In both of ArchDaily's last two major website redesigns, one idea was central to our thinking: Mies van der Rohe's aphorism "less is more." These redesigns added new features, sure - but more importantly, they identified extraneous features on the site and removed them. Today, on February 9th 2017, we are removing one more feature that we no longer believe to be necessary on ArchDaily: comments on certain articles.

All comments previously left on our articles will still be visible, preserving the many positive contributions left by our readers over the years. But from today, we will be gradually shifting the discussion to social media, leaving comments open only on News and Editorial articles while the option to comment on Projects, Events, Competitions and Publications articles will be removed. Instead, we encourage readers to take part in the discussions happening on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or to get in touch through our contact form for direct feedback or substantive comments about our articles. Read on to understand the reasons behind our decision.

A little over two years since a fire devastated parts of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art, which was deemed to have been caused by fumes from a can of spray foam entering a projector fan, appointed architects Page\Park are making headway in their restoration of the building's iconic library. As part of the project, and alongside Edinburgh-based joinery firm Laurence McIntosh, the practice will create a full-scale prototype of one of the library bays in order to "test the materials and techniques used to construct the original library."

In a recent episiode of Section D, Monocle 24 visit a new exhibition at London's Serpentine Galleries presenting the paintings of Zaha Hadid. The show, first conceived with Hadid herself, "reveals her as an artist with drawing at the very heart of her work." According to the gallery, it "includes the architect’s calligraphic drawings and rarely seen private notebooks with sketches that reveal her complex thoughts about architectural forms and their relationships." This episode takes the listener on a tour of the display with commentary from the exhibition's curator.

The District of Columbia Public Library authority has unveiled a fly-through video tour of the final design for the renovation and intervention of its main downtown branch, the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library. According to the architects, Mecanoo and D.C.-based Martinez+Johnson Architecture, it shows "a modern library that reflects a focus on people, while celebrating the exchange of knowledge, ideas and culture." Slated for reopening in 2020, the designs will add 9,300 square feet of additional space for the public, including a rooftop event space and a landscaped terrace.

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Following a second call for ideas from the Future Architecture Platform (MAO), a total of 337 ideas by 594 authors from 56 countries were submitted and distributed for public vote. 14,381 valid votes were logged by the organisation, and Assembling Narratives by Danai Toursoglou Papalexandridou (Greece) was chosen the favorite. She is one of a further 24 selected creatives who will be invited to participate at the Matchmaking Conference in late February at the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in Ljubljana.

Roses are red, violets are blue; we'd love to receive a valentine from you!

2016 was a defining year for ArchDaily. The change and uncertainty around the globe which emerged during the past year allowed us to double down on our mission to provide information, knowledge, and tools to architects, leveling the access to architectural knowledge and enabling a more diverse, equitable profession. As part of this, we now have a renewed focus on data-driven decisions and crowdsourcing architecture's understanding of its own work. The flagship of this crowdsourcing effort has always been our annual Building of the Year awards.

Now, for the 8th consecutive year, we are tasking our readers with the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that are making an impact in the profession, with ArchDaily's 2017 Building of the Year Awards. By voting, you are part of an unbiased, distributed network of jurors and peers that has elevated the most relevant projects over the past seven years. Over the next two weeks, your collective intelligence will filter over 3,000 projects down to just 16 stand-outs—the best in each category on ArchDaily.

This is your chance to reward the architecture you love by nominating your favorite for the 2017 Building of the Year Awards!

Full rules after the break.

Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin has recently completed the third collection of his "ultra-marathon of photoshoots" – this time in Beijing. Following his unique insight into the spaces occupied by Nordic architectural offices (based in Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki) and his look at studios both large and small lived in by London-based practices, Goodwin has turned his lens to the burgeoning number of offices in the Chinese capital. From MAD Architects' magnificent old printing works to ZAO/standardarchitecture's purpose-built studio, here is a view into the places that architectural offices call home.

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In our global society, the movement of humans from one country to another has had extraordinary impact, changing our perceptions through the the exchange of ideas and introduction of new cultures. This can be seen in the adoption of traditional architectural techniques in contemporary architecture, as well as in the dissemination of contrasting architectural philosophies such as the International Style and Critical Regionalism.

Now, in this new interactive map produced by Max Galka of Metrocosm, these movements have been tracked in a eye-catching, easy-to-read infographic.

Videos

Aerial Futures, Grounded Visions: Shaping the Airport Terminal of Tomorrow was a two-day symposium held in October 2016 as part of the European Cultural Center's collateral event at the 2016 Venice Biennale. It encouraged discussion about the future of air travel from the perspectives of architecture, design, technology, culture and user experience. The event featured presentations and discussions by the likes of airport architect Curtis Fentress, Nelly Ben Yahoun, Donald Albrecht, Director of the Museum of the City of New York; Anna Gasco, post-doctoral researcher at the ETH-Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore; Jonathan Ledgard, co-founder of the Droneport Project; and Ashok Raiji, Principal at Arup New York.

Foster + Partners has been selected as the winners of an international competition to design a new £500 million capital for the state of Andhra Pradesh in southeastern India. The brief calls for a new 365 hectare masterplan that will serve as a new municipal capital for India’s eighth largest state, which lost its previous capital, Hyderabad, when state lines were redrawn two years ago.

As reported by The Guardian and the Architects' Journal, the last will and testament of the late Zaha Hadid—who passed away in March 2016 aged 65—has revealed that the Dame of the British Empire and Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects had a net fortune of £67,249,458 (around $82.5million or €77million). This sum, which was filed in the UK High Court in December last year, will be bequeathed in small parts to nieces and nephews (£1.7million), her brother Haytham Hadid (£0.5million), and her business partner Patrik Schumacher (£0.5million). At the time of her death, Hadid was unmarried with no children.

As editors on the Projects Team at ArchDaily, we wanted to reflect on the projects published in 2016—and, based on those submissions, to consider what we hope to see from the submissions we will publish in 2017.

During 2016, the projects we published had a high level of visual impact. Axonometric views were part of the vast majority of our publications, democratizing understanding by creating easily accessible views which closely resemble reality. Secondly, the development of immersive video technology has allowed us to publish full 360-degree tours through the interiors of works of different sizes, generating images which are increasingly representative of the physical reality of the work in question.

If you've always wanted to take better photos and you have 10-15 hours to dedicate to the endeavor, you'll be pleased to know this: Harvard, one of the world's most renowned universities and home to the mighty GSD (Graduate School of Design)—whose faculty has included Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Walter Gropius and many others—is offering a free course in digital photography.

Available via ALISON, an online learning community, the course offers 13 modules that promise to teach the basics behind good photography.

The world of architecture can be a serious place. Though the rest of the world holds quite a few stereotypes about architects, unfortunately none of them include us having a sense of humor—and perhaps that seriousness explains why one of the most popular memes involving architects isn't exactly favorable to the profession. Here at ArchDaily we thought we'd do just a little to correct that with some memes riffing on some of the profession's most beloved names—as our gift to the entire architectural profession. Read on to see what we've come up with, and don't forget to get involved with your own architecture funnies.