Despite Finland’s relatively cool temperatures, climate changes have made heat waves more common in Northern Europe, and the demand for cooling buildings in summer is increasing. Instead of installing air conditioners for individual buildings, Helsinki is pioneering a vast network of underground infrastructure that pumps cold water from lakes and seas into local buildings. Beneath an unassuming park in downtown Helsinki sits a reservoir containing nearly 9 million gallons of water that is recycled and cooled by waste energy after it is used for cooling, replacing the need for air conditioning in the city and cutting carbon pollution by 80%. Read more about this undertaking in this article from Fast Co. Exist.

When you abandon the countryside in favour of the city, what do you leave behind? In a recent essay for Icon Magazine, OMA co-founder Rem Koolhaas deliberates on the intersection between the two, arguing that "our current obsession with only the city is highly irresponsible because you cannot understand the city without understanding the countryside."

Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, and Rem Koolhaas walk into a bar. What do they order? CAD Drinks, of course. It's a Singapore Sling like you have never seen before: drawn to scale, in elevation, and divided meticulously by content - ice cubes and orange slice included. Alcoholic drinks are colour coded, inventoried, organized and rendered in this downloadable DWG for Autocad. Architects rejoice: happy hour is that much closer to lunch hour.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Nicholas Hare Architects, Orms, Sarah Wigglesworth Architects and Tim Ronalds Architects have been shortlisted in a competition to expand and develop the Marlborough College science building in Wiltshire, England. “The current Science Block has a fascinating heritage but needs a new life to accommodate new teaching methods,” explained Malcolm Reading, the competition’s organizer. “The competition is all about finding a balance between the architectural grain of the existing eclectic campus and a confident and exciting piece of contemporary architecture.” The teams will now develop proposals. A winner will be announced in December.

The USA's tallest building shoulders one of the nation's greatest challenges: paying tribute to lives lost in one of the country's greatest tragedies. One World Trade Center in lower Manhattan has yet to be completed and yet has still recently been condemned by a number of critics, who cite the former "Freedom Tower" as an inspirational failure. Thirteen years after the attacks, the wider site at ground zero also remains plagued by red tape and bureaucratic delays, unfinished and as-yet-unbuilt World Trade Centers, Calatrava's $5B transit hub, and an absence of reverence, according to critics. Read some of the most potent reviews of the new World Trade Center site from the press in our compilation after the break.

The UK's Shadow Culture Minister Helen Goodman has outlined a number of ideas that she would like to put into practice should her party win the next general election, reports the Architects' Journal. The proposals, made at last week's Labour Party Conference in Manchester, include increasing the number of open architecture competitions held in the UK and holding a major UK-wide annual festival of architecture. Read on after the break for more on Goodman's proposals.

matterbetter has launched an international open-ideas competition for a Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) Memorial and Park in Amsterdam. MH17 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down near the Ukraine–Russia border on July 17, 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board.

An installation and exhibition by Luis Callejas / LCLA office 
Exhibition Opening: October 11, 7—10 pm 
October 11—November 23, 2014
Neutra VDL Research House, Los Angeles, CA 

Videos

The highly anticipated 3D film series Cathedrals of Culture has now opened around the world. Directed by Wim Wenders and a team of five other acclaimed directors (Robert Redford, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Margreth Olin and Karim Aïnouz), the collection - according to The Guardian's Oliver Wainwright - "feels more like a series of vapid promotional videos." Arguing that in most of the films (with the exception of Michael Madsen's) the narrative is lost in favour of cinematic shots, "Cathedrals of Culture presents a limited and internalised view of what architecture is, a fault perhaps driven by the obsession with the 3D camera. [...] It has a self-satisfied, sometimes cultish, air that makes you feel like you’re taking part in some collective brainwashing exercise." Wainwright concludes that Living Architectures is the best place to go. See some of their films featured in ArchDaily's 40 Architecture Docs to Watch in 2014.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is planning to construct a second location in New York City. As reported on the Art Newspaper, the expansion project, known as the “Collection Center,” aims to “consolidate its staff and art storage into one efficient, multi-use building with a dynamic public programming component.” The news broke with the release of a curatorial job position, seeking personnel to assist in the center’s planning and a possible architecture competition that will ensure the “Guggenheim’s reputation for being a visionary architectural patron” is preserved. Meanwhile, the Guggenheim is expected to narrow its selection to six for its new Helsinki location in November.

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, the head of Alejandro Zaera-Polo & Maider Llaguno Architecture, today announced that he is stepping down as the Dean of Architecture at Princeton University's School of Architecture. Zaera-Polo was appointed to the position in 2012 having been a visiting lecturer at the school since 2008, but stepped down in order to devote more time to his research and professional activities. He will continue to serve as a professor at the school, and his predecessor Stan Allen will take up the role of Acting Dean until a permanent replacement is found.

In an article for the Financial Times, Edwin Heathcote asks "what are design museums actually for?" Noting that we are living through a "boom time" for the typology, Heathcote argues that when we are overwhelmed by design in our day to day lives, what will fill these spaces? London's Victoria & Albert Museum sprouted from the legacy of the 1850 Great Exhibition, where the concept of a design museum originated, as an attempt to "display the fruits of Britain’s industrial revolution." Ironically in the very same museum in 2013, curator Kieran Long acquired a print of the world's first 3D printed gun for the permanent collection. Will the ubiquity of 'design' soon negate the need for dedicated spaces? Read Heathcote's conclusions in full here.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)'s Future Trends Survey for August showed that confidence among UK practices has remained stable at "a very positive" balance figure of +28. The positive outlook was shared by the whole country, with every region returning a balance figure of above +20 - a significant improvement for Wales and the West, who last month were at a more reserved +12. "Sentiment about future workload prospects for the architects’ profession has been strong throughout 2013 and 2014, and we are now beginning to see this reflected in increased levels in the aggregate value of work in progress," said the RIBA, adding that the increasing workload is being "driven primarily by growth in the commercial and private housing sectors."

WHAT: With its fifth biennial competition and exhibition, the AIANY New Practices Committee is proud to recognize six emerging architecture and design firms working in New York City. These firms will be featured in an exhibition opening on October 1 at 6pm at the Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place. This year, the opening of New Practices New York 2014 will also kick off Archtober 2014, Architecture and Design Month.

Online Master Class
Real Estate in the Corporation – More than just an Expense
Date: Oct 7^th 2014 at 18:00 Madrid time.
Speaker: Sharon Liebowitz, VP of Global Real Estate, JPMorgan Chase
Registration: click here to register to the event.
Brought to you by: IE School of Architecture & Design

Helicopter landing pads will no longer be required atop new buildings in Los Angeles, California. The rule’s elimination, which was announced yesterday by the city’s mayor and fire chief, allows architects the freedom to break away from LA’s “boxy” skyline. “I want to see innovative design,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said. “I want to see good design, but we’re going to take the handcuffs off of you when we ask you to do that. I want neighborhoods to look good, and I want our buildings to look iconic.” You can read more about the change, here.

The evening of October 6th marks the grand opening of UNStudio's new exhibit, Motion Matters 4.0 at the Architektur Galerie in Munich. The opening ceremonies will coincide with the first day of the Expo Real International Trade Fair for Property and Investment and include a welcome speech by the Dutch Consul General Peter Vermeij, followed by an introductory talk about the exhibit from UNStudio co-founder and principal Ben van Berkel.

Continuing a curatorial program of experiments, collaborations and interdisciplinary projects, the Gallery at REDCAT presents Small Museum for the American Metaphor September 27 to November 30, 2014.