Envisioned with a height of 130-meters and comprising a combined total of 41 floors and 63,800-square-meters, the bipartite Mennica Legacy Tower project in Warsaw has been slated for construction, to commence in the last quarter of 2015. Featuring two adjacent towers designed by Chicago-based international firm Goettsch Partners, the project is located at the site of the former headquarters of the Mint of Poland.

On completion, Mennica Legacy Tower will function predominantly as an office complex, integrating secondary retail and commercial functions. View selected images and learn more about the project after the break.

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The Brønshøj Parish Centre by NORD Architects provides a space for community congregation informed by the surrounding religious architecture. With warm materials, a multi-functional program, and a form that physically opens up to the city, the Parish Centre presents an inviting social and reverent space for Copenhagen.

WE architecture and CREO ARKITEKTER A/S have won one of three prizes in the first phase of an invited competition to design a new Moscow Medical Center. Combining the functionalism of today's healthcare with the humanistic qualities of past architecture, the proposal introduces a facility fine-tuned for those inside.

Learn more about the proposal, after the break.

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Despite Andrés Jaque of Office of Political Innovation emerging as the winner of the 2015 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program (YAP), his competitors put up quite a fight. One of this year's five shortlisted proposals, Erin Besler's Roof Deck breathes life into arguably the most overlooked aspect of architecture - the roof - by injecting it with an active public program and making it a vessel for summer celebration.

Read on after the break for more on Besler's proposal.

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New York-based firm HWKN have revealed the design for what is to become the University of Pennsylvania's latest hub for entrepreneurs, researchers, and innovators. Dubbed "The Pennovation Centre," the project is the first major development within the Pennovation Works, and will occupy a 58,000-square-foot footprint on the campus' south.

A rejuvenation of the former DuPont laboratory, it is hoped that The Pennovation Centre will become an "iconic landmark" for pen, providing a "dynamic environment" for innovation in varied fields.

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One of ARCHITECT Magazine's six winners of a 2015 Progressive Architects Award (P/A), NADAAA and Himma Studio's Ordos 20 + 10 reflects a reconfiguration of the office typology for compact spaces.

The project is part of a high density office park masterplan in Ordos City, located in Inner Mongolia, in which developments are subject to stringent zoning regulations. Offices included in the area must be comprised of multiple cubic volumes, and lack what NADAAA and Himma Studio describe as "an immediate urban context." Learn more about the project and the architects' response to these considerations after the break.

Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost town, made international headlines last year when it was announced that the entire town would be relocated two miles to the east due to mining operations by the state-controlled company. Now, the first phase of the Kiruna square redevelopment is set to commence with a design by Stockholm-based Kjellander + Sjöberg for an urban block of housing units around the town’s central square.

Kjellander + Sjöberg, along with development group Skanska, won a competition held by Kiruna Municipality for the square's regeneration. Under the moniker Fjällbäcken, the urban block responds to the idiosyncratic subarctic climate in a manner the architects describe as "sustainable in the long term." When realized, the 2000m2 housing development will have 90 apartments and feature a host of sustainable solutions. Onsite rainwater management facilities are incorporated into the project's planning, alongside provisions for green space and ecofriendly heating and cooling systems.

Learn more about the project and view selected images after the break.

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The Curtin University Master Plan has become the first project to receive a 5 Star Green Star-Communities Rating by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). Helmed by AECOM and Donaldson and Warn architects, the plan sets forth a strategy for the renewal of the University's main campus in Bentley, Perth, aiming to create a "vibrant urban community" that combines commercial, retail, residential, educational, and transport infrastructure. Sustainability is a cornerstone of the project, which seeks to be adaptable to, and respectful of, its site and heritage.

The 5-star rating honours Australian Excellence in "innovation, design excellence, environmental sustainability, economic prosperity and liveability". Learn more about the project and view selected images after the break.

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The city of Uppsala invited BIG to design a biomass cogeneration plant that would offset its peak energy loads throughout the fall, winter and spring as part of an international competition (ultimately won by Liljewall Arkitekter). Home to Scandinavia’s oldest university and landmark Uppsala cathedral, the plant proposal’s biggest challenge was to respect the city’s historic skyline.

Considering the project’s proposed seasonal use, BIG envisioned a dual-use power plant that transcends the public perception; in the summer months, the “crystalline” proposal was designed to transform into a venue for festivals during the peak of tourism. 

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schmidt hammer lassen architects have won a competition to design a new retail and office complex in central Oslo. The winning scheme, chosen ahead of five other proposals, was chosen for “its strong and innovative” design that “enhances the existing urban qualities” and forms a “new connection between the building and city life.”

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The City of Paris has approved MVRDV’s plans to overhaul a 1970s urban block in Montparnasse. The ambitious plan aims to “reintroduce the human scale” and improve “accessibility and programmatic identity” to the aging mixed-use development. As part of the restructuring, the building’s existing public library, hotel, commercial and office space will be expanded and a new kindergarten, conference center and social housing units will be added.

OMA has unveiled plans for a mixed-use project that will consolidate facilities for the growing, selling and distribution of food for local farmers in Louisville. A collaboration with the non-profit Seed Capital Kentucky, the 24-acre “Food Port” will transform a former tobacco plant into an “active economic and community hub” that shapes a “new model between consumer and producer.”

