São Paulo native Márcio Kogan has become an internationally recognized Brazilian architect known for his minimal designs that are often contrasted by intricate materiality. His work has been highly praised by our readers, and he is in the top 5 of individual architects searches at our site. His houses and institutional projects respect the modern principles of Brazilian architecture, with a special care on the design of interior spaces and their details, resulting in a mix of tradition and contemporary design. My favorite? Paraty House (and its section!)

The old red-brick building sporting a “BEER” sign may not look impressive, but what is going on inside certainly is. “The Plant” is an indoor vertical farm that triples as a food-business incubator and research/education space located inside an 87-year old meat packing factory in the Union Stockyards of Chicago, Illinois. The project was partly funded by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity with a $1.5 million grant. Browse through the Plant Chicago’s Flickr Photostream and you can watch the space steadily transform into an urban farm that will grow fresh produce, farm fresh fish, brew beer and produce kombucha all while recycling the waste of the facility to make it a Net-Zero Energy System.

How does it work? Follow us after the break to learn more.

The winning proposal for the conference and exhibition center in Leon, Spain by Dominique Perrault Architecture stands on the grounds of the old Sugar Santa Elvira and involves the transformation of the main building of the former sugar in Congress Hall (Grand Palais) and the creation of an Exhibition center located to the east side of the Palace of Congress. More images and architects’ description after the break.

HP, Apple, Google – they all found their success amongst the peach groves and Suburban houses of California. But why? What is it about Silicon Valley that makes it the site of technological innovation the world over?

It’s tempting to assume that the Valley’s success must be, at least in part, due to its design. But how does innovation prosper? What kind of environment does it require? In a recent interview with The Atlantic Cities, Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, suggests that creativity is sparked from casual exchanges, the mingling of diversity, the constant interaction with the strange and new. In short, and as a recent study corroborates, innovation flourishes in dense metropolises.

Seemingly then, Silicon Valley, a sprawl of highways and office parks, has become a hotspot of creativity in spite of its design. But let’s not write off design just yet.

As technology makes location more and more irrelevant, many are looking to distill the magic of Silicon Valley and transplant it elsewhere. The key will be to design environments that can recreate the Valley’s culture of collaboration. The future Valleys of the world will be microsystems of creativity that imitate and utilize the structure of the city.

Danish architects CEBRA, along with developers Pihl & Søn and engineers Hundsbæk & Henriksen recenlty won the competition for a new Adult Education Centre of in downtown Odense, Denmarks’s third largest city. The 12.500 m2 / 134.550 ft2 educational institution aims at creating a flexible and diverse learning environment that gives room for individual needs in a collective building. According to the plans, the centre will open at the beginning of 2014. More images and architects’ description after the break.

gmp Architekten shared with us their first prize winning proposal for the Trianel GmgH Corporate Centre in Aachen, Germany. The new building is located along a major road next to the Tivoli stadium. From 2013 on it is to be built in two phases, the first of which comprises 9,600 square metres of gross floor area and will accommodate 400 members of staff. In the second, optional phase the building can be extended by 4,800 square metres to accommodate a further 200 employees. The building’s sustainability concept merits a silver DGNB certificate. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Open to students and professionals in architecture and design fields, the Adream 2012 competition, a European competition in architecture and design realization in eco and agro materials, the aim of the competition is to support the sustainable management of natural resources by modern designs, as the potential of sustainable and organic materials on their current use extends. Jointly organized by the Free State of Thuringia and the Picardy region organized a European project to promote new developments, hope that with their research, companies and universities in the area of these materials will increase steadily to their use in their construction and product culture. The deadline for submissions is July 31. For more information, please visit their website here.

When we last heard from David Lopez and his students at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) they were in the process of constructing a prototype of the Transitional Shelter for Disaster Relief in Haiti. The project started in a Design|Build studio in the Spring of 2011. Acquiring funds to prototype the design became a challenge. Students spent the summer and fall of 2011 completing the design and reaching out to organizations for donations and materials. WorldwideShelters.org and Whiting Turner Contracting Company gave critical donations that made it possible to begin construction.

Follow us after the break to catch up on the status of the project.

Danish architects from 1:1 Arkitektur, in collaboration with Facit Homes, are constructing an entire house in just four weeks with only their computer and a CNC machine. Constructed entirely out of wood, the printed house demonstrates a sustainable, quick and affordable alternative to conventional building that minimizes waste and simplifies the buildings process. Many argue that this way of building is the future of construction.

The Sky Light Pavilion, designed by Nimbu for the Architecture Pavilion Competition sponsored by the Serbian Arhitekton Magazine and the company, Kingspan, is universal, timeless and spaceless. The architects believe that a pavilion shouldn’t be connected with the idea of conceiving one construction that is meaningless. Instead, an architecture pavilion, to be contemporary, should be a construction that demonstrates the pursuit of the architecture itself. Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa says that the renewal, whatever it is, means rediscovering its deepest essence, and that architecture is a direct expression of the existence, of the human presence in the world. More images and architects’ description after the break.

MAD Architects recently launched their 2012 Travel Scholarship, which provides mainland Chinese students with an opportunity to travel abroad and research an architectural topic of their choosing. Established in 2009, and with the support of long-term sponsor VERTU, this year, 5 students will have the opportunity to travel for 7-10 days in their chosen city or region of independent study. Following their trip, the students will give a public presentation of their experience. The application deadline is June 30. For more detailed information, please visit their website here.

