Architects in Mission (AIM) recently announced the winners for their 2013 competition with the topic, Post Earthquake Reconstruction, Ya’an Sichuan - Rebuild Panda’s Hometown from the Earthquake. The Ya'an Earthquake occurred at 08:02 Beijing Time on the 20th April 2013. The epicenter was located in Lushan County, Ya'an, Sichuan, about 116km (or 72 miles) from Chengdu (along the Longmenshan Fault) in the same province that was hit heavily by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. For this year's competition, AIM asked participants to pay particular attention to the master planning of the Snow Mountain Village, whilst developing new business models to encourage economic growth for local villagers. See the four winning entries after the break.

The Emerging New York Architects (ENYA) committee of the AIA New York Chapter has announced the winners of its 2014 biennial design ideas competition, QueensWay Connection: Elevating the Public Realm. In an effort to imagine the ways in which The Trust for Public Land and Friends of the Queensway could transform an abandoned railway in Central Queens into a vibrant urban greenway, entrants were challenged to design a vertical gateway for the elevated viaduct portion of a 3.5 mile stretch along the rail.

Of the 120 submitted proposals from 28 countries, the jury selected the following winners to represent the diverse array of ideas generated:

UPDATE: The winning images will go on show February 28th in London at the "Building Images: The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards 2013" exhibition. They will remain on view through April 25th inside a renovated factory on 7–9 Woodbridge Street.

The Architectural Photography Awards, hosted by Arcaid Images, have announced the winner, runner-up and shortlisted images for this year's best architecture photos. A distinguished panel architects and editors that included Catherine Slessor, Eva Jiricna, Zaha Hadid, Ivan Harbour and Graham Stirk were asked to look beyond architecture and into composition, atmosphere and scale to ultimately judge four categories of images: Interiors, Exteriors, Sense of Place and Building In Use. Their selections reflect this vision admirably.

Long Island’s downtowns have more than 4,000 acres of surface area dedicated to parking lots. That’s roughly 6.5 square miles of prime real estate, a phenomenon quite common in most American cities. When necessary, these lots are often exchanged for a standard “set of concrete shelves” that share little to no connection with their surroundings. This leads to the question, why must parking garages be so monofunctional and, well, ugly?

To help solve this nationwide issue, the Long Island Index challenged four leading architectural firms to envision a more innovative way to free up surface lot space in four Long Island communities.

See what they came up with, after the break...

The results for the latest Young Architects Competition (YAC), Post-Quake Visions, have been announced. The competition aimed to discover innovative ways to overcome the effects of a seismic catastrophe over a medieval Mediterranean town. Participants were encouraged to rethink and redesign the quake-inflicted gaps left inside ancient urban tissues. With 356 enrolled teams comprising of 808 designers, see the winning results and Gold Mentions after the break.

The results from the first brief of Think Space's MONEY themed cycle of competitions, Territories, have been announced. David Garcia (MAP Architects), juror of the Territories competition, invited participants to send in proposals "that tackle the present economic and territorial challenges in the present and future of the Arctic lands." See them all, after the break...

Winners of the 'GIFT' (Green Innovation Future Technology) Ideas Competition in Hong Kong have been selected by a panel of judges representing Hong Kong Science Park (HKSTPC), local government, and private organizations. The winning proposals best displayed the aim of the competition: to create an innovative and iconic architecture; design a low-carbon emissions building that promotes sustainable strategies and lifestyles; nurture and uncover new local talent, and to create a scheme that unifies the Park's development.

Review the winning proposals after the break...

The London Cinema Challenge, organized by Combo Competitions, challenged participants to design a new cinema located on Newman Street in central London which should "reflect the participants’ ideas of the cinematic experience in the near future." The scope of the proposal, along with the extravagance of the idea, was decided by the individual competitors with the only criterion being that the design provided a space to watch movies. In addition to the cinema, each proposal had to include a "unique feature helping to serve the main purpose" of the building. Whether "an intimate screening room for indie films, or a commercial multi-storey cinema complex showing blockbusters," the winning proposals demonstrate an array of unique ideas.

Operation Resilient Long Island (ORLI) has just announced the winners of its 3C: Comprehensive Coastal Communities ideas competition. Entrants were asked to design solutions that were not just resilient but also contextually sensitive and pragmatic to the devastating aftermath of Super-storm Sandy as well as all future natural disasters. Over 60 submissions were received from 20 different countries and 32 finalists were engaged in a public education strategy through a public voting campaign. A jury panel of eight leading professionals in the fields of architecture, urban planning and disaster mitigation met in mid-September to review the top finalists and selected 3 winners.

The 2013 winners of the 3C Competition are:

In attempts to better define what it really means to be green, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, in partnership with Make it Right, has selected products from ten companies as finalists in the Product Innovation Challenge. 144 applicants were screened by toxicologists and building professionals, proposing new alternatives from insulation grown from fungi and bricks from living organisms, to roofing made from waste limestone and recycled plastic. The ten finalists represent the shared values of practical sustainability and entrepreneurship, creating "a building product that is safe, healthy, affordable, effective and designed to be returned safely to nature or industry after use."

Three winners will ultimately be announced on November 15, 2013 at the Institute's Innovation Celebration in New York City, offering a $250,000 cash prize: $125,000 for first place, $75,000 for second and $50,000 for third. The jury members, who include executives from Google, US Green Building Council and the Schmidt Family Foundation, will judge each product based on five categories: material health, material reutilization, water stewardship, renewable energy and social fairness.

Without further ado, the 10 finalists are…

SANAA, it is. In attempts to separate itself from its sister cities, Taichung City has named SANAA, led by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, winners of an international competition that intends to unite a newly formed city. As of December 2010, Taichung city executed a mega-merger that increased its population from 1 million inhabitants to 2.5 million, encompassing the skyscraping towers of downtown Taichung to the agricultural mountainside villages of Taichung County. As a result, the local government envisioned a new urban space that would place art at its core, celebrating the regions' disparate cultures.

Rock Ventures LLC and Bedrock Real Estate Services has announced the winners of Opportunity Detroit’s international design competition which solicited ideas for a potential signature project on the former Hudson’s Department Store site in downtown Detroit. The three winning design ideas came from Rome, Italy; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Southfield, Michigan. More images and information on the winning entries after the break.

Organized by the Polytechnic Museum Development Foundation, the team of MASSIMILIANO FUKSAS Architetto (Italy) and SPEECH (Russia) was recently announced the winner of Architectural Concepts Competition for the Museum and Educational Center of the Polytechnic Museum and Lomonosov Moscow State University. The challenge was to create a museum and educational center for demonstrating most recent scientific and technological discoveries using state-of-the-art multimedia technologies for accommodating multiple displays and exhibitions as well as for conducting scientific educational programs. More images and information on the winning team and finalists after the break.

Organized in 2006 by eVolo Magazine the Skyscraper Competition recognizes outstanding ideas for vertical living. After reviewing more than 600 projects from 83 different countries, the winners for the eVolo 2013 Skyscraper Competition have just been announced.

First place was awarded to Derek Pirozzi from the United States, currently an intern at Olson Kundig Architects. Second place went to Darius Maïkoff and Elodie Godo, from France. And third place was awarded to Ting Xu and Yiming Chen from China. Check the images and more info on the winners after the break.