Organized by the Institute for Urban Design, the American Pavilion for the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale is devoted to the theme Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good. The installation will feature 124 urban interventions initiated by architects, designers, planners, artists, and everyday citizens that bring positive change to their neighborhoods and cities. The selection was narrowed down after a nationwide open call for projects, which yielded over 450 submissions.

Designed by the Brooklyn creative studio Freecell, the space will feature a lively system of banners that will frame an archive of the urban interventions. Collaborating with Sausalito-based communication design studio M-A-D, the installation will also feature a supergraphic that serves as a bold counterpoint to the banners and act as an installation in and of itself. This will all be presented in an enveloping environment to put Spontaneous Interventions into a broader historical and cultural context. Continuing into the courtyard, a NYC-based studio Interboro (winner of the 2011 MoMA/PS1 Young Architects Program) designed “outdoor living room” will serve as the pavilion’s hang-out and workshop space during the three months of the Biennale.

Continue after the break to review the selected projects and participants.

New York City-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro has been chosen to design the gallery and visitor experience at the historic Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum – the only museum in the United States that is exclusively devoted to historic and contemporary design. The New York City landmark is currently under undergoing an extensive, $64 million transformation that will expand gallery space by sixty-percent. The new environment will be laced with interactive elements in which Local Projects will help integrate into the gallery space as they have been selected as participatory media designer.

The contemporary vision of the re:design aims to become a modern exemplar for museum design, while still preserving the historic Carnegie mansion. The renovation is led by Gluckman Mayner Architects and Beyer Blinder Belle. It will achieve LEED certification and is scheduled to be complete by 2014.

“It is because of their keen abilities to translate ideas and concepts into boundary-stretching design that Cooper-Hewitt selected DS+R and Local Projects as the ideal partners to help re-envision the design of its gallery, visitor and participatory digital experiences,” explained Bill Moggridge, director of the museum.

The international team, lead by well-known Russian urbanist Andrey Chernikhov, and including McAdam Architects, Tower 151, Georgi Stanishev and Ginsburg Architects placed first in round two of the Moscow City Agglomeration Development Concept competition. The winning consortium sparked debate by suggesting Moscow officials should consider redeveloping the abundant brown field sites and other available infill spaces within the existing city boundaries before proposing new development. They highlighted vast areas occupied by goods railways and disused industrial sites from Soviet times as prime areas for regeneration and expansion, as well as a re-thinking of transport networks to alleviate pressure on existing systems.

Continue after the break to learn more.

Álvaro Siza Vieira’s birthday week just got even better, as he has been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition. The decision was made by the Board of la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, under Director David Chipperfield’s proposal. Siza will be honored at the Giardini of la Biennale, during the opening and award ceremony on August 29th, 2012.

“It is difficult to think of a contemporary architect who has maintained such a consistent presence within the profession as Álvaro Siza. That this presence is maintained by an architect that lives and works at the extreme Atlantic margin of Europe only serves to emphasize his authority and his status.”

Continue after the break to read more.

A triple height entrance lobby will welcome visitors to a world-class hotel, two restaurants, three sky gardens and a 248 unit residential tower, all with stunning views over Olympic Park. These are some of the key features offered in the newly unveiled plan for the 42-storey Manhattan Loft Gardens in London, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). It is planned to be built near the Stratford International Station – the gateway to the 2012 London Olympics. Completion is scheduled for 2014.

Continue after the break to learn more.

+ 8

Nearly 40 years after Welfare Island was renamed to honor President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), the Four Freedoms Park is nearly complete. The four-acre park, located on the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in New York City, honors the 32nd U.S. President and the four essential freedoms he believed in. The legendary architect Louis I. Kahn , FAIA (1901-1974) was commissioned to design the memorial in the early seventies and completed the design right before his unfortunate death in 1974. As New York City approached bankruptcy, the project was put on hold until March 29, 2010. Now, many are anxiously anticipating the park’s grand opening that will take place this Fall.

Continue after the break to learn about the story and design of Four Freedoms Park.

+ 11

Architectural Record has published their annual list of the “Top 250 Architecture Firms” in the United States. The companies are ranked according to architectural revenue from the prior year. Gensler claimed the number one spot, with a record high of $764 million in revenue, over the long-standing leader AECOM, whom brought in $445 million in 2011.

The firms classify themselves by:

• A = Architect
• AE = Architect-Engineer
• AP = Architect Planner
• EAL = Engineer Architect Landscape
• AEC = Architect-Engineer-Contractor

Continue after the break to review the top 25.

The Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has announced the selection of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and Davis Brody Bond to design the New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Mexico City, Mexico. After an intense round of presentations and interviews, the duo was selected from a talented shortlist of nine architectural/engineering teams. As reported on the Latin American Herald Tribune, the jury believed that “their portfolio of work is compatible to the local culture and shows sensitivity that highlights their connection to the character of the site.”