Taking place at the Architectural Association (AA) on May 11, the ‘Translate the Intangible’ symposium addresses the challenges of communicating dynamic aspects of contemporary design methodologies through static mediums such as text and images. As current design-oriented fields have amplified the implementation of computational and generative tools for various motives, the process of documentation and representation of the design process has become more difficult to express.

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to present “Yevrus 1, Negative Impression,” an installation designed for the SCI-Arc Gallery by alumni Benjamin Ball (B.Arch ‘03) and Gaston Nogues (B.Arch ‘94) of Los Angeles-based Ball-Nogues Studio, opening June 1 and running until July 8 at SCI-Arc.

Constructed from non-architectural artifacts, Yevrus 1, Negative Impression is a disposable architecture of literal references that calls into question the contemporary architectural vogue for digital complexity and abstraction. The cast impressions of 1973 Volkswagen Beetles and speedboats unite to form a strong structural whole that serves as a lookout tower in the SCI-Arc Gallery. More information after the break.

Continue reading after the break for AIA EVP and Chief Executive Officer Robert Ivy’s response.

Here is a video interview, produced by Active Living Network, with famed author and social activist Jane Jacobs. In 1961, Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a bold response to the city planning strategies of her time and the proposals by planners such as Robert Moses. She used her real-world experiences and observations from her own street in the West Village of New York City to comment on how people interacted in neighborhoods – which areas were busiest, safest and most conducive to living. In this video, Jacobs gives insight into how cities can bounce back from the environment created by the automobile through simple and affordable means such as “tree planting, traffic taming and community events”.

Read on for more after the break.

Hosted by RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects), the ‘Towards a new re-construction after 311 tsunami in North-East Japan’ Symposium will take place in London on May 8, where they will present a culmination of over a year’s work by dedicated Japanese architects working closely with local communities in areas worst affected by the disaster. Ideas and proposals will be shared for building a safe and sustainable future for those whose lives and communities were devastated on 11th March 2011. For more detailed information on the event, please visit here.

CULBURB’s Shaping Cities Symposium + Workshop, which takes place at the Centre for Central European Architecture May 22-23, asks what the nonprofit organizations are today and questions their role in the creation of city space. Are they non-elected groups of interest promoting their own interpretation of public good? Or do they represent a litmus paper of the level of democracy in the society? who can shape the life and form of the city? How and why? a unifying web database of such organizations from whole Europe will take place on the ground of the event. For more information, please visit here.

With Istanbul as the immutable intersection of vast and diverse mobilities, the rich design by MVRDV + ABOUTBLANK for the Yenikapı Transfer Point and Archaeo Park offer a unique possibility to combine and transpose contemporary transportation intelligence with a remarkable historical heritage. Layers in time will be combined with numerous lines through the city of Istanbul, a myriad of interactions of time and space. More images and architects’ description after the break.

This new issue of MONU will explore how cities of the “Next Eleven” countries are already different and will be different in the future, from the cities of the “BRICs”, but also from the ones of the “MEDCs”- the more economically developed countries – in terms of their politics, their economies, their geographies, their cultures, their social aspects, their technology, their ecology and in the relation to their physical structures, such as their architecture. To investigate what kind of urbanism the cities of the “Next Eleven” countries might develop, this call for submissions for MONU texts, comparative analysis, critical surveys, scientific studies, photo essays, and data-based infographics and research on the topic of “Next Urbanism”. Submissions are due before June 30. More information after the break.

Architects: Costa Fierros Arquitectos - Sara Tavares Costa, Pablo Díaz-Fierros Location: Barrio de la Música, Seville, Spain Collaborators: David Breva, Paula Ferreira, Pedro Rito, David Ampe, Elena González,Rosario Alcantarilla, Sergio González, Cristina Rubiño, Alejandro Rodríguez Structure: CATSOLI S.L. Landscape: Ernesto Fernández San Martín, Sara Tavares Costa Built Area: 32,487 sqm Photographs: Pablo Díaz-Fierros

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The votes are in! Elected officials have voted 11-10 against the resolution to demolish Paul Rudolph’s iconic Orange County Government Center in Goshen, New York. The long, intense debate on whether or not to keep and restore the 1970’s Brutalist building has added an immense amount of interest to an ever-growing discussion focused on the value of modern architecture.

Continue reading for more.

New York-based architectural photographer Paul Clemence has shared with us recent images and his thoughts on Massachusetts College of Art and Design’s new student residence hall that is being constructed in downtown Boston. The 21-story, $61 million building is planned for completion this year.

Boston is not particularly known as a destination for trendy, contemporary architecture; but some new buildings are beginning to change that perception. From Diller Scofidio Renfro’s Institute of Contemporary Art to Norman Foster’s new wing at The Museum of Fine Arts to the recently completed Renzo Piano addition to the beloved Gardner Museum, the city’s urbanscape is getting a much needed updating. And now, a soon to be finished bold new project by the firm ADD Inc is bringing a colorful twist to the mix. They are the designers behind the new MassArt Students Residence Hall.

Continue reading for more.

PointCrowd is a RhinoScripting workshop using the remarkably easy to learn Python programming language that is available in the upcoming release of Rhino 5. This three week mini-course will start with the basics of programming and move into the mathematics of space and Rhino’s representation of geometry. The workshop is designed specifically for architects and designers with little or no programming experience or those interested in learning a new platform for expressing geometrical ideas algorithmically. Anyone with a good working knowledge of Rhino is welcome.