The year 2011 was a great one for ArchDaily, and all thanks to you. In terms of web traffic, in our network we grew to more than 200,000 daily readers who viewed 350 million pages during 2011. Our social media reach has grown to nearly 500,000 Facebook fans, more than 60,000 followers on Twitter and an ever growing presence on Flickr, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, all connecting with architects around our passion: Architecture.

ArchDaily is more than big numbers. It is recognized as the ultimate source of inspiration for thousands of architects around the world, who are covering new ground in architectural discussion, and generating new opportunities by being part of the world’s largest architecture network. During 2011, we participated in important events, such as the Pritzker Prize ceremony in DC, the AIA National Convention in New Orleans, among others, and visiting architects all across the US, in the UK, Switzerland, Israel, Brazil, Chile and Argentina. We’ve had the chance to interview renowned architects such as Steven Holl, Renzo Piano, Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, and a long list of people who are advancing this profession. We spoke at the AIA Arkansas Convention, Harvard GSD, along with other events and schools. We launched our first local version, ArchDaily Brasil (more to come during this year!) and introduced our first tool to help architects collect and order information: My ArchDaily. We will continue to work very hard during 2012, with all our passion, to keep you connected to everything that is happening in the architecture world and help you with tools, as you will be the responsible of the noble task to shape our built environment.

Since 2009 we have held the Building of the Year Awards, an instance in which all of you make your voice heard by nominating and voting for the best projects featured on ArchDaily during the year. This is a peer based award that recognizes firms of all sizes, trajectories and locations. You can check the results of the previous editions here: 2009 and 2010.

Once again we have partnered with HP to present the 2011 Building of the Year Awards, starting today Feb 7th, 2012 at the following link:

http://www.archdaily.com/building-of-the-year/2011/

The nomination stage will run for 2 weeks until Feb 21st, 2011. All buildings featured under the available categories during 2011 are elegible for this round. You can nominate one building (in one category) per day.

Like last year, we will authenticate the votes with the My ArchDaily platform, so we can assure that the nominating and voting processes are conducted by the community. You can nominate once per day, so you can propose your favorite projects from Feb 7th to Feb 21st, after which 5 buildings per category will continue to the voting round, between Feb 22nd and Mar 6th. The winners will be announced on Mar 7th, 2012.

Given that you are in charge of the selection process, we have decided to give away 2 custom engraved iPads 2 during the nominating/voting stages (more details on the rules below). Also, the most voted firm will receive an HP Designjet T2300 eMFP printer (MSRP US$8,000).

Once again I’d like to thank all our readers for your support in 2011, and rest assure that we are working on new ways to improve ArchDaily in 2012. Our inbox is always open, so feel free to leave your feedback, recommendations and support on the contact page.

Rules after the break:

An extended view of Water Cathedral, the selected project by GUN Arq for the 2011 YaP installation in Santiago, Chile, shot by photographer Cristobal Palma.

The Water Cathedral is a large, horizontal urban nave for public use. The structure is made up of numerous slender, vertical components, which hang or rise like stalactites and stalagmites in a cave, varying in height and concentration. The project incorporates water dripping at different pulses and speeds from these hanging elements, fed by a hydraulic irrigation network. When filled with small amounts of water, the stalactite components act as interfaces out of which water droplets gradually flow and cool visitors below. The stalagmites topography provides elements of shade, along with plants and water that collect under the Water Cathedral’s canopy.

Last week, the MoMA and the PS1 announced HWKN as the winner for the 2012 YAP in NY.

More videos by Cristobal Palma at ArchDaily:

BIG has just been announced as the winner of the competition for the new Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah. The non-profit community center for the visual arts, which started in 1976, invites people to experience art through education, exhibitions and events. The aging historic building (dated from 1929) was in need of restoration and an addition that could allow the organization to increase their educational outreach and enhance the quality and scale of the exhibitions, while maintaining free admission to the public.

Today, the Serpentine Gallery announced the team that will design the twelfth edition of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, a special edition that will be part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.

Every year the gallery invites a renowned international architects who has not built yet in the UK, to design a temporary pavilion that hosts public activities in at the Gallery’s lawn, in London’s Hyde Park between June and October 2012. The list of architects for the past editions includes several Pritzker laureates. More info of this program at our Serpentine Gallery Pavilion infographic.

This years teams includes Pritzker laureate architects Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (runner up of TIME’s 2011 Person of the Year). The trio has worked together in projects such as ORDOS 100 in the Mongolian desert and the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games. As a trio they don’t have any built projects in the UK, but Herzog & de Meuron have been involved in several, including the Tate Modern renovation and its current expansion.

Their design will explore the hidden history of the previous installations (more info), with eleven columns under the lawn of the Serpentine, representing the past pavilions and a twelfth column supporting a floating platform roof 1.5 metres above ground. Taking an archaeological approach, the architects have created a design that will inspire visitors to look beneath the surface of the park as well as back in time across the ghosts of the earlier structures.

Recently we had the chance to visit Allied Works office in NY to interview the firm’s founder Brad Cloepfil. It was a great interview, and I really liked the atmosphere of the office: A young team, many abstract study models, beautiful drawings on the boards, and a subtle music playing in the background, it was like seeing the inside of a creative machine at work.

