Postopolis! has already started in Los Angeles, with 5 days of intense architectural discussion, debate, live interviews, networking and fun. Here, you can see live streaming every day from 5-11 Pacific time. Now, there’s no excuse for not being there!

Our first step in educational backgrounds. It’s where we cry during our first day and probably where we make our very first best friend. Maybe, one of the most important places in our eary years. So to start this week of Round Up, we bring you our previoulsy featured Kindergardens.

We’ve recently featured the winning project of the Xi’an World Horticulture Expo by Plasmastudio. Here’s the proposal by Serie Architects that received the second place with their Xi’an Horticulture Expo Masterplan.

Like the Xian City Wall, this new structure, named the ‘Five Climates Crossing’ will mark the centre of the park and simultaneously act as a connector, linking the entrance square on the north, Chang’an Park in the middle and the viewing tower on the south. within the crossing, the green house is arranged linearly as five different episodes of climates zones, allowing visitors to move sequentially from one green house to another whilst maintaining visual connection to the outside.

Seen at designboom. More images after the break.

Ian Simpson Architects with Adams Kara Taylor Engineers and Hoare Lea Engineers has been announced as winners of the competition to design a new innovative, architecturally striking educational, conference and seed production complex at the National Wildflower Centre in Knowsley, part of the Liverpool City Region which is intended to be one of the first buildings in the country to be rated BREEAM “Outstanding”.

Seen at bustler. Images of the other five shortlisted practices, after the break.

University of Southern California’s School of Architecture presents Border Architectures 2000-2008, a lecture by colombian architect Giancarlo Mazzanti.

Group 41, a San Francisco-based firm, has been experimenting with shipping container design. The company is currently working on a large multi-family development in Utah that is to be entirely constructed out of shipping containers.

This proposal is a design for market-rate housing in the suburbs of Salt Lake City Utah. Involving the use of nearly 1000 shipping containers to create up to 200 units of housing, and sitting on a concrete commercial “base” that also includes parking, this major development is slated for a Transit Oriented district near a commuter rail station. Currently, in the preliminary conceptual phase, Container Nation has created two different proposed schemes that take different approaches to the stacking and build-out of the containers. Preliminary local Planning approvals are expected by mid-2009.

For more information, go to Container Nation official website. More images after the break.

On April 2-5, architectural theoreticians from around the globe will be coming to Weimar to debate the political and ethical challenges of globalization and how architecture responds to them.

Since we started with ArchDaily, we’ve tried to interview some of the most important and influential architects of the world. It’s really interesting to see what’s on the mind of the architects behind the amazing projects we’ve all seen. So now, we bring you our first Round Up of previously featured interviews. Enjoy!

One of the entries, Artwave, by Tadao Ando

We’ve just featured the winners for the Munch Museum and Deichman Library competitions in Oslo. See all the entries for the competition after the break.

Bjørvika, a harbour in the eastern part of Oslo, Norway, has become a hot spot for architectural innovation. We have the brand new Oslo Opera by SNOHETTA and the recent competition for the Oslo Central Station awarded to Space Group.

And a recent planning/design competition -actually 2 competitions- just added two cultural buildings to the harbour: the Munch-Area, which will have the new Munch-museum with a collection of the Stenersenmuseum, and the Deichman axis withav the Deichman Library.

Both competitions included invited practices and a stage on which practices applied for pre-qualification.

You can see the list of practices for the Munch Museum here. And the Deichman library here.

The winning project for the Munch Museum was Lambda, by Herreros Arquitectos. The winning project for the Deichman Library was Diagonale, by Lund Hagem Arkitekter and Atelier Oslo. See all the winners after the break.

The Goethe-Institut New York celebrates the opening of its downtown events space, in the Lower East Side’s Wyoming Building, with a Spring series of talks and performances by internationally acclaimed artists and architects, starting with OSA this Friday, March 27.

Our friends from RSVP shared with ous a project in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where a successful advertising agency wants to expand its current facilities on their present site in San Juan’s Roosevelt Avenue, where surrounding buildings have also undergone a process of urban densification.

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

Our friends over at konyk (Brooklyn based practice) shared with us their entry for the Andes Sprouts Society residency studio competition, a project named Girasole.

Gathering all of its energy from the sun, GIRASOLE is a single room studio that is autonomous, movable and flexible. Its independence allows it to function completely off the local utility grid. By manipulating the surface area for maximum solar exposure and utilizing thin battery packs embedded in its chassis, GIRASOLE converts the sun into AC current to heat and electrify the studio. Like Thomas Alva Edison’s 1893 Black Maria, GIRASOLE is formed by the function of sunlight, and follows it across the landscape.

More images after the break.

Principal and Founder of 3XN architects, Kim Herforth Nielsen, receives Denmark’s highest Architectural Honour, the C.F. Hansen Medal. The Award will be presented by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts as they ‘acknowledge a person who has made outstanding achievements in the field of Architecture’.

The winners of the Valparaiso Cultural Center competition in Chile were just announced. The competition came after a proposal from brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer was rejected. The Cultural Center will be built where the former prison stood for the last 150 years.

The winning projects are:

1st Prize – Jonathan Holmes, Martín Labbé, Carolina Portugueis, Osvaldo Spichiger 2nd Prize – Patricio Mardones, Juan Francisco Garcés, Felipe Ortiz, Pablo Ropert, Rocío Costa 3rd Prize – oficina de arquitectura + Paisajes Emergentes (featured today on AD Futures)

For more information on the winning projects, click here (in spanish). Images of the winning projects, after the break.

The “Spire”, the skyscraper designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, was going to be the tallest building in the United States. That title will have to wait, at least until the economic crisis affecting construction all over the world starts having better days.

Designing a store may be challenging for an architect. Many times, it’s design has to be related to the product the store will sell. Also, a cool design may very well attract people that the product itself will not. So today, for our first Round Up of the week, we bring you Retail previoulsy featured on AD.

Yesterday we featured the results of the international competition of the urban development for Split, Croatia. The jury did not declare winners for the 1st and 2nd Prize, but three equal 3rd Prizes and 6 Purchase Prizes were given.

Seen at bustler. More images on the proposals after the break.