to design a planned intervention on an urban parking area is open to different types of approaches, from community service to urban furniture.

The Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, England, was designed by Daniel Libeskind and completed in 2001. The museum was mainly sorrounded by a plain exterior, occupied by a parking lot. The canal-side building is planning a new design landscape and collected proposals from several firms in a competition. The entries have come to five finalists, from which the final design should be chosen this March.

The finalists are:

KLA (UK) White arkitekter ab (Sweden) Patel Taylor (UK) Topotek 1 (Germany) Field Operationes (US)

Seen on designboom. The proposals, after the break.

Following with our “Round Up”, the category this Friday is Institutional Architecture. Enjoy this selection of our previously published works.

Our green friends from Inhabitat just shared this with us: Morris Architects, a Houston-based architecture and design firm, recently took top honors for two of their submissions in the Radical Innovation in Hospitality design competition. The grand prize winner, the Oil Rig Platform Resort and Spa makes use of one of 4,000 oil rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico and transforms it into a luxurious eco-resort and spa.

More details on the project, here.

More images after the break.

Texas Tech University’s College of Architecture in conjunction with the American Institute of Architecture Students will host a symposium and workshop April 15-16 that will focus on making its campus more environmentally friendly.

Cesar Dubó sent us this link to Flavor Wire (Flavorpill’s Blog). It shows the very best songs related to architecture. Please, feel free to submit your own favorites in the comments.

We just saw this link on VariousArchitect´s Twitter, and thought it might interest you. Small architectural practices are bearing the brunt of the recession with 47% saying they do not have enough work, new research reveals.

International architectural firm Coop Himmelb(l)au have received the first prize in the competition to design the new ‘Headquarter of China Insurance Group’ in Shenzen, China. It will be part of a lively business quarter in the heart of the central district of Shenzhen made up of a carefully composed ensemble of individual towers creating a landmark silhouette.

Seen at designboom, here.

More images after the break.

MAD recently organized a collaborative masterplanning project in South West China. Ten young international architects were invited to take part in an urban experiment, to design a new city centre on a scenic natural site close to the city of Guiyang. The participating architects were: Atelier Manferdini (USA), BIG (DENMARK), Dieguez Fridman (ARGENTINA), EMERGENT/Tom Wiscombe (USA), HouLiang Architecture (CHINA), JDS (DENMARK/BELGIUM), MAD (CHINA), Mass Studies (KOREA), Rojkind Arquitectos (MEXICO), Serie (UK/INDIA), Sou Fujimoto Architects (JAPAN).

Seen on designboom.

Images after the break.

It’s Tuesday, time for another “Round Up” of previously published works. This week, we bring you our first selection of Museums.

After a high-level meeting on February 13, CCTV issued a report that shows that only the surface of the building was damaged. The amazing fire we saw on the images and videos was actually the zinc alloy burning very fast (melts at 400ºC, versus 1000ºC fireworks can get). Anyway, a Chinese architecture expert puts this in doubt, saying that interior equipment had to be damaged. Now it´s up to the engineers to decide the future of the building.

Our green friends from Inhabitat sent us this interesting project. A new prefab recently built by the students at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. Their goal was to build a prototype prefab conducive to elegant and sustainable living within the heart of the desert landscape.

The masterplan will transform a site of a former slaughterhouse in the city of Horsens, Western Denmark into a mixed-use commercial, office and cultural complex that will include residential areas. Shla’s masterplan received particular praise for its dynamic design which will create a sense of cohesion between the city’s existing urban identity and the new retail and recreational areas.

More details, after the break.

Paul Murdoch Architects, with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, won the 2-stage competition for a national memorial and park to occur at the site where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The memorial will honor the passengers and crewmembers of Flight 93.