General Design Co’s house in Kamitomii, Kurashiki, Japan has been announced as the winner of the AR House awards 2019, joining two Highly Commended and three Commended house projects. Now in its tenth year, the awards are diverse and wide-ranging, often branching beyond the traditional remit of the dwelling to recognize originality and excellence in design of dwellings of all types.

This article by Gavin Johns was originally published on Medium as "Architects, stop everything and pursue a career in UX."

As an architect turned user experience (UX) designer I have many strong opinions about both my former and my current profession. But in short, I am now enjoying greener pastures, getting the fulfillment I expected while studying architecture but the profession didn’t provide.

Many like-minded architects ask me when and why I decided to transition into software. This puts me in the unusual position of praising the initial skill-set achieved by studying architecture, while promoting departure from it. That said, I have a very abstract definition of architecture, and believe if you have the interest to pursue any other design discipline, you’ll be successful. This guide is intended for those driven and curious architects who are looking for a change.

Istanbul-based Studio Vertebra has designed a new science center and technology park in Gaziantep, Turkey. Called the Naci Topcuoglu Science Centre, the project was made to add value to the region with a sustainable, holistic and integrated approach to architecture and landscape design. Located in one of the developing regions of the city, the project is made with a "planetarium orb" at its center.

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Many references to historic architecture are still being used in contemporary projects. Whether it is ancient building techniques, use of material, or the relationship between architecture and nature, the past remains prominent.

Iranian architecture firm NextOffice blurred the boundaries between indoors and outdoors, and used historic Iranian architecture elements to create the contemporary Guyim Vault House.

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In the Negev Desert of Israel, SAGA Space Architects are collaborating with D-MARS to build a Mars Lab Habitat that will simulate the conditions of living in a confined space on the hazardous surface of the red planet. The laboratory structure they’ve designed is an addition to D-MARS' existing Mars simulation habitat and will be part of a larger experiment. This habitat will serve as a prototype for a longer mission scheduled for 2020.

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Fifty years have passed since the publication of influential landscape architect Ian McHarg’s book, Design With Nature in 1969. Throughout the United States, an environmental movement was taking place, into the center of which McHarg’s book was thrust. The 1970s and ‘80s were a time of much landmark legislation surrounding ecological concerns, and McHarg argued that landscape architecture alone was able to integrate all the disparate fields involved.

Bee Breeders has revealed the winners of the 2019 Pāvilosta Poet Huts Competition. The project brief asked designers to submit proposals for a writers community in the small coastal fishing village of Pāvilosta, Latvia. The small writers retreat needed to accommodate selected poets with free board visiting for short periods to produce their work. The submissions included a range of building typologies, from isolated cabins scattered across the site, to single buildings focused on community experience, to towers offering views to across Pāvilosta.

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Unique carpet designs by the two visionary architects will be offered at 20th Century & Contemporary Phillips Art Day Sale in London today, on June 28th.

Pritzker Prize-winning architects Toyo Ito and Rafael Moneo have been invited to design silk carpets, inspired by the Golden Ratio as a part of the eponymous project by an auction house Phillips and ARTinD (Art in Design) — a London-based cooperative that seeks to foster greater synergy between art, architecture, and design.

Past, Present, Future is an interview project by Itinerant Office, asking acclaimed architects to share their perspectives on the constantly evolving world of architecture. Each interview is split into three video segments: Past, Present, and Future, in which interviewees discuss their thoughts and experiences of architecture through each of those lenses. The first episode of the project featured 11 architects from Italy and the Netherlands and Episode II is comprised of interviews with 13 architects from Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium.

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CX Landscape has released details of their proposal for the “Ribbons of Life,” a living bridge for Canberra, Australia. Submitted as part of the Remaking Lost Connections design competition organized by the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), the scheme sought to create a water axis based on the existing road bridge above Lake Griffin in Canberra city center.

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Ever since Manchester University first isolated Graphene in 2004, it has been widely referred to by its properties as a promising material through diverse research that focuses on reaching a range of uses in the most varied industries. Graphene is known to be one of the strongest materials known to science due to its composition of a single carbon atomic layer in a hexagonal mesh. It is also one of the finest materials known to mankind, 200 times stronger than steel yet 6 times lighter. Plus, it is an excellent heat and electricity conductor, aside from its interesting light absorption qualities. When combined with other elements, including gases and metals, it can produce different new materials with highly superior properties.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Architects compete, and the internet provides unlimited opportunities for competition among all who wish to offer up something for consideration. None of this is news. But there’s been a change in both the expectations and the etiquette around all of those offerings.

