A secondary school project in Gando, Burkina Faso, a community center project in São Paulo, Brazil, and an urban renewal plan in Berlin, Germany are the winners of the Global Holcim Awards for 2012. These leading sustainable construction projects were selected from 15 finalist submissions by a jury of independent experts led by Enrique Norten. The finalists were the regional Holcim Awards 2011 winning projects that had been selected from more than 6,000 entries in 146 countries.

All 53 prize-winning projects at the regional level also competed for further prizes based on their contributions to sustainable construction through innovative building materials and construction technologies. The Global Holcim Innovation prizes conferred by a jury of materials and industry experts led by Harry Gugger went to projects in Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Continue after the break to view the winning proposals!

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Filmed in 1921, Manhatta reveals a typical day in Lower Manhattan in the early part of the 20th century. Painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand created this silent film to discover the relationship between film and photography, while exploring their love to the City. Just as it is today, the City is amidst endless chaos.

David Chipperfield, Stirling Prize-winning architect and director of the 13th international Venice Biennale, has been commissioned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (PCHF) to renovate the Neue National Gallery. The 20th century icon was designed by the legendary Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who celebrated his 126th birthday this week.

Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said: “With David Chipperfield, I know this icon of modern architecture in the best hands. In working with him on the Museum Island, I learned the sensitivity in dealing with the architectural heritage and the conceptual clarity of his approach is greatly appreciated.”

Despite strong objections from the Eisenhower family, classical architects and many others, the Eisenhower Memorial Commission has issued a statement of support for Frank Gehry’s controversial Eisenhower Memorial design. The statement was signed by every member of the commission, including chairman Rocco Siciliano, vice chairman Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), both senators from President Eisenhower’s home state of Kansas, and five other members of Congress.

The commission’s letter reads, “Frank Gehry has followed the direction provided to him by this commission. He has also consulted with the Eisenhower Family. His design for the Memorial is exciting, creative and inspiring. It captures the life and the spirit – and commemorates the historic achievements – of Dwight Eisenhower as one of the greatest generals in human history and one of our finest presidents.”

Continue reading for more. 

Barcelona-based architect and scholar Alejandro Zaera-Polo has been selected as the next dean of Princeton University’s School of Architecture, where he has served as a visiting lecture since 2008. He is internationally known for his award-winning practice, Alejandro Zaera-Polo Architecture, his extensive academic experience and contributions to international publications, such as El Croquis, Quaderns, A+U, Arch+, Volume and Log.

He will succeed Brooklyn-based architect Stan Allen, who has served as the school’s dean since 2002. After the new appointment becomes effective on July 1, 2012, Allen plans to return to full-time teaching and architectural design after a yearlong sabbatical. As reported by Architectural Record, Allen stated, “We were looking for somebody who worked at a very high level as a designer-practitioner, but also approached architecture as an intellectual activity. There aren’t a lot of people like that out there.”

Here at ArchDaily, we are desperate to get our hands on the newly launched, second edition of The Modern Architecture Game. In 1999, NEXT Architects created the board game as the first project collaboration involving their four partners. Now, this revised version includes questions that “range across the breadth of modern world history”, allowing a broad and international group of architecture enthusiasts to test their knowledge of the greatest architects, their famous buildings and legendary quotes.

German architect Johann Bierkandt has shared with us his second-place winning proposal in the Classic Siftung Weimar international competition for the New Bauhaus Museum. His concept was praised by the jury for its clever integration into Weimarhallenpark through a series of small-scale pavilions that differentiates the museum from the surrounding context. Bierkandt‘s proposal is one of the final four designs still competing in the two-stage competition. The jury is expected to announce the winning design this summer. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Many of you may already be aware that Paul Rudolph’s iconic Orange County Government Center is at risk of being demolished. Leaky roofs and a damaging flood have convinced Orange Country executive director Eddie Diana to favor this dreadfully mundane neo-colonial office building over Rudolph’s Brutalist landmark. Cost is not an issue, as the price tag for the new building exceeds the cost to renovate the historical icon, and many understand the immense cultural value of preserving a legacy; however, this battle is nearing a loss and only solidarity will save it.

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) has launched a petition to oppose the demolition. With the Orange County Legislature deciding the fate of Rudolph’s building next month (May 3), it is important you sign the petition now. WMF needs to collect 20,000 signatures. Sign the petition here.

Based on 2010 Census results, the nation’s most densely populated urbanized area is Los Angeles/Anaheim/Long Beach, California, with nearly 7,000 people per square mile. Surprised? Not only did the Los Angeles area rank first, but of the ten most densely populated urbanized areas, nine are in the West, with seven of those in California. Continue reading for more.

Driven by the desire to find safe, carbon-neutral and sustainable alternatives to the incumbent structural materials of the urban world, Michael Green, Principal at Michael Green Architecture, has shared with us this highly-anticipated feasibility study, The Case for Tall Wood Buildings. The 200-page document encourages architects, engineers and designers to push the envelope of conventional thinking by demonstrating that wood is a viable material for tall and large buildings and exposing its environmental and economic benefits.

Co-author Michael Green explains, “To slow and contain greenhouse gas emissions and find truly sustainable solutions to building, we must look at the fundamentals of the way we build – from the bones of large urban building structures to the details of energy performance. We need to search for the big picture solutions of today’s vast climate, environmental, economic and world housing needs.”

