New York-based SOMA Architects has announced plans for an 11-story residential development in Beirut. Cantilevering over a protected 1920s house, “BOBO’s” steel exoskeleton and concrete core will support 13 new residences on top ground floor retail in the Lebanese capital’s Mar Mikhael district.

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As Afghanistan begins its second decade of democratic governance after nearly 30 years of political instability, through the funding from the Republic of Korea, UNESCO has teamed up with the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture, to build a Cultural Center close to the boundaries of the Bamiyan World Heritage property. With the realisation of the Bamiyan Cultural Centre, Afghans have the opportunity to recapture their heritage, to create a new impact on a historical site and to foster a positive relationship between their struggles and their hopes.

“This new architectural programme can challenge cultural barriers, reaffirm Afghanistan’s remarkable ancient history and enforce culture as a foundational component to Afghan national identity and peace-building,” states UNESCO.

'Twas the month of December, when all through the house, not an architect was stirring, not even a (computer) mouse. The drawings were hung in the boardroom with care, in hopes that the client soon would be there. The designers were nestled all snug in their beds, while dreams of unlimited budgets danced in their heads. So instead of preparing for the year's final meeting, dear readers, please send us a holiday greeting!

The holidays are upon us, and at ArchDaily we've decided to put an architectural spin on traditional festive greeting cards. You're invited to submit your own architectural holiday card to be hung above the (proverbial) ArchDaily mantle with care. You could win a $500 Amazon Gift Card!

Send us your best Corbusier Santa Claus, Rem 'Jack Frost' Koolhaas, Graves-inspired Postmodern Menorah, or perhaps the latest holiday wares from Zaha Hadid. We'll be collecting our favorites and sharing them at the end of December. Get ready to deck halls like Gehry and gather around the hearth with Saarinen – we'll go easy on building code.

ArchDaily's 2014 Holiday Card Contest has been generously sponsored by Mosa.

A legal challenge against Steven Holl's design for the new Maggie's Centre at St Bart's Hospital in London has been dropped, after Holl and Maggie's agreed to change the design. The challenge was brought by the Friends of the Great Hall, a group that has been campaigning against Holl's design and arguing that it would have a detrimental effect on the adjacent Great Hall designed by James Gibb in the 18th century.

Holl's design narrowly won planning permission in July, however the Friends of the great hall launched the judicial review a month later as a final attempt to block the scheme.

The latest designer of the prestigious Serpentine Gallery Pavilion has been named as SelgasCano, the Spanish practice known for their use of the latest synthetic materials and new technology. The Serpentine Pavilion, which has grown to become one of the most visited annual architecture attractions in the world, aims to provide architects who have never built in the UK their first chance to do so. In the past, this has led to pavilions by globally-recognized names such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Oscar Niemeyer, and Peter Zumthor, but in recent years the Serpentine Gallery seems to have changed course a little, instead bringing lesser-known, emergent stars to a much wider audience. This was true of Smiljan Radić and his 2014 pavilion, and will likely prove true for the duo of José Selgas and Lucía Cano.

Although designs for the 2015 pavilion will not be released until February, SelgasCano have promised "to use only one material... the Transparency," adding that "the most advanced technologies will be needed to be employed to accomplish that transparency." This coy description perhaps calls to mind the design of their own office, a partially sunken tube of a building with one side made entirely of curved glass, which won them widespread recognition in 2009.

To give a better idea of the design style that SelgasCano will bring to the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, we've rounded up a number of their major projects for your viewing pleasure, after the break.

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It seems as though the complex case of architectural copyright has been a major talking point of 2014. As the year begins to draw to a close, a fresh tension has risen between two European offices. British practice Wilkinson Eyre have claimed that a central structure at the site of the 2015 Milan Expo is direct plagiarism of their Cooled Conservatories at Gardens by the Bay project in Singapore, completed in 2012. According to an article in The Telegraph, the 'Tree of Life' will "form the centre-piece of the Italian pavilion" in Milan.

Steven Holl Architects has been selected to design a new extension to one of India’s oldest museums, the Mumbai City Museum, also known as the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. Selected over OMA, Studio Mumbai Architecture, Zaha Hadid and four others, Holl is now the first architect ever to be chosen through an international competition to design a public building in Mumbai.

Continue reading to learn more about Holl’s winning design. 

JAHN and ADG have released designs for Los Diablos Rojos del Mexico’s new home stadium in Mexico City. Scheduled to open in the city’s Magdalena Mixhuca sports complex in 2017, the 13000-seat “Estadio Diablos” will feature a “monumental lightweight” roof structure that resembles Diablos’ trident.

“Indicative of the sky, the roof design is sharp, translucent, luminous and dynamic,” says JAHN. “Composed of lightweight steel wrapped in PTFE textile material, the roof will become an iconic symbol for the great City of Mexico.”

More on the stadium’s design, after the break. 

