Malcolm Reading Consultants (MRC) has been appointed by Kaunas City Municipality to run a one-stage design contest for Kaunas’ new Concert Centre. The substantial new building for this leading Lithuanian city, which has just won the title European Capital of Culture 2022, will encompass a world-class concert venue as well as multifunctional spaces for public and community events.

The one-stage contest will launch in early summer and conclude in the autumn. The initiative follows the success of the recent Science Island contest, which was the most popular architectural competition in Lithuania’s history.

IMPORTANT UPDATE 4/18: Dates and information for the competition have changed. Learn more below.

To architecture students worldwide, MAD encourages you to apply for the 2017 MAD Travel Fellowship.

Ma Yansong, founding principal partner of MAD Architects, initiated MAD Travel Fellowship in 2009.  During the past 7 years, the program has sponsored 35 students for their overseas architecture travels to Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. 

Starting 2017, the program will sponsor five more global students to visit China. MAD believes it is only through travel – the visceral experience of interacting with, and being influenced by, different spaces – that one can begin to understand ideas of context and gain a deeper insight into architecture. 

In today's culture of narcissism and celebrity it's an assumed expectation that faces can be put to names. Even in 16th Century Europe, the large majority of notable persons had a likeness made of themselves and displayed for posterity – save for architects, it seems. Take, for instance, Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) – the Renaissance style-setter and author of the groundbreaking treatise The Four Books on Architecture, the seminal text of which inspired the likes of Thomas Jefferson. If challenged, could you easily put a face to Palladio's name? There is no accurate, agreed-upon "official" portrait of the architect – until now, that is.

For years people have presaged the game-changing aspects of Virtual Reality in the field of architecture. Head-mounted displays like Oculus Rift, Hololens and others can trick your body and mind into thinking you are somewhere else--standing on the edge of a cliff, riding a rollercoaster, or walking around a building you haven't constructed yet.  

Year after year we are never disappointed by the witty, creative, and inspiring designs of ArchDaily readers from across the globe. From over 700 submissions, here are the most egg-celent!

How much do you know about different kinds of wood that might be used in your architectural projects?  

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Drawing on a touchscreen or trackpad can be a huge pain – but when you’re on the go, sometimes that may be your only option to quickly convey an image. To the rescue, Google has unveiled its latest AI experiment, AutoDraw, which uses machine learning to pair your wobbly doodle with a corresponding artist-drawn image – like autocorrect for sketching.

Denmark's largest architecture festival Copenhagen Architecture Festival opens its fourth edition Wednesday, April 26th with a wide program spread over three cities and with the opening film and world premiere of "BIG TIME" on Bjarke Ingels. This year, the festival will feature more than 150 architectural events in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Aalborg.

A post shared by Lisa Forbus (@blackforestmom67) on Apr 9, 2017 at 6:28am PDT

From the soaring infinity pool on top of Marina Bay Sands to a glass-bottomed pool hovering over a mountainous Italian landscape, it’s safe to say death-defying swimming elements have emerged as the most high-adrenaline trend in luxury accommodation.

Now, a new pool at Houston’s Market Square Tower is upping the ante even further with a transparent plexiglass wading pool that projects out 10 feet past the end of the building – and 500 feet above the busy street below.

Florian W. Mueller's Singularity series is, in the photographer's own words, "just the building – reduced to the max." These deceptively simple shots of the summits of skyscrapers from around Europe and North America, each set against in infinite gradient of sky, are symbols of architecture's effort to reach ever higher in evermore unique ways. For Mueller, who is based in Cologne, they are an attempt at abstraction. In isolation—and especially when viewed together—they are remarkably revealing as studies of form and façade.

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London’s troubled Garden Bridge proposal may have finally been dealt its final blow, after a new report by senior Labour MP Margaret Hodge concluded that the project should be cancelled now rather than risk pumping more public money into the controversial scheme. Conceived of by Thomas Heatherwick Studio in 2013 and approved by the Westminster Council in December of the following year, the over £46 million of public funding that has already gone toward the project would not be able to be recovered.

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Update: As anyone who clicked the "buy now" button discovered, this was of course a good-humored prank for April Fools' Day. ArchDaily has no plans to expand into print media, and we haven't been stalking Bjarke Ingels via his social media—honest! Our thanks to those who took it in good humor, including "the BIG man" himself for helping spread this "news" to his followers!

One year ago today the Editors of ArchDaily conceived of a project which has consumed a small and dedicated team ever since. After drawing the best talent following an international (and highly secretive) recruitment drive in 2016, a special task force was engaged with the challenge of developing our company’s first printed publication.

“The decision to break into print was not one we took lightly,” explains ArchDaily’s Managing Editor of Books, Lea Brary. “However, we are confident that this endeavor will please architecture fans and bibliophiles worldwide.”

Following twelve months of intense work and production we are proud to reveal BjarkeDaily: What It's Like to Write About the BIG Man – the first comprehensive biographical study of Bjarke Ingels and BIG; an homage to the architect and practice who have become a quotidian feature of our platform for over half a decade.

The US News and World Report has released their 2017 list of “Best Jobs,” based on a variety of criteria including salary, employment rate, growth potential, future job prospects, stress level and work-life balance.

Despite describing the job outlook for architects as “very solid,” overall, architecture finished outside out of the top 100, coming in 7th (out of 8) in the “Engineering Jobs” category. Find out the expected salaries for architects and which cities pay their architects the best, after the break.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has announced the addition of former First Lady Michelle Obama to the lineup of keynote speakers presenting at the 2017 AIA National Conference on Architecture in Orlando, Florida.

Obama will participate in Day 1 of the conference, on Thursday, April 27. Her event is billed by the AIA as “A Conversation with Former First Lady Michelle Obama,” where it is expected she will speak about the key initiatives she led during her time in the White House.