INSPIRELI AWARDS is proud to announce the first three projects entering into the contest finale. This global student contest enables new talents to tell their stories and raise awareness about their own world view before they get their chance to build it.

The following three projects were selected through the international semifinal jury based on originality and subsequently approved by the chairman of INSPIRELI AWARDS jury. All three projects will compete in the final for having his or her name engraved on the original “Wings to the Future” created by world-renowned designer Bořek Šípek.

From short supply and high demand to a lack of affordable options, housing in Los Angeles is a complex and prominent issue that deserves the attention of local universities. As the crisis continues to evolve, architecture and architectural education are vital parts of the discussion surrounding housing equity.

Architecture practice Broadway Malyan has designed a new campus for the Westminster School in Chengdu, China. Providing a new learning environment for one of the UK's leading independent schools, the project will be the first of six new schools built in China. Made to embrace the latest pedagogical thinking, the design also includes references to the famous Westminster Abbey as well as traditional British school vernacular of Victorian red brick with gable ends.

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Skidmore Owings and Merrill have unveiled their vision for the "Moon Village", the first permanent human settlement on the Lunar surface. Developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the multidisciplinary project will be masterplanned, designed, and engineered by SOM.

Opening ‪on December 15th, 2019 in Shenzhen, China, "Urban Interactions" is the 8th edition of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB). The exhibition consists of two sections, namely “Eyes of the City” and “Ascending City”, which will explore the evolving relationship between urban space and technological innovation from different perspectives. The “Eyes of the City" section features MIT professor and architect Carlo Ratti as Chief Curator and Politecnico di Torino-South China University of Technology as Academic Curator. The "Ascending City" section features Chinese academician Meng Jianmin and Italian art critic Fabio Cavallucci as Chief Curators.

ArchDaily is working with the "Eyes of the City" curatorial team, to publish a series of articles by international architects, designers, writers and thinkers who will discuss the ways in which new technologies - and Artificial Intelligence in particular - might impact architecture and urban life. The open call for proposals for the “Eyes of the City” will run from April 1st to May 31st: www.eyesofthecity.net

The winners of the ein&zwanzig newcomers’ awards have been announced on April 8th during Milan Design Week. Out of 824 entries from 73 countries, the German Design Council honored 21 innovative projects created and developed by young upcoming international designers, and granted one project with the “Best of the Best” award, the ultimate prize for the most unique and inventive amongst all proposals.

Simon Frambach took home the Best of the Best award this year for his ‘Dynamic Folding Chair’ (DFC), the world’s first folding chair that responds to the user’s movements and comfort, produced with cheap disposable material.

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The University of Illinois at Chicago has announced the shortlist to design a new $95 million Center of the Arts for the College of Architecture, Design and the Arts. Chosen from 36 teams, the shortlist includes OMA with KOO Architects, Johnston Marklee with UrbanWorks, and Morphosis with STL Architects. The new center will include a 500-seat concert hall, a 270-seat reconfigurable theater, an exhibition hall, rehearsal spaces, and a combination cafe and jazz club. The 88,000-square-foot building will be primarily used by the UIC’s School of Theatre & Music as the new public face of UIC’s East Campus.

Although the sun is almost 150 million kilometers away, this star has had the most impact on our planet. But while some are busy chasing the sun for sun-kissed skin, architects are all about creating sun-kissed spaces.

By definition, “passive solar energy is the collection and distribution of energy obtained by the sun using natural means”. The simple concept and process of implementing passive solar energy systems have provided buildings with heat, lighting, mechanical power, and electricity in the most environmentally-conscious way possible.

In this article, we will provide you with a complete guide of implementing passive solar systems in your designs.

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Architectural photographer Marc Goodwin recently visited Panama City to continue on his journey documenting the world's architecture offices. He's already featured an impressive list, including the Netherlands, Dubai London, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, the Nordic countries, Barcelona, and Los Angeles. In Panama, Marc photographed a range of work spaces across eight offices, from a studio of five people all the way up to 200. Looking outside and in, he captured both the spaces where designers work and glimpses into the city itself.

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Carlo Ratti Associati, working in collaboration with energy company Eni, has developed an architectural structure made of mushrooms, unveiled at Milan Design Week. “The Circular Garden” was grown from soil made over the past six weeks, and will be returned to the soil at the end of the month. The structure is composed of a series of arches adding up to a 1-kilometer-long mycelium, experimenting with sustainable structures that can grow organically.

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As part of Milan’s Salone del Mobile, Knoll has presented an exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Bauhaus, curated and designed by OMA / Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli with Domitilla Dardi. The story, presented at Knoll’s showroom at Piazza Bertarlelli, is told by means of four clusters that encourage people to participate.

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Let's suppose you need a bookcase. Years ago, you would probably search the furniture stores or antique shops in your town. Today you are more likely to open dozens of tabs on your web browser to compare prices and models. But there is another option that is becoming increasingly popular: open source furniture.

