Gangnam for Freedom - Anish Kapoor and Friends

Cambodian Sustainable Housing Design Competition

Building Trust International together with Karuna Cambodia, Habitat for Humanity and the Cambodian Society of Architects are hosting a design competition for an affordable and sustainable house. The winning proposal will be constructed by Habitat for Humanity Cambodia.

The competition is open to all Design professionals, Engineers, Architects, architecture students and graduates. Registration closes on 15th December 2012 and is FREE to those entering from a developing country.

Click here for the competition details and project brief. Via

House of the Week 157: Pohutukawa Beach House

The Pohutukawa Beach house was designed by Herbst Architects and is located near Auckland, New Zealand. Split over two levels, the house appears to be caged amongst the trees. The woodsy palette of laminated timbers in the open plan of the living spaces of the interior open to the environment blurring the boundary between structure and setting. More via

Pushing Creativity

Presentation by Architect Marcus Keusgen as part of the seminar series at the Faculty of the Built Environment, University of Technology, Jamaica.

Thursday, 29th November 2012 at 15:00 in the faculty lecture hall.

Click Competition

The International Federation of Landscape Architects Congress is hosting their 2nd international photography contest. The themes for submissions are:

• contemporary issues around globalization
• indigenous wisdom
• radical change and resilience

Submit your contribution via email to iflaphotovideocompetition@iflaonline.org. The deadline for submissions is Monday 31st December 2012.

For more information about IFLA50

blog wunderlust: 26th November 2012

Japan's humid and warm summer climate, as well as frequent earthquakes resulted in lightweight timber buildings raised off the ground that are resistant to earth tremors.

Harry Seidler

Athens of the Prairie: How Columbus, Indiana Got Great Architecture | Replacing the Ground | 10 diagrams that changed city planning | A Breathtaking Look At Denmark’s Daring New Starchitects | Billionaires' basements: the luxury bunkers making holes in London streets | Angie the architect meets Rosie the riveter | Kitagawara: The Other Japanese Architecture | Head Of The Class: Architecture + Learning | Feed Your City: Architecture + Farming |

last call: check out the work of Caribbean photographer Nadia Huggins

What Was Metabolism? Reflections on the Life of Kiyonori Kikutake

The Metabolist Movement in the 1960s established the foundation for contemporary Japanese architecture. The visionary architectural and urban projects created by the Metabolist Kiyonori Kikutake continue to shine brightly, according to Toyo Ito. In this lecture, given at Harvard GSD Ito considers the significance of Metabolism through a rereading of Kikutake's works.

Blog Wunderlust: 19th November 2012

I believe that the way people live can be directed a little by architecture.

Tadao Ando

Creatively defaced album art

City of paper urbanism: how Mumbai can make plans it may actually implement | Architecture as mesmerising as a Plane Crash | Corridors of the Mind: Could neuroscientists be the next great architects? | Cartoonist Chris Ware Explores the Architecture of Being Human | The world’s most beautiful gardens are miracles of geo-engineering | In San Francisco, Life Without Starchitects | These five Japanese houses will keep you fit |


best archi-tweets: Traffic studies are bullshit

last word: UWI's new $3.5-billion state-of-the-art medical school

Architecture of the Future | Mass Studies

The Creators Project went to the offices of architecture firm Mass Studies in Seoul, Korea. They interviewed founder Minsuk Cho on how their ultimate goal is to shape a community through space.

The Modern Family: Part 1

For Part One of the two-part series "The Modern Family" the Yee family presents their bucolic home in Carmel, California, designed by Lake|Flato Architects. As the Yees demonstrate, having kids doesn't mean you have to sacrifice good design.

Read more via

On the Boards: Gwell

JDS were commissioned to design a 38,000 m² 10 story building with a hybrid programme consisting of retail, offices and small apartment. Called the Officetel Building it is located in the Gangnam Bogeumjari District in Seoul, South Korea.

