Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) has unveiled its design for the David M. Rubenstein Forum at the southeast corner of Woodlawn Avenue and 60th Street on the University of Chicago's campus. The 90,000 square foot (8,500 square meter) facility has been devised as a place of intellectual, institutional, and educational exchange, fulfilling a variety of campus needs for meeting spaces. A collection of block-like volumes, the building’s two-story base is anchored by a narrow 165-foot (50 meter) tower, with the exterior materials and structure reflecting the programmatic divisions within.

The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) has collaborated with La Biennale di Venezia on the Special Project Applied Arts Pavilion with an exhibition called A World of Fragile Parts. The project will examine threats faced by global heritage sites and how copies can act as an aid in the preservation of cultural artifacts.

“Climate change, natural disasters, urbanisation, mass tourism and neglect, as well as recent violent attacks have brought the risks faced by many heritage sites and cultural artefacts into public conversation," states the A World of Fragile Parts press release, outlining the concerns of the project. "Artists, activists and educational institutions are beginning to respond to the urgent need to preserve by exploring opportunities provided by digital scanning and new fabrication technologies. Several key questions emerge: What do we copy and how? What is the relationship between the copy and the original in a society that values authenticity? And how can such an effort be properly coordinated at a truly global and inclusive scale?”

+ 33

CEBRA, in collaboration with landscape architect SLA, has designed the Sustainable School for The Sustainable City in Dubai. In opposition to hot-climate educational environments that are often large, air-conditioned structures, CEBRA’s vision for The Sustainable City proposes a permeability between outdoor and indoor learning environments, utilizing both in equal measure.

MVRDV has designed a fully transparent kitchen for Kitchen Home Project, a satellite event at this year’s Venice Biennale, focusing on living and the home environment. Kitchen Home Project was initiated by Weng Ling of the Beijing Centre for the Arts (BCA), and also features works by Kengo Kuma and the Hong Kong-based media artist Au Yeung Ying Chai. MVRDV’s proposal, “Infinity Kitchen,” imagines the next stage of kitchen design, creating counters, shelving, cabinets, and faucets entirely out of glass – the metaphor being that a see-through environment will add greater transparency to the food being made in the kitchen, and make inhabitants more aware food choices, cleanliness, and the culinary experience.

+ 3

The Oslo Architecture Triennale has announced the program and participants for this year's sixth edition of the event, titled After Belonging, which will open in September of this year. Participants will contribute to two exhibitions, occurring alongside a conference, and collateral events, taking place September 8-November 27, 2016.

As described by the Oslo Architecture Triennale website: "The 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale designs the objects, spaces, and territories for a transforming condition of belonging. Global circulation of people, information, and goods has destabilized what we understand by residence, questioning spatial permanence, property, and identity—a crisis of belonging. Circulation brings greater accessibility to ever-new commodities and further geographies. But, simultaneously, circulation also promotes growing inequalities for large groups, kept in precarious states of transit. After Belonging examines both our attachment to places and collectivities—Where do we belong?—as well as our relation to the objects we own, share, and exchange—How do we manage our belongings?”

Studio Gang has designed a new home for the Academy for Global Citizenship (AGC), a Chicago Public Charter School in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood. Established eight years ago with the operating philosophy that a more sustainable world begins at school, the proposed campus is an urban farm and educational institution wrapped into one.

David Chipperfield has chosen to mentor Swiss architect Simon Kretz as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative for 2016-2017. Launched in 2002, but working with architects only since 2012, the venture is a biennial philanthropic programme created by Rolex to “ensure that the world’s artistic heritage is passed on from generation to generation, across continents and cultures.”

Napur Architect has won the competition to design a new building for the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest. On a site bordering Ötvenhatosok Square and adjacent to City Park, the building is one part of the Liget Budapest Project, aimed at renewing the civic space of the area with renovations to existing structures, rejuvenation of green spaces, and institutional additions. Besides the Ethnography Museum, City Park will be home to the House of Hungarian Music designed by Sou Fujimoto and a New National Gallery designed by SANAA.

