Architects: BAUEN Location: Luque, Paraguay Architect In Charge: Aldo Cristaldo Kegler Project Year: 2012 Project Area: 600 sqm Photographs: Marcelo Jiménez, Mónica Matiauda

Construction has commenced on the world’s largest dome roof at Singapore’s National Stadium. Once completed in 2014, the Arup-designed structure will provide shelter to the 55,000 seat stadium and surrounding ticketed community spaces in the heart of the 35ha sports precinct. Singapore’s National Stadium will be the only stadium in the world, custom-built to host football, rugby, cricket and athletic events in one venue.

The simple geometric form of the ultra-thin, retractable dome spans 310m and is designed to use only a fraction of the energy required for an equivalent fully enclosed stadium. Continue after the break to learn more.

For the 13th Venice Biennale, Norman Foster was invited to create two exhibitions. On the one hand, there’s Central Pavilion, “Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank HQ”, specifically commissioned by David Chipperfield, which presents how a public space, created by physically lifting a tower to make a space at its base, has been used by people over time.

On the other hand, we find“Gateway.” Located at the beginning of the Arsenale, it is one of the first spaces the public encounters at the Biennale. In this installation, viewers are presented with an intense dose of images and words, representing different types of buildings and spaces, criss-crossed with the names of the architects, designers and planners that have influenced our built environment over the years.

We had the chance to interview Norman Foster, who tells us more about “Gateway” in this video. Full interview coming tomorrow!

More about this exhibit after the break:

The British band Muse has just released the video clip for the single “Isolated System” from their latest album “The Second Law” alluding to the thermodynamic theory.

By Linda Bennett, for Archi-Ninja

Initially, Architecture School was overwhelming. In my early assignments I struggled to learn the new design ‘language,’ to manage the intense studio hours (goodbye to mum and dad for a while), and deal with the tough criticism – with barely a passing mark, I was lucky to make it through my 1st year! Then there were the ‘super-students,’ those who appeared to achieve the unattainable: draw in plan, section AND perspective, as well as eloquently communicate and sell their ideas.

Six years on from this tough beginning I graduated with high distinction, achieving the highest overall aggregated marks of all students in the areas of History, Theory, Construction, Practice and Design. I was the University of Technology (UTS) winner of the most Outstanding Design Student in 2010, awarded a scholarship to study in L.A. and was also nominated by UTS for the NSW Architects Medallion in 2011.

Today I reflect on my time at university (or college for my US readers) to recognize that the most important lessons didn’t come from the curriculum, but from what I discovered along the way. In no particular order, here is what I uncovered about surviving and achieving in architecture school:

Forget about Winning or Losing

The rest of the 10 Things You Don’t Get Taught in Architecture School, after the break…

Over a year has passed since we first introduced you to the ideas of Family and PlayLab for a floating riverpool in New York’s East River. Since that time, the proposal has generated a lot of interest, and reached major milestones, such as completing a primarily testing of the filtration membranes to find the most effective methods to provide clean and safe riverwater for the public to swim in. With an opening date set for 2015, the ambitious project seeks to improve the city’s natural resources by taking advantage of clean water to safely create a new kind of urbanistic public haven.

Early last week, the team celebrated the beginning of a six-month campaign to raise the first $1 million toward swimming in a clean river.  The campaign funds will go toward the design and engineering of +POOL so that it can obtain the required city and state permits, as well as support a prototype and public pavilion to fully test the + POOL filtration system.

More after the break. 

Peter Hyatt, of Hyatt and Associates, shared with us his recently completed 53-minute documentary on the 1 Bligh Office Tower. Designed by Ingenhoven Architects, the building is the first office tower in Sydney to get the highest score in the Australian “Green Star”-standard, a “6 Star/World Leadership”-certification. Derived from view corridors and the solar orientation, the 30-storey transparent office building offers unobstructed views of the world famous Harbor Bridge of Sydney and complements the opposite Farrer Place to create one of downtown Sydney’s most attractive urban spaces.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Nebraska Chapter recently announced the AIA Central States Region (CSR) Excellence in Design award winners. The awards honor the highest recognition of works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interiors, details, unbuilt, and unbuilt for emerging professionals. More images and information on this year’s design winners after the break.

In the era of velocity, communications and sustainable development, the systems of mobility assume an increasing role as the backbone to the harmonic and democratic growth of territories. As part of the program of the Italian Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition, the Green Boulevards International Competition wishes to contribute to the development of concrete ideas-projects for the use of technologies focused on the production of renewable energy in areas related or in proximity to infrastructures. The design and cultural challenge proposed to participants is that of utilizing networks of mobility – with their berms, trenches, intersections, viaducts, tunnels, setback areas, leftover spaces, and spaces of rest and maintenance – to create new forms of land art or environmental art at the service of energy production that, without interfering with the normal and safe operation of these same infrastructures, are able to generate energy and thus economic resources, to be re-invested in the future development of the community. The deadline is November 15. For more information, please visit here.

Architects: Manuel Vázquez Muíño Location: Carballedo, Galicia, Spain Architect: Manuel Vázquez Muíño Technical Architect: Visitación Mouzo Souto Project Year: 2010 Photographs: Santos-Díez

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Terreform ONE has announced Made in Lower East Side (MiLES) as winner of ONE PRIZE 2012: From BLIGHT to MIGHT – an open international design competition powered by the idea that social, ecological, and economic struggles can simultaneously be addressed through collaborative action and innovative design.