Rotterdam-based practice BUBE has shared with us their third-place winning proposal in the Classic Siftung Weimar international competition for the New Bauhaus Museum. Three translucent cubes are clustered together in an effort to maximize open space and reorganize the site with a focus of intensifying the interactions between park and museum visitors. BUBE’s proposal is one of the final four designs still competing. The jury is expected to announce the winning design this summer. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Today we celebrate the 126th birthday anniversary of Mies van der Rohe! The German-born American architect and educator convinced us all with his glass-and-steel buildings that “less is more“. Mies helped defined modern architecture and is known as one of the 20th century’s greatest architects.

After many years spent fighting to preserve the famous Robin Hood Gardens social housing complex in East London, the architecture community mourns another loss. Tower Hamlets Council and the London Thames Gateway Development Corporations have approved the demolition of the 1960s Brutalist complex in an effort to make way for a new £500 million sustainable development comprised of energy efficient, mixed-tenure homes and an enlarged central park. The historic building was built by modernist architects Alison and Peter Smithson and remains an important piece to Great Britain’s architectural history. Continue reading for more.

In a single photograph, French photographer Franck Bohbot exposes the essence of each unique architectural masterpiece in a series entitled Respect the Architect that captures a telling moment within a variety of locations throughout Europe. Stylistically, the series embodies a homogeneous composition throughout while simultaneously revealing the unique story of each space. Bohbot embraces quasiperfect symmetry, creating a surreal quality and invoking a sense of curiosity with each image.

Continue after the break for more images. In case you missed it, be sure to check out this series: Parisian Theaters by Franck Bohbot.

Inspired by the local materials and culture of Mahabalipuram, an Indian fishing village famous for sculpture, American Artist Janet Echelman stumbled upon a material that would change her art, and life, forever. One evening, while observing the fishermen’s nightly routine of bundling their nets, Echelman imagined a new type of sculpture – a volumetric form that could be the scale of a large building but remain light enough to ripple in the wind, constantly reshaping the net and creating ever-changing patterns.

With a sophisticated mixture of ancient craft and modern technology, Echelman collaborates with a range of professionals including aeronautical and mechanical engineers, architects, lighting designers, landscape architects, and fabricators to transform urban environments world-wide with her net sculptures.

Continue after the break to view some of Echelman’s most famous projects.

Whether you would like to admit it or not, most of us share a similar fetish for Legos, Tinkertoys and any other awesome “childrens” toy that most likely helped us create our first “masterpiece”. Well, you will pleased to know that F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab have created the Free Universal Construction Kit: a matrix of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten popular children’s construction toys. By allowing any piece to join to any other, the Kit encourages totally new forms of connections between otherwise closed systems – enabling radically hybrid constructive play, the creation of previously impossible designs, and ultimately, more creative opportunities. As with other grassroots interoperability remedies, the Free Universal Construction Kit implements proprietary protocols in order to provide a public service unmet—or unmeetable—by corporate interests.

The Free Universal Construction Kit offers adapters between Lego®, Duplo®, Fischertechnik®, Gears! Gears! Gears!®, K’Nex®, Krinkles®, Bristle Blocks®, Lincoln Logs®, Tinkertoys®, Zome®, ZomeTool® and Zoob®. Adapters can be downloaded from Thingiverse.com and other sharing sites as a set of 3D models in .STL format, suitable for reproduction by personal manufacturing devices like the Makerbot (an inexpensive, open-source 3D printer).

While we are at it, don’t forget to try and win Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House from LEGO® Architecture! The giveaway closes Sunday, March 25th at 11:59 EST.

Yesterday, we announced the WTTW premier of the new 30-minute documentary, Architect Michael Graves: A Grand Tour. If you missed it, there is no need to worry. You can watch the documentary right here on ArchDaily! Host Geoffrey Baer takes you on a fascinating tour through Graves’ life and legacy, with in-depth tours inside some his famous works and commentary from many of his good friends, such as Peter Eisenman and Denise Scott Brown. Learn about the influences that shaped each chapter of Graves’ life, from the boy who aspired to be an artist, to modernism and The New York Five, then onto post modernism, product design and his most recent focus on health care.

The International jury, chaired by Prof. Jörg Friedrich (Hamburg), has awarded two second-place and two third-place prizes in the worldwide, open architectural design competition for the New Bauhaus Museum in Weimar. The purpose of the competition is to find an architecturally innovative, sustainable, energy-efficient and museologically sound solution for a new museum that takes full advantage of the urban-planning potential of the Weimarhallenpark. The announcement of the winners officially concludes the architectural design competition, in which 536 architectural offices around the world participated.

The two second-place prizes went to Johann Bierkandt (Landau) and the Architekten HKR (Klaus Krauss and Rolf Kursawe, Cologne). These prizes are worth 40,000 euros each. The two third-place prizes went to Prof. Heike Hanada with Benedikt Tonnon (Berlin) and Bube/Daniela Bergmann (Rotterdam). Each third prize comes with 30,000 euros in prize money. Three honorable mentions, worth 9,666 euros each, were awarded to the proposals by Karl Hufnagel Architekten (Berlin), hks Hestermann Rommel Architekten + Gesamtplaner GmbH (Erfurt), and menomenopiu architectures/Alessandro Balducci (Rome).

Continue after the break for more information and project descriptions.

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