+ 1

On the eve of the Venice Biennale, The New York Times’ Michael Kimmelman sits down with Alejandro Aravena in an intimate profile for T Magazine’s Beauty Issue. Visiting a number of projects by the architect and his office, Elemental, Kimmelman experiences socially minded architecture in an age of informal growth, income inequality, and mounting threats linked to climate change, all while learning about Aravena’s own path and growth as a practitioner. Although told by colleagues that he might be standoffish, Kimmelman finds Aravena to be “earnest, open, a little nerdy –– and deadly serious.”

Studio Gang has released images of the firm’s Strategic Master Plan for the National Aquarium in Baltimore. The driving force of this initiative is to identify opportunities for sustained growth, improvements to the visitor experience, and to reinforce the organization’s commitment to conservation and education at all scales.

+ 3

MAD’s first residential project in Europe was revealed by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo earlier today. The building, called UNIC, will be located in the newly developed neighborhood of Clichy-Batignolles, a former brownfield site in the northeast of the seventeenth arrondissement, covering over fifty hectares. The tower will be adjacent to Martin Luther King Park and a courthouse by Renzo Piano that is currently under construction. MAD was awarded the design through an international competition, and the project is being developed in collaboration with Biecher Architectes.

+ 7

REX has released designs for 2050 M Street, an office building in Washington DC’s Golden Triangle Business District. The 41,800 square meter (450,000 square foot) building evolves and merges two existing typologies in the US Capitol: heavy masonry or concrete buildings, with high relief facades and punched windows – in styles ranging from Beaux Arts to Neoclassical, Art Deco and Brutalist – or modern structures with taut glass envelopes, many with applied decorative treatments. To reconcile these two competing strategies, 2050 M Street provides hyper-transparent, floor to ceiling glass, without view-impeding mullions. From the exterior, the panels appear scooped or concave, establishing that an all-glass building can also have a high-relief facade befitting of the nation’s capitol.

+ 8

Mecanoo has unveiled plans for the Namdaemun Office Building in Seoul. The tower takes its name from the Namdaemun Market, the oldest and largest market in South Korea, which is next to the ancient southern gate of the city. Opened as a government managed marketplace in 1414, the market is now an important 24-hour destination for trade and tourism. The slim 14-story, 5,900 square meter (65,000 square foot) building rests on a corner opposite the commercial activities of the market.

+ 1

LEGO® today unveiled “Big Ben” as the company’s newest kit in its Creator series. Aimed at adult LEGO® fans (meaning 16 and older) the 4,163 piece design pays tribute to the engineering and architecture of the 19th century Gothic Revival clock tower adjoining the Palace of Westminster and Elizabeth Tower. Highlighting the set’s complexity, LEGO® has outlined the its unique features, including “detailed facade with statues, shields and windows, and a clock tower with 4 adjustable clock dials and a removable roof allowing access to the belfry, plus buildable exterior elements including a sidewalk, lawn and a tree depicting the building’s location.” Big Ben measures over 23 inches (60 centimeters) tall and will be available to purchase on July 1, 2016.

Following “Brutal London,” Zupagrafika has released another collection of illustrated paper cut-out models, “Paris Brut," which portrays the Brutalist architecture of Paris from the late-’50s through the 1970s. The set features buildings from the city’s arrondissements and banlieues, the latter of which became a central locality for Habitation à Loyer Modéré, a type of public-private, rent-controlled housing in France.

Paris Brut is made up of six illustrated models to assemble: Orgues de Flandre, Les Choux de Créteil, Cité Curial-Michelet, Cité des 4000, Centre National de la Danse and Plan Voisin interpretation. The whole set is eco-friendly (printed on recycled paper and cardboard), and includes a short technical note on each building’s architect, year of construction, and exact location.