This guide shows how to use a D5 Render a free live-sync plugin to improve SketchUp workflow.

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in partnership with the City of San Francisco Planning Department is requesting creative proposals for submission in the 2016 Market Street Prototyping Festival. This is the second year we are inviting Bay Area citizens from all walks of culture, practice, and discipline to submit prototype ideas to make Market Street a more vibrant public space while also reflecting the uniqueness of San Francisco. This opportunity is not limited to artists and designers, so don’t be shy.

The City of Central Falls seeks Design Professionals looking to develop their portfolios with small-scale projects focused on façade improvement on Dexter Street that will bring high-quality, top-notch design to the city. Additional information about Central Falls’ Façade Improvement Program is available on the Central Falls website: http://www.centralfallsri.us/growing.
This project is part of a concerted effort to create a more vibrant and integrated urban environment on our main streets. Significant investment is being done to improve the streets and sidewalks and the City wishes to expand upon this work by implementing a façade improvement program. Dexter Street is an excellent example of a vibrant urban “Main Street,” with many successful businesses and delicious restaurants. The City believes that these façade improvements will have the opportunity to take the street “over the top” and pave the path toward a successful attraction for neighboring communities and tourists, in addition to improving the experience for residents.

The Metropolitan Government of Seoul announces an international competition in order to establish a music-led cultural complex by 2018, in which domestic and oversea specialists from various fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design are invited to participate. The government have established a program including the necessary facilities and the scale considering citizen participation and publicity for the realization of the proposed operation program.

The Brick Industry Association (BIA) encourages entries for its 2016 Brick in Architecture Awards through April 30.

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Update #4 (3/17/2016): We have received the following statement from the organizers of this competition, the Third Mind Foundation. Below the updates, you can read the new competition brief. ArchDaily is in no way affiliated with the competition itself or its organizers.

UPDATE: The deadline has been extended to May 20, 2016. 

This is a call for works of art or design that (i) might fairly be called ‘objects’ by the nascent philosophies of Speculative Realism and Object Oriented Ontology, and that (ii) will throw light on architecture as a peculiar set of objects, phenomena, ideas, relations, connections, skills, materials, obligations, and operations. A selection of twenty of these Objects—all physical and all, whether singular or configurations of smaller objects, falling within the four Parameters set out below—will be exhibited for two weeks around a three-day symposium to be staged by the Center for American Architecture and Design (CAAD) at The University of Texas at Austin in October 2016 called “The Secret Life of Buildings."

The Go Beyond: Design Challenge is unique from usual design competitions because it funds the construction of a working prototype in addition to offering prize money. This is an international design competition organized by the Singapore-based ONG FOUNDATION for architects, engineers, designers and innovators to create new-to-the-world solutions. Every year, about two million shipping containers are no longer used. What if these could be upcycled into sustainable architecture to reduce the total carbon footprint of global development?

Community Forests International (CFI) is excited to announce its second architectural design competition for the backwoods cabin of the future. The first, hosted in 2014, drew in over 50 entries from 11 different countries and served as a platform for exploring how humans can get back to nature in the 21st century. Bringing together visionary architects, artists, green builders and DIYers, this new challenge addresses the climate crisis and will help transform the organization’s 235 hectare (580 acre) organic farm and forest outside of Sussex, New Brunswick, Canada into a Rural Innovation Campus.

We know people overwhelmingly want to stay living in their homes and communities for as long as possible. But, livability isn’t about ageing. It is about comfort, convenience, safety and options throughout one’s life. Yet, people tend to buy or live in homes based on their present-day circumstances. We can start to change that… one home design at a time.

The Museum of London and Malcolm Reading Consultants have launched an international search for an outstanding architect or team of architects to create a new building for the museum at West Smithfield in the City of London. The project at the heart of the two-stage design competition has a £130-150m construction budget, and is focused on regenerating a nationally-significant landmark and creating new contemporary galleries within a group of historic buildings on the West Smithfield site. The Museum of London is one of the top ten museums and galleries in the UK capital and responsible for the world’s largest archaeological archive, which currently holds six million artefacts.

Nka Foundation announces a call for entries for its 4th Earth Architecture Competition: Designing a School for Ghana, an international architecture competition open to graduates and advanced students of architecture, design and others from around the world who think earth architecture can be beautiful.

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COMPETITION BRIEF: All interested artists are invited to submit their concept ideas for the Genius Loci Weimar Festival between the opening date of 27 January 2016 up to the deadline of 23 March 2016. Submitted concepts will be displayed ina public exhibition in Weimar in spring 2016. The best projects will chosen, among other means, with the help of an audience vote. The three winning projects will then be completed with the help of prize money totalling €45,000 before being shown in the context of an evening tour of Weimar, itself part of a wider festival to take place from 12 to 14 August 2016.

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Amsterdam Light Festival invites artists, designers, scientists, engineers and architects) to submit ideas for artworks to be staged at the festival's 2016 - 2017 edition. The fifth edition of the Amsterdam Light Festival will take place in the city center of Amsterdam in November 2015 till January 2016. The deadline for submissions is 11th of March 2016.

