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Following the popularity of their first two structural modeling kits, today Mola Model launches their Kickstarter campaign for Mola Structural Kit 3. Mola3 introduces cable structures to the system of hands-on structural learning, integrating seamlessly with the previous two kits. Because the Mola kits are designed as a single modular system, the new kit can be combined with the previous two, all connected via magnets, to model iconic structures like the Sydney Harbor Bridge or London’s Stansted Airport with the help of the bilingual instruction booklet.

Milano Arch Week has published details of their 2019 event, hosting a week of lectures, conversations, workshops, and itineraries on the main challenges of contemporary urban transformation. Running from 21st to the 26th May 2019, Milano Arch Week “explores the future of architecture and cities through a polyphony of voices; architects, urban planners, landscape designers, scientists, philosophers, artists, and curators from all over the world.”

When we think about a perfect match between acoustics and good design it may not be as easy as it seems. A number of technical decisions in order to make an interior space acoustically efficient -and to achieve its programmatic purpose correctly- can make some of the architect's design intentions fade and be replaced by standard and prefabricated panels.

In this article, we present a selection of architecture projects that are able to create a memorable visual impact as well as an impeccable interior solution for acoustics. These are our favorite 14 music venues that fascinate inside and out.

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Tom Dixon and IKEA have developed “Gardening Will Save The World,” an experiment in urban farming to be exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show in London. Exploring the contrast of the hyper-natural and hyper-tech, the garden offers ideas in alternative, local, and more sustainable ways of growing food.

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 discuss six career questions regarding office and employee reputation in Architecture from the Archinect forum thread, The Issue of Reputation in Architecture. If you have any questions or advice about portfolios or any other design-related topics, leave a voicemail at The Midnight Charette hotline: 213-222-6950.

Studio Libeskind has unveiled details of Ngaren: The Museum for Humankind, a museum dedicated to the story of humans to be situated in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya. Commissioned by paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, the museum will be the culmination of Dr. Leakey’s work, whose fossil discoveries have helped to reveal how humans evolved. The Museum will be the first center of its kind to present research, discovery, and exploration of more than two million years of human history and the origins of our universe from evolution, biodiversity, overpopulation, to war, disease, and climate change.

Volume Zero has announced the winners of their House of Santa competition, challenging participants to design a new place of residence for Santa Claus. The competition called for an inventive solution for Santa and his guests in a rapidly changing world, hosting a Toy Workshop, house, office space, post office, visitor accommodation for 10 guests, garage space, and a stable area for nine reindeers.

DnA has released images of its Music Studio By The Sea project, situated in Hebei Province, China. The studio building for a music foundation stands directly next to a long sandy beach, with a dune landscape in the background. On a square ground floor plan, the volumes ascend over three stories and conclude with a roof terrace.

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Netflix has published a new show on its streaming service on the subject of tiny houses. “Tiny House Nation” follows renovation experts John Weisbarth and Zack Giffin across America, as they help design and construct tiny homes in spaces under 500 square feet. The seven episodes from the 2014-2017 series feature homeowners from all walks of life, from Florida to Hawaii, seeking to join a Tiny Houses Movement that prioritizes smart living.

American video game and software development company Epic Games today welcomes Twinmotion as the latest offering to help visualization professionals in the architecture, construction, urban planning, and landscaping industries better communicate their designs. Powered by Unreal Engine 4, Twinmotion delivers real-time, final-quality rendering through a simple and intuitive interface, with the ability to quickly produce a variety of presentation options including images, panoramas, videos, and virtual reality content.

Herzog & de Meuron have released images of their proposed University Hospital Basel, Perimeter B in Switzerland. The 68-meter-tall building, with a footprint of over 5000 square meters, exhibits the firm's familiar clean, crisp aesthetic while paying respect to the surrounding historic context. Designed in collaboration with Rapp Architekten, the 12-story scheme will facilitate the hospital’s outpatient and nephrology centers.

AI SpaceFactory has been awarded first place in the NASA Centennial Challenge. The multi-planetary architectural and technology design agency’s Mars habitat MARSHA was awarded the overall winner in the long-running competition series, which saw 60 challengers in total. The MARSHA habitat offers a glimpse into what the future of human life could look like on Mars, with a 15-feet-tall prototype 3D printed during the final phase of the competition, including three robotically-placed windows.