“The diversity of program reflects the full food chain, as well as a new foodscape of public spaces and plazas where producers and consumers meet,” said OMA’s Partner-in-Charge Shohei Shigematsu, who is also leading the Alimentary Design research studio at Harvard University. “The Food Port acts as a catalyst to activate the surrounding neighborhoods, exemplifying one of the complex urban relationships between architecture and food that our studio is investigating.”

The expandable campus, which is expected to break ground this summer, will include an urban farm, edible garden, market and food truck plaza, retail space, classrooms, a recycling facility, and more. Continue after the break to learn more. 

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This sculptural memorial by SO/AP Architectes, located at the center of what was the Warsaw Ghetto, commemorates the history and memories of the Polish nation by uniting its oppressive and heroic pasts in one form. Simultaneously representing the Jewish and non-Jewish population, the serpentine structure symbolizes the entirety of the Polish people to strengthen their identity as one collective community.

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The Bengal Foundation has begun work on its Contemporary Arts and Crafts Museum, Bangladesh's first private museum of its kind. The ambitious complex will house multi-media works from the organization's founder Abul Khair's private collection, pieces by local artists, a sculpture garden, and a boat museum to celebrate the various cultural arts of local residents.

Learn more about the museum's design, after the break.

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Servicing up to 10,000 cruise ship passengers a day, the New Keelung Harbor Service Building by Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA) is set to become a bustling hive of activity in Taiwan's Port of Keelung. The project takes a two-phase approach that unites a public plaza and service base with a restaurant and the terminal proper, using an office building to mediate between the two.

Occupying 117,000-square-meters and with a construction budget of TWD $5 billion, the project is slated for completion by December 2017.

Read more about the project and view selected images after the break.

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Chilean architects República Portátil have revealed their proposal for temporary multi-residential housing in Concepción, Chile. Responding to sites left vacant in the wake of the 2010 Chile Earthquake, the Vertical Student Housing project would accommodate students and members of the general public alike.

Driven by a desire to "promote interaction and relationships among strangers," República Portátil frame the housing project as a counterpoint to "standardized real estate projects" which, in their view, encourage "social segregation of the city."

Learn more about the project and view selected images after the break.

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Swiss firm HHF Architects have released images and drawings for "Parking & More," a mixed-use structure and public facility for Basel's Dreispitz quarter.

An addition to an existing steel parking complex, "Parking & More" combines a parking lot with eateries, sport facilities, and shops, "creating a vibrant and lively street and a partially covered urban plaza." The project is adjacent to BIG's Transitlager ad Herzog & de Meuron's 312 Helsinki Dreispitz, forming a triumvirate of new developments that reflect the area's rapid rates of densification and urbanisation. Read more about "Parking & More" and view selected images after the break.

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Waste management and recycling centers are typically designed as utilitarian facilities shunned to an industrial part of the city. Yet Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is challenging this notion by designing a Copenhagen recycling station that serves as an “attractive and lively urban space" in the neighborhood it's part of.

Commissioned by Amagerforbrænding, BIG has designed the Sydhavns Recycling Center as a public space complete with fitness facilities, running tracks and picnic areas. At its core, the recycling center is submerged beneath a lush landscape, offering curious citizens a peak into the “recycling square” while enjoying their daily exercise.

Videos

Populous' has released plans to redevelop Jacksonville, Florida’s riverfront Shipyards district into a massive recreation and entertainment hub. Unveiled by the Jacksonville Jaguars' team owner Shad Khan and president Mark Lamping, the property will be injected with life to better stimulate economic activity in the area and make the forgotten plot a bustling destination for locals and tourists alike.

Read on after the break for more information and an animation of the Shipyards vision.

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Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled the design for their Slow Food Pavilion, due for completion by the 2015 Milan Expo in May. Showcasing the work of Carlo Petrini's Slow Food organization, the pavilion promotes the global organization's vision of universal access to "good, clean and fair food."

Sited on a triangular piece of land in the Eastern end of the Expo's central boulevard, the pavilion uses a a triangular configuration of tables to evoke what Herzog & de Meuron describe as "an atmosphere of refectory and market."

Traditionally, hospital environments are internalized, cut off from the natural world, and structured around efficiency, despite its affect on patient health. Moving beyond this, Kengo Kuma & Associates have unveiled plans to replaced an aging medical center in Setagaya, Tokyo, with a “modest,” “actively open” hospital centered around a landscaped courtyard garden.

Italian architects Studio Fuksas have been selected, along with Canberra-based Guida Moseley Brown Architects, to design the Australia Forum, a new national convention centre in Canberra, Australia. Located at one apex of Central Canberra's Parliamentary Triangle, Studio Fuksas describe their design as a "completely transparent and permeable" volume which is "in constant dialogue with the urban context and the environment," integrating into the surrounding hills and the nearby Lake Burley Griffin by reflecting their presence in its skin.

The winning entry in a competition for Pingshan's first theater, Beijing-based OPEN Architecture's Pingshan Performing Arts Center has broken ground in Shenzen. The 1350-capacity theatre is located in the city's new urban district, and slated for completion by the end of 2015.

Read more about the project and view selected images after the break.

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Videos

One of five shortlisted finalists who competed for the Young Architects Program (YAP) in the recent 2015 MoMA PS1 competition, ultimately awarded to Andrés Jaque of Office of Political Innovation, Drones' Beach by Brillhart Architecture explores the idea of a multi-sensory setting with a tropical theme as the basis for a performance and public space.

Read more about the proposal and watch the visionary video about Drones' Beach after the break.

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