2013

Just this past Thursday, schmidt hammer lassen architects, East China Architecture and Design Institute, and Shanghai Expo Construction Development Company celebrated the ground breaking for, and start of construction of, the new Green Valley project on the site of the former 2010 Shanghai Expo. Located immediately next to the iconic Chinese pavilion, the architects won the international competition to design this 50,000-square-meter project last year. This project aims to become a new central urban development in Shanghai, integrating new sustainable solutions in both the urban design and the individual buildings on the site. More images and architects' description after the break.

Change—both collectively as a profession and individually as architects—is essential in three critical areas: culture, community, and commitment. Architects have the power to influence a broader societal culture that appreciates architecture and understands the value of an architect. Reflecting the Institute’s repositioning to serve the needs of our diverse membership, education content is to be relevant and emphasize practical application to support the needs of all members of the profession, particularly our emerging professionals and small firm owners in the areas of leadership, management, project delivery, and technology.

With that being said, the AIA is inviting articulate subject matter experts who can engage and connect with the design community in support of the Institute’s repositioning to submit a proposal for an educational program at the AIA National Convention in Chicago. The convention will take place June 26-28, 2014 in Chicago. The Call for Submissions are due July 1. For more information, please visit here.

In this proposal for a new Australian Prime Ministers lodge, the core concept focused around the question; 'What if the British had embraced Indigenous culture in 1788?' Designed by Stephen Collier Architects, they propose to reconfigure and redefine this boundary of the lodge as a ring of landscape that is retained for public use. This land would be defined by a cluster of deciduous trees while public access to Lake Burley Griffin for all Australians will remain in perpetuity. More images and architects' description after the break.

Westminster City Council has just announced Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, urban designers and architects and Grant Associates, UK landscape architects, as part of a multidisciplinary team to devise a twenty-year infrastructure and public realm plan for Church Street, London, to support the council’s housing renewal strategy. Residents have just voted in favor of proceeding with the first phase of regeneration plans for Church Street in a ward-wide referendum. More images and architects' description after the break.

Hosted by the American Institute of Architects, California Council (AIACC), the Monterey Design Conference 2013 will offer participants three days of talks by–and relaxed conversations with– internationally and nationally significant architects. Taking place September 27-29 in the Elysian setting of the Northern California coast, participants will find themselves strolling on the beach, wandering the Julia Morgan designed grounds or sitting on the deck of the main lodge engaging in conversation with a Pritzker Prize winner or many of the most innovative and catalytic thinkers in architecture, as if they were invited into their own backyard. This is truly a premier opportunity to be a participant in the dialog about design. For more information, please visit here.

The d3 Natural Systems competition invites architects, designers, engineers, and students to collectively explore the potential of analyzing, documenting, and deploying nature-based influences in architecture, urbanism, interiors, and designed objects. This year's competition seeks innovative proposals that advance sustainable thought and performance through the study of intrinsic environmental geometries, behaviors, and flows. By identifying, examining, and applying their structural order on form and function - bottom-up, performance-based solutions for limitless building typologies, functional programs, and material conditions may be realized. The deadline to register is July 1, and submissions are due July 15. For more information, please visit here.

Designed by Henry Stephens, Nick Roberts, and Jack Davies, the winning proposal for The Lodge on the Lake returns to the issues bound up in Australian identity and issues of modernity. The lodge is both a development and a critique of the Australian relationship of landscape and dwelling, through an intersection of public assembly, intimate domesticity, and ground plane. From the composed house atop a plinth, to the slippages and interpolations that unravel down toward the lake, the lodge on the lake is a democratic marriage of land and architectural typology, introspective private dwelling, and public assembly. More images and architects' description after the break.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) just announced the launch of a new design competition on behalf of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to create a new central London Headquarters - replacing their existing New Scotland Yard building. The Invited Design Competition provides architects/practices with the opportunity to produce a design for the renovation of this landmark in one of London’s most important and historic areas - to provide a modern, flexible and secure office environment for the MPS. The deadline for submissions is June 27. For more information, please visit here.

Opening October 11 until December 1, the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) will present 'Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype', an exhibition and public art installation which highlights the well-known American architect's work, including several original, rarely seen Woods drawings from private collections. Complemented by a symposium and catalog, this exhibition in the SCI-Arc Gallery and related large-scale public art installation in the Arts District’s Bloom Square, aims to demonstrate the fearless nature with which the late visionary architect and draftsman created. More information on the exhibition after the break.