Starting today, September 28, and running until October 5, ArchiNATI 2012 is week-long festival celebrating Cincinnati’s built environment, partners with institutions city wide to organize and highlight events that showcase Cincinnati’s architecture. Hosted by the Young Architects and Interns Forum (YAiF), a committee of the Cincinnati Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the events will give everyone the opportunity to experience the built environment in a new way where their interests intersect with architecture and design. Films, talks and tours will take place in the greater Cincinnati area, which kick off with an exhibition of Miami University and University of Cincinnati student design work and open house at the Miami University Center for Community Engagement. For more information and details about the event, please visit here.

Taking place September 30-March 3 at the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck in Remagen, Germany, the ‘Richard Meier. Building as Art‘ exhibition illustrates Richard Meier’s complex design process using prominent buildings and projects from his entire work history. The main focus will be on his museum buildings, as well as on the residential projects created at the start of his career in the USA. The works on display included in the exhibition explore the concept of an architecturally composed space on the basis of five aspects: site, proportion, light, route and color. The exhibition includes a selection of models, original sketches, renderings and photographs. More information after the break.

Open to all young creative minds from all parts of the world from the ages of 18-33, the Fenn Young Designers Award competition is seeking creative, innovative proposals that explore the interpretation of Organic” using the following mediums: Architecture, Interior design, Product design, Fashion design, Photography, and Painting. How do you interpret “Organic” if you are designing a building, a piece of furniture, a fabric, a dress, a painting or any other form of art? Submissions are due no later than October 17. To register and for more information, please visit here.

The mixed-used masterplan of YueHaiWanJia commercial district aims at combining shops, restaurants, leisure, museum, bars, KTV, cinema, hotels and children amusement together in the same place. Designed by SURE Architecture, they were able to create a new amusement and attraction place for all kinds of people. With the idea of the European City context, overlapped with the Stamp of Xi Xia, which has a historic influence for this city, the result is an interesting layout and space to enjoy for people of all ages. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Designed by OOIIO Architecture, the Patchwork City Masterplan focuses on organizing the future growth of Linkoping, a city in southern Sweden with 100,000 inhabitants. The architects were challenged to experiment and explore new ways of designing cities, with all the complexities, sustainable construction systems and social cohesion aspects that a XXI st century city needs. The result is a contemporary city where the inhabitants colonize and personalize their own structure as they wish, crocheting their own city piece to generate a large patchwork all together. More images and architects’ description after the break.

ASAR Consulting Engineers shared with us their winning proposal in the competition to design the JAY mixed-use complex in Tehran, Iran. With the aim of a long-term plan to create a vibrant urban complex in a 54 hectare area site, their proposed response to these challenges begins with a public garden which improves the existing green spaces and plays a role as an urban structure to integrate the 4 different zones of the project. The program includes about 173 hectares of commercial, recreational and administrative activities. More images and architects’ description after the break.

DawnTown, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting architecture in Miami, is announcing an open call for portfolios for their Design Build competition. Now in its fifth year, Dawntown seeks the talents of a designer or design team to create a low cost, innovative, and temporary installation in Miami. The competition is open to architects, artists, and all creative professionals. Designers can work individually or collaboratively in teams, with the requirement that at least one team member is located in the United States. Dawntown Design Build is made possible by the generous grant of the John S and James L Knight Foundation and The Miami Downtown Development Authority. Don’t miss out on a chance to be a part of this inaugural architectural event for Miami! Entries will be collected from September 17th 2012 to October 31st 2012, with finalists being announced on November 15th 2012. To register and for more details, please visit here.

The call for entries was recently announced for the ninth annual Travel + Leisure Design Awards. Honoring the best design in the world across twelve categories completed in the past year, the winners are honored in a feature spread in our March issue as well as online. Winners will be chosen by a panel of outstanding experts in their fields, including architect Deborah Berke, chef and restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson and fashion designer Reed Krakoff. The deadline to apply is Oct. 1. To register and for more information, please visit here.

