Architects: Mierta & Kurt Lazzarini Architekten Location: Samedan, Switzerland Design Team: Sandra Kaupp, Gunilla Klemp, Lena-Maria Philipp Project Year: 2012 Project Area: 1,270 sqm Photographs: Courtesy of Mierta & Kurt Lazzarini Architekten

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The initiative by h2o Architectes for the renovation of the first cinema for art house film follows the tradition of innovation and evolution that have been a part of this establishment’s history. The main project for the Studio des Ursulines in Paris was concentrated on the lobby, as the existing theatre has been simply refurbished. Founded in 1925, by the actors Armand Tallier and Laurence Myrga, this theater continues it’s tradition today by catering to the younger Parisian public by providing a locale to discover cinema in it’s many facets. The small theater offers selective programming as well as the opportunity to meet those who make films. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architects: White Arkitekter + Sprunt Location: Southend Pier, United Kingdom Photographs: Luke Hayes

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From 2008 to 2010, Madrid based architects Luis M. Mansilla and Emilio Tuñón held the Jean Labatut Visiting Professorship at the Princeton School of Architecture. More than a collection of student work, From Rules to Constraints is a wide ranging reflection on teaching, design practice, history and the city. Focusing on three sites at three distinct scales, this book examines the constraints of the architectural project—social, political, historical, and environmental in order to create new rules for working. Examining both their teaching methods and Mansilla + Tuñón’s own design work, the book presents the design process as an ongoing conversation between the building and the environment, between freedom and limits, and between the decided and undecided.

Twenty-four years after the inauguration of I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid, the Musée du Louvre will introduce its second piece of contemporary architecture to the public, tomorrow, on September 22.

The new Department of Islamic Arts is designed by Milanese architect Mario Bellini and his French colleague Rudy Ricciotti, who won the commission through an international competition in 2005. Similar to I.M. Pei, the pair created a naturally lit, subterranean gallery space beneath an undulating, glass roof within the courtyard of the historic Cour Visconti. Continue after the break to learn more.

Before even stepping out of the car, residents of the Porsche Design Tower will experience extravagant luxury. It features a one-of-a-kind robotic parking system that allows owners to park their vehicles in sky garages directly next to their units. Miami, Florida based Archiform 3D used ArchiCAD to initially create the tower from the architect’s sketches. They shaped the building and its features in cooperation with Porsche to pursue and receive initial city approvals.

Design Corps and SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design) have released the latest installment of SEEDocs, their series of awesome, mini-documentaries that highlight inspirational stories of award-winning public interest design projects.

While June’s doc featured an incredible community garden in New Orleans, designed/built with help from the Tulane School of Architecture’s Tulane City Center, this month focuses on the revitalization of an abandoned, abestos-ridden school in Manheim Park, a low-income, neglected neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri.

Check out more images and info about this empowering project, after the break…

Located in the “Albufera de Valencia”, one of the national territory´s most singular natural areas, the winning proposal for the Inspiration Hotel is formed as a huge ring shaped wooden pier 160 meters in diameter that rises above the Albufera´s water surface. Designed by Paul Dieterlen Architecture, the building is resolved with two main rings, one with an eight meter section which contains the architectural program and the public areas, and another one, with a three meters section turn to the interior that works a continuous circular path. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Unsangdong Architects shared with us the latest photos of the nearly finished “Culture Forest”, the Culture & Art Center in SeongDong-gu, Republic of Korea. Read the architect’s description and view schematic renderings on our previous post or the first stage of the construction, here.

More photos after the break.

The proposal for a Jinzhou New Area Medical Center by Design Initiatives is located as closest as possible to the existing wing of the hospital in order to shorten the routes and form one integrated complex with that existing wing. The architects believe that the everyday experience of the users is critically important for the hospital typology. They shifted and offset the four different wings so every room that needs it has an access to natural light and ventilation – something so rear in medical buildings and hard to get organized with an area of 185,000 m2. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The 3rd China Architecture Media Awards (CAMA) is now open for individual submissions. As a biannual program, CAMA is the first architectural award established in Greater China to advocate the construction of civil society through engaging architectural practice. Through an independent and rigorous jury process, the program promotes architectural works with high ‘social value and humanistic concern’ in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The CAMA expresses its value orientation with the slogan “Towards a Civil Architecture” – referring to the works that engage with the issues of civic life, such as living, community, environment and public space, and that serve the public interests, express humanistic concerns, and actively search for high quality cultural expression. The deadline for submissions is October 1. For more information, please visit here.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Academy of Architecture for Health (AAH) has announced four recipients of the AIA National Healthcare Design Awards program. The awards program highlights the “best of healthcare building design and healthcare design-oriented research” that exhibit “conceptual strengths that solve aesthetic, civic, urban, and social concerns as well as the requisite functional and sustainability concerns of a hospital”.

