Chicago has long been a center of design. The third-most populous city in the United States with one of the world's largest and most diversified economies, the Windy City is a hub for commerce, transportation and culture. Chicago has continuously redefined hospitality architecture long before the pandemic, and the city will once again take stock as it looks to reimagine the future of travel and entertainment.

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Hospitals and projects related to healthcare must follow specific guidelines based on the rules and regulations of their country. These standards help us to design complex spaces, such as those located in areas of surgery, hospitalization, diagnostics, laboratories, and including areas and circulations that are clean, dirty, restricted or public, which create a properly functioning building.

There are a few spaces that we, as architects, can develop with great ease and freedom of design: waiting rooms, reception areas, and outdoor spaces. These are spaces where architects can express the character of the hospital. To jump-start you into this process, we have selected 43 projects that show us how creativity and quality of a space go hand-in-hand with functionality. 

Home automation, or Domotics, is a set of technologies applied to a residence to control lighting, climate, entertainment systems, and appliances. Its systems allow for efficient management of energy consumption, security, accessibility, and the general comfort of the building, becoming an important issue to consider when designing, building, and living.

Domotic systems are based on the collection of data by sensors, which are then processed to issue precise orders to the executors, varying the environmental quality of each enclosure according to the needs of the user. The pace of current life and the technological advances we have experienced in recent years have led to new ways of living, motivating the design of homes and more human, multifunctional and flexible buildings. What was once a luxury is now a feasible and effective solution for all types of projects.

In this article, we've compiled a collection of smart homes where domotics have been used.

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Videos

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Architect Magazine has unveiled the 2017 edition of the “Architect 50,” their list of the 50 best architecture firms in the United States. The 2017 rankings are based on scores from three categories: business, design and sustainability. This year saw more entrants than ever before, with several first-time entrants making notable impressions, including the number 1 ranked design firm, WORKac. Topping the overall list was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), who also ranked in the top 10 in both design and sustainability.

See the top 10 from each category after the break.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has revealed the list of 9 architects selected for their 2018 RIBA International Fellowships program, established to "reward the particular contributions non-UK architects have made to architecture." In addition, 14 individuals from diverse backgrounds have been named honorary fellows.

Read on after the break for the full Fellowship lists

Jeanne Gang has been selected as the recipient of the 2017 Louis Kahn Memorial Award, an annual prize established by the Philadelphia Center for Architecture and Design in 1983 to recognize “an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of architecture,” while honoring one of the city’s most influential architects.

Previous winners of the award include Bjarke Ingels, Norman Foster, Peter Bohlin, Daniel Libeskind, Robert A.M. Stern, Rafael Viñoly and César Pelli.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) have named 18 architectural and interior projects as recipients of the 2017 Institute Honor Awards, the profession’s highest recognition for excellence in design.

According to the AIA, “the 2017 Architecture program celebrates the best contemporary architecture regardless of budget, size, style, or type. These stunning projects show the world the range of outstanding work architects create and highlight the many ways buildings and spaces can improve our lives.”

The awarded projects were selected from nearly 700 submissions. The winners will be honored at the 2017 AIA National Convention in Orlando.

Today, the MacArthur Foundation announced the 23 recipients of their 2016 MacArthur Fellowship Grants, which are awarded annually “to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations.” Each fellowship comes with a stipend of $625,000 for the recipients to use for individual pursuits, paid out in equal quarterly installments over a five year period. Fellows are selected based on 3 criteria: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.

This year’s fellows include artists, playwrights, geobiologists, poets, jewelrymakers, novelists and historians, but, for the fifth straight year, no architects. In the program’s 36 year history, just 6 recipients have come from architecture-related fields.

Studio Gang has been selected to design next year’s installation of the Summer Block Party at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. The temporary exhibition will be the latest in the Museum’s annual series, after this year’s ICEBERGS by James Corner Field Operations, and previous installations like Snarkitecture’s The BEACH in 2015, and Bjarke Ingels Group’s BIG Maze in 2014.

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The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Library Association (ALA) have selected seven projects to receive the 2016 AIA/ALA Library Building Awards. This awards program was developed to encourage and recognize excellence in the architectural design of libraries, reflecting the evolving role of the library as a community space.

The seven recipients of the AIA/ALA Library Building Awards are:

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