London is one of the world’s most iconic and beloved cities, with a diverse blend of architectural styles spanning the centuries. Every year, 20 million tourists flock to the city in search of iconic landmarks such as Big Ben, the Palace of Westminster, the London Eye, and Trafalgar Square.

But London could have been so different. Through time, a host of ambitious, crazy, and revolutionary plans were drawn up around the city, only to be consigned to an unbuilt history. To demonstrate this, Barratt Homes has unearthed plans for “some of the capital’s most ambitious construction projects that never saw the light of day.”

From city master plans to pocket-sized products, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) have explored architectural formalism through innovative digital design methods. In 2006, the collaboration with furniture-makers and fashion houses led to the creation of Zaha Hadid Design that served both as an iterative process for and a resultant of ongoing architectural design.

A pop-up exhibition, located suitably on the ground floor of ZHA's renowned condominium along the High Line in New York City, features a scale model of the building itself on display. To honor and present the work produced by the firm in the last four decades, the Zaha Hadid Gallery showcases a series of projects in a wide range of mediums including the six 'Silver Models' that represent eight of the firm's key works.

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As part of Architecture Week, celebrated by the Official Association of Architects of Tenerife, La Gomera, and El Hierro (Spain), the Oraá Architecture Prizes were awarded, recognizing the best architectural achievements of the last 10 years on the islands of Tenerife, La Gomera, and El Hierro.

The Spanish accolade highlights new construction, restorations, renovations, landscape, public space, and interior design, along with special distinctions for outstanding career achievements, emerging talent, patronage, and the best architectural photography.

These are the winning projects:

Where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan, a pivotal node in Chicago’s cityscape, bKL Architecture has designed three towers along the waterfront, which connect the natural elements of the landscape with the urban center and neighboring communities.

The urban development is located at a prominent junction utilized by both pedestrians and automobiles; the site’s new master plan separates the two, providing seamless integration between the active green space surrounding bLK’s three towers and the lakefront.

ZGF architects have completed Google's new L.A. office by transforming California's landmark Spruce Goose Hangar. Designed as a building-within-a-building, the project was built inside the seven-story, 750-foot-long historic wooden structure. The 450,000 SF, four-level design is sited between two existing Google properties, and the project aimed to unify the Playa Vista campus while bringing a new perspective to workplace through adaptive reuse.

Swedish studio Urban Nouveau created a plan to save Stockholm's Gamla Lidingöbron bridge by transforming it into a linear park and housing. After launching a petition to save the bridge and re-purpose it, ArchDaily followed up with Sara Göransson, founding partner at Urban Nouveau, to ask her about her background and how the studio approaches social integration, housing and the future of urban infrastructure.

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JP Morgan Chase announced this week that they had hired Foster + Partners to design their new global headquarters in New York. The project, located in midtown Manhattan, will replace the existing 1960s SOM design for the US investment bank.

This is not the first time Foster + Partners have been called in to handle a corporate headquarters project: the office is also responsible for the designs of the nearby Hearst Tower, Apple's Campus in Silicon Valley, and the Stirling Prize-winning Bloomberg HQ in London.

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Frank Gehry's Grand Avenue towers are finally set to begin construction, over a decade after the project was initially proposed. Conceived as a public-private partnership, the towers are sited across from Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The project was designed from a central retail core into the two terracing towers with a mix of retail, entertainment and residences. The $1 billion complex aims to turn Grand Avenue into a full entertainment district.

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London-based architectural and urban design firm ecoLogicStudio has unveiled a large-scale “urban curtain” designed to fight climate change. “Photo.Synth.Etica” was developed in collaboration with Climate-KIC, the most prominent climate innovation initiative from the European Union, to “accelerate solutions to global climate change.”

Photo.Synth.Etica, currently on display at the Printworks Building in Ireland’s Dublin Castle, captures and stores one kilogram of CO2 per day, the equivalent to that of 20 large trees.

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A solar energy system has been under construction since September of this year at El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia. It is currently billed as the largest photovoltaic project in Latin America, according to local and international media outlets such as El Tiempo and EFE.

Set to begin operations in the first quarter of 2019, the installation will feature over 10,000 solar panels and have a capacity of 2,800 kWp. It will generate 3,815,000 kWh annually, equivalent to the energy consumed by 1,590 homes. Additionally, the project will use 89.4 km of cabling—a length comparable to the distance between Bogotá and Villavicencio.

Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled their proposal for a mountain outpost in the Swiss Alps. “TITLIS 3020” is situated on one of Switzerland’s most renowned tourist attractions, the 3000-meter-high Mount Titlis.

The design forms part of a master plan for the area developed by Herzog & de Meuron, which includes the construction of the outpost, the redevelopment of an old beam antenna tower, and redevelopment of an underground tunnel.

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Design House, which is held annually within the framework of Design Week Mexico, is celebrating its tenth anniversary. In this year's edition, 24 local designers and architects transformed an abandoned home, each restoring a room or outdoor area. One of these interventions, by Broissin Architects, reconstructed the outdoor patio into a micro-forest with the small, glass house placed on a centenary ash tree.

