In today’s uncertain times, higher education needs to evolve along with the high-speed, changing market where young designers develop. For this reason, IE’s School of Architecture & Design combines online and onsite training based in Madrid and London. This structure is designed for professionals that wish to learn by doing and have the desire to take on the master while they continue to work.

The MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House in Los Angeles presents City in a City: a Decade of Urban Thinking by Steven Holl Architects. The exhibition opens with a reception and panel discussion on Wednesday, January 29, and Steven Holl will give a public lecture on Thursday evening, January 30. The exhibition runs through March 9, 2014.

This new exhibition of the work of Steven Holl Architects presents six urban projects in China, designed with particular focus on shaping public space, natural green strategies, hybrid programs, structure and light. Included are three built works: Linked Hybrid in Beijing, Vanke Center/Horizontal Skyscraper in Shenzhen, and Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, as well as three yet to be built works: Porosity Plan in Dongguan, Eco-City in Tianjin, and the Qingdao Culture and Art Center. Concept watercolors of each building will be on view along with project models and construction documents. Also featured are short videos of the built works. The exhibition is arranged chronologically from 2002-2013 through the rooms of the Schindler House, making physical the journey through a decade of thinking.

IE School of Architecture and Design has reached an agreement with WAYRA TELEFÓNICA to organize a Design Challenge with the students of the Master in Work Space Design.

The challenge will consist in looking for ideas to re-design their astonishing 12.000 square foot premises located in the 8th floor of the historic building of Telefónica in Gran Vía, the heart of Madrid.

WAYRA is a start-up accelerator belonging to IT giant TELEFÓNICA, with presence in more than twelve countries through their network of WAYRA Academies, where they host and mentor young startups for a year.

What would happen if a structure could transform in real‐time? AA Athens Visiting School embarks on its’ third cycle to address issues of change, adaptation and interaction in the design of an enclosed volume. In this time of social, economic, and environmental uncertainty, it's a quality for the built environment to regard transformation as a way of practice.

Revolutions have occurred through architectural history and vary widely in terms of design methods and fabrication techniques. Focusing on inspiring natural form‐finding techniques, AA Athens VS works towards producing a large‐scale interactive prototype that alters in real‐time the perception of interior space.

Opened to a full house, last year, at the Design Exchange in downtown Toronto, Considering the Quake: Seismic Design on the Edge, explores the elegant, and oftentimes, elusive intersection between the aesthetics of architectural form and the technicality of structural design, through the lens of earthquake engineering. Curated by Professor Ghyslaine McClure, P.Eng and founded/curated by Dr. Effie Bouras, of the McGill University Department of Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics, this exhibit emerged from their research on the resiliency of emergency shelters and civil protection buildings, such as schools and hospitals, in earthquake zones throughout the world.

Envisioned as a "science center" for design, the exhibition, which is tailored not only for the architecture and engineering communities, but an invested public as well, will feature full-sized seismic technology utilized in buildings, architectural and structural models, seismic testing videos, including clips from Tomas Koolhaas’ new documentary titled REM, and a 500N shake table from North American Wave Spectrum Science and Trade Inc.

Nemetschek Vectorworks, Inc. in collaboration with MAXON Computer, DOSCH DESIGN, Arroway Textures®, and AMD FireProTM professional graphics recently held the 2013 “Your World, Reimagined” global design competition, in which professional and student designers were asked to tackle an old, dilapidated or run-down locale and redesign it for a new, improved use. Entries ranged in focus from adaptive reuse to landscape reclamation and object redesign, and Maryn Hekker, a freelance interior architect from Amsterdam, won the Best Overall Submission award for her redesign of “The Pier of Scheveningen.”

Hekker began studying interior architecture and spatial design at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam in 2008, but temporarily left her studies to pursue traveling. In 2010, she worked as a junior designer at Horecawerf Amsterdam and continued her travels thereafter through Asia, New Zealand and Australia in 2011. Upon her return, she reenrolled at the Willem de Kooning Academy and received her bachelor of design degree in interior architecture and spatial design in 2013. Her final graduation project was also nominated for the Drempel and BNI prizes.

Where does Hekker find inspiration for her designs? “I get inspired by the world around me: shapes, buildings ... But I always use myself as a starting point: what do I want to see or feel here, what do I expect?” she says. “This helps to find out what others would require of a place.”

Profiled Firm: Division1 Architects
Location: Washington, DC and New York, NY, USA

When Ali Reza Honarkar faced conservative college professors in the 1990s who emphasized the importance of honoring architecture’s past in his designs, he felt conflicted. He understood that a historical foundation was important, but young Honarkar also felt unduly confined by the approach.

It was during these formative years that his desire to stretch the limits and do things differently was born, and it’s a trait that remains central to how he and his team approach projects today at Division1 Architects in Washington, DC, which he co-founded in 1994, as a provocative response to both a failing economy and what he viewed as the stagnant design culture in the Washington metropolitan area.

Architects have been invited to submit expressions of interest in designing The Crystal Palace as a new cultural destination for London in the spirit, scale and magnificence of the original. Plans to invest £500 million in rebuilding The Crystal Palace and restoring the surrounding public park were announced in October by ZhongRong Group, with the support of the Mayor of London and the Bromley Council.

The new culture-led exhibition and employment space will sit at the top of the 180-acre Crystal Palace Park in south London. It will incorporate the listed Italian style terraces, and other Victorian heritage within the park, fully restored for the public. The project is expected to create more than 2000 permanent and temporary jobs as well as attracting wider investment into the local high streets and the wider economy.