Above is a video by Vincent Hecht, an architect and filmmaker in France, which highlights the NA House by Sou Fujimoto Architects. The video is part of a new collection of architecture movies about Japanese architecture. Designed for a young couple in a quiet Tokyo neighborhood, the 914 square-foot transparent house contrasts the typical concrete block walls seen in most of Japan’s dense residential areas.

Facing the roman Arenas and amphitheater of Nîmes, crossed by the ruins and the archeological remains of the ancient roman fortifications, the main challenge for the design of the Musée de la Romanité was to design a museum that would become a reference on an international scale. This winning proposal by Elizabeth de Portzamparc creates a strong architectural dialogue between two architectures separated by over two thousand years of history and facing each other. The project is located on the backbone of the site, on the old limit that used to separate the medieval town from the modern city. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Now in its fifth year, the World Architecture Festival moves from Spain to Singapore (October 3rd-5th). And for this year, we are happy to announce ArchDaily as a media partner, and as part of the jury!

The architecturally intense event includes the awards and a festival gallery, with more than 700 entries from around the world in 30 categories, accompanied by live presentations from the finalists, a seminar and keynotes with renowned international architects. In these, and other activities (full summary), you will be able to exchange ideas with over 2,000 architects representing more than 65 countries, broaden your horizons and your contacts book.

Last day to submit your entries is June 30th, 2012.

Any projects completed between 1 January 2011 – 30 June 2012 can be entered or if you don’t have a completed project you can enter any future projects you have on the drawing board.

Learn more about the conference rates, and details on how to submit your projects.

We have a special discount for our readers, more information after the break:

The Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has announced the selection of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and Davis Brody Bond to design the New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Mexico City, Mexico. After an intense round of presentations and interviews, the duo was selected from a talented shortlist of nine architectural/engineering teams. As reported on the Latin American Herald Tribune, the jury believed that “their portfolio of work is compatible to the local culture and shows sensitivity that highlights their connection to the character of the site.”

Yul Kwon of PBS travels coast to coast to reveal how America’s transportation systems make the nation the most mobile place on earth. Woven together by 200,000 miles of railways, 5,000 airports and 4 million miles of roads, America’s car culture has shaped our cities and defined our lifestyles. However, as roadways become more congested, many predict people will eventually give up this car-centric lifestyle and embrace mass transit. Recently we announced the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s selection of Gruen Associates and Grimshaw Architects to design the new master plan for Union Station in Los Angeles. Their winning proposal gives a hint of what America may look like by 2050, as it transforms into a more mass transit centered nation.

Designed by OH.NO.SUMO, the ‘Stairway Cinema’ installation experiments with architecture and the way it can engage with the public in unique and exciting ways. This project takes inspiration from the site and its inhabitants. Located at the busy pedestrian intersection of two inner city streets in Auckland, New Zealand, the installation offers a very simple programmatic response to recognize and counter the issue of how a community must be linked not only virtually but also physically. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The Fantastic Trailer, designed by Cheryl Baxter, is a mobile pavilion aimed at being a delightful experience as the interruption of columns and seating areas force the architecture into the conversation, setting the stage for engaging social experience. Developed as ethereal forms, the draft columns blur the line between drapery and structure, and invite the viewer to feel the supporting air movement. The circular seating areas on the pavilion create small conversation circles intermittently invaded by the draft columns. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The design proposal of the Badel Block Complex by Popular Architecture is a combination of polyvalent and stable, both a massing inviting interpretation and detailed development by others, and an anchor seeking to re-channel the site’s positive qualities. Conceptually, the project begins with making a direct link between the former distillery building and the preserved façade of the Gorica Factory — two features required to be kept. Treating the factory façade as a gateway, the plan pulls in the existing context of an active street market — into the heart of a site cut-off from the city for decades — while also avoiding direct replication of the area’s pervasive perimeter block typology. More images and architects’ description after the break.

This city of Gyeongju in South Korea is going to accommodate a new headquarters for the Korea Hydro Nuclear Power (KHNP) Company, one of the nation’s most advanced energy institutions. Designed by H Architecture, the project is to be built on the site surrounded by rich historical heritage and is required to represent KHNP’s dynamic pursuit to purvey the world’s cleanest and safest methods of producing energy. Alongside the historical context, the new KHNP headquarters must also consider the rural, mountainous landscape of the site, which lies low at the center surrounded by adjacent small mountains. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Archpolis, a non-profit organization for architects, designers, artists and the performing arts, has invited architects and planners to submit their qualifications for the first stage of a design competition in Nikola-Lenivets Park in the Kaluga Region of Russia. Fifteen finalists will be chosen for the second stage of the competition with the objective to provide a conceptual design of a residential complex for artist in residence, along with a master plan and zoning details for the surrounding area.

Continue after the break to learn more.

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Luis Barragán was a formally trained engineer and self-trained architect. He is known for his emphasis on color, light, shadow, form and texture. In 1980 he received the profession’s highest honor – the Pritzker Prize. This video gives a brief overview of the prominent Mexican architect and his work.

