JDS Architects’ Holmenkollen Ski Jump in Oslo, Norway has been announced as the winner of the 2011 ECCS Structural Steel Design Award at the ECCS Congress in Postdam, Germany. The award recognizes outstanding design in steel construction emphasizing the many advantages of steel in construction, production, economy and architecture.

The building authority of the canton Graubünden set up a competition for an extension of the local school complex in Chur, including a new media centre (‘Mediothek’), a cafeteria and an additional building for new lecture halls.

In order to comply with the given space allocation plan this design, by Marc Anton Dahmen & Studio DMTW, allots two separate parts of the envisaged structure. All functions of the cafeteria and ‘Mediothek’ are combined in a single building which is located directly at the assemblage point between the already existing lecture facilities (Cleric & Bio Cleric), the sports facilities Badi Sand, and the planned new connection with the institutions sitting (among others Kanti Halde). The second building hosts the new lecture halls and complements the presently existing ensemble consisting of the Cleric and Bio-Cleric enhancing the schoolyard’s fourth spatial edge. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Australian architects and designers Studio 505 are currently completing a series of iconic projects in a new cultural precinct in Victoria’s ‘sister state’ Jiangsu Province in China.

Located in Wujin in the Changzhou precinct, the 3.5 hectare Lotus Park has been designed to be occupied throughout the year with festivals and functions throughout the day and night. The design establishes a clear and active programme of functions and includes the W Gallery, a new museum of contemporary art and many new entertainment and restaurant venues. The themes of environmental sustainability, education, recreation and community focused arts programmes are key to the establishment and success of the park programme. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Adrian Lo, a budding architect, shared with us his first prize winning proposal for the Tropical Architecture Design Competition for Institutes of Higher Learning. His concept, “Architoptoe,” is defined as any architecture that is designed to fit a specific “social-urban-environmental biotope”. i.e. a design through understanding a city or a macro-area as a ecological system (a natural system evolved through a set of cultural, social, economical, historical and environmental rules.) Each archi-biotope is a small-scale zone with unique events and programs that are mixed and hybridized. More images and project description after the break.

KKA (Kjellgren Kaminsky Architecture) presents three architectural dreams consisting of stories and images. In a time when architecture has become increasingly obsessed with shape and surface, they wanted to explore other fields of the profession. KKA wanted to envision alternative futures and societies, to fantasize and write their stories, proposing the unexpected. More project description after the break.

On view at the CCA (Canadian Centre for Architecture) from 22 September to 8 January 2012, Modernism in Miniature: Points of View explores the encounter between photography and architectural model-making between c.1920 -1960.

Curated by Davide Deriu, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Westminster, London, the exhibition focuses on model photography as a distinctive genre. It proposes an inextricable link with the so-called ‘model boom’ and the explosion of mass media, where miniatures reached out to a wide public and, in some cases, acquired a cult status that has endured to this day. More information on the event after the break.

The Bard College Conservatory of Music has received a generous $9.2 million gift from Bard alumnus László Z. Bitó, class of 1960, for the construction of The László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory Building. This state-of-the-art teaching and performance facility addresses the growing needs of the Conservatory, brought on by its fivefold growth since its founding in 2005. With an anticipated completion date of January 2013, the building is scheduled to begin construction in October. The design of the building, by Deborah Berke & Partners Architects, supports the Conservatory’s dedication to providing top-level musical training in the context of a liberal arts education. More project description after the break.

The Zagreb Society of Architects is launching the fourth and the last competition for this year’s Think Space cycle – Moral Borders. For this year’s annual cycle, the main theme connecting all four competitions is Borders

With a new firm name and a unique offer, Design Farm announced their new offer: Free Schematic Design Services to Individuals, Non-profits, Small Businesses and Developers. This is the essence of what makes this competition so unique. You submit the building project while you get to ride along through the design process from a licensed architecture firm.

The exciting competition titled “On the House” allows three lucky nominees to be chosen to work with a licensed architect to develop a complete schematic design package including preliminary floor plans, elevations, and 3D renderings of the selected project . If you like what Design Farm designs for your project, you can hire them to take it through the completion of the project. If you do not like what they put together for you, it is still on the house although they will retain the copyright. More information on the competition after the break.

