The international architectural competition for Central Prishtina Mosque, held in March 2013 still doesn’t have a clear winner. This proposal by OODA + AND-RÉ is one of over seventy entries, and the design is a result of an intense research on the mosque theme, ranging from a profound historical study of cultural heritage, to analyzing the evolution over time, both in program and in the materiality and form, understanding the social and urban factors as well as the different geographical characteristics.  The proposed dome-like mosque is an affirmation of all the values studied, and outcome which is a landmark design in its conceptual, coherent solution and bold, clear and logical structure.

Monumental design of OODA + AND-RÉ’s proposal accomplishes set standards and conditions, responding to the proposed goals. It stands as a landmark, but still being able to be responsible and objective. It is human-related by the form and scale and is conceived for the future, as all well-designed and thoughtful architecture should be, in terms of materials, capacity, configuration and innovative concept. The bipartite design solution embodies tradition but in a contemporary manner and stands out in the landscape, respecting the surrounding. The architects created space that strongly enhances spirituality, while promoting and embracing a wider social role.

The design is sustainable and environmentally friendly and is adaptive to different occupational needs – the design allows the flexible physical space to be adapted to a versatile number of users, by diving and expanding the spaces in wide range of configurations.

Find(&)MERGE by SVEN is a project derived from the research of a coherent strategy, enabled to be implemented regardless of changing conditions. SVEN are Andrea Barbieri, Filippo Conti, Giulia Mariotti and Beatrice Scardovi from University of Bologna, Italy and their aim was to obtain a model that could both fit and change the area configuration where the system acts by exploiting systems of emergent behavior.

The project is done following a “bottom-up” approach where the system grows and evolves up to the event of an emergent and self-organized behavior, obeying the simple rule about the interactions of an agent-based system. The external parameters affecting the system are related to environmental and urban planning data.

The complex process of a digital fabrication is done in stages. As a result of a continuous change of existing conditions through the release of a pheromone trail a pattern of aggregation is obtained, where basic topological structures are modeled as a function of this gradient. Then the structure that can be coherently propagated and the whole site get analyzed. In next stage second category of agents generates trails on wrapping, using information about solar radiation.

As the location of this research aspires to a greater flexibility and availability in the long term, Find(&)MERGE is designed as a place dedicated to meeting and sharing and wants to enhance the project area in order to represent a new economic and cultural center. The used approach enables the realization of an urban environment in which the individual structures are integrated both among them and within the context and are able to perform multiple functions.

The Golden State Warriors recently announced that Snøhetta and AECOM have been selected as the architecture team to design the Warriors’ new sports and entertainment complex on the San Francisco waterfront. Designed to replace the team’s existing home at the Oracle Arena in Oakland when the lease expires in 2017, Golden State Warriors’ Stadium is scheduled to debut on San Francisco waterfront site for the 2017-18 NBA basketball season. This landmark design will offer expensive open space with the 728.000 square foot arena, along with retail space, ferry and cruise ship access and waterside fire station. 18.000-seat venue will welcome music concerts, conventions and wide range of cultural events.

The circular building is wrapped in large areas of glazing around the facade, in order to provide visitors with a view from outside into the practice facility and the arena during games. The large disc-like roof is designed to be covered with LEDs and will be used for the projections.

The Arena will serve as a model for a 21^st century digital sports and entertainment center, due to its innovative, sustainability and technology oriented design. The architects believe that the design lives up to the importance of this very unique waterfront site and it’s a successful compromise between the vision of the Golden State Warriors, the landscape of the bay and the very important community input they have collected over months.

The aim of the architects was to provide a place for everyone – fans, pedestrians, cyclists, tourists, local residents and the diverse community of San Francisco.

The high-rise, named Elevator B, is an urban habitat for a colony of honeybees, designed by architecture students from the University at Buffalo. The tower is a winning entry of the university’s Hive City competition, which asked students to design a habitat for the bees. This unique skyscraper has generated great public curiosity, due to its residents and bold design. It is located in Silo City – a group of abandoned grain elevators and silos on the river. The project acts as a symbol of the site’s economic and environmental regeneration.

