How does it sound when Richard Jackson, MD, MPH, host of Designing Healthy Communities says that we are among the first generation in modern history to have shorter lifespans than our parents? It is a frightening thought, especially when it is compounded with the idea that the way in which we have designed – that is our buildings, our streets, our infrastructure, our food, our lifestyles – for decades has contributed to it. Designing Healthy Communities is a project that is dedicated to confronting contemporary issues of public health associated with the built environment and offering solutions that encourage reshaping our interactions, lifestyles and design strategies. In a series of episodes, Dr. Jackson discusses various factors within our environment that has caused rampant chronic health problems, the most prominent of which is Type 2 Diabetes caused by obesity.  It comes down to an environment that promotes a sedentary lifestyle and poor food choices.

More on this series after the break.

“We borrow from nature the space upon which we build.”

-Tadao Ando

Great leaders such as OMA, SCB, Aedas, Zaha Hadid, SOM, Foster & Partners are part of the structure of the master program, among others top tier global practices in a module called “The Architect’s Backstage” (brief video below). Each one of these practices excels in coupling their management and design strategies and share with students their experience in the necessary back office work to achieve outstanding design. IE School of Architecture & Design started an unexpected shift in education that has been recognized by the Design Intelligence Report of 2010 where it is ranked as “Hidden Gem of Global Architecture” (among few non-US schools to receive mention).

More after the break.

Your Macbook Air has come at a price. And I’m not talking about the $1,000 bucks you shelled out to buy it.

I’m talking about the cost of lightness. Because the dirty secret of the “Cloud” – that nebulous place where your data goes to live, thus freeing up your technological devices from all that weight – is its very physical counterpart.

Data Centers. Giant, whirring, power-guzzling behemoths of data storage – made of cables, servers, routers, tubes, coolers, and wires. As your devices get thinner, the insatiably hungry cloud, the data centers, get thicker.

So why are you struggling to picture one in your mind? Why do we have no idea what they look like? What they do? Where they are? Because Data Centers have been hidden away and, although carefully planned, intentionally “undesigned.” The goal is to make the architecture so technologically efficient, that the architecture becomes the machinery, and the machinery the architecture. In the words of author Andrew Blum, Data Centers are “anti-monuments” that ”declare their own unimportance.”

But if architecture is the expression of our society’s values and beliefs, then what does this architectural obliteration mean? That we are willfully ignoring the process that creates the data we daily consume. As long as the internet works, who cares where it came from (or at what cost — and there is a considerable cost)?

So can design change our alienated relationship to our data? Should it? And if so, how?

Tonight, Renzo Piano’s Shard will officially celebrate its opening complete with an amazing light show. A dozen lasers and thirty searchlights will beam streams of light across the city, creating a network between 15 other significant landmarks in London, such as the Gherkin, London Eye, Tate Modern, and Tower Bridge. (So, if you are in London, don’t miss the event at 10.15 this evening, and be sure to share some photos with us!)

Capping out at 310 meters, the Shard has become the tallest building in London, as well as the entire European Union. We have been following the history of Renzo Piano’s creation, and although laden with financial troubles, a change in developers, and criticism from Londoners, the project has finally reached completion.

More about the history of the tower after the break.

With less than a week left to register, the HOME design competition, hosted by Building Trust International, seeks to find well designed homes for the elderly or homeless within some of the World’s richest countries. The growing rate in single occupancy households has led to increased numbers of young and elderly people affected by poverty being forced to live in substandard living conditions & in the worst cases sleeping rough. They We are asking designers, engineers, architects and house builders to provide a solution to the housing crisis by offering sustainable, affordable small homes that give those that are alienated or marginalized within society a safe place to live. For more information, please visit here.

Situ Fabrication was hired by MA3 Agency to engineer and build six display structures for Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak 40th Anniversary Exhibition. Designed by Sebastien Leon Agneessens, the structures, entitled ‘Fragments’, house a number of historic Audemars Piguet watches, media displays and a watchmaking workshop. The exhibition stops in New York City, Milan, Paris, Beijing, Singapore, and Dubai throughout the year. More images can be viewed in the gallery after the break.

As a main event of the 2012 Daegu Architectural Culture Biennale, the committee just launched the International Architectural Competition for a Public Library in Daegu, Korea. Open to all unregistered or registered architects and students of architecture schools from all over the world, the winning prize money for 1st place is USD $30,000 with the opportunity to join the further design development of the library after the competition. All participants must register by July 30 with submissions due September 10. For more information, please visit here.

The City of Almere has revealed it’s MVRDV-designed proposal for the Floriade 2022 candidature! Almere is one of four Dutch cities competing to be the next location of the prestigious horticultural Expo, which takes place once every ten years in the Netherlands and is currently open in Venlo.

Rather than creating a temporary expo site, MVRDV has designed a lasting Cité Idéale, which would serve as a green extension to Almere’s city center. Drawing upon research from the radical DIY urbanism plan for Almere Oosterwold and the Almere 2030 master plan, MVRDV has designed an ambitious sustainable city that strives to be a 300% greener exhibition than the current standard.

Continue reading for more on this potential, exemplary green city!

