The Canadian Wood Council has announced the winners of the 39th annual Wood Design & Building Awards program. The awards program honors and recognizes the remarkable contributions of architects worldwide who excel in wood design and construction. This year, the program attracted a record 181 nominations from 25 different countries, and 24 winning projects were chosen from the excellent pool of submissions.
Architecture News
The 39th Annual Wood Design & Building Awards Program Announces Winners
SOM Breaks Ground on New American Buddhist Cultural Society Temple in San Francisco
Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the new American Buddhist Cultural Society Temple, also known as the San Bao Temple, has broken ground in San Francisco, California. Located on Van Ness Avenue, the new six-story facility will include a community center, a Buddhist shrine, and a meditation room on the upper levels, along with three levels of private dormitories for visiting monastics and volunteers. In the center of the building, a light-filled atrium offers additional amenities, such as a public art gallery, bookstore, teahouse, and community gathering hall. The temple is expected to open by the end of 2024.
The Cyprus Pavilion Examines Social Sustainability and Space Exploration at La Biennale di Venezia 2023
The Cyprus Pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia has announced its exhibition. The pavilion will explore the first early settlements of the Cyprus Aceramic Neolitih Khirokitia, using these communities as a springboard to discuss social sustainability challenges in a humanistic and cultural framework. The display, curated by Petros Lapithis, Lia Lapithi, Nikos Kouroussis, and Ioanna Ioannou Xiari, is based on a foundation for a newly constructed environment that will be established on Mars.
"Open for Maintenance:" The German Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale is Curated by ARCH+ and Summacumfemmer Büro Juliane Greb
ARCH+ and Summacumfemmer Büro Juliane Greb have been selected to curate the German pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia for their concept Open for Maintenance / Wegen Umbau geöffnet. Commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development, and Building, the pavilion is dedicated to exploring matters of care, repair, and maintenance. The concept also aims to shed light on contemporary debates over the existing building stock and the social practice of maintaining urban fabric. The 18th International Architecture Exhibition will be held from May 20th until November 26th, 2023.
Announcing the Building of the Year Awards 2023 Trophy
“With the growth of the Internet, images of architecture found a new channel for distribution. Architects in even remote geographies were tapping into a new global circulation of architectural ideas and architectural recognition. Architecture blogs such as ArchDaily started to change patterns of production and consumption of architectural knowledge [...] Crowdsourced awards such as ArchDaily's Building of the Year have changed the global map of rewarded offices and buildings.” – Shawhin Roudbari, in the paper Crowdsourced and Crowd-Pleasing: The New Architectural Awards and the City.
Over the years, the winners of the Building of the Year Awards have received a wooden trophy handcrafted in Chile. But in order to evolve and stay true to the spirit of the award, we have turned to our community to design its next iteration: a 3D printed trophy with a blockchain certificate, that will be sent to the architects and stakeholders of the project.
Kengo Kuma Proposes a Sensory Journey for The National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece
Kengo Kuma’s proposal for The National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece, aims to draw attention to the importance of science in archaeology, the value of its collections, and the fundamental role and character of the museum in the present and the future. As the memory of the museum is traced back, words in acts of burying, concealing, and revealing begin to emerge. These three words are pivotal transitional moments that help shape the museum into what it is today and pave the way for its future application.
QS World Rankings Selects Best Universities to Study Architecture in 2023
QS- Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings just announced the 2023 top universities to study Architecture and the Built Environment. The index rates over 1,400 schools and covers a total of 54 disciplines, grouped into five broad subject areas, based on five indicators "to effectively reflect their performance, taking into account academic reputation, employer reputation, and faculty research".
In this edition of the 2023 Architecture/ Built Environment category, UCL dethrones MIT, which stayed in the first position for three consecutive years. MIT came second, while both the Delft University of Technology and ETH Zurich took third place. The Manchester School of Architecture makes its first debut in the top 5, followed by Harvard, the National University of Singapore, and Tsinghua University in China. Berkeley moved to ninth position and Politecnico remains a non-mover at 10, for the third year.
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The Salone del Mobile.Milano Appoints Lombardini22 to and Formafantasma to Redefine the Exhibition Spaces
The Salone del Mobile.Milano 2023 entrusted the Milanese architecture and engineering studio Lombardini22 with curating the exhibition space and redefining its layout and circulation flows to ensure an increasingly engaging and contemporary business platform. On a similar note, Formafantasma was appointed to take care of the large Arena and the Cameos, small exhibitions layout in the trade fair site. During this year’s edition, seven exhibitions will be held simultaneously at Fiera Milano fairgrounds in Rho. The events are open to professionals from Tuesday 18th until Sunday 23rd of April, and to the general public on Saturday and Sunday.
