With over a million people watching Atlantis’ trip to the International Space Station, today marked the 135th and final lift off of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program. A monumental occasion or as NASA commentator said, a “sentimental journey into history”, the end of America’s 30-year shuttle program also opens the door to ask, what is next for the future of space travels?

We are sharing with you Foster + Partners design for The New Mexico Spaceport Authority Building, currently under construction and set for 2011 completion. Winning an international competition in 2006 with team members URS Corporation and SMPC Architects, Foster + Partners created a design concept fit for the first private spaceport in the world. A sinuous shape, the building morphs from the landscape creating interior spaces that seek to capture the drama and mystery of space flight itself, articulating the thrill of space travel for the first space tourists.

Renderings and construction photographs following the break.

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Tulane University’s School of Architecture program has joined forces with IBM Intelligent Buildings Management and Johnson Controls to develop a Smarter Building pilot program.  Tulane’s first project aims to transform Richardson Memorial Hall, home of the School of Architecture, into a living laboratory.  The retrofit of this historic building will not just create a more efficiently adapted building but will also provide an opportunity for architecture students to gain a unique skill set coupled with practical experience.

Little Tokyo Design Week: Future City (LTDW) celebrates the power and energy of cutting edge design and technology emerging from Japan and its intersection with current trends materializing in Los Angeles. The four day festival open to the public, July 14th to July 17th, will present a series of programs that integrate Little Tokyo’s Big Three cultural institutions (Japanese American National Museum (JANM), Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC), and The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, community partners, retailers, and restaurants and will engage local and international designers, artists, architects, filmmakers, corporations, and students from the Southern California region to explore possible scenarios for a ‘New Urban Lifestyle.’ LTDW is produced in collaboration with Community Arts Resources (CARS). More information can be found here.

A 30-day Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the continued development of + Pool is underway. From the creative minds at Family and PlayLab, + Pool is a collaboration to design a floating riverwater pool for everyone in the rivers of New York City. Beginning the next phase of the project, material testing and design, the online fundraising campaign hopefully will raise the initial $25,000 needed to begin physically testing the filtration membranes providing results to determine the best filtration membranes and methods to provide clean and safe riverwater for the public to swim in. A preliminary engineering feasibility report was initially conducted by Arup New York, which assessed the water quality, filtration, structural, mechanical and energy systems of + Pool.

Family and PlayLab launched a Kickstarter online fundraising campaign this month with the ultimate goal of generating enough support to prototype the filtration system by building a full-scale working mockup of the one section of + Pool. Research, design, testing and development will continue through the year in conjunction with permitting, approvals and building partnerships with community, municipal, commercial and environmental organizations.

Donation levels for the Kickstarter campaign range from $1 to $10,000 with the hope that everyone interested in cleaner public waterways can get involved. Donors can choose from a variety of incentives and gear up for a day at the pool. For more information about the project and the campaign or to donate click here. Or write to info@pluspool.org.

Follow the break for more details about this project and the history of floating pools in New York City, which date back to the early 19th century.

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Jason Zytynsky

Designed by MAD Architects, the Absolute Towers located in Toronto, Canada are nearing completion, and we are sharing with you the latest under construction photographs byJason Zytynsky. Serving as a gateway to the city beyond, the towers’ facade contains a continuous balcony wrapping the entire building. In 2006 MAD Architects competed and won the international competition to design the towers.

More images after the break.

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The Academy of Art University, the nation’s largest private accredited art and design university, continues to grow their Landscape Architecture program. Earlier this year the University announced the addition of the School of Landscape Architecture with an accredited Associate’s (AA) and Bachelor’s (BFA) degree programs as well as continuing art education courses. Now the Academy of Art will additionally launch both a 3-year and 4-year MFA degree program. For more information about the new MFA program click here.

Located just outside of the Connaught Hotel in London’s Mayfair district is Tadao Ando’s latest work. The iconic Japanese architect’s water installation is best described as ‘liquid sliding over glass lenses’. The pool surface is covered with a series of glass lenses that sit just below the water, and on intervals steam arises nearly masking the mature trees that sit within the installation. Ando’s piece is one of the most recent additions to Mayfair which has experienced numerous refurbishment projects creating a resurgence in this part of the city.

The New York City Design Commission held the 29th Annual Awards for Excellence in Design earlier this week at the recently renovated Museum of the Moving Image. Eleven public projects received this honor of distinction, which range from an animal shelter and a salt shed to a children’s museum and a library. Selected by an 11 member jury from hundreds of submissions the recipients ‘exemplify the highest standard of design’. A complete list of winners can be found following the break.

