United States
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Continuing Education System (CES) has selected four recipients for the 2009 Award for Excellence. Established 11 years ago, the Award for Excellence recognizes superior educational providers for having an overall program with an exceptional commitment to developing and maintaining high quality education for architects. The four 2009 Award for Excellence recipients are Marshall Craft Associates, Whirlpool Corporation, Kaplan and AEC Daily.
India
Slumdog Millionaire may have cleaned up with 10 awards at the Oscars this week but up to a million slum dwellers of Mumbai are set for a less pleasant upheaval as the city undertakes a radical makeover.
Nineteen consortiums from around the world are vying to redevelop the 500-plus acres of land occupied by Dharavi, the slum where parts of Slumdog Millionaire were filmed, and demolition is set to start within six months.
Indian architect Mukesh Mehta plans to use private money to redevelop the slum and turn Mumbai into an international business destination.
United Kingdom
Japan's Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA are rumoured to be designing this year’s Serpentine Pavilion in London. The building will sit in Kensington Gardens for three months and will be the firm’s first structure to be built in England. The duo trained under Toyo Ito, the Japanese architect who designed the Serpentine's pavilion in 2002. The pair, whose New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York was unveiled last year, will work alongside structural design and engineering firm SAPS, led by Mutsuro Sasaki, and with the Arup team, led by David Glover and Ed Clark with Cecil Balmond, reports the Architects’’ Journal.
United States
Frank Gehry’s Vegas Lou Ruvo Brain Institute is nearing completion, despite the financial crisis. The $113-million (AUD) research centre, which will provide a venue to study Alzheimer’s disease and other brain disorders, features Gehry’s signature curves. Work on site began in February 2007 and was originally due to open in late 2008. It is now due to open this year, although a final date has yet to be announced.
Norway
a-lab has won an office design competition in Fornebu for a design dubbed the “pick-up-sticks” building. The Oslo-based practice has been commissioned to develop its design for the Statoil Hydro Oslo office, after a competition between 40 different projects. The 65,000m2 design had to be flexible, environmentally friendly and modern. The building features five three-storey cantilevering lamellas piled on top of each other. These lamellas form a six-storey common space with a meeting-center in the middle.
