Dear ArchDaily Readers,

One of the most important pillars of our mission is to constantly improve the way that we deliver inspiration and knowledge to architects around the world. Over time, the tens of thousands of projects we have featured in-depth have grown to form a large "ArchDaily Iceberg" in which most of this invaluable architecture content accumulates below the surface. In our quest to make this information more accessible, and especially given our understanding of how we (architects) collect and organize case studies and references, we launched a modest tool in late 2010: My ArchDaily. This tool allowed you to bookmark and save your favorite projects and sort them in folders, two concepts that relate to how you use your browser and desktop.

My ArchDaily was also the authentication tool for voting in Building of the Year Award, and over the years this feature started to gain traction among our users--reaching more than 282,000 registered users as of today! But, My ArchDaily had taken a back seat to other development projects and wasn't updated until we launched our new platform a few days ago.

So now, we're happy to present the new-and-improved My ArchDaily! It was launched alongside other improvements that you may have noticed over the past few weeks. If you aren't using it already, we welcome you to start building your very own personalized architecture library and organize projects and articles using labels.

Whether you are researching specific precedents or just want to save a particularly inspiring project, My ArchDaily's seamless integration allows you to save information with one-simple click. 

During our last trip to Beijing we had the opportunity to visit Li Xiaodong at his recently opened extension for the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University. Li Xiaodong has become recognized worldwide thanks to his recent projects in rural China, which are deeply connected with the landscape and local community and use a mix of traditional and contemporary techniques.

His built works are strongly connected with his academic research. As a professor at Tsinghua University he has focused on understanding Chinese architecture, co-authoring publications such as “Form Making in Traditional Chinese Architecture” and “Chinese Conception of Space." His research has led him to develop a unique style, which he calls a “new regionalism," focusing on how the local can deal with the global in this era.

"Form ever follows function." "Less is more." Architects have long been providing us with inspirational quips and reflections on our profession. And now, thanks to our friends at Princeton Architectural Press, you can win a set a notebooks that feature the compelling words of Le Corbusier, R. Buckminster Fuller, and Cesar Pelli. The gold-stamped, gridded notebooks are a companion to Laura Dushkes' best-selling book The Architect Says.

Read on to find out how you can win a set of The Architect Says Notebooks!

PA#44 - The Paris Zoological Park, Paris 12 por Pavillon-Arsenal

Our friends at the Pavillion de l'Arsenal have shared a collection of videos from their "Paris Architectures" series. Dive into these short films that document remarkable architecture around France's capital city. 

This week we get a glimpse of Bernard Tschumi Architectes' Paris Zoological Park.

The Gui’an New District, the eighth National New Districts in China, is located between Guiyang City and Anshun City, Guizhou Province with a planned area of 1,795 km2. The District, committed to the goal of “creating a city with pastoral landscapes”, will be built into a new leading area in inland economic development, a pilot area for innovation and development, an agglomeration of high-end service industries, an international area for leisure, vacation and tourism and a leading area for the construction of ecological civilization. The planning of a comprehensive high-speed railway transportation hub and CBD in central Gui’an New District strives to build it into an important transportation hub and central business district. The Management Committee of Guizhou Guian New District and the Planning and Construction Bureau of The Management Committee of Guizhou Guian New District hereby publicly call for the proposals for the planning of such a transportation hub and CBD as required, sincerely inviting the participation of experienced and qualified design agencies worldwide.

Registration deadline for international teams is on July 10th, 2015. More details below:

Earlier today, the US Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage should be legal in all 50 states, effectively overruling 14 states that so far have continued to enforce a ban (if you've been on Facebook in the last few hours, you've probably already heard). The ruling comes just in time for Pride Parades which will take place this weekend in many cities, and to celebrate this historic decision, we've rounded up some iconic buildings lit up for past Pride Parades for everybody to enjoy - equally.

Take a peek into SelgasCano's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion—which opened on June 22—through the lens of Romanian photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu.

