Architect: Gansam Architects & Associates Location: Seoul, Korea Project Architect: Taijip Kim Design team: Kiyoung Han, Mijung Kim, Myunghee Jang, Sun A Park, Kyungsu Jeong Project Year: 2007-2010 Photographs: Gansam Architects & Associates

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Architects: Arhitektid Muru & Pere Location: Viimsi Peninsula, Estonia Project Team: Urmas Muru, Peeter Pere, Janek Maat, Doris Orasi Site Area: 1,694 sqm Project Area: 300 sqm Images: Courtesy of Arhitektid Muru & Pere

LA based architects Yazdani Studio shared with us the Taj Lands End Hotel competition entry in Mumbai, India.

In a single sweeping gesture, the “wave” gathers the multitude of public and private spaces within the new hotel into a seamless composition, immediately iconic against the rectilinear skyline of Mumbai. This graceful arc also echoes the form of multiple bays that make up the city’s western edge, and makes visual reference to the new Sea Link Bridge adjacent to the site.

Mecanoo’s Wei-Wu-Ying Center for the Arts has broken ground in Kaohsiung with a festive public celebration hosted by President Ma Ying-jeou and attended by Architect Francine Houben. The new cultural complex will be the largest in Asia at 141,000 sqm, featuring the most modern in theatre technology, housing a concert hall with 2000 seats, an opera house with 2250 seats, a playhouse with 1250 seats, a recital hall with 500 seats, a public library and studios for music and dance.

Architects: The Design Institute of Civil Engineering & Architecture of DUT Location: Dalian, China Project Area: 18,000 sqm Project Year: 2009 Photographs: Courtesy of Dalian Shell Museum

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Canadian Architects Saucier + Perrotte Architectes shared with us the semi-finalist proposal they designed in collaboration with Bélanger, Beauchemin, Morency architectes, for the international competition of the Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec in Québec City, Canada.

More images and architect’s description after the break.

Back in 2006, the Torrevieja Relaxation Park in Spain was built to be a landmark in the City and a referent in contemporary architecture, but its actual state is just the opposite.

Slovenian architects OFIS Architekti shared with us this affordable sustainable housing project in El Paso, Texas.

The proposal separates the site in two roughly equal halves: North and South. The North is proposed for Phase II of the development, because its corner location suited best as commercial or mixed use development. Housing complex is located in more quiet, southern part of the plot and is gathered in a form of a nest – living mount of apartments, stuck one above another. The form makes a perfect shape as a shield protecting the units from sun and wind and the other hand offers quality environment: light, well ventilated with created different types of shared areas, both external and internal. Apartment units are orientated towards the internal park or towards the exterior. With its orientation keep intimacy and opened views to inhabitants. Apartments on level +1 around the internal park have atriums and terraces connected to the plaza.

Architects: studioMAS architects + urban designers Location: Forest Town, Johannesburg, South Africa Landscape Architect: Sonja Swanepoel, from African Environmental Design Project Year: 2005 Photographs: Mario Todeschini & studioMAS

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Architects: CA-DESIGN / Architecture and Urban Planning Location: Qingpu, Shanghai, China Director in charge: Pedro Pablo Arroyo Alba Project year: 2010 Photographs: Montse Zamorano & CA-Group

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Nicolas Dorval-Bory shared with us a sustainable house for winter sports up on the hills of the Santiago, Chile, designed with Emilio Marín & Juan Carlos López Huerta for a competition organized by an aerated concrete block company.

Architects: MAD Location: Beijing, China Director in Charge: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun Design Team: Dai Pu, Yu Kui, Stefanie Helga Paul, He Wei, Shen Jianghai Type: Courtyard Renovation Construction Engineers: Beijing Nade Environmental Art Design Co., Ltd. Construction Cost: 400,000RMB Project Year: 2009 Photographs: ShuHe, Fang Zhenning & Daniele Dainelli

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Canadian Architects Campos Leckie Studio shared with us this recent installation for an Exhibition for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver.

A new installation by Ball Nogues Studio for the 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Biennale of Urbanism, in collaboration with American Apparel.

Curator: Beatrice Galilee

Temporary spatial installations within urban cultures are a rapidly evolving phenomenon. Unlike “permanent” buildings, these structures nimbly respond to the accelerated temporality of cities on the move like Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Increasingly they provide the urban spectacles that “signature” buildings aim to deliver. Like never before, cities are adorned with provisional environments and architecturally scaled events. This situation has been further emboldened by the financial meltdown in 2008 as investors look to spend money on big urban spectacles without the financial commitment of making buildings. Within this economic outlook, the disposable plates of architecture are better investments than a collection of fine tableware. However, an important question looms when cleaning up after the meal: can the plate be composted or should it be colored with crayon and reused as a party decoration?

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The City of Copenhagen’s overall goal for the city’s development is that Copenhagen will become an international, outstanding example of sustainable urban development. The same values form the basis for the framework of the North Harbour Exhibition. The sustainable container-pavilion has been developed by the architect’s office MAPT in collaboration with the City of Copenhagen.

Architects: OTASH studio Location: Kremlin, Moscow, Russia Authors: Dejan Otasevic, Ivo Otasevic, Uros Otasevic (designer) Project architectural team: Slobodan Damjanovic, Pavle Bogdanovic Associates: Nenad Peranovic, Marija Simsic, Dragana Mijatovic Design Year: 2007 Project Year: 2008-2009 Photographs: OTASH studio

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As part of the Icsid World Design Congress 2009, “Design Difference: Designing our World 2050”, WOHA spearheaded a vertical studio to explore future scenarios for Singapore.

The task that the studio posed themselves was to make Singapore safe from rising sea levels while shrinking the ecological footprint of the country to the size of the island. The projects are testing new cross-programmed infrastructure, urban and architectural typologies to address the pressing issues of water, food and energy security. Proposals include residential power plants, multilevel factory / agri-villages, and resort dykes.

The output is manifold: With partners NUS, obilia and Black Design, WOHA created a 5 minute newscast from the year 2050, a complete (“commemorative”) paper-print issue of a newspaper of the same day and a whole series of memorabilia of the new world (t-shirts, calendars, postcards, etc). An exhibition in WOHA’s gallery complements the congress contribution and presents the studio projects from NUS architecture students.

Architects: Anttinen Oiva Architects Location: Helsinki, Finland Project Manager: Vesa Oiva Collaborators: Jussi Kalliopuska, Selina Anttinen, Antti Lehto Building services consultant: Aila Puusaari, DI, Pˆyry Building Services Oy Construction-engineering consultant: Sami Lampinen, DI, WSP Finland Oy Library consultants: Irma Pasanen, office chief, Library of Helsinki University of Technology / Risto Maijala, library amanuense, Library of Helsinki University of Technology Client: University of Helsinki Project Area: 32,000 sqm Design year: 2008-2010 Construction year: 2010-2012 Images: Courtesy Anttinen Oiva Architects