Magazine

The American Institute of Architects California Council has given Lawrence Scarpa, principal of Santa Monica's Brooks + Scarpa Architects, its 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award. John Hill

Over the weekend, a fire swept through the Torch tower in Dubai's marina district. The fire damaged the skyscraper, the tallest residential building in the world when it was completed in 2011, but no one was killed. John Hill

Late last month WoodWorks, an initiative of the Wood Products Council, announced the winners of its 2015 Wood Design Awards. Here we present a few of the winners to highlight the versatile ways architects are building with the product. John Hill

Guadalajara-based Estudio Macías Peredo has filled the small space of LIGA with 33 tons of raw volcanic stone for the 17th exhibition at the Mexico City architecture gallery, on display until May. John Hill

Japanese artist Takahiro Iwasaki has suspended an intricate wooden model of the Shinto shrine of Itsukushina in the National Gallery of Victoria as part of his Reflection Model series. John Hill

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is celebrating Chinese New Year and more than four decades of working in China with the 12-year zodiac calendar illustrated by the firm's Graphics + Branding studio. John Hill

London's Design Museum has announced 76 nominees in 6 categories vying for the 8th annual Designs of the Year. John Hill

A trio of recent short films from BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group – on a residential tower, an urban design proposal, and the firm's overall approach to design – illustrates the potential of video as a tool of persuasion in architecture. John Hill

Design Within Reach has selected three winners in its annual Champagne Chair Contest, which asked entrants to "create a miniature chair using only the foil, label, cage and cork from no more than two champagne bottles." John Hill

Roman authorities are reportedly selling four buildings in the historic EUR district, including the Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro to fashion house Fendi, to help pay for "The Cloud" conference center designed by Massimiliano Fuksas. John Hill

Although The Broad in downtown Los Angeles won't open until September 2015, the museum opened the doors of its Diller, Scofidio + Renfro building yesterday for the one-day Sky-Lit exhibit in its third floor space. John Hill

Atelier Bow-Wow, Rice University professor Jesús Vassallo and students from Rice School of Architecture recently completed the "Learning from Houston" study of the city's vernacular shotgun houses, culminating in an exhibition in the university's art gallery. John Hill

For the 2015 Times Square Valentine Heart Design, an invited competition organized by the Times Square Arts and the Architectural League of New York, the winner Stereotank installed an urban drum in the form of a heart. John Hill

Some aerial drone footage from earlier this month reveals the construction progress on Apple's huge ring-shaped headquarters designed by Norman Foster and located in Cupertino, California. John Hill

In preparing the project, we underlined a list of priorities. Our first initiative was to create a clear and hitherto non-existent street frontage and plaza. John Hill, FAAB Architektura

Here is a roundup of some monographs of World-Architects member firms – a baker's dozen of those released in the U.S. in the first three months of 2015, at least. John Hill

BIG – Bjarke Ingel Group's W57 project, a residential "courtscraper" on Manhattan's West Side, recently topped off, so yesterday World-Architects headed over to snap some photos of the construction progress. John Hill

Architect Jon Jerde, founder of the The Jerde Partnership, died Monday at his Los Angeles home after a long illness. John Hill

Less than a week after Morphosis was selected to design a 100-room luxury hotel in Vals, Switzerland, for Therme Vals owner 7132 Ltd, some of the jury members are distancing themselves from the decision. John Hill

The New York Post reports that The Related Companies "has hired Rem Koolhaas to design their new High Line project on West 18th Street." John Hill

The European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe have announced the 40 shortlisted works that will compete for the 2015 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. John Hill

One year after MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects won the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Architectural Firm Award, Brian MacKay-Lyons has been named the recipient of the Gold Medal, the organization's highest honor. John Hill

A. Zahner Co., the go-to engineering and fabrication company based in Kansas City, Missouri, has worked with Thom Mayne and Morphosis on a number of projects, including the L.A. outpost of Boston's Emerson College, completed last year. John Hill

Spanish duo Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano have won the Alvar Aalto Medal, conferred by the Museum of Finnish Architecture, the Finnish Association of Architects, the Architectural Society, the Alvar Aalto Foundation and the City of Helsinki. John Hill

Morphosis Architects, headed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne, has been selected in a competition to design a luxury hotel for 7132 Ltd in Vals, Switzerland, home to Peter Zumthor's Therme Vals. John Hill

Office for Political Innovation, a Madrid- and New York-based practice directed by Andrés Jaque, has won the 16th edition of MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program with COSMO. John Hill

Los Angeles-based architect Greg Lynn directs a three-year Master of Architecture studio in the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Learn more about the program through a couple short films. John Hill

The Sant Gervasi-Joan Maragall Library, designed by BCQ arquitectura barcelona, has been awarded the 2014 Premi Ciutat de Barcelona of Architecture and Urbanism. John Hill

On Monday Frank Gehry's design for the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building at the University of Technology, Sydney, home to the UTS Business School, opened its doors. John Hill

A group of 10 buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright have become the first works of modern architecture nominated by the United States to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List. John Hill

Artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller have taken over the Menil's Byzantine Fresco Chapel, three years after the namesake frescoes were returned to Cyprus. John Hill

A short film from the National Trust for Historic Preservation laments the loss of Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago through a time-lapse film of its 2014 demolition. John Hill

Bjarke Ingels Group has followed up last year's successful BIG Maze at the National Building Museum by ringing the building's atrium with 60 of their projects to take visitors on "an odyssey of architectural adaptation" from hot to cold climates. John Hill

American-Architects presented 49 projects in our Building of the Week 2014 feature, and recently we asked you to vote for your favorite. The votes have been tallied and here we present the public vote winner, the editors' choice and two runners-up. John Hill

World-Architects toured Princeton University earlier today, taking in the campus's appealing mix of old and new buildings. A standout was Rafael Viñoly's Carl Icahn Laboratory from 2003, which contains a conference room designed by Frank Gehry. John Hill

Both the Centre Pompidou and the Smithsonian announced this week that they are considering building new venues in Libourne, France, and London, respectively. John Hill