Architects: Richard Meier & Partners Architects Location: Jesolo Lido, Italy Project year: 2003 – 2013 Photographs: Guido Ranieri Da Re courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners Architects

Ai Weiwei was arrested today on unspecified charges by Chinese security police while he and his family were about to board a plane to Hong Kong, as reported by the NY Times.

‘Detroit by Design’, a symposium and exhibition hosted by the AIA Detroit Urban Priorities Committee, will welcome the architecture and design community to study the unique and challenged urban infrastructure of Detroit through three key issues: urban centers, transportation, urban agriculture over the next three months. This month ‘Detroit by Design’ will address the topic of transportation with an exhibit on April 5th and discussions on April 13th. All exhibits and symposiums will be held at the Detroit Public Library and are free and open to public. Further details of ‘Detroit by Design’ following the break.

Receiving an honorable mention for their entry for the Dawntown Seaplane competition in Miami, Florida, NC-Office’s proposal, titled ‘Large Roof’, is a solution to when an artificial geographic condition demands an intuitive architectural response. When seen from above – either as one approaches by air or from the large cruise liners – the project is experienced as a large mass. As one enters the structure the project transforms into an ephemeral space. More images and architects’ description after the break.

This is the third video produced by Marco Mazzotta that Slovenian architects OFIS arhitekti shared with us. We already featured this project a couple of years ago with photographs and drawings, but through this video, mixing reality and digital models, we can see how people really use both common spaces and the interior of the apartments.

The Regional Industrial Heritage Organization of Solingen, Germany has called for a competition to redevelop the local observation using an old spherical gas container in order to address the strong industrial character and historical context of the container and the local architecture. The following project is an entry from René van Zuuk Architekten.

More on this project after the break.

The main objective behind the design for the new Staten Island Animal Care Center was to create a high quality environment for the animals, staff and visitors. The building is sheathed in a highly insulating, translucent polycarbonate envelope. This provides higher performance in comparison to typical glass and maximizes the benefits of natural light. The roof of the outer perimeter housing the animals is raised above a lower interior roof plane, which covers other shelter functions. This configuration permits the daylight to enter the facility on multiple sides. Natural ventilation is encouraged along the periphery with the use of a passive air ventilation system. A sophisticated mechanical system that uses heat recovery to feed heat gain energy back into the system is incorporated into the design to provide constant fresh air exchange.

Architect: Garrison Architects Location: Staten Island, New York City, New York, USA Project Area: 5,500 sqf Renderings: Courtesy of Garrison Architects

Operating at the interstices of architecture, urbanism, and the pedosphere, SOILED is a venue for dialogue and exploration. It investigates the role that the built environment plays in social issues of earthly but marginalized proportions; it documents hidden systems and in-between spaces. Published by CARTOGRAM Architecture + Urban Design, SOILED curates ideas, from the arable to the obscene, by seeking the active participation of multi-disciplinary contributors. It employs narratives, manifestoes, mappings, ephemera, and live events to mediate its architectural discourse to the broader public.

Published twice per year on each solstice, SOILED is available in both a print edition and a free downloadable PDF! The inaugural issue, entitled Groundscrapers, is now available through their website. More images and description after the break.

The works in Concrete Islands, by a selection of international contemporary artists, document, celebrate and critique architectural projects designed with inherent social and political values that now exist in various stages of inhabitation, dereliction and destruction.

Reality Cues has shared with us their unique idea for the handling of consumer waste and the physical possibilities they imagine stemming from this condition. Images of Excess Heights in addition to a brief narrative description after the jump.

Art, music, movies, etc… All part of our sixth selection of previously featured cultural centers. Check them all after the break.

Fogo Island Long Studio / Saunders Architecture Fogo Island lies outside of Newfoundland, Canada and is home to a gentle, independent people who have lived for centuries between wind and waves in pursuit of fish. Fogo Islanders live in the untamed landscape of the North Atlantic. The people are subtle and unpretentious yet have seen their traditional way of life by threatened by forces largely beyond their control (read more…)

The recent building boom in New York City has radically altered the look and feel of the city and added considerably to the list of starchitects currently reshaping New York’s iconic skyline. It has also helped redefine boundaries of the eclectic pluralism of postmodern architecture.

Designed by Team CLS, headed by award winning UK Architect Darren Chan, other members including Emily Lau (Architecture Graduate) and Jonas Sin (Netherlands Architect), their project, Helios Rehab Sanctuary, innovates in the application of sustainable technologies to create a new and exciting typology. More on this project after the break.

This month the Pratt Institute spring lecture series will include Robert Sanna, Guy Nordensen, Jose Koechlin and Denise Koechlin, and Pualo Portoghesi with Catherine Ingraham, covering topics that range from environmental disaster engineering to eco-tourism in Peru’s Machu Picchu.

They seek other geo-political border ‘hot spots’ in and out of the Political Equator that need to be interpreted and engaged. These geographies of conflict need to be understood through the radicalization of the existing in order to imagine new models of the possible. For more information please visit the competition’s official website.