"Datament": The Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2023 Examines Humanity's Relationship with Data
The Polish pavilion will present Datament at the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The installation will allow visitors to experience data in its physical form. The core aim of the exhibition is to showcase how prevalent data has become, shaping the reality in which we live, create, and dwell. Created by Anna Barlik, Marcin Strzała and Jacek Sosnowski, Datament is the starting point for discussing how data and new technologies will play a crucial role in the future.
RAMA Estudio Wins Competition for Recycling Public Building into Social Housing in Ecuador
RAMA Estudio has won a competition organized by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (Miduvi) to transform public buildings into social housing. "Casa Cevallos" seeks to give a new face to the Miduvi Tungurahua building, located in front of the Cevallos Park in Ambato, Ecuador, incorporating 16 apartments for 45 inhabitants through 7 adaptable typologies.
Shigeru Ban Unveils Updated Prototype for Temporary Housing in Response to the Turkey-Syria Earthquake
Shigeru Ban Architects, in collaboration with Voluntary Architects’ Network, has developed an improved version of the temporary housing developed to help those affected by the recent Turkey-Syria earthquake. The new prototype represents an upgrade of the paper tube system deployed in northwestern Turkey after the 1999 earthquake. This new version takes into consideration matters of efficiency and the need to minimize construction time on site.
The Centre Pompidou Signs a Partnership Agreement to Develop a Contemporary Art Museum in Saudi Arabia and South Korea
The Centre Pompidou is an arts and culture institution that has been present in Paris since the late 1970s. It houses the Public Information Library, the largest museum for modern art in Europe, and a center for musical research. This month, the institution signed a partnership agreement to create a museum of contemporary art in Saudi Arabia with the Royal Commission of AlUla (RCU). Additionally, the establishment signed a similar partnership agreement to develop a modern and contemporary museum in Seoul, South Korea, with the Hanwha Culture Foundation.
Milan Design Week 2023: Explore the DAAily Guides for the City and the Fair
In 2023, Milan design week and Salone Del Mobile, the world’s biggest design event and furniture fair, return to their April timing. For the occasion, DAAily platforms present its yearly DAAily guides, everyone’s manual to optimizing their time in Milan, selected for you by our team of architects and designers. The guides offer a curated selection of not-to-be-missed showrooms, locations, and events throughout the city of Milan; as well as a detailed selection of the best exhibitors, brands, and products, to visit at the Salone del Mobile 2023 and Euroluce. Under the theme of "Connection", in its second edition, the DAAily bar, hosted jointly by Designboom, Architonic, and ArchDaily, will take place again at the Piazza Cavour’s Swiss Corner on the edge of Brera, from April 17th, 2023, until April 21st, 2023.
Heatherwick Studio Unveils the Design for a New Community Library in Columbia, United States
Heatherwick Studio has revealed their first public library design, planned for Howard County Libraries in Maryland, United States. The building will serve as a community center and was designed to reflect the changing and complex role of libraries within cities. The program expands beyond book lending services, providing spaces for cultural events, collective learning, workshops and lending of objects of use. Construction is expected to begin in 2024, and the library is scheduled to open to the public in 2027.
"Architecture - A Place To Be Loved": Japan Announces Pavilion for the 2023 Venice Biennale
Japan's Pavilion has announced its exhibition “Architecture, a place to be loved – when architecture is seen as a living creature” curated by Maki Onishi, for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Centered around our post-pandemic reality of faceless developments taking over cities globally, the intervention's main question explores how people can once more find amazement in architecture and joy in shared physical spaces.
"Coastal Imaginaries:" The Danish Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale is Curated by Josephine Michau
The Danish Pavilion has announced Josephine Michau as the curator of the exhibition “Coastal Imaginaries” to represent Denmark at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition highlights nature-based design solutions to alleviate global challenges like rising sea levels and storm floods. The team behind the exhibition represents a collaboration between the landscape architectural firm Schønherr and researchers, artists, Danish trade organizations, and scientific institutions. The selected subject aligns with the biennale’s overarching theme of Laboratory of the Future, running from May 20th to November 26th, 2023, in the Giardini, at the Arsenale, and at various locations around Venice.
MVRDV Wins Competition To Design A New Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence Campus in Heilbronn, Germany
MVRDV has won a competition to design the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI) Campus in Heilbronn, Germany. The campus will be transformed into a world-leading site for developing AI technologies. The design will include a variety of business campus laboratories, a startup innovation center, housing, a communication center, and many amenities, such as a restaurant and a kindergarten. Moreover, the scheme also embeds interactive touchpoints for curious visitors to see the development of these world-changing technologies firsthand and interact with the minds behind their creations.