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On August 18 Al Jazeera will launch “Rebel Architecture,” a new series featuring architects who use design as a form of resistance and activism. By designing for the majority rather than the elite, the architects in “Rebel Architecture” are tackling the world’s urban, environmental and social problems. Through six, half-hour documentaries the series will highlight architects working in Vietnam, Nigeria, Spain, Pakistan, the Occupied West Bank and Brazil.

“In contemporary architecture, people are always concerned with ‘what a beautiful building’; or ‘what a pretty project’ – architecture should be about something more,” said Spanish architect Santi Cirugeda, who will be featured in the series’ first episode. Cirugeda works in Seville reclaiming abandoned urban spaces for the public, despite the fact that self-building is illegal in Spain.

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Vietnamese Practice Vo Trong Nghia Architects has taken home the top honor at the Architects Regional Council Asia (ARCASIA) 2014 awards. The Dailai Bamboo Complex, consisting of the 2009 Bamboo Wing and the 2012 Dailai Conference Hall, was selected out of 276 entries to win Building of the Year Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in Asian architecture.

The award adds to the recent success for Vo Trong Nghia, who recently won the top prize in the AR House Awards for their House for Trees.

More on the Dailai Bamboo Complex after the break

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The winners of the 2014 AR House Awards have been announced, celebrating excellence and innovation in the design of a one-off house. This year, the jury consisted of AR Editor Catherine Slessor, Ben van Berkel (UNStudio), Yvonne Farrell (Grafton Architects), William Mann (Witherford Watson Mann Architects) and Abraham Thomas (Director, Sir John Soane's Museum).

Read on after the break for the full list of winners

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There are few countries as architecturally diverse as Vietnam. To celebrate this diversity, we’ve collected five of our favorite projects from this stylistically diverse country. These include the grove-like Kontum Indochine Café, the towering, leafy Stacking green, and the sinuous Binh Duong School, all by Vo Trong Nghia + Shunri Nishizawa + Daisuke Sanuki. We’ve also included the striking geometry that is the Folding Wall House by NHA DAN ARCHITECT, and the inverted pyramid of the Hanoi Museum by gmp Architekten. Enjoy!

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• Architects

  VTN Architects

• Location

  Đồng Nai, Vietnam

• Principal Architects

  Vo Trong Nghia, Takashi Niwa, Masaaki Iwamoto

• Project Team

  Tran Thi Hang, Kuniko Onishi

• Area

  3800.0 sqm

• Project Year

  2013

• Photographs

  Hiroyuki Oki

• Location

  Đồng Nai, Vietnam

• Project Year

  2013

• Photographs

  Hiroyuki Oki

• Area

  3800.0 m2

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