MiLES and three honorable mentions were selected from the twenty finalists we presented to you in August. The competition drew 115 teams and 655 team members from more than 20 countries and five continents, generating an exciting mix of innovative solutions and 21st century alternatives to the American Dream. Continue after the break to see the winning proposal!

This exhibition, curated by London-based Sergison Bates Architects, explores the common spaces between the public city and the private room. It considers six recent social housing projects in six cities: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Geneva, Paris, Trondheim and Winterthur. The work, by six different practices, reveals an interconnected culture of thought and practice, a common ground of influence and affinities that extends back to past practitioners and typological precedent.

Since its opening in January 2011 we have presented two articles related to this project designed by Frank Gehry, home for the New World Symphony founded by renowned american director Michael Tilson Thomas. Today we have this great video that Cristobal Palma just shared with us, for a better understanding of the spaces and surroundings.

You can check some more videos by Cristobal Palma at ArchDaily:

Tonight, Kengo Kuma will be lecturing at the Woodbury School of Architecture in San Diego at 6:30pm. Shortly following his Woodbury appearance, the Japanese architect will then make his way across the country to Columbia University’s GSAAP (Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation)Wood Auditorium in New York City to present his lecture, Minimize: Small Architecture after 3/11, on Wednesday the 10th at 6:30pm. Both lectures are free and open to the public.

Architects: BaksvanWengerden Architecten Location: Oegstgeest, The Netherlands Architects: Gijs Baks, Jacco van Wengerden Project Year: 2009 Photographs: Brandwijk & van Geel

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Cinematographer Tomas Koolhaas, son of notorious Rem Koolhaas, has shared with us his latest clips from the feature length documentary film, REM. Set to debut in 2013, the motion picture breaks away from conventional approach to filming architecture and exposes the raw, human experience of Dutch architect’s most famous projects. As Tomas describes, REM gives the audience “a rare insight into the reality of the hidden internal life of the buildings”.

ArchDaily had the chance to discuss the film with Tomas. Continue after the break for the complete interview and another small preview of the film!

New York’s Mayor Bloomberg is pushing for an updated zoning code for Midtown Manhattan which will affect the blocks around Grand Central Terminal and the Chrysler Building, and north toward the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and Lever House. This new code, called Midtown East, would replace existing building height restrictions and allow high-rise towers to soar in the 70-block area currently outfitted with older buildings of lower stature. If Midtown East is approved, developers would be able to build twice the size now permitted in the Grand Central area, bringing an estimated 16,000 employees in a neighborhood that now has 230,000 office workers.

In such a densely populated area of Manhattan, what will be the urban implication of allowing building heights to soar past their current height regulation?  While the potential to increase the real estate value is a driving force for such an initiative, will this financial gain outweigh the drawbacks of new stresses that will be placed upon existing infrastructure and city functioning?   The Bloomberg administration feels that such an initiative is needed to maintain the Grand Central area as “one of the premier business addresses”; however,  the community is not as fast to support the idea and regard the proposal as just another example of Bloomberg’s latest attempts to make his mark on the city before his years in office are through.

More after the break.

Taking place at Princeton University on October 13th from 10:00am-5:30pm, the ‘Performing Architecture’ symposium will bring together significant theorists and practitioners in the fields of architecture and performance and inviting a broader engagement with the artistic and academic community. In parallel with the art world’s return to performance and a renewed search for architecture’s social and political relevance, this symposium seeks to move beyond disciplinary hegemony in the dissemination of architecture today. Including Liz Diller(DS+R), Pedro Gadanho (MoMA), Vito Acconci, Roselee Goldberg, and many others, they hope to offer lasting provocations to how we think of the body, space, structure, and design in the disciplines of performance and architecture – and somewhere between the two. For more information, please visit here.

The summer months have come and gone, which means one thing: the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is winding to an end (on October 14th, to be exact)!

Held at the National Museum on Monday, September 17, the Ministry of Information and Culture and the US Embassy in Kabul announced the winners of their International Architectural Ideas Competition for the National Museum of Afghanistan. The Jury’s decision for the winning design submissions is based on the clarity of the architectural concept that responds effectively to the programmatic, functional, technical, economic and security requirements in the brief, and the architectural quality of the proposed design as a whole. This decision ultimately recognizes the distinguished architectural quality of the winning proposed design solution with the first prize given to AV62 Arquitectos. More images and information on the winning entries after the break.

Taking place at the Museum of Finnish Architecture October 10-November 25, the Norwegian architecture, landscape architecture and interior design office, Snøhetta, is showcasing their firm and its work in videos, computer animations, 3D models, photographs, drawings, and texts. Presented in eight sections, the first section looks at the practice itself and its offices in Oslo and New York. The following five are devoted to five key projects: the National September 11 Memorial Museum, the King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture, the Ras Al-Khaimah Gateway Development, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, all presented with accompanying scale models. The highlight of the exhibition is a touch-screen display providing fingertip access to data on 100 of Snøhetta’s projects.

As part of the Quito Biennale, the Social Habitat and Development competition is oriented to identify and promote architectural practices and built projects that demonstrate having a positive and tangible impact in the improvements of the living conditions of low income families and the improvement of a built environment of society. The category is open for built projects or programs of new or renovated social habitat, built in the American continent during the period between 2008-2012 and that have not participated in previous BAQ editions. Emphasis will be given to projects or programs that consider the importance of: neighborhood and public space improvement, revitalization of urban environment, participation and management strategies in design, implementation and maintenance, cultural and aesthetic inputs that reinforce a community’s identity, building safety and climatic comfort. Entries are due no later than October 26. For more information, please visit here.