Finnish practice ALA Architects has won the competition to design the new Learning Center of Université Lumière Lyon II in France. The project will be the second major library building by the office behind the recently opened Helsinki Central Library Oodi, and it will be ALA's first French commission. The building will replace the existing library and showcase sustainable construction alongside new teaching and study methods.

In their most recent design competition, Bee Breeders partnered with Urban Zoo Coworking to seek a signature style for Urban Zoo’s coworking spaces. Viewed as a prototype to be adapted to each new venue, these interior designs needed to be customizable for various users. Common inhabitants of Urban Zoo Coworking’s spaces include freelancers, start-ups, and small businesses who need a workspace to meet their different creative needs.

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ArchDaily turns 11! To commemorate the occasion, we want to share with you the 11 projects most visited by our readers during this incredible journey. From the indisputable and timeless classics from of designers like Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, to the pioneering works of architects such as Zaha Hadid and OMA, passing through the delicate work of Gabinete de Arquitectura, these 11 examples teach us valuable lessons about architecture, most importantly: how to design for specific requirements without losing the creativity and beauty of architectural design.

On behalf of ArchDaily, we want to thank you for sharing with us the best architecture in the world, helping us to inspire professionals from all over the world to build better cities.

Italian architect Beatrice Bonzanigo of IB Studio has revealed her design for Casa Ojalá, an off-grid, mobile micro home to be unveiled at Milan Design Week. Designed with over 20 configurations in only 27 square meters, the patented project was made to be easily assembled in any location. Bonzanigo created the design so occupants can better connect with nature while minimizing their environmental impact.

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Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) has announced the completion of the SOHO Gubei office tower in Shanghai. Inspired by the proportions of Constantin Brâncuși’s “Endless Column” sculpture, the tower manifests as an undulating obelisk with a diagonally canted zig-zag profile.

Each side of the tower’s sculptural form consists of four stacked volumes, with a series of shifted grids creating a density of wall surfaces that offer shade, reduce glare, and create a sense of urban solidity.

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Studio Gang has unveiled a design for the University of Chicago Center in Paris. The Center in Paris Project seeks to “create a new hub for scholarship and cultural exchange in Paris’ rapidly-developing 13th arrondissement” with an academic center and a mixed-use residential building.

The scheme is adorned with biodiverse green spaces and an architecture that physically and intellectually weaves the block into the existing urban fabric. To support a lively dialogue between the University and local communities, shared spaces have been carefully arranged to connect to the outdoors and encourage communication.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have revealed new images of their design for 35 Hudson Yards, a new tower that will be part of the largest private real estate development in the history of the United States. SOM provided architectural design and structural engineering services for the mixed-use tower in New York, which is set to become the tallest residential building in Hudson Yards. Standing 1,000 feet tall, the project will express transitions in program as a series of setbacks twisting around the tower.

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Sir Terry Farrell to speak about his long and varied career in architecture. Farrell, who is known for his exuberantly postmodern works in Britain, tells of how he became interested in architecture, the role architects will play in our rapidly urbanizing world, and speaking openly about our cities. 

Construction has begun on OMA’s pyramid-shaped mixed-use building – Xinhu Hangzhou Prism – which forms the heart of Hangzhou’s Future Tech City in the new Technology Central Business District (CBD). Led by the firm's partner Chris van Duijn, the project is commissioned by Zhejiang Xinhu Haichuang Group.

YACademy launches the second edition of Architecture for Landscape, a high-level training course offering 8 scholarships and internships in internationally-renowned architectural firms.

101 hours of lessons, a 32-hour workshop and internships/lectures held by internationally-renowned architectural firms like Stefano Boeri Architetti, Snøhetta, Hhf Architects, Rodrigo Duque Motta, Jean Nouvel Design, Rintala Eggerston, and Jensen & Skodvin.

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This renovation project by Peter Ebner and friends ZT GmbH is about the history of a place and changing tastes and times. It is about not needing a large scale to radically improve the space around. It is about the beauty and character of the city with its reflected sparkling life, gloomy evening sky, raindrops and lights of passing cars. It is about people who are mostly in a hurry, but who still sometimes stop for a few seconds to take note of a special, glittering room.

Northern Ireland-based architect John Donnelly has launched a studio dedicated to the production of finely-detailed plaster-cast architectural models exploring the diverse built environment of Belfast, Northern Ireland. “Model Citizen” was founded to promote public understanding and appreciation of the architecture and craftsmanship present in Irish cities, manifesting as an ongoing series of intricate sculptures.

Model Citizen sees its sculptures, available for closer inspection here, as a “mechanism to emphasize the beauty and significance of our built heritage,” translating art deco, brutalist, and internationalist styles into tangible, tactile sculptural objects that can be held, felt, and explored.

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"Isn't it fascinating how this simple act of drawing a line on a map can transform the way we see and experience the world?" asks Ronald Rael in his December 2018 TED Talk. "And those lines on a map can create scars in the landscape and scars in our memories."

Data-driven design has been a holy phrase in architecture for some time now. The ability to refine and apply information on any range of topics, from movement to sun paths to air quality, hold enormous potential to positively impact design not just for one party but for all. Decisions can be made faster, buildings can be built better, inhabitants can be made more comfortable.

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Yona Friedman is a French architect and urban planner with more than 92 years of experience that has led him to participate in numerous events, including the Venice Biennial and the Shanghai Biennial. One of his most important works was published in 1958, entitled L'Architecture Mobile, which exposed one of his most ambitious projects named: "La Ville Spatiale", a utopia that recycled mega-structures of existing cities to provide citizens with the chance to live with complete flexibility in their decisions.