On the occasion to the 7th Festival of the Lively Architectures in Montpelier, Champ Libre association throws a call for applications to realize 10 interventions.

The Festival is part of the city heart of Montpellier; it will take place in the heart of Montpellier and more specifically in the courtyards of certain town house. At the same time it will be proposed a course to the visitors, goes out of architectural discovery in the city heart. Deadline for all submissions is December 15th. More information after the break.

The proposal for the Saint-Laurent’s Sports Complex by DATA Architects finds its balance between the partial restructuring of the existing gymnasium and the construction of a new figure to the simple geometry and resolved, a quadrilateral with sides slightly curved, which refers to the site while inspired by the dominant archetype of this type of sports equipment. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Malta Design Week‘s primary purpose is to provide a platform for the expanding local design talent to interact and experience work and designers from a broad international scene, right at home. Fashioned to promote and celebrate good design, this seven-day event, from October 1st-8th, will be spread across cultural and commercial venues around Malta.

Having its base in the capital – Valletta, but also spilling and spreading across several satellite-event hosting venues – MDW aims to place various design disciplines on the same platform. It will host exhibitions, talks, workshops and launches bringing together local and foreign designers, architects, artists, artisans, journalists, critics, academics and entrepreneurs.

More information on the event after the break.

For their inaugural show, Just the Flip Side of the Wall, Melissa Appleton and Matthew Butcher (Post Works) will create a new environment within The Architecture Foundation’s Project Space that will act as a frame for a series of events that explore the relationship between architecture, the city and performance.

The exhibition, which takes place from September 30th to October 29th, will be an extension of Post Works’ recent works Stage City (part of The Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition) and No Stop Statue Machine, a film that presents a world where buildings weep, infrastructures conduct people’s thoughts and staircases become machines for endless exercise, recently shown at the ICA, London. More information on the exhibition after the break.

5710 (Fifty Seven Ten) Society recently announced their lecture series for 2011-2012. The series kicks off with an opening party on September 29th and runs until April 26th.

The lecture series will be held at The Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and The Built Environment in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is a non-profit organisation run by students, which invites guest speakers to lecture in the School. Speakers are usually practicing architects of interest to students and to the school, and the society aims to create a link between architectural education and architectural practice. However, lecturers are also invited from related disciplines such as art, architectural photography and interior design. More information on the event after the break.

ESTUDIO AISENSON + SMF shared with us their first prize winning proposal for the “National Contest of The Apple of the Lights and his Environment.” The construction of a set edilicio in the Apple of the Lights is one of the historical sites of major importance in Buenos Aires. They believe that a look that shoud leave a contemporary stamp in the Apple of the Lights, which has been consolidated across diverse centuries of our history, cannot but to be based in recognizing the preexistences, the patrimonial value of the set and each of his parts and in formalizing the simultaneous need to join to the set and to be outlined as intervention. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The aim of this project, designed by DATA Architects, goes beyond a simple sport aesthetic, in wanting a full architectural experience. The two terms can not be separated in their minds. It is as much about the definition and sequencing of internal spaces on the transition between outside and inside. They are interested in all the rigor of the building as a skillful play of proportions in the light. More images and architects’ description after the break.

PA (Process-based Architecture) Studio shared with us their proposal for New Taipei City Museum of Art, which won an honorable mention. Their design includes a huge cube on an urban plaza. The interior space of this suspended cube is integrated and has not been divided to specified floors as the usual buildings. It consists of several moving galleries where the exterior walls are also good places for displaying the art works. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Holcim Award winners for Europe were recently announced in Milan for sustainable place making and materials innovation. The Holcim Awards Gold 2011 for Europe and USD 100,000 was awarded to German architects realities united for a project on the UNESCO World Heritage site of Museuminsel in the heart of Berlin. The Flussbad urban plan will remediate an area rich in cultural heritage by transforming an under-utilized arm of the River Spree into a natural 745m-long “swimming pool”. The project will form a swimming zone equivalent to 17 Olympic-sized pools – and directly improve the quality of urban life and the ecology of the waterway. More information on the awards after the break.