Young dutch designer Jólan van der Wiel has been announced as the winner of the Contest for young designers at the imm cologne fair.

Using a magnetic plastic compounds, magnets and simple gravity, Jólan gives birth to the Gravity Stool, an expressive piece of furniture that is like a frozen moment of physics exposing the forces in action. You can see the full process on the above video by Miranda Stet.

The Gravity Stool thanks its unique shape to the cooperation between magnetic fields and the power of gravity.

Departing from the idea that everything is influenced by gravitation, a force that has a strongly shaping effect, I intended to manipulate this natural phenomenon by exploiting its own power: magnetism. The positioning of the magnetic fields in the machine, opposing each other, has largely determined the final shape of the Gravity Stool.

Through our interview program, I’ve had the chance to meet with some of the world’s most renowned architects, while creating a moment to share their views about the profession with our readers.

A few months ago I had the chance to visit and interview Architecture Research Office (ARO), just after they were announced as the recipients of the prestigious 2011 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Architecture.

Photographer Cristobal Palma shared with us a dynamic view of the Memory Museum in Santiago, Chile, by Brazilian firm Estudio America.

More about the museum here.

More videos by Cristobal Palma at ArchDaily:

Architectural photographer Cristobal Palma shared with us another clip of the Pabellon Ultraligero Centrifugo installation by Clavel Arquitectos, on view at the Shenzhen Civic Square. This is part of a series of installations for the 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Urbanism / Architecture Biennale, open until February 18th, 2012.

More videos by Cristobal Palma at ArchDaily:

During these days we have received close to a thousand seasonal greetings from architects, photographers and editorials around the world. We are very grateful to have collaborated with an amazing group of professionals, who mixed creativity and humor on their e-cards.

Enjoy a selection of these e-cards, including this nice Ginger Bread Vitra Haus, along with Snøhetta, SOM, Richard Meier, BIG, CEBRA, and more!

Architectural photographer Cristobal Palma has shared with us this video of the Chilean Pavilion at the 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture.

“Gimme Shelter!”, designed and curated by Sebastián Irarrázaval and Hugo Mondragón, features projects and architectural innovations developed by local architects during emergencies and natural catastrophes in the last years.

The poetic expression of these emergency landscapes has also oriented the construction of the Chilean pavilion. To achieve this, we chose to overturn the conventional relationships of the elements that comprise it: mattresses positioned vertically become screens for projecting images; security cones and water bottles, cut up and then reassembled, become lamps; emergency tape and water bottles become tensors and counterweights. Once this mechanism was set in motion, we provocatively introduced certain conventionally used forms: a massive bed with mattresses placed in the center of the pavilion, and a window display with large water drums and dispensers at the far end of the pavilion, promising visitors a bit of rest and relief.

For the exhibition, we selected architectural works, visual pieces and technological innovations that experimented with the concept of the essential and the ingenious in precarious contexts. On the other hand, and in keeping with the project mechanism put into action through the formalization of the pavilion, we also decided to select projects that exhibited a certain degree of disruption to some element of the cultural or material patrimony of Chile.

More videos by Cristobal Palma at ArchDaily:

Architecture photographer Fernando Guerra (FG+SG) posted this short video of the renowned Portguese architect and Pritzker laureate (1992) Alvaro Siza, while working and singing to The Beatles. He looks quite inspired!

Architectural photographer Cristobal Palma shared with us this short clip of the Ultra Light Village installation by Clavel Arquitectos, on view at the Shenzhen Civic Square. This is part of a series of installations for the 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Urbanism / Architecture Biennale, open until February 18th, 2012.

More videos by Cristobal Palma at ArchDaily:

The last part of our Brazilian day, commemorating the 104th birthday of the renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and the launch of ArchDaily Brasil: An exclusive interview with Mr Niemeyer himself.

- How did you start your office?

My office in Copacabana -the only one that I have- was opened and organized to meet, since the early 50s, the ever growing demands.The last 13 years I have been the only architect here “at work”; the initial stage of the projects is done by me, up to the basic project, and then I trust its development by other architecture offices, specially the ones directed by my colleague and friends Jair Valera and my dear granddaughter, Ana Elisa.

- For you, what is Architecture?

In my opinion, architecture is invention. And under this prism is how I do my projects, always searching for beautiful, expressive, different and surprising solutions.

ArchDaily’s Megan Jett did this amazing infographic resuming the highlights of Oscar Niemeyer’s career, who turned 104 years old today.

Dear readers,

Architecture is all about passion. Sometimes it can be very complex, slow, even painful… but our passion will make us push until the end, to see our creations come to reality no matter what. This passion turns into an entrepreneurial spirit, collaboration and the desire to use our knowledge to influence our society and to improve our built environment. For me, one of the best living examples of the passionate architect is the Brazilian master Oscar Niemeyer.

Today the master turns 104 years old, and he is still working at his office in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, from where we interviewed him, delivering projects in Brazil and around the world. So passionate about his work, that he can’t stop.

Devoted to architecture and women, he was able to express his passion for both.

mountains/waves/women = curves

It is not the right angle that attracts me. Nor the straight line, tough, inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free, sensual curve. The curve I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the waves of the sea, in the clouds of the sky, in the body of the favorite woman. Of curves is made all the universe.

- Oscar Niemeyer