The center of Tirana is marked by a clear urban layout, but its recent growth filled up a large area around it without any order, structure, adequate services or meaningful public spaces. In this proposal by Cino Zucchi Architetti, in collaboration with One Works, Gustafson Porter, Buro Happold London, and Antonello Stella Architects, the voids rather than the buildings become the catalysts of new urban regeneration. In doing so, their design attracts public and private functions around a sequence of green spaces of high environmental quality. The extension of the boulevard into a lively green promenade progressively opens up to the beautiful landscape of the hills across the Tirana river. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Armin Valter and Joel Kopli shared with us their competition winning proposal for the Memorial of Victims of Communism in Estonia. Situated on/in northern coastal limestone cliff near town Paldiski, which was a closed military nuclear submarine base in soviet times, their design attempts to revitalize the place and bring more awareness to people of the region. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The 12th International Alvar Aalto Symposium will be held in Jyväskylä Finland from August 10-12, 2012. With the theme of ‘Crafted’ – The Ingredients of Architecture’, the question arises: How does architecture rise above the ordinary? Organised by the Alvar Aalto Academy, the international Alvar Aalto Symposium aims to address the complex relationship between material, craft and culture, not simply as a matter of professional practice but also as a sociological and pedagogical imperative. More information on the event after the break.

The design intent of Lemay Associés for the Stinson Transport Center in Montreal was to achieve a seamless weaving of the project into the surrounding urban fabric. They then did thus through the introduction of a new dialog element: an interface which will serve as a catalyst for the renewal of the surrounding industrial sector. Characterized by simple and contemporary volumetrics, the project is based on functional principles which give it its geometric singularity. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The sports center’s concept by Côté Leahy Cardas Architects rests on the alteration of the site on which it will be implemented. A site which has been metamorphosed from an industrial field (a quarry) into a landfill and will now be transformed into a park and environmental complex. By its shape, and its feature, its adaptability to the site, by its suggested trails and visual links, the project expresses the whole transformation, the evolution towards a huge environmental park, opened on research and experimentation. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The starting point for ECDM Architectes in their design for the Cité municipale de Bonneuil-Sur-Marne is the context in which the new city hall will be located. Here more than elsewhere, the town hall will articulate, unify urban landscapes of great diversity, contribute to the implementation of a new polarity high symbolic value in a heterogeneous urban environment. The intersection of two major pathways of Bonneuil-sur-Marne, between the Avenue de Verdun and the provincial road 19 is a strategic crossroads at the edge of urbanity strong and gives our response as an interface between the different territories of the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.

gmp Architekten just won the first prize with their design for the new buildings of the Karlsruhe Medical Centre. The competition focused on the 2015 master plan and was open to 15 selected practices. The briefing called for the construction of a new central building in order to give more structure to the hospital precinct – which consists of older buildings from the nineteenth century as well as later additions – and to improve the logistics of the centre by constructing a new central catering facility and new institute buildings. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The design for the Citadel Skyscraper by Victor Kopeikin and Pavlo Zabotin is a symbiosis of a skyscraper and a residential tank creating a defensive shield to protect the island from the inside against external natural and anthropogenic influences.  The project provides carrying the residential functions of cities in the land out to self-supporting residential units located in the sea (residential skyscrapers, citadels).These citadels interact with each other on the shoreline, forming a single closed defensive chain that operates both on the surface and underground. Thereby proceeds the mastering of new territories for the human life. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The inspirations for the design and character of the SiloCenter building, by Neostudio Architekci + BPT Jedlinski, were open minds and the creation of new challenges for people who are looking for an active lifestyle. The design dynamics underline a positive attitude to change, which will stimulate a positive body and mind culture, which is realized in the building. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Live Between, a concept design by HKS Architects, is a newly launched hotel experience for guests who enjoy the extreme. Their design seeks out urban cities to set up short-term residency between existing buildings. As it moves from city to city, it is designed and installed specific to its temporary inhabitance. Taking on various forms from a spider’s web to a constellation, the hotel formation is ever changing and always evolving. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Serving Guangzhou, China as a distinctive emblem of China Southern Airlines’ global leadership, the winning proposal by Woods Bagot is a bold reinterpretation of the corporate campus model. A 400-hectare, mixed-use development, the three-precinct master plan integrates business, manufacturing, residential, and cultural amenities within a comprehensive open space network that supports recreational opportunity and bolsters ecological vitality. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Out of a collaboration between the Emergent Technologies and Design program (EmTech) of the Architectural Association (AA), London, and the Chair of Structural Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, a temporary light timber construction has been designed that functions as sun shading for parts of the grand stairs in front of the architecture department of the ETH. Based on bending behavior under the self-weight of over-sized sheets of plywood of up to 11 x 2.5 m, the design activates the material properties as the defining element in the transfer of forces. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The new campus of Universidad del Isthmo is located on a beautiful hillside in the rapidly growing community of Santa Isabel near Guatemala City, Guatemala. Sasaki Associates designed the 49-hectare site, and the first phase of the plan, which consists of the heart of campus, is currently undergoing implementation. The university aims to enroll approximately 6,200 students in successive stages of implementation over 20 years. The educational objectives and mission of the university include a strong focus on the individual and the community within the learning environment. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Professors, students and practitioners such as Peter Orborn at AEDAS participated in the above video to give a perspective on a reality for the practice of bridging entrepreneurship and architecture on the Master in Architectural Management and Design at the Architecture Venture Lab at IE University.

WAI Architecture Think Thank has completed a study for an architecture, urbanism and spatial politics laboratory in the center of Beijing. Conceived as an avant-garde institution for the education of environmental and spatial design, their design creates an educational center based on the principle of open learning and cross-disciplinarity. The building arranges the multiple programs in a sequence of open spaces and sloping floors that together form a continuous loop of learning experiences. More images and architects’ description after the break.

In the competition for the church of Våler, Krill Architecture focused on a concept of an open ring in the woods. Tapping on a source of collective creativity in modern architecture, their design offers the chance to bring the development of church architecture to a new level. A building combining monumentality to accessibility, openness to spirituality, is awesome, while being friendly. In short: a church fitting in this time. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Hanok Garden, a landscape project in South Korea by Y Design Office, strips one of the older Korean traditional courtyard houses into its barebones with a small deck for resting. The old house is simply turned into a public garden. More is taken away than what gets added. The project asks and challenges the very basic questions about a person, a house, a city and nature. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The project for the Macro inter-modal Terminal in the middle of Rio de Janeiro by Lucas Ramos, Priscila Bellas, and Thiago De Almeida seeks to create a new infrastructure to the city, which will create possibilities to transform an important axis of the city that nowadays is extremely undervalued and ignored into a new business center based in an efficient nodal point of different kinds of transport. In doing so, they chose to build a megastructure that possessed the ability to reorganize the different transport networks and their links with the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.