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A’ Design Award & Competition, the world’s largest and most diffuse international design awards, has announced results of their 2018–2019 design awards, 2437 winners from 106 countries in 98 different design disciplines. Entries were evaluated by an internationally influential jury panel composed of established scholars, prominent press members, creative design professionals and experienced entrepreneurs who carefully analyzed each entry.

On April 19th and 20th, fifth year SCI-Arc undergraduates presented their final thesis projects to panels of faculty and guest juries comprised of some of the top architects, critics, and theorists in the field – including Undergraduate Program Chair Tom Wiscombe, Undergraduate Thesis Coordinator Jenny Wu, and Special Thesis Advisor and former SCI-Arc Director Neil M. Denari. This year’s thesis advisors were Kristy Balliet, Marcelo Spina, and Peter Testa.

The ventilated façade is a construction solution that uses a double enclosure distanced from each other by a support structure to generate an air chamber for ventilation. This operation creates a chimney effect that activates air currents by convection, improving the acoustic and thermal insulation of the building, and increasing its energy efficiency.

Due to its nature and manufacturing, the 3.5 mm porcelain tile is a great choice for ventilated façade cladding. Its high resistance to weathering, dimensional stability, and lightness reduce the support structure requirements. It weighs 3 times less than a traditional porcelain tile and allows large formats, up to 3.6 meters, reducing the number of joints. It also delivers high color stability, impact resistance, and low maintenance over time.

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Los Angeles’ booming hospitality industry has provoked many designers to develop fresh, state-of-the-art spaces that fascinate citizens and visitors of the contemporary city. However, some designers are experimenting with abandoned structures, merging historic buildings with contemporary features. The relatively new design trend of adaptive reuse, which was a novelty in the early 2000’s, has now become an in-demand practice in LA, standing front and center in the restaurant / hotel industry.

To dig deeper into why Los Angeles’ hospitality industry is embracing historic buildings, Metropolis Magazine spoke with key hospitality designers and developers in the city such as Historic Resources Group, 213 Hospitality, and Design, Bitches, to learn more about their take on adaptive reuse.

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Contemporary Chinese architects can be divided into two main categories. One is a huge network of government and university-owned design institutes and the other –independent, privately-run architects’ studios, a phenomenon that was started by Beijing-based architect Yung Ho Chang when he opened the very first such practice in 1993. While it is these independent architects that succeeded in producing many, mostly small-scale original works that collectively established a new architectural identity that is unmistakably Chinese, it is the design institutes that produce the greatest bulk of the built environment in the country. For this reason, I wanted to talk to Weiping Shao, the Chief Executive Architect of the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, BIAD. In a way, Mr. Shao is the chief architect of the Chinese capital. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Architectural Society of China. Shao graduated from Tongji University in Shanghai in 1984 with a master’s degree. Apart from heading BIAD’s design efforts, the architect is the head and leading designer of his 30-architect studio called UFo, which was founded in 2003. We met at Shao’s office, full of international magazines and with an expansive view over Downtown Beijing and spoke with the help of translator and architect Zewo Zhou who works at the studio.

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Transformation of 530 Homes – Grand Parc Bordeaux by Lacaton & Vassal architectes, Frédéric Druot Architecture and Christophe Hutin Architecture has been awarded the 2019 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. The innovative renovation of three large blocks of social housing in Bordeaux was praised for “radically improving the space and quality of life of its occupants” and for optimizing their economic and environmental cost of living.

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This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine.

Designed by EAA–Emre Arolat Architecture, the 199-room hotel in Antakya, Turkey, features prefab modules slotted into a massive network of steel columns.

The urban surfaces we walk on, planed sidewalks cleared of debris or asphalt streets kept in good repair, are simply the topmost layers of human-churned earth extending sometimes hundreds of feet belowground. In some cities, digging downward exposes dense infrastructure networks, while in others—Antakya, Turkey, for one—construction workers can’t turn over a rock without uncovering priceless relics. The newly opened Antakya Museum Hotel, designed by the firm EAA–Emre Arolat Architecture, has turned one such discovery into a bold new strategy for historic preservation.

Applications are now open for Dubai Design Week in the United Arab Emirates. Applicants are encouraged to submit ideas and proposals to host an event, showcase a product or stage a creative project during the region’s largest creative festival. Much of Dubai Design Week’s program is made up of partner events and activities, held both at Dubai Design District and at locations across the city and the UAE.

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