Earlier this month, I was asked to submit to two small competitions. I had completed successful projects that matched each competition’s focus, so I dove in. We confirmed that our entries met the criteria and deadlines; we knew the day of jury deliberations and the release date of their decision. As usual, we lost (success only comes for those willing to accept failure); also, as usual, the verdict for us and for all other runners up was silence.

MAD Architects have revealed the design of a new theater made of glass sails in Yiwu, China. Located on the south bank of the Dongyang River, the ‘Yiwu Grand Theater’ encompasses a 1600 seat grand theater, medium theater, and international conference center. The project's protective canopy was made to resonate with the river and use water as its stage. MAD’s design responds to its locale by appearing as a boat floating on the river above the water’s surface.

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A team composed of international and local studios and individuals—Agence Ter, rootoftwo, Akoaki, and Harley Etienne—was recently chosen to revitalize the 83-acre area.

Over the course of the 20th century, across a series of administrations and economic contexts, Midtown Detroit grew into one of America’s largest (or densest) cultural districts, with over 12 major institutions, such as the Detroit Institute for the Arts (DIA) and the College for Creative Studies. But you wouldn’t know it, even if you were there—the nine-block, 83-acre area is a mish-mash of styles spanning Beaux Arts, Modernism, and Brutalism, and has a certain sense of placelessness. The area feels architecturally disjointed, illegible, and fails to translate the vibrancy of each institution into the broader public space.

UNStudio has won the competition to design the new Business School for the Creative Industries at UCA Epsom in the UK. Selected from shortlisted teams including Wilkinson Eyre, Haworth Tompkins, Hall McKnight and Tate Harmer, the project is modeled on the concept of ‘Salons’ as theaters of conversation and exchange. The business school is designed to encourage interaction and collaboration throughout the campus and to blur the hierarchical boundary between faculty and students.

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Snøhetta, WCIT, and AECOM have released details of their proposed Neal S. Blaisdell Center Master Plan for Honolulu, Hawaii. Located in the urban heart of O’ahu, the existing 1964 center is home to the state’s premier arts and cultural venues. The aging structure is now set to be transformed by a 22-acre complex for future generations, featuring a performance hall, exhibition hall, sports pavilion, parking structure, and reconceived public space.

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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 and long-format conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and more personal discussions. Honesty and humor are used to cover a wide array of subjects: some episodes provide useful tips for designers, while others are project reviews, interviews, or simply explorations of everyday life and design. The Midnight Charette is available for free on iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, and all other podcast directories.

On this episode of The Midnight Charette podcast, hosts David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet are joined by Dong-Ping Wong, Founding Partner of FOOD to discuss the architecture design process, structuring a collaborative work environment, communicating with non-architects, starting +POOL (the world's first water-filtering floating pool), black tie personas and architectural education, rendering styles and more.

Modernism always wanted to have it both ways: on the one hand, modernist architecture was supposed to be, in theory, the same in all places; that's one reason why modernism in architecture was also called the International Style. If all modernist buildings look the same, when you see one you have seen them all: no need for further travel. Yet throughout the 20th century modernist culture and technology enthusiastically endorsed and favored travel. In the 60s we traveled to the Moon, and civil aviation made the world smaller. In modernist culture, travel was good. It made all travelers better, happier humans. It was good to learn foreign languages and to go see distant places. High modernist travel was not only good; it was also cool. The jet setters of the 60s were the coolest citizens of the world. Even later in the 20th century the general expectation was that borderless, seamless travel would keep getting easier and more frequent. Most Europeans of my generation grew up learning two or more foreign languages, and it was not unusual until recently to be born in one country, to study in another, and find one's first job in a third one. That was seen as an opportunity, not as a deprivation.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the 54 winners of 2019 RIBA National Awards for architecture. Presented since 1966, the awards recognize the UK’s best new construction projects. From a small rammed-stone pavilion on the site where King John signed the Magna Carta, to the vast redevelopment of one of London’s busiest transport terminals, the award-winning buildings showcase the breadth of UK architecture today.

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