Magazine

Metsä Group, Aalto University, and the Finnish Ministry of the Environment have announced the winners of the Urban Adaptation competition, which asked architects and students to design adaptable modular buildings made from wood. John Hill

Constructed of approximately 100,000 black LEGO bricks, artist Ekow Nimako's Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE is an Afrofuturist cityscape that "celebrates the cultures of the African diaspora" and is a new addition to the Aga Khan Museum's permanent collection. John Hill

The 760-page Atlas of Digital Architecture is an ambitious reference book about the myriad ways architects use computers. With contributions by two-dozen experts in the digitization of architecture and hundreds upon hundreds of illustrations, the book is a nearly complete picture of the... John Hill

US President Joe Biden has revoked Executive Order 13967, "Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture," that former President Donald Trump signed on December 18, 2020, one month before the end of his term. John Hill

The Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Danish Arts Foundation (DAF) have announced the winning team for DAF Open Call, a commission for Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood that is part of the fourth Biennial opening in September. John Hill

"A stealthy reimagining of urban public space" is the new TED Talk by architect Elizabeth Diller, partner at New York's Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The ten-minute video, which discusses a few projects in New York and Moscow, is Diller's third TED Talk since 2007. John Hill

Two years after Diller Scofidio + Renfro's competition-winning design was unveiled, the Centre for Music at the Barbican has been cancelled, with the City of London focusing on refurbishing the Barbican Centre instead. John Hill

Longwood Gardens, founded by Pierre S. du Pont more than 100 years ago on 1,100 acres west of Philadelphia, has unveiled Longwood Reimagined: A New Garden Experience, a transformation of its core area of conservatory gardens, with a short film. John Hill

TECLA is a project developed by Mario Cucinella Architects and WASP (World Advanced Saving Project) that addresses the housing crisis through 3D printing. Construction is underway on a prototype near Bologna, Italy. John Hill

A Story for the Future is a new exhibition that sees MAXXI, the contemporary art museum in Rome, looking back at its first decade of existence. Inside Outside, the Dutch firm of Petra Blaisse, designed the immersive exhibition as a response to the curved walls of the museum's Zaha Hadid... John Hill

The Tainan Public Library, designed by Dutch firm Mecanoo and Taiwan's MAYU architects, opened last month in Tainan City, in southern Taiwan. John Hill

A team led by James Corner Field Operations, the landscape architecture firm behind New York's High Line, has won the competition to transform an unused railway in London into the Camden Highline. John Hill

London's National Gallery has announced its "NG200" plans, which include reconfiguring parts of The Sainsbury Wing, designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in 1991, leading up to the museum's 2024 bicentennial. John Hill

Anime Architecture, the new book from curator Stefan Riekeles, presents hundreds of backgrounds from eight classics of Japanese animation. The stunning book immerses readers into the "imagined worlds and endless megacities" of Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Metropolis,... John Hill

The UOP Fragrances Factory, designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano before the duo won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in 1973, has been demolished. John Hill

The Hudson River Park Trust has unveiled plans for Gansevoort Peninsula, a 5.5-acre project that will include Manhattan's first public beach. Designed by James Corner Field Operations, it is located one block from the southern tip of the High Line. John Hill

Francis Kéré's design of the new national assembly building to be located in Porto-Novo, the capital of Benin, was inspired by the palaver tree, "the age-old West African tradition of meeting under a tree to make consensual decisions in the interest of a community." John Hill

In December the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) named seven regional winners of the 2020 Young Champions of the Earth prize. Engineer Nzambi Matee, of Nairobi's Gjenge Makers, won for Africa, for a machine that turns discarded plastic into paving stones. John Hill

As announced by the Obama Foundation on February 3rd, the years-long federal review process of plans to build the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side is complete, meaning the project will break ground later this year. John Hill

The Vilcek Foundation, which "raises awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences," has partnered with artist Hiroki Otsuka on a series of manga devoted to Vilcek Prize recipients. The first is about architect Denise Scott Brown,... John Hill

Adelaide’s Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre (AACC) has released updated renderings of its proposed 11,500 square meter building designed by New York's Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Australia's Woods Bagot. John Hill

Three years after Amazon opened The Spheres at its downtown Seattle headquarters, the tech company has unveiled The Helix, part of its new HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia. NBBJ is the architect for both biophilic designs. John Hill

Aeon Video has posted "A Little Piece of Earth," a short film by director Ryan Malloy that profiles Charles Bello, an 86-year-old architect who lives an off-the-grid life on 400 acres in Northern California. John Hill

A list of 449 works nominated for the 2022 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award has been released. A second list of nominees will follow in the fall in response to the coronavirus pandemic and a lengthening of the biennial award's timeline accordingly. John Hill

For the second year in a row, a building on Chicago's South Side has received the most votes in our Building of the Year poll on American-Architects.com. In 2019 it was an academic building at Illinois Tech. For 2020 it's the dynamic orange building that Juan Moreno's firm, JGMA, designed for... John Hill

The World Around's annual summit was held on Saturday, January 30, at the Guggenheim Museum, where the organization is in residence this year. Recorded presentations and live discussions were broadcast to the strictly online audience. John Hill

The Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) has announced that the DAM Preis for Architecture in Germany 2021 has been awarded to MVRDV and N-V-O Nuyken von Oefele Architekten for WERK12, a five-story mixed-use building near Munich's Ost station. John Hill

In which we take a look inside Formgiving, the new monograph on BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, in the context of the three monographs the firm has produced with Taschen over the last twelve years. John Hill

A new half-hour documentary from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art profiles architects Søren Johansen and Sebastian Skovsted, whose Copenhagen studio is "a rising star of the architecture scene in Northern Europe." John Hill

The iconic high-tech building designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers will close from late 2023 until 2027, the same year the Parisian institution will celebrate its 50th anniversary. John Hill

The deadline for voting for the US Building of the Year is January 31. The winner that you decide will be announced on the first day of February online and in our World Newsletter. John Hill

Scottish architect Kate Macintosh and Ghanaian-Scottish architect, academic, and novelist Lesley Lokko are this year’s recipients of the Jane Drew Prize and Ada Louise Huxtable Prize, respectively, part of the W Awards given out by The Architectural Review and Architects’... John Hill

The coronavirus pandemic may have kept New Yorkers from traveling to London last year, but it didn't stop the transatlantic collaboration that resulted in a timber pavilion recently built on a residential rooftop. Made from dozens of interlocking curved timber tiles, the canopy designed by New... John Hill

Architect Petr Hájek recently completed a pet crematorium inserted into an old military bunker about a one-hour drive from Prague. Named Věčná loviště (Hunting Grounds), the crematorium is hidden behind a new wall of mirrors that reflects nature and adds, in the architect's words, "a... John Hill

The current demolition of the former headquarters of the Burroughs Wellcome company in Durham, North Carolina, designed by Paul Rudolph in the early 1970s, alerted us to a three-year-old short film capturing skateboarders traversing the futuristic building. John Hill

Winners in the seven awards and competition programs of the Tamayouz Excellence Award for 2020 have been announced. Established in 2012, the awards draw attention to architecture in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. John Hill