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The Harvard Graduate School of Design has announced the appointment of Mark Lee as Chair of the university’s Department of Architecture. Having taught at Harvard GSD since 2013, Lee is also a principal and founding partner at Johnston Marklee Architects. He will succeed K. Michael Hays, who has taught at Harvard GSD since 1998.

Lee has previously held the position of Frank Gehry Chair at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, as well as Cullinan Guest Professor at Rice University School of Architecture. He has also been a design critic at Harvard GSD since 2013, where he himself earned a Masters in Architecture in 1995.

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Danish firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects has been selected to design the redevelopment of Kimmel Quarter, a historic district in the heart of the Latvian capital of Riga, after an international competition. The 19th-century Kimmel Brewery complex, now mostly abandoned, will be transformed into a mixed-use center featuring a new office building, hotel, and an array of public facilities. Schmidt Hammer Lassen was one of eleven participants, with firms such as Henning Larsen and Zaha Hadid invited to the open competition.

The proposal for the 120,000-square-foot (11,500-square-meter) district manifests as a vibrant, public-orientated program, including a gym, child care center, café, food court, and spa. A series of courtyards and plazas are laced throughout the scheme, connecting old and new in a “timeless, classic appearance that is also uniquely contemporary.” The design took 2nd place in a competition in which no first place winner was selected, as the jury felt that no entry fully met the competition criteria. As the highest-placing entry, the competition organizers have committed to begin negotiations with Schmidt Hammer Lassen to refine the design.

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March 22 is World Water Day, an annual international celebration launched and organized by the United Nations. The goal of the day is to raise awareness about a wide range of water-based issues from around the world. This year’s theme is “Nature From Water”, which invites everyone to think about how nature can provide solutions to the water challenges we face today.

To celebrate World Water Day this year, we’ve rounded up 20 of our favorite projects that utilize water as a central design feature. Whether it be Zumthor's Thermal Vals or Chritso and Jeanne-Claude's Floating Piers, water has been playing an important role in architectural design and in demarcating the boundaries of nature against our built environment.

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The Norwegian Public Roads Administration is opening a new landmark, Ureddplassen, along the Norwegian Scenic Route Helgelandskysten. Consisting of seating benches, a toilet facility and viewing terrace facing the open sea, Ureddplassen evokes a sense of poetic solitude as it complements the natural landscape of Norway.

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