Open to students and professionals, the Seoul Institute just launched the international ideas competition for the first step to changing the Mapo Oil Reserve Base, a relic of the industrial era. Located in Sangam, this area was once an abandoned mountain of waste, but now stands as a state-of-the-art city that leads the future of Seoul. Aiming to achieve a communication and co-existence between people and nature, the oil reserve base will be returned to the citizens through the ideas of students and professionals who reflect the meaning and value of the land and regenerate the space to meet this new era’s core values of environment & ecology and sustainable future. The deadline for submissions is August 23. To register, and for more information, please visit here.

RIBA is now inviting expressions of interest from architect-led design teams with exceptional design skills for the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) New Global Center for the Social Sciences, the world’s leading center for social sciences. The next step in the campus development program is to further improve the School’s teaching, research and support facilities through the complete redevelopment of the center of its Aldwych campus. The new building that will be constructed will have a vital role to play in cementing the LSE’s position as a world renowned educational establishment and will become a place that inspires existing LSE students and will help attract new high caliber students and staff to the School. The deadline for submissions is June 14. For more information, please visit here.

Titled 'A House That Floods', the design for The Lodge on the Lake by Other Architects imagined re-inserting the narrative of the flooding and emptying Lake George into the benign, artificial landscape of Canberra. The movement of water acts as a spatial device that dictates and clarifies the otherwise overlapping and confused functions of the Prime Minister's Lodge. Drained or submerged at certain times, the spaces of the house are optimized for ceremonial events and domestic life, public access and secret meetings. More images and architects' description after the break.

Andjela Karabasevic's 'One Home For All the Homeless' proposal for this year's D3 Housing Tomorrow 2013 competition won the Special mention - Dystopian vision which envisions one megastructure that will house all the homeless people on our planet. It spreads continuously through the cities, fields and waters, only facilitating bare living necessities, and significantly increasing life quality in general, and therefore the overall rate of productivity. Through this design, power, wealth and progress of one nation is promoted by resolving one of the major problems it has caused to the society. More images and architects' description after the break.

As part of the on-going debate surrounding the UK’s future aviation strategy, Make Architects just unveiled further studies to support its proposals for an expansion of Stansted Airport as a viable option. Building on existing infrastructure, the architects strongly believe that Stansted can connect with central London within 25 minutes, thereby making it one of the most deliverable and affordable solutions currently on the table, costing £18billion to deliver and providing up to £100billion in investment for the east of the country. More images and architects' description after the break.

The proposal for the Cultural Center in Guadalajara draws its inspiration from the following definition of culture by Pufendorf: “All the ways in which human beings overcome their original barbarism, and through artifice, become fully human”. Through this definition, this design by K+P Architects focuses on two different states of the building: The primitive state and the social state. More images and architects’ description after the break.

This is an open call, two-stage international design competition workshop for architects, artists, engineers, innovators, scientists and related disciplines to imagine the future mobile event pavilion.

MAD Arkitekter, in collaboration with developer Entra, have developed a project for the relocation of the University of Oslo’s Faculty of Law. The project site and the historical university buildings are on opposite sides of the urban square, Tullinløkka, and a historical building on the site will also be preserved. The new university buildings for UIO are given a compact form, with frontage towards Tullinløkka as well as an iconic expression which takes a position in the cityscape. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Designed by Lapo Ruffi and Vanessa Giandonati, their ‘Fragments & Miracles’ project proposes the construction of an architectural landscape on old foundations, a simultaneous source of wonder and contemplation. The project is related to the context of the landscape’s coastline because of its differentiated permeability and its connection with the environment's point of strength. Walks, south and north, are connected to the Old Street of Italy which, abandoning its original mission, becomes a witness of Veytaux Villeneuve pedestrian link. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Taking place June 2 - September 2 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, 'A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture from Southern California' will be the first extensive, scholarly examination of the radical forms that have become prolific in Southern California architecture during the past twenty-five years. It will examine the role of Los Angeles–based architect Frank Gehry, arguably the most significant and innovative architect of the later part of the twentieth century, and the generation of Los Angeles architects that followed him, including Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan, Thom Mayne, and Eric Owen Moss, to name a few. For more information, please visit here.

Honoring the victims and Canadian survivors of the Holocaust, the National Capital Commission, on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is inviting teams of professional artists, architects, landscape architects, and other design professionals to submit their credentials and examples of prior work for the first stage of a two-phase competition to create a national Holocaust monument in Ottawa, Canada’s Capital. This monument will ensure that the Holocaust continues to have a permanent place in our nation’s consciousness and memory. The RFQ document is available now until September 4. To obtain the competition document, and for more information, please visit here.

Designed by architects Adrian Yau, FrislyColopMorales, Jason Easter, and Lukasz Wawrzenczyk, their proposal for the Cultural Center of Chapultepec aims to merge the concepts of aesthetics and functionality. Ultimately, their concept intends to become the icon of the city through its subtle yet dynamic form and overall composition. More images and architects’ description after the break.

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Founded by Grimshaw and FutureCity in collaboration with the Fellows of the RSA, the Urban Research Unit (URU) is a one-year research project focused on urban design, masterplanning and placemaking. It will include a series of eight panel discussions that will use various urban factors to compare and contrast New York and London. Their upcoming event, 'Navigating the Future City' will take place in London on June 5. This event sets out an ambitious and achievable vision for London as the most vibrant, vital and accessible city in the world. The discussions will focus on a new approach to supporting London’s role as a key aviation hub, and points towards radical solutions for the capital’s transport network. For more information, please visit here. A video of their previous event can be viewed after the break.

Conceived to aid in the cohesion between people, Salotto Urbano is a public area designed by architects Michela Romano, Emanuela Ortolani, Federica Spinaci, Eleonora Sanfilippo, and David Vecchi. The project aims to be a pleasant place to support the social interactions, working as a structure for several activities and events. It is a space where people can freely operate and get back the participation of common good. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Taking advantage of the competition site’s strengths, this proposal by Mauro Turin Architectes for the Museum of Bavarian History features, on urban terms, a system that serves as a liaison between the banks of the river and the old urban fabric of the city. While do so, the project also acts as an articulation of urban spaces through its various places and passage, creating a symbolic point of convergence. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Organized by AAAB, the 'Connection - Import Ticino' Exhibition, which begins today and runs until June 9, aims to create a network of cultural connections between cities as a means of spreading the values of urbanism and architecture. The exhibition features a project that was born out of the desire to establish a cultural connection between the city of Barcelona and other European cities. A series of architecture exhibitions are the focus of this project, which also offers other events such as conferences and meetings between universities and aims to create synergies between the professional architects involved. Each event, which is called a “connection”, is composed of a first exhibition in Barcelona, followed by a second presentation in the invited country. For more information, please visit here.

Designed by PM²G Architects, in collaboration with Satellite Architectes & Menu Design, their iconic proposal project for a new cultural center in Guadalajara embodies and catalyzes the cultural scene over the Chapultepec Avenue besides forming a new attraction for the city. Their design, which was awarded an honorable mention, includes a series of three alternate solids that are combined with transparent and concave spaces. The rotation of the volumes towards the sky gives the building its dynamic and spectacular force. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Developed by architects AHA+ and Solbjor Arkitekter, their 'Harvest' proposal was announced as one of the four finalists in the international competition Nordic Built Challenge for an extension of Postgirobygget, an existing high-rise building in Oslo. Going beyond BG14 and the refurbishment of Posthuset, their concept aims at becoming a new and innovative way to meet the challenges of tomorrow while ensuring financial and practical viability. More images and architects' description after the break.