House of the Week 156: Ravine Guest House

This poolhouse and guest cottage in Toronto, Canada designed by architects Shim-Sutcliffe sits adjacent a ravine and amongst a lush landscape . The simple structure attempts to blur the distinction between inside and out with interwoven elements that run the interior to exterior living areas. The reduced material palette of smoked glass and timber, gives clarity to the structural solution of the suspended clerestory that run continuous around the elevations.

Installation ::: Portal of Awareness

Architect Michel Rojkind was commissioned by Nescafé to produce a public art campaign in Mexico City called Despierta a la Vida, translated as Awaken to Life for their 60th anniversary. The work was part of a campaign that consisted of eight artists using 1,500 mugs to create a public art piece. More via

blog wunderlust: 12th November 2012

That far land we dream about, where every man is his own architect

Robert Browning

Made on the Mainland | Move Over Starlets, Zaha Hadid Named Glamour’s Woman Of The Year | flying houses | A five-point plan for long-term reconstruction: Hurricane Plan | Architecture + Weather: How Changing Climate is Changing Architecture | Outdoor Wallpaper | USC frat house reborn: A modern makeover for Phi Sigma Kappa | Brad Pitt Debuts Furniture Collection | Urban billboards, replaced by bamboo forests | David Adjaye is Britain's most influential black person |

last word: Where Is Cuba Going?

Ozmik House

OZMIK HOUSE Nomination - SAIA Awards for sustainable Architecture from The Kinetic on Vimeo.

OZMIK HOUSE Nomination - SAIA Awards for sustainable Architecture
Intro and outro made by The Kinetic

Designing for Good at Room and Board

Designing for Good at Room and Board from DocuCinema on Vimeo.

Interiors : Thuys (Home)

images (c) Jorn van Eck

The Amsterdam based design studio Overtreders W have renovated and redesigned a cafe & restaurant in a museum of psychiatry, Het Dolhuys. Located in a 14th century chapel, the restaurant called Thuys (home in Dutch) features a sunroom for dining, a counter covered with matt glazed tiles, a geometric cloud chandelier and custom furniture throughout in the otherwise unchanged interior.

blog wunderlust: 5th November 2012

Architecture is art, but art vastly contaminated by many other things. Contaminated in the best sense of the word – fed, fertilised by many things.

Renzo Piano

Oscar Niemeyer Hospitalized - Brazilian Architect At Hospital Samaritano | Subsidized Housing in Chicago Began With Frank Lloyd Wright | Richard Branson on the importance of design | The Mysteries of The Bartlett (UCL) Unravelled | Stirling prize 2012: virtual tours of nominated buildings | Bjarke Ingels Tears Into Florida | Who Cares Who's a Licensed Architect? | A House That Is Like A Small Town |

last word: New Directions for Contemporary Caribbean Architects

Embracing Modernity: The Transformation of Jamaica's Architecture after 1962

Ministry of Education Building, architect Wilson Chong

image (c) David Cuthbert

Architectural Historian and Senior Lecturer at the Caribbean School of Architecture, Dr. Elizabeth Pigou-Dennis will be presenting a paper entitled "Embracing Modernity: The Transformation of Jamaica's Architecture after 1962" as part of the History at Fifty Conference at the University of the West Indies. The event will be held on Saturday, 10th November 2012 at the Council Room, UWI, Mona at 1:30pm.

build it...

A short video showing the construction photos of a 280m² house in V.N. Gaia, Portugal designed by B(A)ª

On the Boards: South Quarter Housing

Designed by Seattle based practice Mithun architects, the multi-family South Quarter development in Minneapolis. The affordable housing scheme proposes sustainable, net-zero energy design through load reduction by the building massing and orientation of the buildings.

On the Boards: Grace Farms Foundation

The proposed headquarters for the nonprofit Grace Farms Foundation by architects SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) and landscape architects OLIN to be located on 75 acres of preserved land in New Canaan, Connecticut. The 65,000 ft² structure will be a sculptural glass, steel, concrete, and wood volume that curves and spines