With a “well-balanced” proposal, according to the jury, Spanish firm Rafael de La-Hoz Arquitectos has been selected to design the new corporate headquarters for Spanish soccer team Real Madrid.

Carried out in collaboration with building company Ferrovial Agromán, the winning proposal aims at “unifying all services, modernizing administrative offices and, more generally, addressing the challenges of the future,” according to the firm. 

Sofoklis Giannakopoulos, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), has designed Pylos, a 3D printer that utilizes a natural, biodegradable, cheap, recyclable and local material that everyone is familiar with: the earth.

In an effort to make 3D printing a “large scale construction approach” even in years of economic and environmental turmoil, Pylos explores the structural potential of soil, a material that has been widely used in vernacular architecture around the world, and particularly in the Global South.

Learn more about the printer after the break.

Videos

133 years since the laying of its foundation, the construction of Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família has entered its final phase. This news was announced in a recent press conference by the project's directing architect Jordi Faulí, who will oversee the completion of six new towers that will raise the "Tower of Jesus Christ" to 172.5 meters-tall, making it the tallest religious structure in Europe and Barcelona's tallest building.

The final stage will include the construction of the 172.5 meter Tower of Jesus Christ, as well as five other 135-meter towers honoring the Virgin Mary and the four apostles. 

More information and a video after the break.

Hiding out from the gentle Bogotá rain, a cat with turquoise eyes and a black and white coat prowls along the ledge of an office hidden in the midst of lush vegetation. A large window with a wooden frame filters the light and illuminates the interior: a desk, hundreds of books, manila folders, and backlit pictures. Sitting comfortably in his chair, 91-year-old Colombian architect Germán Samper takes a pencil, presses it to the surface of a sheet of paper, and begins to explain everything he is saying by drawing for us in the most clear and simple manner possible.

Whether he's giving instructions on taking a taxi in Bogotá or explaining the recent modifications to the historic Colsubisdio citadel, Samper -- a master of Colombian architecture -- can express ideas on paper with an ease that makes us think that drawing might be very simple, but it's really just a great trick.

Perseverance is key and Samper knows this from experience. "I don't understand why architects don't draw more if it is truly a pleasure," he ponders.

After the break, a conversation with Germán Samper and a series of unedited sketches by the Colombian architect.

Designed by Antonio Gaudí in Barcelona when he was 30, and designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2005, Casa Vicens will be converted into a museum and open its doors to the public during the second half of 2016.

Built between 1883 and 1889, Casa Vicens was the first house designed by Gaudí. The building’s current owner, a subsidiary of the financial group Mora Banc Grup, is currently working on its restoration and the museum planning. “The mission of Casa Vicens as a house museum is to present the first Gaudí house, presenting it as an essential work to understand his unique architectural language and the development of Art Nouveau in Barcelona,” explained the executive manager of the project, Mercedes Mora, in a recent interview with Iconic Houses.

Learn more after the break. 

After reviewing 200 applications from 25 countries and 14 finalists, a library in Spain, housing in Portugal and a masterplan for an Italian city were among the winners of the second edition of the European Prize of Architectural Heritage Intervention AADIPA 2015.

The competition spanned four categories: intervention in built heritage; exterior spaces; urban planning and disclosure.

See all five winners, after the break.

Videos

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos has been selected over MAD Architects, Steven Holl, Grimshaw and many others to design the Guangzhou Science Museum.

Planned for the sprawling port city of Guangzhou (Canton), the new science museum will be realized on the south bank of the Pearl River, close to the Guangzhou Tower. It will form part of a new cultural hub, known as "Three Museums - One Square," which will include the future Guangzhou Museum, also won through a private-competition by gmp Architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners.

Read on for a video and more information detailing the winning proposal.

Michael Reynolds, a well-known proponent of sustainable building and the creator of the Earthship house, will construct a self-sufficient public school in Jaureguiberry, Uruguay, reports local newspaper El País.

Reynolds’ design contemplates a 270-square-meter building with solar panels and a water-collection system that will supply water for the bathrooms and kitchens. In the architect’s usual style, recycled materials such as tires and bottles will be used for construction. 

Learn more about the project after the break. 

May 8th marks the 70-year anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, when Germany’s Third Reich surrendered to the Allied forces. To commemorate the anniversary, Konstantin von zur Muehlen has released “Spirit of Berlin,” a short color film with historic footage showing everyday life in the German capital in July 1945 -- just two months after the end of the war.

Learn more after the break. 

On Tuesday evening the Pritzker Prize jury named Frei Otto as the 40th recipient of the award, making him the second German to receive the award and the first winner to receive it posthumously. Otto was both an architect and a structural engineer, perhaps best known for the 1972 Munich Olympic Stadium.

