The Lavance Shade Screen, a project designed and built by Benjamin Hall & Michael Lavance, was created out of appreciation for the desert climate and its harsh effects on specific materials. This inspiration and architectural concept led to this unique and regionally specific approach in providing much needed shade to a custom residential outdoor barbecue and bar near the downtown of Scottsdale, Arizona. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The public space proposal for the Urban Intervention competition creates a new way of creating a dialog between the park and the city. Designed by PRAUD, each solid and void creates its own topography, and thus the topography of the solid provides different experiences for pedestrians and joggers, while topography of the voids provide different types of functions and landscape fields. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University will be holding the Interpretations: Promiscuous Encounters Syposium taking place Friday, March 23rd from 12:00pm – 8:30pm. Promiscuous Encounters, which is free and open to the public, has two main ambitions: first, to examine the fascinating blurriness and productive interplay between the critical, curatorial and conceptual capacities of architecture, including how and where they intersect and overlap and, second, to expand the definitions of what these terms mean in relation to theory and practice by reexamining the sites of criticality and their modes of operation. More information on the event after the break.

Hallway House, a radical residential project designed by NL Architects, has been conceived within the framework of a ‘match making’ program set up by the Dutch Architecture institute (NAi), together with Housing Corporation VANKE. As a Sino-Dutch collaboration in social housing, NL Architects has created a new concept for high-quality affordable housing on a site in Huilongguan, Beijing. More images and architects’ description after the break.

TEX-FAB Digital Fabrication Alliance is seeking research proposals that actively connect academia, the profession and the fabrication industry in the Continuing Research category and in the Speculative Proposal category new start-up projects. As this is a “design to fabricate” competition, TEX-FAB will match the network of fabricators and consultants with the projects that best manifest research through computational fabrication and apply it toward more intelligent integers of materiality and construction. Submissions are due no later than June 2nd. More information on the competition can be found here.

Josep Lluís Mateo, of Mateo Arquitectura, recently presented his masterplan for the Pôle Multimodal Nice-Aéroport quartier d’affairs Grand Arénas which imagines a city of the future. His brief description and a video can be viewed after the break.

The intention of the design for the School Farm by Felipe Grallert Architects is to enhance the history of the place of Antilhue, once a train station, located in the Los Lagos town. Their design aims to put value on the station area as a large urban public square and create a path along the railroad tracks. Doing so would add history and cultural identity through an urban element capable of enhancing the rural characteristics. This would then translate into concrete action, an element capable of educating and bringing new opportunities based on its own roots, the vernacular and unique place. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Above is a video of NOW presenting their project, Kulttuurisauna, a new public building for the city of Helsinki, the World Design Capital 2012. Their design features saunas, cafe, offices, and a courtyard that opens directly to the sea. Using their model as a reference, you are able to get a sense of the spaces and their relationship to each other, as well as to the city itself which is discussed in the video.

Exhibited from April 6 – Mary 13, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to present “Towards Comfo-Veg,” a large scale, site-specific installation designed for the SCI-Arc Gallery by architect and artist Peter Cook and partner Gavin Robotham of London-based CRAB Studio. Building on CRAB’s internationally recognized experimental work, Towards Comfo-Veg introduces an almost completely light-tight, multimedia experiential space welcoming visitors through a single point of entry and leading towards hints of an invented and dreamlike world. More information after the break.

Representing the future development of Venice, the LINK Solar Power Skyscraper aims to provide the geographic area of the laguna of Venice with a new landmark: a link between architecture and urbanism, between the ancient city of Venice and the industrial area named Marghera. A link between function and emotion. Designed by LED Architecture Studio, the project is an architecture-infrastructure, a crucial urban development responding to the present and future needs of this locality. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The CEDEI Nursery School, designed by +K Arquitetos, was conceived with urban dwelling in mind, and with a facade that resembles the manufacturing plants of the neighborhood where it is located. The separate buildings and spaces, each with its specific and exclusive purpose – administration, nursery, atelier, multiple use rooms, eatery and kitchen, etc – are interconnected by wide sidewalks, plazas and skywalks. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Studio BANG shared with us their design proposal for the competition for Ny Våler Kirke, a new church in Norway. Through creating a perceivable tribute to the old wooden church, their concept results in an upward focus that transports light into the holy space. More images and a brief architects’ description after the break.

With the Simon Family Tower addition still under construction at the Riley Hospital for Children, the installation for hospital is complete, after over a year in the making. Designed by PROJECTiONE, ‘Riley Sunrise’ was designed with the hope that the super-graphics can serve as a pleasant distraction for visitors of the hospital and lead to discussions that can re-focus a conversation towards something positive and uplifting. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Taken by Clement Guillaume, the photographs in this post include projects by the 2012 Pritzker Prize winner, Wang Shu, Chinese architect and founder of Amateur Architecture Studio. The projects featured here include Campus Hangzhou, CIPA Nanjing, Five Squared Houses, Ningbo, Zhongshan Lu, and Vertical Houses. Shu’s projects present a contemporary and progressive approach that acknowledges the rich tradition of Chinese architecture and as one of the jury members for the Pritzker Prize stated, ‘produces an architecture that is timeless and deeply rooted in its context and yet universal.’ A gallery of images can be viewed after the break.

The project proposal for the Student’s Residence on U.L.E Campus by MACA Estudio + VIRAI Arquitectos is designed as a system rather than a building. Unable to design a solution based on the conditions associated with a given plot, the project offers an independent and isotropic system, with its own “domestic” rules, which does not depend on where it is located and responds the same way to the different physical conditions that can be found. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Burnt down in 2009, the beautiful Vaaler church from 1805 has been designed as a new church by WE Architecture. Meant to provide symbolic landmark to succeed the old building, the new Vaaler church is placed further east from the placement of the old church, marking the historic axis with its tower. The new building is designed as a simple box where one corner is lifted up in order to point out the church room and the tower. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Seeking to improve their outdated and overcrowded department library, the intention for the design of the Law school library aims at housing their growing book collection and creating a central focus for the school. After numerous studies and surveys indicated that students and faculties in Tsinghua hunger for open and easy-communication space, Zhubo based their concept on a people-oriented idea instead of a formalistic one. At the same time, they hoped for an eye-catching library that enlivens the campus, creating a destination that attracts both students and teachers. More images and architects’ description after the break.