Courtesy of sTARTT

“WHATAMI”, winner of the 2011 Young Architect Program at the MAXXI, is beginning to take shape. This summer installation is situated within the exterior spaces of the museum and is the result of a partnership between MoMA’s P.S.1 and the National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome. Simultaneously Interboro Partners‘ “Holding Pattern” will on display at the MoMA in New York and sTARTT’s winning design “WHATAMI” at Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI.

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Back in February we shared with you that part of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address focused on highlighting future plans for making American businesses more energy efficient. The Better Buildings Initiative (BBI) that the President proposed would invest in innovative clean energy technologies, aiming to increase energy efficiency in commercial by 20 percent in the next ten years.

Today the AIA New York Chapter will award Daniel Libeskind, AIA, with the 2011 Medal of Honor. The 144th Annual Meeting, which is open to the public, will take place at the Center for Architecture. The Medal of Honor has been given to a member or firm for distinguished work and high professional standing. Beginning in 1917 this award is the highest honor and past recipients include Louis Skidmore (1949), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1958), Toshikio Mori (2005) and David Childs (2010).

For more information or to attend click here.

Several hundred guests joined Daniel Libeskind in a ceremony last Friday as he laid the foundation stone of the Kö-Bogen building along with Dusseldorf’s Lord Mayor Dirk Elbers, investor Kurt Zech of Zech Group, and project developer Stefan H. Muehling. The stainless steel foundation stone, designed by Libeskind, will be visibly integrated into the facade of the building.

The new 432,300 sqf mixed use building is scheduled for completion in 2013 will house both office and retail space in downtown Dusseldorf. The design of Kö-Bogen intends to naturally blend landscape into the building space through geometry, permeated cuts in the facade, the green courtyards, and green roof system. All of these elements are ‘part of a new environment that bridges urban space with park space’.

The Pharrell Williams Resource Center is a design that represents the future for youth centers. The treehouse concepts aims to inspire future generations through architecture providing a place where kids can escape and imagine. A unique combination of architect Chad Oppenheim of Oppenheim Architecture + Design and musical impressario Pharrell Williams they are hoping that this youth center will set a new standard for the way the world builds for its future. “We’re creating an environment to house creativity,” said Chad about his design. “Pharrell is a visionary renaissance man, and this center is a reflection of his passion for education and natural design sensibility.” The PWRC is slated for completion by 2013.

Overlooking the Port of Marseille in the Fort Saint-Jean the MuCEM, was designed by Rudy Ricciotti. This major cultural project is dedicated to the cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean, housing collections of the former Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions in the Bois de Boulogne alson with collections from the Museum of Man in Paris’ Europe department.

The video by Exmagina was shot at the beginning of May, 2011 for DUMEZ Mediterranean. The music accompaniment is Ludwig Von Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Architect: Rudy Ricciotti Construction: Méditterannée Dumez / Freyssinet

Update: The MuCEM inauguration will take place this week. Our friends from Lafarge, whose products were used in the construction of the museum, shared with us some photographs of the finished museum. See them after the break.

Hosting the 6th Annual Green Homes and Sustainable Communities Conference, the city of New Orleans will bring together a variety of individuals from financiers and policy makers to developers and technical experts all focused on redefining affordable housing and community development. In addition to the symposium’s national focus, this year’s event will highlight some of the Gulf Coast’s most innovative green affordable housing projects. The Green Homes and Sustainable Communities Conference will be next month, July 14th and 15th, further details can be found here.

West 57th, BIG’s design of a New York apartment building for client Durst Fetner Residential, takes shape in model form in this video. On display at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the model is part of Living: Frontiers of Architecture III-IV exhibition. The exhibition which opened the first of this month and will run through October 2nd ‘is full of impressions and insights into the multiple ways we live in the world today’.

This video by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation features an hour long conversation with Frank Gehry. Discussing topics ranging from characteristics of a good client to his current Guggenheim project in Abu Dhabi we hope you enjoy listening to Gehry’s responses to these questions and more.

The community based winning design for the 2011 Young Architects Program at the P.S.1, “Holding Pattern” by Interboro Partners, shared photographs of the installations canopy raising which took place last Thursday at MoMA. The New York firm, formed by Tobias Armborst, Daniel D’Oca, and Georgeen Theodore, were able to creatively accomplish the design within the Young Architects Program’s budget and program requirements, stretching the funds to essentially serve two purposes; as the materials will be recycled, donating the objects such as ping pong tables, benches, and flood lights, to the community at the end of the installation. ”Holding Pattern” will welcome visitors beginning June 19th.

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