Clad in perforated stainless steel panels, parametrically designed to protect the hive and the visitors from the wind, while allowing solar gain in winter and shading in summer, the 22 feet tall tower is a steel structure, build using standard steel angle and tube sections. The internal layer of the bees’ house is done as a cypress box, with a laminated glass bottom, through which the bees can be observed. The box is attached to a system of pulleys so the beekeepers can bring it safely down to ground for maintenance. The project is named Elevator B, due to this mechanism.

Very curious visitors to this particular site range from school groups, learning about the natural ecosystems of Western New York, to adult photography classes, using Elevator B and the site as the main subject. . The Interpretive signage about honeybees as well as the site is currently under development and will be part of the larger redevelopment plan for Silo City.

This uniquely shaped private residence by Tom Wiscombe Design consists of two main components – the crystal figure and the pedestal. The crystal figure is a strong statement design, containing semi-public functions of the house, such as living, dining and kitchen area. The pedestal is supporting figure and contains private functions – bedrooms and studios. Inspired by two-part Brancusi sculptures, two shapes inter-operate, but retain their own character. However, the connection seems weak at the first glance, therefore allowing the crystal figure to appear to float.

The very fragile relation between transparent and opaque is a critical site of speculation in this project – it had to be investigated how to retain the mass effect despite the significant change in material. For that purpose, 2d unfolded drawings were used as an operative base, in order to find a way to smoothly blur the edges. The solution was in pattern of loops and lines on opaque surfaces become patterns of standing seams and deep black channels, like tattoos, which are carved into the skin with chisels rather than drawn on smooth skin with needles. Therefore, views out from inside the living room are not pure but heavily mediated.

In order to perform the continuity in the material, composite sandwich panels in which the crystal structure is clad are never separated at building corners or silhouette edges. Component joints are glued on site, to avoid indexing processes of manufacture. Highly synthesized architectural effect is achieved, from what at first appeared to be the tectonic expression of the piece.

Successful collaboration between US firms SO-IL and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson resulted with a winning proposal – Grand Canopy was awarded first prize on a competition to design an art museum at the University of California’s Davis campus. Their design envisions uniting indoor and outdoor spaces beneath a large steel roof – the canopy. Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art is therefore conceived as a landscape of galleries and workshops, referencing the flat plains of California’s Central Valley.

In the words of Florian Idenburg, of SO-IL, the museum of the future will be the one that needs to be able to accommodate a lot of change, therefore a museum on campus should be seen as a testing ground for new ideas. Their aim was to propose a building that would act as a platform, offering a stage on which different things can happen.

Their design proposes 50,000 square-foot permeable cover, named “Grand Canopy”, over both the site and the building. This distinct shape is predestined to become a new symbol for the campus. Extending over the site, the roof blurs the edges of both natural and artificial landscape, creating a new, sensory one, of activities and scales. The Canopy works in two important ways – it generates a field of experimentation, an infrastructure and stage for the events, while acts as an urban device, creating a new locus of activity and center of gravity on campus. At night, canopy is illuminated and becomes a beacon within the campus and to the city beyond.

The design results with continuity of interconnected interior and exterior spaces, with the diverse qualities and characteristics that create set of informal opportunities for interaction, networking and learning. The museum is not created as isolated or exclusive space, but open and permeable, as a constantly evolving public event.

Olafur Eliasson, in charge for the building’s radiant façade, together with Olafur Eliasson team, Henning Larsen Architects, and Baterii∂ Architects wins 2013 Mies Van Der Rohe Award for the collaboration on the design of Harpa – Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavik, Iceland. The Mies van der Rohe Prize is reserved for excellence in the field of architecture and recognizes important contribution of European professionals in the development of the new concepts and technologies.

Harpa stands out as a radiant sculpture on the border between land and the sea, reflecting harbor space and the vibrant life of the city. The facades are spectacular – Eliasson’s works are usually inspired by his visible obsession with atmosphere and light. This particular, variegated glass façade of the concert hall was inspired by Iceland’s dramatic scenery and famous Northern Lights. Since its opening two years ago, this mountain-like massif building has become central cultural destination for the city and it has welcomed more than 1.7 million guests.