The AIA National Healthcare Design Award recipients are:

One day, Andrew Blum‘s internet stopped working. He called a repair man, who told him that, quite simply, a squirrel had chewed on his internet.

Grounds for Detroit – In this collaborative project, a distinct urban space – the mid-block of residential neighborhood – has been imported to Venice from Detroit. The installation is a recreation – and re-imagining – of a project undertaken in a abandoned single-family house in Detroit 2010.

In the original work, five architects collectively bought a property on Moran Street for $500 cash at a public auction. Each practice then contracted a distinct intervention within its formerly domestic spaces: a kitchen was transformed into a mobile threshold; a bedroom into a hermetic multi-sensory chamber; the dinning room a stepped interior topography; and the detached garage became a atmospheric observatory.

Whether you’re looking to design a beautiful new kitchen or elevate your next dinner party, you’ll enjoy the Jenn-Air® Master Class Series of videos from Jenn-Air®. Featuring a panel of esteemed experts, including two designers and one chef, the series aims to give viewers who love to entertain or who are contemplating a kitchen renovation an in-depth look at some of the latest culinary, design and entertaining trends.

Yesterday, we announced that Los Angeles based Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA), in collaboration with Taiwanese architectural firm Fei and Cheng Associates, have been selected as winner of a highly publicized, international competition for the new Keelung Harbor Service Building in Taiwan’s largest port city. As promised, we now present to you the winning proposal.

Serving as a “Gateway to the Nation”, the project site consists of a new cruise ship port terminal, a 250 meter long, three level building that will accommodate the largest ships in Asia; a 53,000 square meter Harbor Authority office complex; parking for 1000 cars; and a third phase 23,000 square meter speculative office building. The NT$6.2 billion (US$211.5 million) renewal project will be completed in phases. Construction will commence next year on the three-floor terminal, which is planned for completion by 2015. Work on the complex’s office building is expected to come to a conclusion in 2017. Learn more after the break, with the architects’ complete project statement.

Park(ing) Day 2012 Cal Poly, SLO

The architecture firms of Kunckel Associates and Stefan Gzyl joined forces under the Glocalstudio platform to develop their entry to the recently completed ideas competition for La Carlota park in Caracas, Venezuela. They propose that the new park is an opportunity for a lot more than supplying a quantifiable amount of park space: they understand it as an opportunity for the (re)foundation of the city. The park will become the city’s new vital nucleus, a space from which to (re)conquest and (re)claim a preexisting and often hostile territory. In a city in which nature is in constant decline and hardly available as public space, the 100 hectare military airfield site constitutes a unique chance for a metropolitan-scale park in the very heart of the city. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Located in Berlin Zehlendorf, the Truman Plaza parallels the adjacent Clayallee and is part of a larger master plan that balances its historical urban context with its integration of a delicate onsite forest. Designed by Wiel Arets Architects, the project, which is currently in progress, includes offices, retail, health and sports facilities, which together form an urban setting situated around a central plaza within this leafy borough on the edge of Berlin. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Designed by Prompt for the IMMB Institut Municipal de Mercats de Barcelona, the new flea market will play a key role in the economy and urban identity of the city. Their video above highlights the construction process taking part in the dynamic city environment.

Architects: Rainer Köberl Location: Innsbruck, Austria Architect In Charge: Rainer Köberl Project Year: 2011 Photographs: Lukas Schaller

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Chybik + Kristof Associated Architects, in collaboration with Viennese office BKK-3, shared with us their third place winning proposal for the ‘Green City’ housing complex which will include 700 apartments in Graz, Austria. The whole concept of their project is to create a clear hierarchy of public and semi-public spaces by means of simple volumes of apartment buildings. Their design is based on repeating the same three objects and interlinking them through a common yard ranked among three best projects. More images and architects’ description after the break.