With a week to go until the announcement of the 2015 RIBA Stirling Prize, we're interested to see which project ArchDaily readers would place at the top spot. Six projects are vying for this year's prestigious award, which was won last year by Haworth Tompkins' Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. Following a rigourous system of regional awards (all of which you can see on ArchDaily), the shortlist has been picked from a handful of nationally award-winning projects. The winning scheme will be the one which, in the eyes of the jury, "has made the greatest contribution to British architecture over the past year."

You can see each project in more detail and read the judges' citations here.

The SENSEable City Laboratory at MIT has developed a new tool with Ericsson to better understand human behavior. "ManyCities" is a new website that "explores the spatio-temporal patterns of mobile phone activity in cities across the world," including London, New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Taking complex data and organizing it in a intuitive way, the application allows users to quickly visualize patterns of human movement within the urban context down to the neighborhood scale. You can imagine how useful a tool like this can be for urban planners or even daily commuters, especially once real time analytics come into play. Take a look at ManyCities yourself, here.

Today in Moscow, Asymptote Architecture unveiled plans for the new Hermitage Modern Contemporary, alongside a 150-meter tower planned for ZiL - the city's oldest industrial area and former Soviet automotive factory. The State Hermitage Museum's newest outpost, the 15-story satellite facility was said to be inspired by El Lissitzky's "Proun" painting, which informed the building's "terraced interior."

“With so much museum work over the years, we’ve dress-rehearsed for the Hermitage,” Hani Rashid of Asymptote told the New York Times back in July. “We’ve done a lot of thinking about how art might be seen in the future, about how the museum building itself can provoke artistic responses.”

Perhaps the only material on the architectural market known for its "thirst," ultra-porous concrete is being hailed as the future of urban water runoff management for warm climates. The emerging material reached mainstream popularity in recent weeks thanks to a viral video depicting an apparently ordinary car park absorbing an inordinate amount of water; 1.2 million views later, the video has ignited debate on viability and possible uses for water-absorbent concrete.

Ultra-porous concrete is gaining a foothold thanks to extensive research being conducted by architects and engineers around the world. Known for its rainy climate, daring use of innovative materials and unorthodox architecture, it comes as no surprise that the Dutch city of Rotterdam has embraced water-absorbent concrete for testing.

+ 5

For this edition of The Urbanist, Monocle 24's weekly "guide to making better cities," the team visit BUILD: the Bilbao Urban Innovation and Leadership Dialogues. This event gathers civic leaders and philanthropists to a discourse about how cities are, and should be, run. In this two-part broadcast from the conference itself, Monocle explore how Stuttgart have been accommodating an unprecedented number of refugees, how Poland is using transport infrastructure to revitalise the city of Łódź, how Pittsburgh is a poster-city for resilience, and why Atlanta wants its citizens to take charge of their city.

Arcaid has shortlisted 20 of the year's best architectural images for their 2015 awards - the annual Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards. The images will be presented in four categories - Exteriors, Interiors, Sense of Place, and Building in Use - and judged by an esteemed panel on their atmospheric quality, composition, use of scale and more. The winners will be considered for the Photographer of the Year Award, won last year by Hufton + Crow who now serves as a judge.

The photographs will be showcased at World Architecture Festival 4-6 November at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, where the overall winner will be announced. All 20 images include:

+ 16

The winners of the seventh annual Restaurant & Bar Design Awards—the only awards in the world dedicated to the design of food and beverage spaces—have been announced in London. Out of over 860 entries from the United Kingdom and 70 other countries, 36 designs were awarded, with two grand prize winners.

The winners of the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards are:

London-based practice dRMM have submitted plans for a new Maggie's Centre in Oldham, a metropolitan area north east of Manchester. Maggie's, a UK charity famed for its cancer care centres, is also well known for commissioning world-renowned architects to design their spaces. This latest proposal will be sited within the grounds of the Royal Oldham Hospital, becoming the second centre of its kind in Greater Manchester following Foster + Partners' current project in central Manchester.

Videos

AL_A has completed Melbourne's second annual MPavilion. The temporary installation, initiated by Naomi Milgrom Foundation, was unveiled today in Queen Victoria Gardens. For the next four months, the public is welcome to populate the artificial "forest canopy," whose translucent petals were developed using aerospace technology to demonstrate how an ultra-lightweight structure that can "sit lightly on the landscape and gently respond to the climate." "Each petal is fitted with LED lights that are activated by the sunset to give a light performance synchronized with music," says the organizers.

