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Videos

Asif Khan's Vantablack pavilion, the world's first super-black building, will open at the PyeongChang 2018 Opening Ceremony on 9 February 2018.

The Olympic pavilion is coated with Vantablack VBx2 carbon nanotubes and illuminated by thousands of tiny white light rods. These rods extend from the structure's parabolic super-black facade and create the illusion of a field of stars suspended in space. Looking at the building will be the closest experience to looking into space from a point on Earth.

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Zaha Hadid Architects unveiled a new experimental structure as part of Milan’s White In The City Exhibition during the city’s annual Salone del Mobile. Held at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in the heart of Milan’s design district, the exhibition explored the contemporary use of white color in design and architecture across various locations in the city. Named the Thallus – after the Greek word for flora that is not differentiated into stem and leaves, the sculpture is the latest in ZHA’s investigations using 3D printing technology. Thallus continues Zaha Hadid Architects’ Computational Design (ZHA CoDe) group’s research into generating geometries through robotic-assisted design.

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The City of Westminster, England has announced the shortlist for its first People’s Choice Award for the city’s best building from the past decade.

In an effort to engage the public in a debate about what makes a great building, the Westminster City Council asked a panel of architects, developers, councilors, and planners to shortlist 12 designs to be voted on by people who live and work in the city, as well as by visitors. Buildings for the shortlist were chosen based on its use of materials, purpose, and impact on the surrounding space.

"Brilliant architectural design should be recognized for all the fantastic benefits it can have in terms of health and wellbeing, sustainability, and the simple pleasure we all take from having such striking buildings lining our routes home, to shop and to work," said Cllr Robert Davis MBE DL, Deputy Leader of Westminster City Council. "The best people to ask about the impact these buildings have are those who see them day in, day out, and so I am delighted that we have been able to engage the public in a debate about what makes a great building and to promote design excellence."

The 12 shortlisted projects for the Westminster People’s Choice Awards are:

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The Architectural Review (AR) has announced the shortlist of 9 female architects in the running for its 2016 Woman Architect of the Year and the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture awards. This year’s candidates come from a wide range of backgrounds, operating in UK, Mexico, France, the USA and Canada, and have been lauded by the AR for their “projects demonstrating exceptional design and awareness of geographical and political contexts.”

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Videos

This week London's Science Museum will open The Winton Gallery, a new space dedicated to the study and exploration of mathematics, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. While this is the practice's first permanent public museum exhibition, it also represents the first UK project to open since the death of its eponymous founder and director.

Inspired by the Handley Page aircraft, the design of the space was conceived through observing equations of airflow used in the aviation industry. The layout and lines of the gallery therefore represents the movement of air that would have flowed around this historic aircraft in flight – a metaphor which extends from the positioning of the showcases and benches to the three-dimensional curved surfaces of the central pod structure.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the winners of the 2016 RIBA National Awards. The shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK’s best building of the year will be drawn from these 46 award-winning buildings.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced 17 winners for its RIBA South Awards, which recognize architectural excellence. These 17 regional award winners were drawn from a shortlist of 30 projects. Over the next few months, they will be considered for the RIBA National Awards, and then for the RIBA Stirling Prize.

The 17 winners of the RIBA South East Awards are:

Following the news in 2015 that Alison and Peter Smithson's Robin Hood Gardens was committed to demolition, Stirling-Prize winning practice Haworth Tompkins have been selected to work on the buildings' replacement. Alongside Metropolitan Workshop Architects existing master plan—entitled the Blackwall Reach Regeneration Project—the second phase of the regeneration will see the west block razed to make way for approximately 200 homes. The east wing will not be demolished until the third phase of the regeneration begins.

Since 1957, the Middle East Center at St. Antony's College has been the University of Oxford's facility for research and teaching on the Arab world, Iran, Israel and Turkey. Over the years, the center's world-class archive has grown exponentially, leading to the commission of Zaha Hadid Architects to expand its facility; the recently completed Investcorp Building doubled the center's library and archive space, while delicately integrating a new 117-seat lecture theater into the college's restricted site.

Honoring its success and "vital role" in the community, the Investcorp Building has been selected as a winner in the Oxford Preservation Trust Awards' New Building category - now in its 38th year.

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A total of 15 projects have been shortlisted for RIBA North West 2015 Awards, featuring buildings by John McAslan + Partners, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, MUMA and Carmody Groake. All shortlisted buildings will now be assessed by a regional jury. Regional winners will then be considered for a RIBA National Award in recognition of their architectural excellence, the results of which will place some projects in the running for the 2015 RIBA Stirling Prize. The 2014 RIBA Stirling Prize was won by Haworth Tompkins for the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, a project which was shortlisted by this branch of the RIBA. Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios' Manchester School of Art also made it to the national finals.

See the complete list of shortlisted projects after the break.