This competition is a call for ideas to design a building block of an inclusive school environment that will uniquely enhance the quality of life for teens and adults with disabilities who participate in the Easter Seals VIP Academy.

For the first Round Up of the year, we have five great industrial projects previously featured in ArchDaily. Enjoy them all after the break.

Argos, Building for an Electrical Generator at a Cement Factory / Felipe Gonzalez-Pacheco In July 2006, the project is the winner of an architectural contest, for the resolution of a “skin” for a technical building containing an self generation electrical plant for cement factory. The Factory wanted to generate also a corporative image with the building. Their purpose became a mutual opportunity to generate an experimentation laboratory of technical possibilities with the material they produce, with very low density concretes (read more…)

Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design examines the role of water engineering in shaping public space and city form, by using arid and semi-arid sites in India, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the New World to explore how dryland water systems throughout history have formed and been formed by ritual, hygiene, gender, technology, governance, markets, and, perhaps above all, power.

For the occasion of the first Festival of Ideas for a New City in New York City, Storefront for Art and Architecture jointly with the New Museum and New York City’s Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) are launching the StreetFest Competition for the design, management, and construction of temporary outdoor spaces that produce new ways for collective gathering and city engagement. On Saturday, May 7, 2011, one winning entry will occupy designated outdoor spaces along the Bowery and the surrounding streets of the New Museum during the Festival. We envision fabricating a minimum of fifteen structures that will cover approximately 2,000 square feet.

With Christmas and New Year’s, many of you may have missed some of the great posts que featured last week. Check our small selection of the best after the break.

BR House / Marcio Kogan In terms of an architectural proposition, the BR House located in the countryside could not be more intriguing: situated within the dense and impressive Rain Forest, circumscribing and penetrating the area, dominates all senses. The circumstances, from the inception, forces fundamental questions for architecture: how can architecture present itself and, if making itself present, how can it deliberately show itself as construction? (read more…)

Brooklyn-based Popular Architecture shared with us their proposal for the Downtown Fargo Urban Infill Competition. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Swiss architects kit shared with us their project “Learn-scape”, a primary school and kindergarten in Rafz, Switzerland. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Bangkok-based architect Nontawat Jittrong (LMTS Design), shared with us his proposal for the competition A Room for London, for the 2012 London Olympics. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Now, they are presenting an eBook in continuation to the original, with more insight from more women professionals, plus a few talented emerging ones. The eBook is in PDF and a portion of the sales will go to the fund. To find out more about the fund click here. You can find the eBook here.

Five amazing photos for our last Flickr Round Up of the year! As always, remember you can submit your own photo here, and don’t forget to follow us through Twitter and our Facebook Fan Page to find many more features.

The photo above was taken by asli aydin in Lausanne, Switzerland. Check the other four after the break.

Buensalido Architects, based on the city of Makati, Philippines, shared with us their proposal for an airport competition in Caticlan Island, the gateway to Boracay Island. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Paolo Cucchi Architects, based in Italy and Malaysia, shared with us their proposal for the Kaohsiung Port and Cruise Service Centre International Competition. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Atelier Cosmas Gozali (Arya Cipta Graha) shared with us their proposal for the BMW International Stadium Competition in North Jakarta, Indonesia, for which they received 3rd Prize. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Five great kindergardens in Europe for our fifth selection of previously featured projects. Check them all after the break.

Rosales del Canal Kindergarden / Magén Arquitectos The Kindergarden in Rosales del Canal is located in an area of residential growth in the south-west of Zaragoza. This is the first phase of an educational facility that will be completed with the primary education building. In agreement with the criteria on accessibility and preferably south-facing orientation of teaching spaces, the three buildings – Kindergarten, dining hall/gymnasium and primary – are arranged in a U-shape on the perimeter of the plot (read more…)

The Rotch Travelling Scholarship is an annual two-stage design competition that results in one person, deemed the Rotch Scholar, traveling the world for eight months studying architecture. In the first stage of the selection process, a weekend-long preliminary design competition is held. Finalists from this competition go on to compete in the second stage, a 10-day competition culminating in a design presentation to a distinguished jury in Boston.

No vertical farm has been built yet, but there are already several discussions involving the farms of the future. At ArchDaily, we’ve published Vincent Callebaut’s design and Plantagon’s design. In this video, four architects describe their designs for the vertical farms.

With Christmas in between, you may have missed some great articles we featured last week. Three great projects, a Classic and our second Architecture City Guide, after the break.

San Josemaría Escrivá Church / Javier Sordo Madaleno Bringas The Church and Santa Fe training Center, dedicated to Josémaria Escrivá Balaguer, is located on the west side of Mexico City in an urban context of recently completed projects. The completion of this project results in an urban space that is recovered, literally conformed by trash creating a representation of social and cultural values that have become a city landmark (read more…)

London-based Robin Monotti Architects shared with us “White Cube for London”, their entry for the Living Architecture and Artangel “A Room for London” Competition, for a roof-top hospitality structure to be built in the year of the 2012 London Olympics. More images and architect’s description after the break.