This article serves as a brief introduction to a way of thinking that I assume to be foreign and new to most of the readers. It is based on some observations I’ve made during the past 5 years as part of my PhD research into the comparison between two traditions of architectural representation, between China and Europe, under guidance of prof. Li Xiaodong at Tsinghua University in Beijing. With that in mind this article has no pretension, nor the proper length, to fully convey the complexity of the representations of architectural space in drawings from China, but should be seen as a first try to communicate some of these ideas to a wider audience.

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Architecture, in all its forms, has the innate ability to trigger our emotions and alter our perceptions. Consequently, a lot of light is currently being shed on the relation between architecture, landscape, and health.

In the 2018 edition of the Blank Space Fairytales Competition, Katie Flaxman from Studio 31 Landscape Architects, wrote a story of a father, Horace, an architect suffering from late-stage dementia and his offspring, Rowan. The fiction describes Horace’s journey in different healthcare institutions and how his presence in a building and landscape properly designed for well-being, improved his psychological and physical health.

Here are some excerpts from Flaxman's fictional story, illustrated by architectural artist Sam Wilson.

GoArchitects has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the development of a collection of notebooks inspired by the greatest architects of all time. The A5, hardcover-bound notebooks are designed to be “durable, perfectly sized, and foster a curious and creative confidence.” The six unique notebooks are adorned with the quotes and graphic styles of some of the most famous architects from eras past, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and Philip Johnson.

The notebooks have been made to help “unlock creativity, problem-solving, innovation, and critical thinking.” Containing 200 pages of uncoated off-white paper, with a dotted grid pattern, the notebooks also features a ruler page in imperial and metric scales.

As part of Tripoli’s economic revival plan, the International Union of Architects (UIA), in collaboration with the Lebanese Federation of Engineers and Architects (on behalf of the Tripoli Special Economic Zone / TSEZ), the Union of Mediterranean Architects (UMAR), and the Lebanese Government, have launched an international architecture competition to create a Knowledge and Innovation Center in the northern city of Lebanon.

The proposed site is situated on an empty lot within Oscar Niemeyer’s abandoned Rachid Karami International Fair, a modernist exhibition complex that has yet to see the light of restoration. The objective of the competition is to create a technology and business hub which will foster and promote start-up businesses and entrepreneurs, attracting students, young graduates, local and international companies to Tripoli and the neighboring region.

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IKEA’s research and design laboratory SPACE10 has unveiled their latest project, SolarVille, to showcase new ways to democratize access to clean, renewable energy. Based in Copenhagen, the team partnered with blockchain experts BLOC, Blocktech, WeMoveIdeas India and architecture practice SachsNottveit. The project explores how combining new technologies with solar power can make clean energy more affordable. The vision centers on cooperative micro-grids where homeowners can become makers and traders of clean energy.

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This article is an updated version of its original post on March 15th, 2016.
"In the ongoing debate about women in the architecture profession, you rarely hear an argument for why equal representation is important; it's generally assumed to be an unquestionable moral imperative. However, in this article originally published on the Huffington Post as "Why Women's Leadership Is Essential for Architects," Lance Hosey argues that, regardless of your position on equality as a moral imperative, better representation of women in architecture could benefit everyone in the profession—in very tangible ways.

Today, on International Women's Day (March 8) we want to share again the American Institute of Architects (AIA) publication "Diversity in the Profession of Architecture," its first diversity report in a decade. The release follows the creation in December 2015 of the AIA's "Equity in Architecture Commission," a panel of twenty architects, educators, and diversity experts to investigate diversity and inclusion in the profession. The new report documents a survey of over 7,300 professional architects and students, including men and women, 79% of them whites and 21% people of color.

When applying for an architecture job, you need to make sure you have the perfect portfolio. While a clever and attractive business card might help you initially get a firm's attention, and a well-considered résumé or CV might help you prove your value, in most cases it will be your portfolio that makes or breaks your application. It's your portfolio that practices will use to measure your design sensibilities against the office's own style and to judge whether you match up to the talents claimed in your résumé.

After launching a call for our readers to send us their own portfolios so that we could share the best design ideas with the ArchDaily community, this selection below shows the best of the nearly 200 submissions we received, which were judged not on the quality of the architectural design they showed (though much of it was excellent) but instead the design quality of the portfolio itself. In making the selection, we were looking for attractive graphics, a clear presentation of the work itself, the formulation of a visual identity which permeated both the architectural designs and the portfolio design, and of course that elusive and much-prized attribute: "creativity."

Since its founding in 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries listing the lives and legacies of some of the world’s most influential people. However, by their own admission, the listings have historically been dominated by white men. In order to address this, The Times launched its “Overlooked” series in 2018, telling the stories of women such as Sylvia Plath and Emma Gatewood.

In advance of International Women’s Day, The Times has published an obituary by Alexandra Lange detailing the life and legacy of Julia Morgan, the first woman to earn an architect’s license in California, and “a prolific designer of hundreds of buildings, namely the Hearst Castle at San Simeon."

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Since our mission is directly related to the architecture of the future—in inspiring and educating the global community of architects who will design the urban fabric of the future—the trust placed in us by our readers to reflect architectural trends from regions around the whole world creates challenges that we are eager to rise to. The democratically-voted, user-centered Building of the Year Awards is one of the key pillars of our response to these challenges, aiming to tear down established hierarchies and geographical barriers.