A jury led by David Chipperfield, Kengo Kuma and Pôle Muséal Support Foundation President Olivier Steimer has announced Aires Mateus & Associados winner of an international competition to design the new Pôle Muséal of Lausanne. The Portuguese architects, chosen over 20 other practices, were lauded by the jury for designing a proposal that was "coherent, simple and bright."

Their design, "One museum, two museums" is comprised as a single exterior shell made up of two parts: the Musée de l’Elysée (Museum of Photography) and mudac (Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts). Both museums are connected by a shared entrance that "forms a natural extension to the public esplanade." By 2020, the design will be realized, transforming a former railroad site into a premier section of the city's art district. 

Created by the Union International des Architects (UIA) in 2005, World Architecture Day is celebrated on the first Monday of October with the aim of reminding the world about the collective responsibility of architects in designing our future cities and settlements.

This year, the UIA has selected “Architecture, Building, Climate” as the theme of the day, seeking to highlight the essential role that architecture, design and urbanism have in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. With international climate treaty negotiations set to happen later this year, the “UIA members, working bodies and partners will mobilize on 5 October to promote actions and solutions that apply the enormous power of architecture and urban design in coping with global climate change, one of the greatest challenges of our time.”

Through small actions architects can collectively make a big difference and create significant changes. To celebrate World Architecture Day, we have rounded up a selection of projects that have taken steps towards the challenge of protecting our environment.

With the participation of 96 pavilions from diverse countries around the world, the Expo Milan 2015 tackles one of the most pressing global issues -- alimentation -- through its theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life.”

The Brazilian Pavilion, designed by Studio Arthur Casas and Atelier Marko Brajovic, was considered one of the most attractive pavilions by the thousands of visitors who have passed through the Expo so far. Featuring a large open space traversed by an elevated net on which visitors can walk, the pavilion is as “as porous as the Brazilian culture,” and creates a pathway above plants native to the country.

Below is a beautiful series of photographs of the pavilion taken by Fernando Guerra, a partner at Últimas Reportagens, along with his brother Sérgio Guerra.

+ 52

The government of Luxembourg has announced that Miami-based firm Arquitectonica has won the competition to design a major mixed-use project in Luxembourg City. Set in the new district of Kirchberg in Luxembourg, the 40,000 square meter complex design by Arquitectonica won the bid over notable names in architecture like Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Massimiliano Fuksas, and Neutelings Riedijk Architects.

Fogo is a small, rocky outcrop off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, with a population of just over 2000 people. Its sub-arctic natural landscape of lakes, rivers and mountains is interspersed by eleven small settlements and has now become the scene for a collection of follies, studios and residences designed by Norwegian practice Saunders Architecture. Most recently, Fogo's rocky wilderness and contemporary architectural interest—reminiscent of the land around Todd Saunders' current home city of Bergen—has been captured in a one-hour documentary film directed by Marcia Connolly and Katherine Knight, entitled Strange & Familar: Architecture on Fogo Island.

The Pulitzer Arts Foundation and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis are inviting architects, designers and artists to propose a temporary structure in St. Louis, Missouri, for the second cycle of “PXSTL”. The competition aims to transform an under-used lot in the heart of St. Louis’ Arts and Culture district, catalyzing creative intervention and artistic programs. Nominations will be solicited from deans of architecture, art, and design programs; editors of art, architecture, and design publications; distinguished practitioners; and directors and curators of arts institutions. Read more about this competition after the break.

After childhood, treehouses are usually stowed away in tandem with the fantasy and adventures associated with youthful imagination. As it turns out though, there can be a wildly elaborate, adult counterpart to this early life staple. The Skysphere, a project designed by Jono Williams, is the ultimate 21st century DIY treehouse project. Actually a small pod-like inhabitable platform attached to a steel column, it is more like the homegrown equivalent of Toronto’s CN Tower, Tokyo’s Skytree, or the unrealized Phoenix Observation Tower by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).

