Seattle’s Olson Kundig Architects has been tapped to design The Kirkland’s new headquarters in downtown Denver, just a block from Daniel Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum and Allied Works’ Clyfford Still Museum. The commission, which is expected to cost “tens of millions,” will double the museum’s gallery space and be used to display Colorado’s largest repository of art that includes a collection of 15,000 objects by Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Andy Warhol, Eero Saarinen, Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe.

New Zealand has appointed Auckland architect David Mitchell to serve as creative director and lead the country’s first participation at the 2014 Venice Biennale. Bridging from Rem Koolhaas' theme, "Fundamentals", Mitchell plans to exhibit New Zealand’s tradition of pacific-style architecture and light timber construction through a series of models.

“We’re going to show off some of the most unsung architecture in the world, our Pacific architecture,” described Mitchell. “It’s an architecture made out of poles, beams and panels and not out of heaps of rocks, bricks and tiles.”

When commissioned to design a church in Cebu, the oldest urban center of the Philippines, Carlos Arnaiz of CAZA hoped to create a “scared place that embodied the contemporary search for meaning.” Inspired by the world’s diversity, Arnaiz, together with his colleagues, envisioned the Chapel of San Pedro Calungsod, the “Church of 100 Walls.” Symbolic of “commonality and difference,” the church represents the many paths one may take through life and invites visitors to explore its many, distinct spaces made up of 100, uniquely-sized walls.

schmidt hammer lassen architects, in collaboration with Thomas Chow Architects, has won a commission to design a new Island School in Hong Kong. Envisioned as a “sustainable learning landscape,” the 28,000-square-meter, state-of-the-art facility aims to promote optimal learning through flexible classroom spaces and by establishing a deep connection with the surrounding landscape and local community.

André Chiote, a Portuguese architect renowned for designing illustrations that represent some of architecture’s most iconic buildings, has agreed to give five lucky winners a copy of their favorite print. To participate, browse through Chiote’s collection on his online shop and tell us which illustration you like the best in the comment section below.

You have until Wednesday, January 29th to submit your comments. Winners will be contacted the following day. Good luck! 

A team consisting of VPANG architects ltd, JET Architecture Inc and Lisa Cheung has been announced as winner of a competition to design an arts pavilion for the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (the "WKCDA") in Hong Kong. With completion planned for 2015, the pavilion is expected to be used as a small-scale exhibition and events space for independent artists and designers. It will also serve as the primary home for exhibitions and programs organized by M+, Hong Kong's museum for visual culture, before the completion of Herzog & de Meuron’s museum building in late 2017.

Following consistently increasing demand for design services throughout most of 2013, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) has posted its first consecutive months of contraction since May and June of 2012. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the December ABI score was 48.5, down from a mark of 49.8 in November. This score reflects a decrease in design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 59.2, up from the reading of 57.8 the previous month.

More highlights from the December ABI, after the break…

Naqsh,E,Jahan-Pars (NJP), in collaboration with the Laboratorio di Architettura e Design (LAD), has been named winner of an international competition for the Iranian Pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo. Based on “a living process narrative in the central plateau of Iran,” the winning scheme responds to the Expo’s “Feeding the Planet” theme by exposing the underground channels of water that give life to Iran’s many desert cities.

This proposal by architects Bence Pap and Mario Gasser of Studio Greg Lynn / University of Applied Arts Vienna has been ranked fourth in an international competition for the Austrian Pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo. Inspired by the Expo’s theme, “We feed the World – Energy for Life,” the pavilion aims to highlight Austria’s rich culture of craft and agriculture by offering a two-story experience that exhibits goods unique to the country.

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Miami Beach city commissioners have unanimously agreed to abandon the $1 billion redevelopment of its 52-acre convention center district, which aimed to radically reinvent the area. This decision comes just six months after the city awarded developer South Beach ACE and OMA the bid after an international, highly-publicized competition that pitted OMA against BIG.

“For the purposes of getting this project done fast, on time, on budget, it’s unfortunate that we’ll have to make a very tough, challenging decision,” said Miami Beach Mayer Philip Levine, “To some people, it’s a little disheartening. To other people, it’s a very fresh start.”

As reported by the Miami Herald, the city plans to reinstate a bid for the renovation of the city-owned convention center as well as another for the development of a nearby hotel. Under the new bid, the city will no longer be required to attain 60 percent of voter approval to build. By doing this, Levine believes the renovation will be expedited.

The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) have selected nine projects for the 2014 Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture. Recognized as some of the most “outstanding building interiors created by architects licensed in the United States,” these projects will be honored at the AIA 2014 National Convention and Design Exposition in Chicago.