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

A 1970 graduate of Cooper Union's architecture program, world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind will be delivering 'The Art of Memory' lecture, a free event, on Tuesday, April 30th, at 6:00pm. The master planner for Ground Zero and the architect of one of Europe’s most visited museums, the Jewish Museum Berlin, will discuss the role that memory played in his work on those projects and others, such as the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark; the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, England; the Military History Museum in Dresden, Germany; and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. He will also talk about the acute sense of responsibility he feels, when accepting commissions for projects addressing Jewish history, to create work that honors not only the harsh realities, but also the resilience of the Jewish spirit. For more information, please visit here.

Peter Wilson, co-founder and director of Bolles+Wilson, was awarded the Australian Institute of Architects Gold Medal, their highest accolade, at a ceremony last month in Canberra. The Institute bestows the medal upon architects who have designed, or executed, exceptional buildings, promoted the knowledge of architecture, or have made some defining contribution to the field.

There are many sustainable technologies designers can utilize these days to make a project more Earth- and people-friendly, but smog-eating cement isn't the most talked-about - until now. The City of Chicago is pioneering the use of a revolutionary type of cement that is capable of eradicating the air around it of pollution, potentially reducing the levels of certain common pollutants by 20 - 70% depending on local conditions and the amount of exposed surface area.

Read more on this revolutionary material after the break...

Located in the rapidly urbanizing Mladost area on the edge of central Sofia, the new Collider Activity Center, designed by INDEX, draws on the process of the tectonic movement and operations of geological forms as an organizational system to create architecture. The center will be one of the first new buildings to occupy the quasi Greenfield site and the broader urban structure plan for the area will eventually play host to a variety of new facilities, capitalizing on the latent potential of Bulgaria as an emerging economy. More images and architects' description after the break.

In July 2012, the AA, in partnership with the Adriano Olivetti Foundation and Gehry Technologies, launched Factory Futures: A three year research program aimed at exploring innovative architectural responses for the productive landscape of the future. The mission of Factory Futures is to connect the realms of contemporary urban theory with computational design techniques for the affirmative re-empowerment of the architectural practice within contemporary conditions of production. This year, the Ivrea Visiting School will develop design tools and research concepts to confront this phenomenon, which is challenging the conventions of both architectural design and urban theory during their workshop which takes place July 1-12. More information after the break.

Peter Wilson, partner in the Münster based office of BOLLES+WILSON, was recently awarded the AIA's (Australian Institute of Architects) highest honor, its 2013 Gold Medal. The recognition acknowledges Peter Wilson's role as remarkable statesman for Australia as well as an outstanding body of architectural works of great distinction, widely published and exhibited over more than thirty years. The Gold Medal also cites Wilson's longstanding contribution to the development of architectural drawing as a tool of representation and research. More information on Wilson's award after the break.

In 2010, SMoCA initiated a series of three exhibitions exploring the trajectory of Paolo Soleri's art, architecture and philosophy. Paolo Soleri: Mesa City to Arcosanti is the second in the series. This exhibition begins in the early 1960s when Soleri shifted his focus from bridges and residences to large-scale urban planning based on environmental accountability. Soleri's first comprehensive vision of a community is Mesa City, an example of what he calls an “arcology,” or an architectural project based on the synthesis of architecture + ecology. In Mesa City, Soleri combines the goals of high-density living, a vibrant urban space, respect for natural resources and a commercial sector based upon creativity. The exhibition will end with Arcosonti (arcology + Cosanti), a project built in the 1970s near Mayer, Arizona.

More images and information after the break...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has launched an open and international architecture competition for their new headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. With the volume of the planned building at roughly 70,000m3, with a ground surface area of 18,000m2, the development will include headquarters for 450 staff members, “Olympic campus” housing administrative buildings, and possible accommodation and services. This will allow the IOC to benefit from two Olympic sites in Lausanne: one in Ouchy around The Olympic Museum, to host the general public; and the other in Vidy for the whole administrative staff and to host its institutional partners. The deadline for submissions is May 15. For more information, please visit here.

Claire Weisz, AIA, founding principal of WXY and a frequently cited expert source on waterfront design, will be speaking on the topic "Ecological Barriers: Holding Sea Levels at Bay" with a panel at 6:00pm on April 25 in New York City. A leading advocate for post-Hurricane Sandy infrastructure design, Weisz's firm is known for such waterfront projects as the East River Blueway, a planned reconstruction of miles of Manhattan water's edge, as well as Transmitter Park, Rockaway Park, Sherman Creek Waterfront, and Battery Park.