+ 13

Videos

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the winners of the Look Up Film Challenge at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Out of 26 entries for the competition launched earlier this year, a jury of architects and media professionals selected three top prize winners and recognized seven additional films in themed categories. The winning pieces best represent the competition’s call for films that highlight the impact that architects have on communities.

The winners of the Look Up Film Challenge are:

Over time, people have found many different ways to fund the construction of a building. Museums for example have long benefited from the support of deep-pocketed patrons, with The Broad Museum, a permanent public home for the renowned contemporary art collection of philanthropists Edythe and Eli Broad, being the newest example in a long history of such practices. However in our ever-more-connected world - and against a backdrop of reduced government support for creative endeavors - the onus of funding seems to be shifting once again, away from the individual and towards the crowd.

As crowdfunding makes strides in all realms of innovative enterprise, including architecture, we wanted to hear from our readers about what they thought of this new opportunity for a publicly held stake in what has historically been the realm of singular, well-heeled organizations in the form of the state or private capital. Writing about the history and current trajectories of public funding, alongside a more pointed discussion of BIG’s Kickstarter for “the world’s first steam ring generator,” we posed the question: does public funding have a place in architecture, and if so, is there a line that should be drawn?

Read on for some of the best replies.

MVRDV’s Markthal in Rotterdam has received a High Commendation in the category of “Mixed-Use Architecture” at the 2015-2016 European Property Awards.

Perkins+Will has been selected to masterplan a major mixed-use development adjacent to undergoing Istanbul New Airport - soon to be one of the largest airports in the world. The 690-hectare scheme, "Airport City" will feature a "central innovation district," hotels, retail and commercial office space, logistic centers, an expo and convention center, public space, and metro and high-speed rail connections to Istanbul and beyond.

Videos

NASA, who recently confirmed evidence of flowing water on Mars, has deemed SEArch (Space Exploration Architecture) and Clouds AO (Clouds Architecture Office) winners of the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge for Mars. Sponsored by NASA and America Makes, the teams were asked to use indigenous materials and 3D printing techniques to build a habitat for four astronauts on Mars. SEArch and Clouds AO's first prize proposal, ICE HOUSE was awarded $25,000, ahead of 30 other shortlisted practices.

"Recognizing that water is the building block to life, the team used a ‘follow the water’ approach to conceptualize, site and construct their design," said SEArch and Clouds AO. "[Our] proposal stood out as one of the few entries not to bury the habitat beneath regolith, instead mining the anticipated abundance of subsurface ice in the northern regions to create a thin vertical ice shell capable of protecting the interior habitat from radiation while celebrating life above ground."

Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) has been selected to design the new Tianjin Juilliard School. The same practice that expanded Juilliard's New York home in 2009, DS+R plans to build the new facility in Tianjin by 2018. The project has already received preliminary approval of a graduate degree program from China’s Ministry of Education.

Once complete, the new school will offer a Master of Music degree from Juilliard in the areas of orchestral performance, chamber music performance, and collaborative piano; a pre-college program; an instrumental training program; adult education; and public performances and exhibits.

Just as the luxury condominium high rise opens for sales, Zaha Hadid Architects and Related Companies have released a new image of 520 West 28th - Zaha Hadid's first residential building in New York. Planned for a prime location in West Chelsea, alongside the High Line and nearby Renzo Piano's newly-opened Whitney Museum and Diller Scofidio + Renfro's future Culture Shed, the 11-story development is offering 39 distinct residences, some reaching up to 6,391-square-feet.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the High Line and its possibilities for the city. Decades ago, I used to visit the galleries in the area and consider how to build along the route. It's very exciting to be building there now,” said Zaha Hadid. “The design engages with the city while concepts of fluid spatial flow create a dynamic new living environment.”

Videos

Rural Urban Framework (RUF) has been named winner of the 2015 Curry Stone Design Prize at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. Addressing China's unprecedented rural-to-urban migration, RUF has (so far) helped 18 depopulating villages throughout the country prepare for their inevitable transformation by building schools, community centers, hospitals, houses and infrastructure in a collaborative process that empowers locals.

“The work of RUF is addressing one of the most urgent current geopolitical issues, how to deal with the imbalances created by large mass migrations,” said Emiliano Gandolfi, the Prize Director. “Their work is exemplifying how architecture should establish a dialogue with the community and the environment in order to built structures that respond to their changing needs.”