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The London Borough of Wandsworth has launched an international call for architects and engineers interested in envisioning what could be the second pedestrian bridge to rise near the Battersea Power Station development. The two-stage ideas competition, whose announcement comes shortly after the recent approval of Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge, believes that the bridge could potentially become “one of the most expressive and visible landmarks in London.”

Though the competition cannot guarantee that the winning design will be built, partial funding has already been budgeted for the bridge’s future construction and it is hoped that the winning design can be used to attract further interest and funding. Continue reading to learn more. 

Belgian architects ABDM and Dutch architects RAU have been selected over eight teams to design the new Howest College Campus in Kortrijk. A collaboration with Delva Landscape Architects, the school will act as the campus’ main building, open to all 24/7.

UK start-up company The Photon Project has announced its plan to launch the Photon Space, the world's first intelligent all-glass living unit. Motivated by the major positive benefits that natural light can have on our energy levels, sleep pattern and overall health, the goal of the Photon Space is to create a dwelling that allows its occupants a maximum connection to the outside world.

Posited as an ideal addition to hotels, spas, health retreats, medical centres, and other resorts, the skin of the Photon Space is made of smart glass supported by curving glass beams, switching from transparent to opaque in seconds with the help of an iPhone app.

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"Be very sensitive to where you are, in what times and in what parts of the world, and how that constitutes the artistic practice," says Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in this recent video from Louisiana Channel. In Advice to the Young, Eliasson deliberates on creative practice, urging young artists to take risks and produce meaningful work. "Just because you think about a work of art," says Eliasson, "it is not necessarily a work of art." Most recently, Eliasson has made headlines for his immersive exhibition Riverbed at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art which explores the intersection between nature and the built environment. Revered as one of the world's leading sculptural and installation artists, Eliasson is adamant that the practice of working with art remains to be "very fierce, very strong and very robust."

The UK Government has announced £140 million in public funds will be granted to the planned "Olympicopolis" cultural quarter in East London, in the former 2012 Olympic Park. The museum and educational district is planned to feature a new outpost for the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum and Sadler’s Wells theatre, and a new campus for the University of the Arts London.

The site, which is just North of Zaha Hadid's Aquatics Centre, is the focus of an ongoing design competition which reportedly attracted almost 1,000 expressions of interest in the contest's pre-registration phase. The winner of the competition will be announced in March.

In conjunction with the Contemporary Morocco exhibit (Le Maroc Contemporain) at the Jean Nouvel-designed Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, a giant tent has been constructed on the plaza in front of the building. Designed by Tarik Oualalou and Linna Choi of OUALALOU+CHOI, the tent harmonizes contemporary design and technical innovation with traditional fabrication methods. Constructed from more than 650-square-meters of camel and goat wool woven by female cooperatives in the Saharan desert, the tent serves as an urban landmark and a symbol for the Contemporary Morocco exhibit. The rhythm and scale of the tent’s silhouette renders a topographic dimension to the structure which pays homage to the nomadic traditions of southern Morocco.

The common prefabricated home has a distinct appearance. A long rectangular body, a pitched roof, easy to transport by truck bed when split in half—these characteristics are almost universal when it comes to prefab design. Dwell, in partnership with Turkel Design, is changing that. The two firms have recently released their “Axiom Series,” a line of modern houses that combine sleek modern design with all the benefits of prefabricated construction.

New York-based firm M Castedo Architects have unveiled their designs for the "Silver Pearl Hotel", a 1000-room luxury resort and conference facility for the Qatar 2022 World Cup located 1.5 kilometers off the Doha coastline. The $1.6 billion design consists of two 30-story semicircular towers connected by a full height, transparent climate controlled atrium, with unimpeded views of the sea beyond. Access to the hotel will be provided by a four lane elevated causeway over the sea - or alternatively by private yacht or helicopter, say the architects.

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Today, Safdie Architects revealed plans for a glass, spherical “air hub” that will be built at the center of the Singapore’s Changi Airport, the world’s sixth busiest airport. The “jeweled” biodome was presented as a “new paradigm” for international airports that will boost Singapore’s stopover appeal and become a “lifestyle destination” for both travelers and local residents.

Learn more about the design and a word from Moshe Safdie, after the break. 

The Rockefeller Foundation has announced the next group of cities that will be part of the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge, which aims to help prepare cities from around the world for the social, economic and physical challenges of the 21^st century. After reviewing close to 350 applications from 90 countries across six continents, the Rockefeller Foundation selected 35 cities to join the 32 cities that were announced last year. The cities selected are addressing numerous challenges, ranging from flooding and extreme weather events to economic stress and strains on infrastructure and health systems, according to a press release.

“When you think about what makes a resilient city, you have to think in holistic terms. The reality is that resilience building is a multi-sector, multi-level kind of enterprise,” President of 100 Resilient Cities, Michael Berkowitz, told us earlier this year at the start of the inaugural Chief Resilience Officer summit in New Orleans.

Each city selected receives funding to hire a Chief Resilience Officer and assistance in developing and implementing a resilience strategy. Read on after the break to see which 35 cities were selected.