FORA and Beth Hughes, with Raul Moura and Tudor Vasiliu, have been selected as one of four finalists for the second phase of the Danish site in the Nordic Built Challenge - an open multidisciplinary design competition for the refurbishment of five buildings one in each Nordic country. Their proposal addresses the Ellebo Housing Estate in Ballerup, Denmark. The estate was built in 1963, and features four buildings for a total size of 20,000m2, enclosing playgrounds, playing fields and green recreational areas. Their challenge was to renovate the existing buildings and outdoor areas, and for 5,000m2 of additional housing. More images and architects' description after the break.

The G Project, hosted by G Adventures and The Planeterra Foundation, is giving four lucky innovators, inventors, visionaries and designers the opportunity to bring a humanitarian and forward-thinking project to fruition.  The G Project is inviting anyone to submit a design idea of any scale that will have a "positive impact on your planet".  The idea must be a proposal that falls into one of four categories: freedom, beauty, knowledge or community.  It is a crowd-sourcing exercise that seeks to engage ideas of any variety and asks the global community to contribute to deciding which projects deserve to be realized.  

Join us after the break for more.

This post was sponsored by BHI. Explore the benefits of a newly built home.

Lawyers and Doctors have the utmost fortune that, no matter how much their patients/clients may think they know, their clients generally do not attempt to “go it alone.”

Architects are not so lucky. For whatever reason, many home buyers believe that designing the home of their dreams is something they can do on their own - by designing themselves, or, even worse, by just buying an old house and “fixing it up”. 

We architects, on the other hand, know that the process is far more difficult than that - but also, so worth it in the end. Because designing a new home from scratch isn’t just more cost and energy efficient, but the only way to truly get the house of your dreams.

So why should potential clients forego buying an old home and trust you to design their new home? For these 5 undeniable reasons (make sure to always have them at hand) ...

Located between two very different poles that have a great tension between them, architects Ignacio Gias, Jesús Lorenzo Garvín, and Ana Vida (Fissure Team), designed the building of the Collider Activity Center to appear as a flow connector in the territory. In doing so, they create a transition from the urban to nature, from the stability to the unpredictable, from colonized to wild territories. It is broken by an organic geometry, by the adventure, by the representation of the natural world, that cuts the building and makes the users 'break it, break it through, to the other side' as a door to adventure. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The concept proposal for Vietnam’s Pavilion at Expo 2015 in Milan focuses on mixing settlement and settled agriculture to create the future’s space – the space where settlement and settled agriculture include each other. Titled the Pavilion of dream terraces (field), the building by H&P Architects is created from steel structure frames, which have a large amount of modules – the longest one being 7.5m - that are connected by simple joins or overlapping. More images and architects' description after the break.

The Organizing Committee of the Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture recently announced that the 2013 Biennale, which will open December 6, will be delivered by two curatorial teams, consisting of Team Ole Bouman and Team Li Xiangning + Jefferey Johnson. Old Bouman wil act as curator, creative director. Li Xiangning + Jefferey Johnson will be the curators, academic directors. The main venues for the event are the former YAOPI float glass factory (venue A) and the old warehouse at Shekou ferry terminal (venue B). More information after the break.

Inspired by the movement of the curtain, an element inherently connected with the theatre, this second prize winning proposal for the Operlab competition focuses on this movement to induce the emotions of the viewers. Designed by Rafal Oleksik and Krzysiek Stepien, it was crucial in the proposed concept of the pavilion to induce such emotions to encourage people to enter the facility, and at the same time, allow them to become a part of the show whether it be exhibitions, screenings, a concert or a discussion. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Taking place this Friday, April 12th, from 4:00pm-8:30pm, the Doctor of Design program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design is inviting you to 'Research as Practice', their annual Convergence symposium. As the traditional boundaries of design practice are increasingly questioned, broadened, and blurred, scientific research in technology development and application emerges as an essential vehicle for exploration and assessment. In this inaugural year, the symposium will seek to explore the position, relevancy, and sustainability of applied research in design practice across various disciplines with examples from contemporary practitioners. For more information, please visit here. For more information, please visit here.