The Moscow Urban Forum has announced the participation of internationally renowned Dutch architect and theorist Rem Koolhass at their event in July. 

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage, we present the completed Spanish Pavilion. Below, the curatorial team describes the exhibition in their own words.

Becoming, the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2018, seeks to respond to the general theme of the event through the proposals and research being developed in the different learning environments within the country, placing special emphasis on the architect's new multidisciplinary profile.

The exhibition, curated by the architect Atxu Amann, has occupied most of its budget in restoring the building in which it is located, "tattooing" its interior walls to load them with 143 proposals that are unified through 52 relevant concepts to our discipline today.

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To architecture students worldwide, MAD encourages you to apply for the 2018 MAD Travel Fellowship.

Ma Yansong, founding principal partner of MAD Architects, initiated MAD Travel Fellowship in 2009. During the past 8 years, the program has sponsored 45 students for their overseas architecture travels to Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. 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.

ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, have launched a new Instagram account showcasing “surprising objects” and never-before-seen gems from Sweden’s national architecture collection. ArkDes Collections, which presents an eclectic mix of drawings, models, and photographs by architects including Ralph Erskine, Gunnar Asplund, Sigurd Lewerentz and Bernt Nyberg, has also highlighted significant work by lesser-known practitioners, such as Léonie Geisendorf and Mariana Manner.

With four million objects, the museum cares for one of the largest collections of architectural objects in Europe. Covering Swedish architecture from the mid-19th Century up to the present day, with an emphasis on the first half of the 20th Century, objects posted on the account are selected by curators, architects, designers, and thinkers.

Update: Watch the lecture with the video above!

Balkrishna Doshi, the 90-year-old architect who became the first ever Indian winner of the architecture world's most prestigious award earlier this year, will present his Pritzker Prize Laureate Lecture entitled "Paths Uncharted" on Wednesday 16th May at 6:30 pm ET. The event is hosted by The University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, at the school's new home in the Daniels Building at One Spadina Crescent. The lecture will be one of the first events at the new building and marks the 40th anniversary of the Pritzker Prize. 2018 will also be the first year that the award is presented in Canada.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Chilean Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

At the centre of Sala dell’Isoloto stands a large-scale model of a building made of rammed earth. On closer examination, the sixty pieces that comprise the building’s oval shape appear less to be made of earth as carved in it. Layers of soil with slight variations in colour and texture recall that it is land what is at stake at the Chilean Pavilion. The layering of the pavilion’s pieces is the footprint of an artisanal process of production by which a fragile, discrete material—soil, bare earth—is transformed into a stable, monolithic object. Simultaneously heavy and fragile, these objects are in turn symbolic fragments of another transmutation: one by which slum dwellers were transformed into property owners in an event at Chile’s National Stadium, and one by which a city that grew unplanned becomes visible and fixed in a plan, that of a building able to narrate its own history.

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As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Egyptian Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

The Egyptian pavilion curated by architects Islam El Mashtooly and Mouaz Abouzaid, and architecture professor Cristiano Luchetti proposes the theme of redevelopment and strategies of requalification of spontaneous commercial spaces across the entire country. The phenomenon of "free", unstructured, often abusive and illegal trading is predominant in many urban and suburban areas. The traditional souk is no longer confined to narrow streets and interstitial spaces of the historical fabric. Indeed, the space of commerce extends its tentacles seamlessly along the lines of urban streams without any apparent rule. The project for the pavilion focuses on these strategic spatialities but also on their content. The trading of Roba Becciah is a large portion of all market activities. Disused items produced and dismissed by consumerist societies are first collected, and then stacked in areas of such dimensions to create mono-functional enclaves for future trading purposes. The Roba Becciah represents for the curators an important metaphor of the anthropological-urban condition of the contemporary world.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Canada Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

After close to 60 years of exhibitions featuring the work of some of Canada’s most celebrated artists and architects, the Canada Pavilion in Venice, Italy is undergoing a major, $3-million restoration. The designated heritage building is an important architectural landmark in the Giardini di Castello, the traditional site of the International Art and Architecture Exhibitions of La Biennale di Venezia.

Will Alsop, the British architect known for his colorful and unconventional designs, has died at age 70. As reported by The Guardian, Alsop passed away on Saturday following a short illness, with his firm aLL Design confirming the news on Sunday.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Chinese Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

The motivation for this exhibition is more than just xiangchou, a Chinese term that refers to nostalgia for rural lands. We return to the countryside where Chinese culture originated to recover forgotten values and overlooked possibilities; from there, we will build a future countryside.
– Li Xiangning (Curator)

One of the major challenges facing contemporary built environments is the future of rural development. In China, the countryside has become a new frontier for experiments in this area, and the country is developing its countryside at a speed and scale unseen in the West. Drawn by the promise of boundless opportunity, architects, artists, developers—as well as capital flow—are converging in rural areas across the nation.

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WeWork has announced that Bjarke Ingels will be its new Chief Architect. Ingels, who has taken the architecture world by storm since founding BIG in 2005, will continue in his role as Founding Partner and Creative Director of his firm, however in his new role at WeWork he also "will offer his insights and ideas to extend and help us push the boundaries of architecture, real estate, technology, and design," explained WeWork today in a press statement.

By 2020, an innovation campus with offices and laboratories for young companies in the high-tech field will be developed in Suzhou, the eastern Chinese metropolis. The total of 330,000 square meters of gross floor area is provided in five building clusters of different sizes, which are arranged offset from each other around a park and lake landscape. In the spring of 2018, the design by Architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) and WES landscape architects won first prize in the competition for the project.

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In recent years, it seems like Bjarke Ingels has been everywhere you look; he has been profiled by The New Yorker, was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2016, has given TED Talks, and featured in countless other documentaries, videos, and articles (yes, including many on ArchDaily). But there is one place he hasn't yet appeared: on the cover of Surface Magazine. Today, with the launch of Surface's May/June issue, that changes.

"When The New Yorker published Ian Parker’s 11,000-word story on BIG’s rise in 2012, I knew Surface should put a pause on any major coverage, at least for several years, just to see how the firm’s story would evolve," says Surface editor-in-chief Spencer Bailey to explain the magazine's apparent omission. "I think that inkling was right: BIG has grown to five hundred employees, twelve partners, and three offices, with twenty projects under construction and fifty in development. His clients include Google, WeWork, and Audemars Piguet. There’s so much to unpack now."

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Feng Shui (in Chinese thought) is a system of laws considered to govern spatial arrangement and orientation in relation to the flow of energy (chi), and whose favorable or unfavorable effects are taken into account when siting and designing buildings.

We have selected seven projects that are based on the concepts of this Eastern wisdom to conceive their spaces.