The use of earth plaster is very common in natural buildings; it is the same mixture used in adobe. Though easily made, its use is not widely known. Rafael Loschiavo, from Ecoeficientes, teaches the step-by-step method for bringing a new life to a run-down wall without the need for major renovations.

Wilkinson Eyre has revealed new images showing a plan to create a glass elevator in Battersea Power Station. The lift will travel 109 meters to the top of one of the building's iconic chimneys. On opening, it will offer visitors views of the capital's skyline from one of the most unique viewing platforms in London. The Chimney Lift is one of three new and exciting event/attraction spaces on offer inside the iconic Power Station. The station is working closely with a wide collection of heritage and emerging retail brands from the UK and across the globe to complement its vision for the 1930s and 1950s turbine halls.

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CEMEX has announced the Mexican winners of the 2018 CEMEX Building Award across its various categories, including Affordable Housing, Residential Housing, Building, Collective Space, and Infrastructure. This year's winners include projects from across Mexico, with each entry evaluated on comprehensive sustainability, architectural solution, structural solution, and construction process. Read on to discover the winning projects of this edition.

Jorge and Andrés Kálnay began a journey back in 1920. By that time, Argentina had already built most of its public buildings, Alejandro Bustillo was traveling through Europe, Mario Palanti was erecting his colossal Barolo Palace, and Le Corbusier would have to wait nine years before setting foot in Buenos Aires.

Little did the architect brothers imagine, when they boarded a ship bound for the United States, that they would end up in the waters of the Río de la Plata, shaping part of Buenos Aires's current architectural memory. 

The Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) has been selected to design the German Pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai. Designed as a vertical campus that blends nature and technology, the pavilion takes cues from local architecture and Germany’s history of outstanding lightweight pavilion design. Formally, the design features a freeform roof that encloses interlinked floating cubes that house exhibition and event spaces.

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Zaha Hadid Architects, working in collaboration with Russia-based TPO Pride Architects has been selected as one of three consortiums to realize the Rublyovo-Arkhangelskoye neighborhood in the West of the Russian capital Moscow.

The team will work with fellow winners Nikken Sekkei, UNK Project, Archea Associati, and ABD Architects to develop 4 million square meters of new buildings over 460 hectares. Over one-third of the new neighborhoods will be parklands and forest bordering the Moscow River, with a centerpiece 30-hectare lake.

The Harvard Graduate School of Design has initiated a call for submissions for the 2019 Wheelwright Prize, an open international competition that awards $100,000 to a “talented early-career architect to support travel-based research.”

With an open competition process, the Wheelwright Prize recognizes the importance of field research to professional development and reinforces Harvard GSD’s dedication to fostering investigative approaches to contemporary design. The winning entrant will join previous winners such as Aude-Line Duliere in 2018, Samuel Bravo in 2017, and Anna Puigjaner in 2016.

SHoP Architects have revealed new renderings of their design for a New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. In 2013, SHoP was among the firms selected by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) to realize facilities that will meet its operational needs while embodying and communicating the spirit and highest values of the United States.

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The first Brazilian project by Safdie Architects has broken ground in Sao Paolo's Morumbi neighborhood on November 6. Developed in partnership with Perkins+Will, The Albert Einstein Education and Research Center is part of the Albert Einstein hospital complex.

The new center, named Campus Cecilia and Abram Szajman, will be one of the most advanced institutions in Latin America for medical studies. It will feature innovations in learning methods and technologies, as well as flexible research laboratories capable of adapting to the advancement of hospital techniques.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) unveiled the seven laureates of the 2019 International Fellowships, a "lifetime honor allows recipients to use the initials Int FRIBA after their name," recognizes the contributions that architects across the world outside of the UK have made in the field of architecture. Previously awarded to architects such as Jeanne Gang and Phillip Cox, the annual Fellowship emphasizes not only the impact of architects' work in their respective homelands but also their global influence.

A juror's committee, consisting of Ben Derbyshire, RIBA President; Lady Patty Hopkins, a 1994 RIBA Gold Medalist; Bob Shiel, a professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture; Wasfi Kani, a 2018 Honorary Fellow; and Pat Woodward RIBA, of Matthew Lloyd Architects, awarded the 2019 Fellows. The fellowships will be presented in London in February 2019.

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Discussing public space and urbanism with children in a playful way: this is the premise of the book Casacadabra – Cidades para Brincar, which will be launched on November 11 at Sesc Avenida Paulista in São Paulo.

Written by Bianca Antunes and Simone Sayegh, with illustrations by Luísa Amoroso, this is the second title in the Casacadabra series. The first, titled Invenções para morar, introduced the architecture of ten houses around the world. The Casacadabra series is a pioneering initiative in Brazil, bringing specific architecture and urbanism content to children.

Herzog & de Meuron have revealed their plan for a new summit station atop the Swiss mountain Titlis. The Alpine masterplan entails the new construction of the summit station, the redevelopment and extension of an old beam antenna tower, and an upgrade of the Titlis underground tunnel. The design aims to breath new life in one of Switzerland’s most renowned international tourist attractions.