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Return from a water taxi journey around the Giardini via zip line, explore the potential for “robot craftsmen” and discover much more this August at the Australian Pavilion during the 2012 International Venice Architecture Biennale. With the world-famous exhibition just around the corner, the Australian Institute of Architects have decided to release details on what to expect at their exhibit, Formations: New Practices in Australian Architecture.

The Creative Directors, Anthony Burke and Gerard Reinmuth, said: “It’s very exciting to see how the architectural profession is evolving, the new domains that are being explored and the vitality and variety of innovative architectural types that Australia seems to foster. Formations highlights the range of unconventional and world-leading architectural practice types being developed across Australia, celebrating new opportunities for architects that are working in non-traditional and unexpected ways.”

Continue after the break to learn more.

Seeing as it’s the 4th of July, we thought we would take a moment to reflect on the state of Architecture in our country today. Where are we? What’s important to us now, July 4th, 2012? And what does the future look like?

In the invited competition launched by the Culture Relic Bureau of Nanjing, WILCOTER Architects envisioned an idea to regenerate the relics of the Forbidden City as a capital of the Ming Dynasty over six hundred years ago. In a city that needs a cultural symbol based on their own history, this proposal tries to regenerate an imperial axis, a special experience and atmosphere where people can never have chance to taste. More images and architects’ description after the break.

RIBA Competitions recently announced that six teams have now been selected to take part in the design stage of the competition for King’s College London to redevelop the Quadrangle at the historic Strand Campus in London. The shortlisted teams include: Barozzi Veiga Studio, Carme Pinos Studio, Eric Parry Architects, Hall McKnight, Henley Halebrown Rorrison, and Zaha Hadid Architects. Ian Caldwell, Director of Estates & Facilities at King’s, said: ‘We are very pleased with the variety and high standard of submissions and look forward to the development of an innovative, landmark design that will enhance the surrounding historic architecture’. More information on the competition after the break.

Matthias Kisch from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and Amy Linford from Newcastle University have won first and special awards respectively in this year’s Troldtekt Award just announced. Architectural and design students from 23 countries entered the concept competition, submitting an extensive array of creative and original ideas about how Troldtekt’s traditional acoustic panels can be used. More information on the winners, images and videos after the break.

The firm’s founder David Stark Wilson cites his experiences in nature as the most profound influence on his architecture. In this volume he has chosen to pair images of his architecture beside the images from nature that inspired his designs. The origins of the firm’s work are also deeply rooted in the vernacular buildings of California and this influence is clearly illustrated in this impressive monograph.

The panel for the international Kirjava satama Ideas Competition unanimously decided to give four awards among the 201 entries with balanced overall solutions that were suitable to the cityscape; the entries also had especially interesting ideas for the development of different sections. Innovation and ideas were valued higher than the flawlessness of details. There was no single entry that would have attained all the goals of the competition in a way that was clearly superior. The entries Boegbeeld, Meren syleily, Stadi terassi and Tori received an award in the competition for the south harbour. More images and information on the winners after the break.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Architecture for Humanity have announced the five recipients of the 2012 Disaster Response Plan Grant. Awards totaling $10,000 will help each group implement their locally driven preparedness project in the second half of the year.

The Disaster Grant Program is part of the Disaster Resiliency and Recovery Program, which coordinates the organizations’ advocacy, education and training to help architects make effective contributions to communities preparing for, responding to and rebuilding after disaster.

The 2012 grant recipients are:

Architects: AB3D Ltd. Location: Alūksne District, Latvia Project Year: 2011 Project Area: 386 sqm Photographs: Māris Lapiņš, Edgars Gribusts, AB3D

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Columbia University has been at the forefront of medical education for more than two centuries, as it was the first medical school in the United States to award the M.D. degree in 1770. Now, the Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) has announced plans for a new, state-of-the-art medical and graduate education building that reflects how they believe medicine is and should be taught, learned and practiced in the 21st century.

Located on the CUMC campus in the Washington Heights community of Northern Manhattan, the 14-story facility will aim to achieve LEED Gold certification and incorporate technologically advanced classrooms, collaboration spaces, and a modern simulation center. The design is led by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in collaboration with Gensler as executive architect.

Continue after the break for more details!

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Usually, architecture photographers are architects themselves, but today we want to show the work of Israeli photographer Erieta Attali, an actual photographer who started working related to archeology and science, and then got involved with architecture after working throughout Japan covering this country's Contemporary Glass Architecture.

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1. When and how did you start photographing architecture?

Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) has started construction on their 1.4 million-square-foot master plan for The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. Demolition will commence on the existing parking garage at the south end of the hospital complex in order to clear the way for the new Orthopedic and Spine Center (OSC). The contemporary 332,000 square-foot building draws on the predominantly red brick character of the existing buildings and surrounding historic Mt. Auburn neighborhood, while providing a new public face on the south side of the hospital.

SOM strives to achieve LEED certification after completion in mid-2015. Continue after the break to learn more.

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Wallpaper magazine recently announced their 2012 Architects Directory which features some of the world’s most intriguing young practices that have made their way into the spotlight. More images and a complete list of the architects who made director can be viewed after the break.