In light of the 30th anniversary since the reconstruction of the Barcelona Pavilion The Mies van der Rohe Foundation is calling the competition "Fear of Columns." The competition's purpose is the temporary recreation of the eight columns and two pedestals that presided over the Pavilion in 1929, in the framework of the 30-year anniversary since the reconstruction of this iconic work by the German architect.

Activating the City with a Qpuncture!

I. Background
Opposite to the conventional concept and operation mode of urban planning, which is from macro to micro and from top to bottom, Q (the initial of pinyin “qu”, simplified Chinese: 趣, n. fun; adj. interesting) City Plan operates with a human-oriented spirit. The plan approaches the large-scale city by rediscovering its nooks and crannies, amending the sweeping generalizations and supplementing the grand narrative of traditional urban planning.
Q City Plan was initiated in Yantian District, Shenzhen in 2013 in the form of art installation, structure and landscape design. The Q City Plan features multiple and flexible formats, freedom to choose sites and projects, minimum cost and constructability while encouraging designers to take greater initiative in design, material selection, construction and cost management. The first edition of the Q City Plan received more than 60 proposals, 12 of which are now under construction in Yantian while drawing much attention in the contemporary press.
The Q City Plan International Design Competition is co-organized by the Shenzhen Urban Planning and Land Resources Committee, Shenzhen Yantian Government and China Building Centre (CBC). It invites all the design firms and designers in architecture, landscape, urban planning, design and art. We expect schemes that are both enlightening and feasible for the urban renewal for Yantian.
For more information please visit our website: qcityplan.uedmagazine.net/?r=site&en=1

The School for Curatorial Studies is an ambitious and challenging project promoted since 2004 and conceived as a school committed to experimentation and interdisciplinary thinking. The main goals are to spread the knowledge in the field of visual arts and to introduce the students to the professions related to the art world, focusing on contemporary curatorial theory and practice and contemporary museology. The School’s activities are meant for all those interested and passionate in art, graduated students or professionals who want to deepen their knowledge and improve their practical skills. The School’s teaching staff is formed by Italian and international professionals, scholars, historians and art critics of recognized experience. Among them: Agnes Kohlmeyer (curator), Angela Vettese (art critic), Luca Massimo Barbero (Peggy Guggenheim Collection), Francesca Colasante (Pinault Foundation), Andrea Goffo (Found. Prada), Nicola Lees.

The Council of the City of Ryde, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, invites submissions for an iconic gateway concept – a bold vision of insightful and creative design to guide future development of its civic site.

Now in its fourth year, the Future of Shade competition, continues Sunbrella’s® commitment to the architecture and design community by nurturing the exploration of creative solutions in three unique categories create distinct challenges where shade plays a critical role in the response.

An international architecture competition has been launched, asking for ideas to build a traveling Charlie Hebdo Portable Pavilion that exhibits the company's works in the name of free speech. Up to $10,000 in prizes will be awarded to three winning proposals and six honorable mentions. All are welcome to participate. Registration will close March 9. You can read on for more information.

The Los Angeles Conservancy is now accepting applications for their 2016 Preservation Awards, which recognize outstanding achievement in the field of historic preservation in Los Angeles County. Applications are due by 5 p.m. on Friday, January 29, 2016.

Competition Subject

The competition includes offering a proposal for station 7, line 1 of Tabriz urban train (Tabriz University) which covers the following two axial subjects:
1. Design of station entrances
2. Design and interior architecture of the station

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Re-Ball! is an open design competition to turn 650,000+ 3-inch, white, translucent plastic balls into a site-specific installation in the Dupont Underground’s 14,000-square-foot east platform. The balls were previously part of the National Building Museum’s blockbuster 2015 summer destination The Beach.
The winning concept will take the medium in a new direction, one that responds to the uniqueness of the installation site. From the open, light-filled box of the National Building Museum’s Great Hall to the curving concrete volume of the Dupont Underground's east platform, Re-Ball! entries should transform the constituent materials — and the space itself — into an entirely new experience.
Re-Ball! is open to everyone across all disciplines: artists, architects, designers, and the general public. The winning entry should be thoughtful, provocative, witty, safe, and executable on a limited budget, in a limited time frame, and within the confines of the site.

At the beginning of January 2016 the Municipality of Prato, Italy, is launching an open, anonymous, international two-phase design competition for a new 3-hectare urban park in its historical city center. By the end of February, the international jury will select 10 finalist architects who will be invited to conceive a schematic design for the site. In June 2016 the winner will be awarded and commissioned to design the final project for the new Parco Centrale di Prato.

A’ Design Award & Competition is the world’s leading international annual juried competition for design. The A’ Design Accolades are organized in a wide range of creative fields to highlight the very best designers from all countries in all disciplines. Entries to the competition are peer-reviewed and anonymously judged by an influential jury panel of experienced academics, prominent press members and established professionals. A’ Design Award & Competition promises fame, prestige, publicity and international recognition to all A’ Design Award Winners through the A’ Design Prize which is given to celebrate the awarded designs.