Yul Kwon of PBS travels coast to coast to reveal how America’s transportation systems make the nation the most mobile place on earth. Woven together by 200,000 miles of railways, 5,000 airports and 4 million miles of roads, America’s car culture has shaped our cities and defined our lifestyles. However, as roadways become more congested, many predict people will eventually give up this car-centric lifestyle and embrace mass transit. Recently we announced the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s selection of Gruen Associates and Grimshaw Architects to design the new master plan for Union Station in Los Angeles. Their winning proposal gives a hint of what America may look like by 2050, as it transforms into a more mass transit centered nation.

Archpolis, a non-profit organization for architects, designers, artists and the performing arts, has invited architects and planners to submit their qualifications for the first stage of a design competition in Nikola-Lenivets Park in the Kaluga Region of Russia. Fifteen finalists will be chosen for the second stage of the competition with the objective to provide a conceptual design of a residential complex for artist in residence, along with a master plan and zoning details for the surrounding area.

Continue after the break to learn more.

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Luis Barragán was a formally trained engineer and self-trained architect. He is known for his emphasis on color, light, shadow, form and texture. In 1980 he received the profession’s highest honor – the Pritzker Prize. This video gives a brief overview of the prominent Mexican architect and his work.

Help kick start the suckerPUNCH + land of tomorrow exhibition that will feature twenty student projects from around the United States that explore the possibilities of fabrication and material experimentation at the start of the 21st century. Slated for Fall 2012, this exhibition will have it all – “transmogrifications, strange sensations, primal textures, unfamiliar geometries, self-propagating architectural species, augmented atmospherics, vicissitudinous juxtapositions, reinvented building typologies, sensual pleated skins, a crisis or two, physiologically responsive interfaces, threshold blurring gizmos, and plenty of robots”.

If funding is successful, this exhibition will provide the rare opportunity to display the exploration and research from multiple U.S. architecture schools in one location. The three top projects will have prototypes fabricated by Drura Parrish at PR&vD.

Support this project here. Continue reading for more information.

Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta has selected Norman Foster to redevelop one of Fidel Castro’s unfinished spaces – the School of Ballet on the outskirts of Havana. Acosta studied ballet at the Cuban National Ballet School and has danced with the Royal Ballet since 1998.

The stunning, derelict building was never completed during the Cuban revolution, as the design and architects of the Cuban National Art Schools (las Escuelas Nacionales de Arte, or ENA) were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. However, in March 1999, the three architects – Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi – were called to lay out a budget to preserve the languished schools. These preservation efforts include the School of Ballet, whose cluster of domed volumes, designed in 1961 by Italian Vittorio Garatti, are connected by an organic layering of Catalan vaults that follow a winding path.

As reported on bdonline, Norman Foster told the Sunday Times: “Carlos is a great dancer who is inspiring the regeneration of an iconic ruin of early modernism outside Havana.”

Following our previous announcement revealing the 2012 RIBA Award recipients, we now present to you 12 international projects that have also received top honors from RIBA. Buildings outside the European Union by RIBE Chartered Architects and RIBA International Fellows are eligible for this award. These 2012 RIBA International Award winners will now compete for the RIBA Lubetkin Prize – an award named in honor of the Georgia-born architect who worked in Paris before coming to London in the 1930s to establish the influential Tecton Group. In 2009, the RIBA Lubetkin Prize went to the National Stadium Beijing by Herzog & de Meuron with China Architectural Design & Research Group and Arup Sport for National Stadium Company.

And now, the 12 RIBA International Award winners are…

The 2012 RIBA Award winners have been announced! Since 1966, RIBA has set the standard for architectural excellence across the UK with the RIBA Awards. As bdonline points out, this year RIBA has halved the number of projects who have received awards in an attempt to harden the competition. Shortlisted from 739 entries, the 59 winners chosen from the UK and EU will now be considered for the 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize – the UK’s most prestigious architecture prize whose 2011 winner was the Evelyn Grace Academy by Zaha Hadid Architects.

RIBA president Angela Brady said: “The judges were delighted to see so many well considered, crafted and innovative projects, and the use of beautiful materials; these projects are truly exciting and inspiring.”

+ 26

If you love architecture, this is one auction you won’t want to miss! Architecture for Humanity has launched their highly anticipated I Love Architecture Charity Auction, featuring over 70 sketches from 50 of the world’s top architects and designers. The time to start bidding is now, as the auction will close on June 29th. All proceeds will support Architecture for Humanity.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has selected L.A.’s Gruen Associates and London’s Grimshaw Architects to design the new master plan for Union Station in Los Angeles. The pair was awarded with the commission over some of the biggest names in the profession, such as Norman Foster and Renzo Piano (view the other five fantastical proposals here). They will transform the historic 1939 station and its surrounding 40 acres into a world-class, 21st century transportation hub that will host the future high-speed rail system that plans to connect L.A. and San Francisco.

The master planning process could take as little as 24 months. No surprise, considering both Gruen and Grimshaw have a great amount of experience with transit related projects. Gruen recently worked with Metro on the first phase of the Expo Line, while Grimshaw has extensive resume in Europe and is involved with the forthcoming Fulton Street Transit Center in Lower Manhattan, which is planned for completion in 2014.