Above is a video by Vincent Hecht, an architect and filmmaker in France, which highlights the KAIT (Kanagawa Institute of Technology) by Junya Ishigami + Associates. The video is part of a new collection of architecture movies about Japanese architecture. With the relaxing and calming music in the background, you are able to place yourself in the amazing studio and workspace where students get to spend their days designing.

Studio Mode / modeLab is putting on a two-day intensive parametric design workshop July 7-8 which will introduce participants to the fundamental concepts and essential skills necessary for effectively designing with Grasshopper for Rhinoceros. In a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment, participants will explore concepts such as object attributes/parameters, data types, data structures, composing algorithms, as well as the creation and manipulation of computational geometry through parametric modeling interfaces. workshop curriculum will additionally cover techniques for Ccntrolling the flow of data via functions, conditional statements/logical gates, sampling data, and user interface objects. For more information, please visit here.

The proposal by reSET Architecture for the Klaksvík city center unites the two town halves and acts as a place of meeting, relaxation and celebration. Their design creates a place that represents the new born heart of Klaksvík. The architects believe that the city should be attractive to more than just the people of Klaksvík itself, a place that attracts people from the Faroer and abroad. More images and architects’ description after the break.

With a challenge to make a series of random ephemeral public spaces using a simple structure in the Seattle Center, the intervention by Hoshino Architects proposes areas of such spaces to be transformed to voids and purely leave the circulation spaces on the ground level. In contrast, the public contents circles are randomly scattered on the field level. As normal urban spaces, the circulation spaces sometimes change to unexpected functions, such as a viewing gallery for the event staged at the field level. This dual layer structure intertwines and creates the complex ‘Porous-scape’. More images and architects’ description after the break.

We have more than 80,000 photos in our Flickr Pool, so keep them coming! Remember you can submit your own photo here, and don’t forget to follow us through Twitter and our Facebook Fan Page to find many more features.

The photo above was taken by CarlosCoutinho in New York, USA. Check the other four after the break.

I just found this interesting reflection about architects on Seth Godin‘s blog, “A lesson from a great architect”:

Help kick start the suckerPUNCH + land of tomorrow exhibition that will feature twenty student projects from around the United States that explore the possibilities of fabrication and material experimentation at the start of the 21st century. Slated for Fall 2012, this exhibition will have it all – “transmogrifications, strange sensations, primal textures, unfamiliar geometries, self-propagating architectural species, augmented atmospherics, vicissitudinous juxtapositions, reinvented building typologies, sensual pleated skins, a crisis or two, physiologically responsive interfaces, threshold blurring gizmos, and plenty of robots”.

If funding is successful, this exhibition will provide the rare opportunity to display the exploration and research from multiple U.S. architecture schools in one location. The three top projects will have prototypes fabricated by Drura Parrish at PR&vD.

Support this project here. Continue reading for more information.

Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta has selected Norman Foster to redevelop one of Fidel Castro’s unfinished spaces – the School of Ballet on the outskirts of Havana. Acosta studied ballet at the Cuban National Ballet School and has danced with the Royal Ballet since 1998.

The stunning, derelict building was never completed during the Cuban revolution, as the design and architects of the Cuban National Art Schools (las Escuelas Nacionales de Arte, or ENA) were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. However, in March 1999, the three architects – Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi – were called to lay out a budget to preserve the languished schools. These preservation efforts include the School of Ballet, whose cluster of domed volumes, designed in 1961 by Italian Vittorio Garatti, are connected by an organic layering of Catalan vaults that follow a winding path.

As reported on bdonline, Norman Foster told the Sunday Times: “Carlos is a great dancer who is inspiring the regeneration of an iconic ruin of early modernism outside Havana.”

As if it weren’t enough that The New York Times just wrote a story on computer programs making architects obsolete, now it seems that computers are actually on the Architect-attack.

A new computer worm, known as ”ACAD/Medre.A,” has surfaced, and it has a very specific goal: find AutoCAD drawings, send them to China.

Find out how the worm works, and if you could be affected, after the break…

Organized by Europan Europe, 2:pm Architectures & CUAC Arquitectura met for a 4-days long international workshop to explore how agriculture and architectural development are in symbiotic relationship. In analyzing the growth of Vienna and Oberlaa, they can easily understand how architecture born on agricultural results in footprints so they offered a system to develop Oberlaa. It’s a system which is able to offer countryside qualities within contemporary city density. More images and architects’ description after the break.

If you read our infographic, then you know that Public-Interest Design is one of the few growing sectors of the architecture industry. From the prevalence of Design-Build curriculums in Architecture Schools to the rise of the 1% program and non-profits like Architecture for Humanity, Public-Interest Design (PID) is hitting its stride.

Which is why we’re so excited that two of PID’s biggest players, Design Corps and SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design), have teamed up to create SEEDocs, a monthly series of mini-documentaries that highlight the inspirational stories of six award-winning public interest design projects.

The latest SEEDoc follows the story of the Grow Dat Youth Farm - a brilliant example of what we call “Urban Agri-puncture” (a strategy that uses design & Urban Agriculture to target a city’s most deprived, unhealthy neighborhoods) that is changing the lives of New Orleans youth.

More on this inspiring story, after the break…