AZURE has announced the winners of its fifth annual AZ Awards, which recognize excellence in design and architecture worldwide. The 19 winners were chosen from a shortlist of 66 projects.

The jury included Winka Dubbeldam of Archi-Tectonics (New York), architect Brendan MacFarlane of Jakob + MacFarlane (Paris), designer Anwar Mekhayech of the Design Agency (Toronto), landscape architect Janet Rosenberg of Janet Rosenberg & Studio (Toronto) and designer Philippe Malouin (London).

View all of the winning projects after the break. 

For the past 27 years, the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award has not only recognized the most relevant buildings in the EU, but has also served as a timeline of the evolution of European Architecture.

By looking back on the thousands of projects that have been nominated over the years, one can see a new identity take shape in the EU after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and thanks to the free movement of people — and therefore creative capital - that the EU developed.

In this interview, Giovanna Carnevali, the director of the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, tells us how the award is also becoming a database of hundreds of recognized architects, a powerful network that can be used to assist EU countries by linking "institutions that do have money but they don’t know how to use it and professionals."

While Eliel and Eero Saarinen may be the most well known father-son architect duo, they are certainly not the only pair to have left their mark in the field. As far back as the 1700s, the Gabriel father and son dynasty (Jacques V and Ange-Jacques) constructed much of Versailles, and more recently both I.M. Pei and Lewis Davis have passed their legacy onto their sons. In honor of Father's Day, we look at four father-son architecture dynasties and their lasting influence on the profession, after the break.

Romanian photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu has shared images from last year's "Sticks and Stones" exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Designed by David Chipperfield, the intervention brought 144 8-meter-tall trees to the interior of the Neue Nationalgalerie, Mies van der Rohe's 1968 masterpiece. See our previous coverage of the installation and enjoy a full gallery of Ghinitoiu's images after the break.

During the past few months we have been working hard to upgrade our Materials catalog to improve search functionality and user experience. Today we are happy to launch the first of many improvements!

Photographer Amos Chapple has traveled the world, capturing well-known landmarks and cities from the perspective of a drone. From the Katshi Pillar in Georgia to New Delhi’s Lotus Temple and the star fort in Bourtange, the Netherlands, Chapple carried out “as much aerial work as weather and local laws allow.”

See 12 of his most impressive photos after the break. 

+ 7

Rendering has become the ultimate tool in the architect’s arsenal for communicating designs directly to clients. But with the seemingly infinite number of real-life material options that exist today, the textures built into rendering programs often fall short. In some cases, one may be able to find appropriate texture maps for their desired materials online, but when experimenting with new materials or unique colors the need for greater customization arises. In the past, perhaps you could attempt to manually create and edit your own texture maps, but this can be a long and arduous process.

Earlier this month, during the award ceremony for the 2015 EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture-Mies van der Rohe Award, we had the opportunity to speak with winners Barozzi / Veiga, who won for their Philharmonic Hall Szczecin. We asked Fabrizio Barozzi and Alberto Veiga, founders of the eponymous, Barcelon-based firm, about their project and their office.

The architects describe the process of incorporating and filtering many influences to arrive at the final design for the Philharmonic Hall, emphasizing that they strove to "create a quality" that transforms from day to night. Learn more about the project by watching the video above, and see what the jury had to say after the break.

While studying for his Masters in Architecture at DIA (Dessau International Architecture), Romanian photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu was inspired to capture Walter Gropius’ Dessau Bauhaus at different times of the day and throughout the four seasons. Taken from the same vantage point over the course of two years (September 2012-July 2014), Ghinitoiu’s photos show the school as snow covers its perfectly-manicured lawn and skateboarders and construction workers come and go.

“The building has been framed in direct relation with the dynamic process of daily life. Lights and shadows, changing during the day and during the year, underline the always-different elements of the silent, but potent building. It almost protrudes out of the scene, imposing its strict lines, its regular rhythm and the functionalism of its geometries. The surroundings play the most important role of the entire photo project: they create the atmosphere, establishing an intimate connection between the architecture and its context." - Francesca Lantieri 

View the full photo series after the break.