Eliasson draws the attention to the importance of collaborative effort and interdisciplinary collaboration, stating that it is very important that artists, artisans, social scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, dancers, visionaries, poets, environmental activists, cosmologists, and philosophers are integrated into architectural projects at an early stage, in order to vitalize the tepidity of a lot of contemporary architecture. He strongly believes in all-inclusive collaboration and its unique outcome.

The prize had a perfect timing, regarding low national moral and devastation by Icelandic financial crisis, therefore representing a testament to Icelandic resilience.

Cataclysm, research project done at the University in Bologna, is a disaster caused by natural phenomenon, but in this particular case shows the fatal outcome of man-kind action in order to warn about serious consequences of humans acting as a geological factor, able to pour out the events that used to exclusively belong to nature.

The participants in an experiment used bottom-up methodology and studied paradigm of rivers creation and weather erosion process in order to develop the new approach to sustainable housing. The project is developed for the mountain area in Slovenia, south of Maribor – the future location of an urban complex.

The importance of the project lays in fact that it is researching inevitable ground transformations, as consequences of weather erosion, which bring favorable conditions and new spaces for a wide biodiversity. The project also exploits ground’s splits, caused by river formation dynamics simulated through agent-based algorithms, developing itself on the inside and making use of the outline as a boundary.

The structure is flexible and adaptable – light and air are captured by pyramid-shaped components, which change form and orientation according to weather conditions – wind and irradiation, finding the optimized configuration.

On the exterior, the presence of capturing cones is derived from a pattern whose profile is managed by a height’s gradient, in relation to distance from paths. In the interior, development of floor slabs is managed by parameters such as light and air penetration, which define their rearward and height; floors’ continuous processing answers to carrying capacity and connections.

Cais das Artes, new museum located on the waterfront of Vitória, north of Rio de Janeiro, has successfully transformed Suá Bay area of the city into cultural host of national importance. Designed in collaboration between Brazilian architects Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Martin Corullon of local practice Metro Arquitetos Associados, this sprawling museum complex was designed with the aim to preserve the character of the historic environment. 3,000 square meter exhibition area and the 1300 seats-theater are wrapped into raw concrete façade and the building floats above the ground. The volume is broken up by a void which frames the view of surrounding.

Equipped to host large scale events, this museum development configures the plain field as an open square for the entire city – new public space on the ocean. With the facilities such as bookstores and spaces that can host theatrical shows and open-air exhibitions, the new square is an attraction, a spectacle forming the continuity of city’s cultural life. Furthermore, due to its spatial characteristics, the place allows the public to unveil the overwhelming landscape form a privileged standpoint.

The structure of the Museum building is consisted of two large beams of parallel, pre-stressed reinforced concrete, 7 meters high, with only 3 points of support, on every 20 meters. The exhibition halls are located between main beams, and are open and communicating visually to each other and to the square. The Theater is suspended just like the Museum with only the technical areas under the stage located on the ground.

The vertical circulation through ramps forms clear platforms and porches for the appreciation of the natural surroundings. The project defines a new territory – the Vitória Bay itself, in its natural greatness, a place derived from a constant opposition between natural and artificial, landscape and concrete, historical and temporary.

Originally a police station, at the end of the summer in French city of Madeleine the renovated place will re-open as a Médiathèque – public library and visitor center, deeply integrated with the city. The new place will reactivate cultural scene of the city, offering newly designed public spaces and an envelope for social gatherings.

Tank Architects, French practice, did a project of restructuring and extension of a former police station, aiming to connect the future public space to the urban environment. In order to provide true integration, the public facility designed as an extension of the public square and walk-runs.

The library is divided into two programmatic entities – the visitor center and the reading room, whose schedules vary. The place of the existing station is now converted into a reading room and is covered with cellular, porous timber roof – faceted canopy controls the indirect light that comes into the space. The roof is therefore a tool for regulating the light and acoustic qualities of the space and acts as an active sheet. The interior ambiance refers to both the warm inside reading rooms of the mansions and the qualities of the great outdoors manufactures bathed in diffuse light.

The library opens to the garden through which participates in linking neighborhoods with downtown, creating a constant flow of visitors and creative energies. The ground floor of the development facilitates a small auditorium, a cafe and seating areas that can host wide range of community events. Central atrium allows smooth passage through the building, connecting the contents and linking the edifice to the outside.