We have featured some pretty peculiar houses on AD. Many of them come from Japan. So to start this week’s Round Up we bring you our first selection of houses in Japan.

Designliga, a design agency from Munich, Germany, has just created the perfect room for a child. Here, the children can play, hide, built or just relax.

“Playground for Leif” marks a clear end to tradition in children’s room design and offers a new look and a brand new world of experiences for children and family members alike. The room is designed using a unique piece of furniture that meets the practical needs of a children’s room while at the same time provides excitement, inspiration, and a feeling of independence.

More images and architect’s description, after the break.

The winners were chosen by a panel of esteemed architects, and the results were announced at the AIA 2009 National Convention in San Francisco.

The complete list of winners after the break.

Our friends from OBRA Architects shared with us their project Red+Housing, an emergency housing prototype commissioned as part of CROSSING: Emergency Dialogues for Architecture to acknowledge the anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake, exhibition held at the National Art Museum of China. More images and architect’s description after the break.

You just bought a nice site by the lake and need a nice house to built? To finish this week of Round Up, here you can see five examples of nice lake houses on different parts of the world.

With the completion of a first cycle of ten years, the graduate architecture program of DIA (Dessau Institute of Architecture) is hosting an international colloquium on the potential and implications of graduate architectural education viewed as a laboratory for design research.

DIA views this colloquium as a medium for reviewing a decade of its own achievements as well a critical vehicle for an exchange of perspectives on advanced architectural and design education in general and upon graduate design education in particular.

The colloquium will focus upon pedagogical models which emphasize experimental design and approaches to research-oriented activity as new foundations for design education. Diverse interpretations of the idea of the design laboratory as an alternative to the design studio will be critically presented and the components of such models will be introduced.

Location is Bauhaus Lecture Hall (Arch. Walter Gropius 1926), Dessau, Germany. You can register at this email: b.bartelt@afg.hs-anhalt.de. Full program after the break.

Architectural Design Competition d3 is pleased to announce the winners of the Natural Systems competition for 2009. The program promotes investigation of natural systems from microscopic to universal toward determining new architectonic strategies.

The competition invited architects, designers, engineers, and students to collectively explore the potential for analyzing, documenting, and deploying nature-based, sustainable influences in urbanism, architecture, interiors, and designed objects.

The competition awarded seven prizes, with first place captured by London-based Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui and Lorene Faure for their project: “Urban Agriculture: Hybridized Farm Bridge as City Garden”. Some of the awards, after the break.

After several years of organizing the annual Skyscraper Competition it has become a renowned architectural prize around the world. The best projects of each competition are widely published from architecture, design, and fashion publications to technology, business, and entertainment magazines. The winning projects are also featured in websites, television documentaries, and galleries.

Passive House Consultants’ Training Program will take place at Parsons The New School for Design from July 6 till July 17. The program is designed as a series of three, three-day sessions. These sessions are meant for those architects and building system designers who want to learn how to successfully implement Passive House design principles in residential, commercial, and retrofit scenarios.

Different kinds of health architecture in different parts of the world. From Portugal, Netherlands, Japan, Sudan and Burkina Faso, we bring you our Round Up of previously featured health architecture projects on ArchDaily.

The Tulane City Center houses the Tulane University School of Architecture’s urban research and outreach programs. So far this year, the students at the Tulane School of Architecture have built three projects, a Green Pavillion (a sustainable exhibition on rainwater re-use, a Farmer’s Market in Hollygrove, and a LEED certified (soon to be) house in Central City. All of these projects are located in New Orleans.

You can find more on the Tulane City Center here. Images and description of the three projects, after the break.

How and what can architects and urbanistst contribute to the way we live in cities? What is the Open City? How do people work, think, dream and act there? And why is it urgent to re-imagine the Open City?

Both schemes incorporate sustainable elements to create an indoor environment that is healthy to occupy and cost-effective to operate: intelligent facade design, harnessing alternative energies, harvesting and recycling rainwater, and incorporating smart technologies such as solar chimneys and abundant facade plantings to filter and improve air quality.

In each, colored glass and richly colored terra cotta contrast with cool sleek aluminum elements amid verdant landscaping. Both schemes utilize a bright and energizing palette of materials that integrate the colorful aspects of Indian culture with an unwavering commitment to a more sustainable environment.

More images after the break.

Chosen by the Dubai Health Authority and the Department of Health and Medical Services (DOHMS) to create an advanced A/E hospital, Perkins Eastman designed a facility capable of providing immediate care for minor- to high-level trauma. An ambulance receiving area is directly linked to a surgical trauma operating suite and a diagnostic imaging unit with MRI, CT, and X-ray capabilities. The 300-bed, 85,000 facility includes a large, five-floor nursing unit providing specialized treatment and care for patients recovering from surgery.

More images after the break.

Those who have been lucky enough to visit Norway surely know how beautiful its landscape is. But not only its sorroundings are amazing, they have some pretty amazing architecture. So to finish this week of Round Up, we bring you previously featured Norwegian architecture.

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to present L.A. in Wien / Wien in L.A, an exhibition featuring works by Hitoshi Abe, Peter Cook, Zaha Hadid, Thom Mayne, and Eric Owen Moss juxtaposed with those by R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra that investigate the architecture of both Los Angeles and Vienna and their respective influences on one another over the last century. L.A. in Wien / Wien in L.A. is on view July 24 through September 13 at the SCI-Arc Library Gallery, 960 E. 3rd Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

Architectural Record recently published their Top 250 architecture firms. Companies are ranked according to revenue for architectural services performed in 2008 in $ millions.

Firms engaged in the business of architectural design that responded to Engineering News-Record’s annual Top 500 Design Firms survey submitted these revenue figures. Number 1 was for AECOM Technology Corporation (in the picture), an engineer-architect firm from Los Angeles, California.

The firms classify themselves by: A=Architect AE=Architects-Engineer AEC=Architect-Engineer-Contractor EA=Engineer-Architect

You can see the top 25, after the break.

UPDATE: Thanks to your comments, BIG sent us the drawings and diagrams of the project. Check them out in the gallery!

An international idea competition was held for Tallinn’s new City Hall in Estonia and the best concept was presented by the Bjarke Ingels Group from Denmark together with Adams Kara Taylor of the UK.

The purpose of the international idea contest was to find the best architectural solution for the new administrative building of the city government that will be situated on a 35,000 m2 plot near the Linnahall building. The contest for the new city was met with a great interest, 81 architects and their teams were willing to present an entry. Of those, the international jury chose the best 9 to shortlist as finalists into the second phase of the competition. By May 15 the finalists handed in their final solutions. The international jury’s decision to award BIG’s entry first place in the competition was unanimous and was presided by the vice mayor Taavi Aas.

More images after the break.