JDS Architects together with KLAR, CREO ARKITEKTER A/S and Sloth-Møller engineers has presented us their latest project, the Faaborg Harbour Bath and Blue Bass in Faaborg, Denmark. This was the winning design among the invited entrants to the Faaborg compeition and the execution process is ongoing. Follow after the jump for a few additional images and a short project briefing.

Dominique Ghiggi, a landscape architect and academic assistant at the Institute of Landscape Architecture in Zurich, has published a book examining the changing relationship between man and nature over the course of history. The work is perfect for those connected with the environment as it examines tree nurseries scattered across the world and their social, economical and contextual significance.

More about the book after the break.

In 2002, the United States Department of Energy initiated the Solar Decathlon – an intense competition challenging collegiate teams to create residences that fuse the most sustainable technologies with functionality, comfort, and of course, aesthetics. Over the course of the past decade, interest in the Decathlon has grown dramatically [be sure to read our previous Solar Decathlon coverage] as the competition has piqued the interest of students from top universities, as well as millions of public followers learning the advantages of energy-efficient, cost-effective housing.

Team New Jersey, a collaborative effort between the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University, has designed a handicap accessible net-zero energy prototype featuring low-maintenance concrete construction and the latest green technologies, complete with a striking beach-inspired aesthetic.

More about the residence, including a great video, after the break.

This weekend on April 2nd, Ben van Berkel of UNStudio will be presenting a lecture during the Smart Geometries 2011 Copenhagen – an event that focuses on the role of digital parametrics in architectural experimentation and design strategies. van Berkel, an avid believer in computational design, will focus on his firm’s projects, such as the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, the Raffles City mixed use development in Hangzhou and the Star Place Luxury Shopping Plaza in Kaohsiung, to illustrate their application of smart geometries. ”"Parametric design is in itself not so interesting. It needs meaning. We need to combine the possibilities of the virtual with how we discipline the real in a new way,” explains van Berkel. With digital modeling allowing for greater innovation, creativity and experimentation, van Berkel explains how such technologies improve communication on projects to such an extent that design and construction can be much more compact, accelerated and efficient. “In the 90s we were fascinated with the potential of these emerging techniques and their ability to control geometry. However our interest was never solely focussed on the geometry, nor on the computational techniques themselves. Our interest lay largely in the possibility to carry out spatial experiments and to see how the resulting structures could actually be constructed,” states van Berkel. For more information about the lecture, check out the Smart Geometries website.

The 2011 Douglas C. Allen Lecture series at COA continues its long list of impressive guest lecturers with George Hargreaves of Hargreaves Associates on April 6th.

We have now 40 Flickr round ups from our 44,000 photos Flickr Pool! As always, remember you can submit your own photo here, and don’t forget to follow us through Twitter and our Facebook Fan Page to find many more features.

The photo above was taken by garmendia arquitectos in Cruces, Basque Country. Check the other four after the break.

Compensation is, let’s be blunt, a controversial and touchy subject in the architecture profession. It’s taboo to even bring it up. If you are working in architecture there’s a good chance you don’t even want to tell people how little you make because it’s just embarrassing. If you are an employer you don’t want to admit how little you pay your people because it looks bad and is equally embarrassing. So, let’s all be embarrassed together, employees and employers alike. After all, we are all in this together and we all depend on one another.

“What sort of salary range are you seeking?” This was an email a former colleague shared with me. After he sent them his resume and portfolio this is all they asked in reply. What is one supposed to do with a question like that? It used to be that firms would tell prospective employees what they were paying for certain positions. Now, they want you to tell them what you expect. They are banking on you telling them some ridiculously low amount, something way below what you might have been making before the recession.

More after the break.

Architects Andreas Fuhrimann and Gabrielle Hächler recently published a monograph detailing seven buildings and their design philosophy. It is easy to get caught up in the mesmerizing images of this book. With little more than plywood and concrete, they bring spaces to life in a way that few can. They demonstrate how “spatial quality is by no means merely an issue of the materials employed.” That being said, make sure you pull yourself away from the images as the text should not be missed. Besides their own contributions, other authors include, Kurt W. Forster, Marie Theres Stauffer, Gianni Jetzer, and Hubertus Adam.

More on the monograph after the break.

Gordon Murray Architects were commissioned by Forth Energy, a joint venture between Forth Ports Plc and SSE (Scottish Southern Energy) to develop conceptual design proposals for a series of new Biomass Renewable Energy Plants in Scotland at their ports of Dundee, Grangemouth, Rosyth and Leith in support of Section 36 Applications. The projects have an estimated combined construction value of over £1 billion.

Each project is developed through a clear exploration and understanding of the technological processes involved in the plant operation, by drawing inspiration from the physical and historical setting in which each plant is located, and through intensive research into historical precedent of the power station as building typology. This ensures every project has a unique design solution appropriate to its function and place. More images and architects’ description after the break.