It's simple; you download the design of a piece of furniture and send it to a CNC machine (a mill that cuts wood from a digital file). It’s more or less like sending a PDF to print. With the pieces cut, you just assemble it. We used a bookcase for example, but it could be a chair, a table, a cupboard, a bench. Opendesk, one of the current open source furniture platforms, brings together about 30 pieces of furniture available for download. There the user can download a project and cut the furniture in a FabLab or personal workshop, or use the site to connect with a joiner who makes the cuts.

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Danish architecture studio Dorte Mandrup has designed new culture house and library in the heart of the Swedish baroque city of Karlskrona. Working with Marianne Levinsen Landskab and Torbjörn Nilsson, the team developed the cultural project to combine an art hall, library and cafe together in the city center. The culture house is meant to become a modern meeting place and hub for several cultural activities at the corner of Karlskrona’s central square.

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Videos

Pritzker Prize winning architect Jørn Utzon (9 April 1918 – 29 November 2008) was the relatively unknown Dane who, on the 29th January 1957, was announced as the winner of the "International competition for a national opera house at Bennelong Point, Sydney’." When speaking about this iconic building, Louis Kahn stated that "The sun did not know how beautiful its light was, until it was reflected off this building." Unfortunately, Utzon never saw the Sydney Opera House, his most popular work, completed.

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Bogdan Newman Caranci have designed a new mass timber office building in Toronto that will become one of Canada's tallest. Dubbed 77 Wade Avenue, the project is being developed by Next Property Group and will include 150,000 square feet across 8 floors. Following 3XN's T3 Bayside project that will rise to 42 meters in height, BNC's office will be among the tallest modern mass timber office and commercial buildings in the country. The design celebrates the use of mass-timber construction within the ever-evolving architecture of Canada.

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Burckhardt+Partner has released details of their proposed secondary school in Malawi. Finalists in a competition for the school’s design, the Burckhardt+Partner scheme embodies the old African proverb that it takes a community to educate a child, rather than simply the walls, roofs, and books of a school. The St. Paul’s new secondary school therefore embraces its community, inviting the adjacent parish and primary school to grow together as a village.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop has released an update of their Emergency Children’s Surgery Center in Uganda, as work progresses on the pediatric surgery hospital. Since its inception in 2013, the scheme has sought to merge the practical requirements of the healthcare industry with a “model piece of architecture that is rational, tangible, modern, beautiful, and firmly linked to tradition.”

Blank Space has announced the winners of the sixth annual ‘Fairy Tales’ competition. With submissions from over 65 countries, the award-winning entries explore current events and the creative process through wonderfully crafted short stories and artwork.

The winners were chosen by a jury of more than 20 leading architects, designers and storytellers, including Moshe Safdie, Tatiana Bilbao, Jurgen Mayer, Julia Koerner, Mark Foster Gage and Jane Yolen, among many other distinguished judges.

Check out the winning designs after the break.

For ten consecutive years, Vienna ranks first in the Mercer survey on cities with the best quality of life in the world. In this edition to the global ranking, eight Western European cities join the top ten, even when "trade tensions and populist undercurrents continue to dominate the global economic climate", as Mercer points out in its report.

It is officially the time of year when the streets of Milan flood with design enthusiasts, eager to explore cutting-edge innovations and intricate Italian craftsmanship exhibited during Milan Design Week. From the 9th till the 14th of April, ArchDaily, along with 300,000 visitors hailing from countries all across the globe, will exchange ideas and indulge in the most recent furniture, product, and interior design technologies.

As part of Milan Design Week, Salone del Mobile, the most anticipated furniture and interior design event of the year, will be hosting more than 2,000 exhibitors at the Milan Fairgrounds in Rho, ranging from renowned architecture studios and architects to upcoming designers who are debuting their creations for the very first time. The list of acclaimed architecture studios participating in the Salone includes Zaha Hadid Design, Renzo Piano, John Pawson, and UNStudio to name a few.

Although all windows have common functions such as allowing the passage of light, providing ventilation, and focusing the different views, these objectives can be enhanced through a series of useful options. Depending on the orientation of the building, climatic conditions, direction of the wind, and architectural point of view, each specific window model can make a difference within a project, improving usability and the spatial and environmental quality of each room.

Below, we present types of windows that can be found in today's homes, specifically in 11 projects previously published on our site.

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Videos

The Cavatina Group has completed a series of designs rethinking public space and urban revitalization in Poland. With projects located through the city of Bielsko-Biała, the group's larger project aims to transform city parkways and major cultural venues. From street intersections and a former market to underutilized structures, the plan lays out a vision for historic buildings and new architecture alike.

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YAC - Young Architects Competitions launches “Plastic Monument”, a competition of ideas aiming to create an itinerant architectural installation. It will travel all around the world to raise awareness about the impact of plastic waste on our planet. A cash prize of € 15,000 + realization of the 1st Prize will be awarded to winners selected by a well-renowned jury made of, among the others, Kengo Kuma, Carlo Ratti, Italo Rota, Mandy Barker, Maria Cristina Finucci.