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Videos

Currently on display at the Aedes Architecture Forum Berlin, "ZÀI XĪNG TǓ MÙ: Sixteen Chinese Museums, Fifteen Chinese Architects," takes an in-depth look at China’s recent museum boom and its effects on the socio-political and cultural landscape of modern China.

As part of the exhibition, filmmaker Moritz Dirks sat down with 16 of the top architects working in China today, including Wang Shu, Dang Qun of MAD Architects, and Zhu Pei of Studio Pei-Zhu, to discuss the challenges of creating cultural spaces that relate both to the global, digital, urban contexts of the contemporary world and to the strong heritage and identity of Chinese culture.

Continue after the break for the 16 interviews.

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Henning Larsen Architects, in collaboration with SLA and Tyréns, has won a competition for the design of a new city hall in Uppsala, Sweden, beating out proposals from Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, White Arkitekter, Ahrbom & Partners, and 3XN Architects.

The project will include a refurbishment and addition to the existing city hall building, which was built in 1957 and only partially completed in accordance with the original drawings. Henning Larsen Architects’ design will close off the L-shaped building, connecting the old and the new with a glass-roofed courtyard to create a new public gathering place for residents of Sweden’s 4th largest city.

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Photographer Khoo Guo Jie of Béton Brut has provided us with some new images of Zaha Hadid Architects’ Nanjing International Youth Culture Centre, now nearing completion along the Yangtze river in Hexi New Town, Nanjing’s new central business district.

Occupying a 5.2 hectare site, the complex contains 465,000 square meters of floor space, which includes a hotel, conference center, offices and underground parking, and is part of a larger masterplan by ZHA that will feature a pedestrian bridge linking the plaza with the other side of the river.

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The Form of Form starts on the holiday that celebrates the implementation of the Portuguese Republic with exhibition openings, debates, book presentations and many other activities. The intensive programme of the opening week will give a sneak-peek into what will follow until 11 December. The Lisbon Architecture Triennale invites you to join this celebration of architecture and the city. Book on your calendar.

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Simply put, metamaterials are materials that behave according to their structure, rather than their base material composition. By manipulating their internal microstructures, metamaterials can exhibit properties that would not otherwise be found in a naturally occurring material.

To date, the term has mostly been used to refer to materials which can manipulate electromagnetic waves with an unnatural refractive index. But recently, a different way of looking at metamaterials has been studied by a team at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), who suggest that “so far, metamaterials were understood as materials – we want to think of them as machines.” A series of objects created by HPI that perform mechanical functions through their metamaterial configuration demonstrate this concept of “metamaterial mechanisms.”

Little Architect is a program at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Created in 2013, the program is focused on teaching architecture to primary school-age children, obtaining amazing results with more than 2,400 children from different backgrounds receiving architectural lessons. They are especially focused on running their program in low-income areas and state schools in London.

"Our responsibility as architects is not just to design but also to bring architecture to society and to create an awareness about urban issues and contemporary architecture within the people who inhabit it," says Dolores Victoria Ruiz Garrido, author and director of the program.

• Cash prizes: 20. 000 € + CONSTRUCTION
• Subject: open architectural competition
• Target: Designers, Architects, Students, Professionals
• Location: Sant’Agata Bolognese (Bologna, Italy)
• Website: www.youngarchitectscompetitions.com

London-based Weston Williamson+Partners (WW+P) has won the “Route 2020” competition for the Expo 2020 Dubai rail link, a 15-kilometer, £2.2 billion metro Expolink in the United Arab Emirates.

Working in collaboration with global engineer CH2M, Alstom, and Acciona and Gulermack, the firm was selected ahead of ten rival bids for the high-profile project, which will connect Nakheel Harbor & Tower with the World’s Fair site.