Architects: Frei + Saarinen Architekten Location: Zurich, Switzerland Design Team: Barbara Frei, Martin Saarinen; Nicolaj Bechtel, Stefan Wülser, Corina Trunz, David Winzeler, Bastien Turpin Client: Roman-Catholic Church Zurich Build Area: 1,200 m2 Usable Area Finishing Material: Floor / Wall / Ceiling Floor: Brushed, Coloured and Sealed Parquet (Oak) Completion: 2010 Photographs: Hannes Henz & Frei + Saarinen Architekten

Featuring more than twenty-five films from eleven countries, public programs, and an architectural driving tour of Lower Manhattan, the fourth season of the Architecture and Design Film Festival is taking place October 18-21. Returning to Tribeca Cinemas, in New York City, the films in this year’s Festival consider a range of topics, including contemporary and historic visionary architects, the creative design process, architecture as cultural emissary, the creation of the High Line, and modernist architecture on the East and West Coasts, among other subjects. The Festival features two world premieres, two U.S. premieres, and numerous films shown in New York City for the first time. Tickets go on sale October 1. More information after the break.

The proposal for the New Harbor Service building by IaN+ aims to define a simple and severe architecture. The project’s construction scheme reflects eastern philosophy; its clean aesthetic and unadorned simplicity, where structure turns into a decorative system clearly defining space. The grandeur of the complex will become the new symbol of the city and at the same time, these openings as large telescopes, frame the view from the city towards the sea and the infinite. More images and architects’ description after the break.

North Carolina State University’s School of Architecture recently launched their Fall 2012 lecture series which focuses on “Material | Digital.” The series begins September 24th with Grace La of La Dallman. Featuring other keynote speakers throughout the series, it concludes on November 19th with a local practitioner panel. For more information, please visit their website here.

Opening October 12th, the ‘Pleated Shell Structures’ Exhibition consists of a short term, site specific research prototype designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid and her firm. Presented by the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in their gallery, the exhibit positions itself within the argument of parametric design research to focus its efforts on design methods that encompass an operative pathway from design intent to manifestation. The exhibition will be on display until December 2. More information after the break.

As part of the masterplan, ‘Bassin a Flots’ designed by ANMA/Nicolas Michelin, Barcode Architects and Habiter Autrement recently presented the Pôle de Compétences (Center for New Businesses). The 7,000m2 project will be a part of the masterplan, which aims on a phased transformation of the present introvert industrial harbor area into a new lively precinct with an urban mixture of living, working, and recreation. The slender 90 meter long and 21 meter tall building presents itself as a pure monolith volume stretching out over the entire length of the site. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Designed by Cannon Design, the expansion of the University of California Riverside (UCR) Recreation Center will provide additional fitness and activity spaces integrating with the existing building and site creating a unified recreation complex. Located at the north boundary of the main campus within the natural Arroyo Zone, the design also includes views to the Box Springs Mountains to the east. The building is scheduled to open in 2014. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Serving as a backstage area for artists who perform at the Olympic Hall in Munich, the business area can be booked for conferences, meetings, seminars and other events. In order to meet established requirements calling for variable use of the business area, pfarré lighting design created a system which is as effective when the area has no partitions as when it is subdivided into separate areas. More images and their description after the break.

The HARDWARE SOFTCORE Installation, designed by Gabriele Falconi, is directed to the interaction of the viewer, to his involvement, even physical, as an actor aware of choices and paths. Of monumental size, its modular installation was born from the idea of using the standard scaffolding system, which is made of shiny galvanized steel, repeating and assembling in vertical and horizontal direction.“The use of construction element, the simplest, declined to unusual, different, ambiguous shapes. For a skeleton of a large lizard, a cathedral with many naves, an interstellar starship. All that is involved here is multiple and transforms itself, starting from temporary basis to monumental forms, contradicting its premises. And finding its attractive side in construction hardware.” – Falconi. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The St. James’s Market development, designed by Make Architects, is a key area in central London that will be reinvigorated if the plans, on behalf of The Crown Estate, are approved. As one of The Crown Estate’s flagship sites, the St. James’s Market project entails the redevelopment of six buildings to the south of Piccadilly Circus bounded by Jermyn Street, Haymarket and Regent Street. With much of the newly configured site being ‘traffic free’, the site will be divided around significant public realm improvements to include a new public square. More images and architects’ description after the break.