Simon Battisti, Leah Whitman-Salkin, and design collective Åbäke have been selected to represent Albania at the 15^th International Biennale in Venice in 2016, with their project entitled, “I Have Left You the Mountain.” The project was selected from an open call for proposals from the Albanian Ministry of Culture that was held earlier this fall.

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Nicolas Laisné Associés (NL*A Paris) has revealed the plans for its new Offices With Terraces, an office building in Nice, France, which aims to set new standards for bio-climatic work environments. The building’s layout revolves around the idea of flexible workspaces, integrating landscape into the building as an eco-conscious approach.

The organization of the building has been reversed, with the circulation passages—typically at the center—moved to the façades to free up central space.

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“As space begins to be captured, enclosed, molded, and organized by the elements of mass and volume, architecture comes into being.”

With influential concrete buildings like Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, and Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light in mind, Mumbai-based Material Immaterial studio has created SPACES, a set of miniature concrete pieces. “Each piece is an individually complete space defined by volumes and voids,” offering the basis for users to imagine what could be lying inside.

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“As an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown. The green agenda is probably the most important agenda and issue of the day […] all the projects which have, in some way, been inspired by that agenda are about a celebratory lifestyle, in a way celebrating the places and spaces which determine the quality of life.”

“Imagine feeling relaxed in your own private space but getting all the natural light from above your head. Imagine being warm and dry while looking at the raindrops falling on your head. Imagine resting on the windowsill, having a cup of tea while looking at people walk by on the street. Imagine having a small place to meditate, where the view is unique and temporary, and it is only used for that purpose, and then you can put it away. That is what More Sky is about.”

With the parameters of Brooklyn’s construction and regulations in mind, architect Aldana Ferrer Garcia has created a series of windows called "More Sky" for her Masters of Industrial Design thesis project at Pratt Institute. Using existing window mechanisms, More Sky seeks to promote a healthier and happier home life by connecting users with the outdoors and offering a glimpse of the sky from a different viewpoint.

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“As a designer, we create architectural spaces which are de facto instruments—they contain sound, they manipulate it, they can even create sound—so we’re tasked with a very powerful tool for affecting human cognition.”

New York-based d3 has announced the winners of its international Natural Systems 2015 competition. The annual competition asked architects, designers, engineers, and students to “explore the potential for ecologically-grounded and sustainable design influences in urbanism, architecture, interiors, and designed objects.”

Three top prizes were awarded, with six special mentions. The jury included architects, designers, and academics from Shigeru Ban Architects, Syracuse University, and Studio Nguyen, among others.

View the winners, after the break.

The 2015 winners of the Australian Institute of Architects’ National Architecture Awards have been announced at a ceremony in Brisbane.

Overall, 42 projects received 46 awards in 14 categories, including commercial, public, and interior architecture. Winners were selected by a jury from the Chapter Architecture Awards, held earlier this year.

Read on after the break for a list of the winners.

Kengo Kuma & Associates has unveiled its latest project for the Galerie Philippe Gravier in Paris. Entitled Yure, a Japanese expression for a nomadic habitat moving in the wind, the project is made from identical wooden pieces, seeking to blur the lines between art and architecture with its organic structural geometry.

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The winners of the 2015 LEAF Awards have been announced. Founded in 2001, the awards ceremony honors innovative architecture projects in 13 different categories dedicated to various aspects of building, including best façade design and engineering, best future building, and public building of the year.

Find out which projects won the awards, after the break.

After the successes of their London and Warsaw series, Zupagrafika has released another collection of paper cutouts called Blokowice based on the city of Katowice in Poland.

Inspired by the architecture of the Upper Silesian Industrial Region, Blokowice features modernist and brutalist buildings from the 1960-80s. The collection includes the Spodek and Superjednostka, two iconic buildings from the city center, Osiedle Gwiazdy, a characteristic star-shaped estate, Osiedle Odrodzenia, prefabricated panel blocks from the outskirts of the city, and the controversial Katowice railway station building that was demolished in 2011.

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The World Monuments Fund has released its 2016 World Monuments Watch list of 50 cultural heritage sites at risk in 36 countries around the world. The list, in its twentieth year, seeks to identify sites “at risk from the forces of nature and the impacts of social, political, and economic change,” and direct financial and technical support towards them.

The 2016 list includes the entirety of post-earthquake Nepal, an underwater city, the only surviving quadrifrons arch in Rome, and a structurally significant hyperboloid tower, among others. The Fund even featured an “Unnamed Monument” on the list, in honor of all sites at risk of damage from social and political instability around the globe.

Learn more about some of the featured monuments, after the break.

The New Zealand Institute of Architects has announced the 28 winners of the New Zealand Architecture Awards during an event at the Auckland Museum.

A wide range of projects were awarded, with three new categories of awards this year: the John Scott Award for public architecture, the Sir Ian Athfield Award for housing, and the Sir Miles Warren Award for commercial architecture.

Find out which 28 projects won New Zealand’s most prestigious architecture awards, after the break.

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German mechanical company ThyssenKrupp, in collaboration with Microsoft, has launched its newest innovational elevator, MAX. Together, the companies have created an elevator that could create time savings for elevator passengers “equivalent to 108 centuries of new availability in each year of operation."

Over the course of two days, architect Jan Tyrpekl created The Nest, an experimental structure built without any investors, sponsors, assignment, or project documentation in Strančice, in the Czech Republic. Made of about $120 USD worth of Osier Willow wood, The Nest perches in a park in the designer’s hometown, interlaced between tree branches, so as not to damage or affect the tree.

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For the past few months, Rich McCor has been traveling around the world reimagining famous landmarks with paper cutouts.

Starting with some research on the locations he visits, McCor shifts between finding instant inspiration and letting his subconscious drive his creations: “After doing the first few cut-outs, I think my brain learned to look for quirky shapes and ideas in architecture and everyday objects; it’s a pretty good mental exercise.”

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The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has released a new research study called New York: The Ultimate Skyscraper Laboratory, which utilizes data to “develop graphic features showing the progression of tall building development in New York City.”

The Timeline of Skyscrapers in New York City Region 1906-2018 graphic illustrates “how skyscraper construction aligned with social or political events in history” in the context of key events, for example, building inactivity around the period of World War II.