Amelia Tavella and Rudy Ricciotti have won the bid for the Henri Tomasi Conservatory of Music, Dance and Performing Arts. Selected by the city of Ajaccio, the designers proposed an integrated building into the Corsican slope.

Designed by CRA- Carlo Ratti Associati and MIC-Mobility in Chain, the proposed plan for the Swiss city Lugano creates a network of public spaces, that connects the town to the lake. The project puts in place a floating garden and a reconfigurable waterfront.

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The Future Architecture Platform has announced the final list of Fellows for 2020. With 433 ideas from 53 countries, over 800 applicants in individual and group applications participated. Fellows will be invited to the 2020 Creative Exchange in MAO Ljubljana, exchanging ideas and networking to find avenues toward international recognition.

Architects and designers are constantly looking to the latest design and façade trends to create attractive buildings for their clients. The challenge they face is delivering a creative look that meets building code compliance and testing standards. With high-rise buildings in particular, it is critical that the materials used for the building's construction perform effectively to prevent a disaster if a fire occurs.

The Midnight Charette is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by architectural designers David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features a variety of creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions. A wide array of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes provide useful tips for designers, while others are project reviews, interviews, or explorations of everyday life and design. The Midnight Charette is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

This week David and Marina answer a call in from a listener asking if they should enroll in IPAL (NCARB’s Integrated Path To Architectural Licensure) in undergraduate school to become a licensed architect in the United States and if IPAL should be a factor when choosing their school. The two also discuss the pros and cons of becoming a licensed architect during school.

Architecture practice TERROIR has designed a new visitor center for Victoria’s Puffing Billy Railway in Australia. The $20 million project is sited within the Dandenong Ranges, 40 kilometres east of Melbourne. TERROIR were shortlisted from an open tender as one of five firms to compete in a design competition. The studio's strategy was to focus on creating a visitor experience anchored within the authentic sights, smells and sounds of the railway.

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The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building for modern and contemporary art, part of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston is scheduled to open for the public on November 1^st 2020. The intervention was conceived for the “display of the important and rapidly growing MFAH collections of 20th- and 21st-century art”.

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For its 2021 edition, the Venice Biennale appointed the chief curator of the High Line’s art program in New York, Cecilia Alemani as artistic director. Alemani will become the first Italian woman to organize the festival, running in Italy starting May of next year.

A facade must meet steep requirements as both the first skin that protects a building, its interiors, and its materials, and as the first thing a person sees. In addition to weather resistance and durability, its appearance is extremely vital for any architectural project. Prefabricated facade panels provide a clean, precise, and sophisticated finish to buildings and sport high versatility through different patterns and shapes.

Bjarke Ingels, founding partner of BIG, visited representatives of the Brazilian Federal Government this Tuesday. The meeting brought together a delegation from the Be-Nômade group, which plans to invest in sustainable tourism in Brazil, the Minister of Tourism, Marcelo Álvaro Antônio, and the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro.

The globally acclaimed Design Indaba Conference and Festival, first established in 1995, is a multidisciplinary platform guided by the principle of “a Better World Through Creativity”. Running at the Artscape Theatre Centre in Cape Town from 26-28 February 2020, and via simulcast in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Potchefstroom, the acclaimed event celebrates 25 years of cultural invention.

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Videos

The Start-Up exhibition and conference center, the first building within Chengdu's Unicorn Island project, is nearing completion. Conceived by Zaha Hadid Architects, the 67-hectare mixed-use master plan will generate living and working environments for Chinese and international companies.

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Photoshop is one of the most universal, enduring, and valuable programs in the designer’s taskbar. The go-to tool for students and architects for image-based editing, collages, and rendering, the popularity of Photoshop has given rise to countless online tutorials, tips, and resources. As we demonstrated over a year ago with our extensive library of 100 Photoshop textures, there is great value for designers in having a single, collated, one-stop service for quickly accessing the multitude of free resources available online.

The Tehran Eye is a contextual shopping center that caters to the needs and the common living practices in the Iranian capital. The project, conceived by Farshad Mehdizadeh Design, consisted of redesigning a façade and reorganizing a large existing structure into an integrated entity in the city.

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KPMB Architects and Suffolk recently broke ground on Boston University’s new Center for Computing and Data Sciences. The Center aims to be a striking new addition to Boston University’s central campus and its first new major teaching center in a half-century. As the tallest building at Boston University, the 19-story, 350,000-square-foot structure will bring the institution’s mathematics, statistics and computer science departments under one roof.

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Videos

Set to become the world’s tallest hotel upon its completion, Ciel is a high-rise currently under development in Dubai Marina. Designed by NORR, and developed by The First Group (TFG), the tower will reach a height of 360 meters and will house 1,042 luxury suites.

Videos

Cosmos Architecture, an international practice based in Madrid, Milan, Shanghai, and Cairo has designed a proposal for the Egyptian Pavilion in the Venice Biennale 2020. The project is an awareness campaign, highlighting diverse environmental issues occurring in Egypt and presenting proper solutions.

Harvard Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) has announced the six winners of the 2020 Richard Rogers Fellowship, a residency program at the Wimbledon House in London, the landmarked residence designed by Lord Richard Rogers for his parents in the late 1960s. Now entering its fourth cycle, the Fellowship is inspired by Lord Rogers’s commitment to cross-disciplinary investigation and engagement.

Entries to the 6th International LafargeHolcim Awards for sustainable construction will close on February 25, 2020. The competition seeks projects by professionals as well as bold ideas from the Next Generation that combine sustainable construction solutions with architectural excellence. The Awards accept projects and concepts from architecture, engineering, urban planning, materials science, construction technology, and other related fields.

MVRDV has just released images of the firm’s competition entry for the next Tencent headquarters campus, located in Qianhai Bay, Shenzhen. Highlighting the green potential of Smart City Technology, the project imagines an entire urban district including offices, homes for Tencent employees, commercial units, public amenities, schools, and a conference center.

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Henning Larsen has created a proposal for Copenhagen’s first all timber neighborhood. Made for Fælledby, the plan includes 40 percent undeveloped nature, aiming to illustrates how new developments can embrace environmentalist principles. The project would transform a former dumping ground site into a model for sustainable living, accommodate 7,000 residents in an entirely timber construction.

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