With regards to their decision the jury highlighted Otto’s “visionary ideas, inquiring mind, belief in freely sharing knowledge and inventions, his collaborative spirit and concern for the careful use of resources.”  

Enjoy 10 photos of Otto’s projects after the break. 

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Chile may soon be home to the only Antoni Gaudí-designed building located outside of Spain. At a recent press conference, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet confirmed government funding for the construction of the Gaudí Cultural and Spiritual Center in the city of Rancagua, which will include a chapel designed by the Catalán architect.

The project originated in 1922 through a series of letters exchanged between Gaudí and Chilean Franciscan Friar Angélico Aranda, who asked Gaudí to design a chapel for Chile. “I wish to implement an original work, very original, and I thought of you,” wrote Aranda to Gaudí, who by then was immersed in constructing his masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia. Since 1996, Chile’s Corporación Gaudí de Triana has been working to make the design resulting from this conversation a reality.

Learn more about this project after the break. 

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With Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in attendance, Frank Gehry presented the model for the future National Center for Social Action Through Music building in Lara state. The project is Gehry’s second in Latin America, following the recently inaugurated Biomuseo in Panamá.

To be located in Barquisimeto, Venezuela’s fourth most populated city, the National Center for Social Action Through Music forms part of the National Network of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs of Venezuela, more commonly known as “El Sistema.” Founded in 1975 by orchestra director José Antonio Abreu, El Sistema is now funded by the government and provides musical training and education for children from impoverished backgrounds. The Adjkm-designed Simon Bolivar Complex for Social Action is also part of El Sistema.

Learn more about the project after the break. 

Tired of seeing Nordic families in representations of Colombian markets and New York hipsters drinking coffee in Mexican cultural centers, a group of self-described “young latinos” have created Escalalatina, a collection of high-resolution images of “people on the road to development” to be used for renderings.

Inspired by Teodor Javanaud Emdén's SKALGUBBAR - a virtual library of people for renders - Escalatina aims to provide a way for Latin American architects to fill their renders with images of local people.

All of the images are available in .png format and users can also submit their own images for the site as well. 

Check out some of the Escalalatina images after the break.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has announced the winning proposal for the Cinematography and Audiovisual Tower that will be built in capital Buenos Aires.

Out of five competing proposals, MRA+A Álvarez| Bernabó | Sabatini’s design was selected. At 335 meters, the skyscraper will become the tallest building in Latin America, surpassing the 300-meter Costanera tower in Santiago, Chile and a 330-meter tower under development in Monterrery, Mexico. To be used mainly for Argentina's film and television industry, the tower will have 67 floors and 216,000 square meters of space. A hotel will occupy the top 13 floors.

More details after the break...

Curated and commissioned by German Architect / Urbanist Oliver Schütte and Dutch Anthropologist / Economist Marije van Lidth de Jeude, Costa Rica's first pavilion at the Venice Biennale focuses on a competition-winning project for the new Costa Rican Legislative Assembly, a project which illustrates the "vicious circle of social segregation and spatial fragmentation in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Costa Rica (GAM)."

Read the curators' description and take a virtual tour of the Costa Rica Pavilion after the break.

Monday night began the relocation process of thousands of inhabitants living in Venezuela’s Torre de David (Tower of David), the world’s tallest slum, according to reports by Venezuelan newspaper Últimas Noticias, BBC Mundo and tweets from journalists following the coverage. The relocation initiative is being carried out by the Interior and Justice Ministry, and comes just five days after the announcement that the Venezuelan government is in negotiations with Chinese banks interested in purchasing the building.

Torre de David (the Tower of David) - the world's tallest slum and the subject of Urban-Think Tank, Justin McGuirk, and Iwan Baan's Golden Lion-winning Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2012 - is once again making headlines. Venezuelan newspaper TalCual reports that the Venezuelan government is in negotiations with Chinese banks interested in purchasing the building.

Tower of David is an unfinished financial skyscraper in downtown Caracas. Construction began on the tower in 1990, but the death of the principal investor in 1993 and the subsequent banking crisis that hit the country in 1994 froze construction; by the end of the year, the tower was in the hands of the state. Nevertheless, in 2007 two thousand homeless citizens took over and inhabited the skyscraper, making it the tallest vertical slum in the world.

Under the direction of Laboratorio de Arquitectura Dominicana (LAD), the Dominican Republic's first Pavilion at the Venice Biennale explored the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and politics through the lens of the Feria de la Paz y Confraternidad del Mundo Libre (The Fair of Peace and Brotherhood of the Free World), celebrated in 1955 in Santo Domingo. The fair was an attempt by the dictator Rafael Trujillo to project to the outside world a vision of a modern country firmly under his dictatorial control.

The Fair - today the site of governmental institutions - was a turning point for Santo Domingo and modern architecture, forever altering the city and its urban limits.

Read the curators' description and take a virtual tour of the pavilion after the break.