The OAO HOTEL UKRAINA, with the support of the non-state educational institution Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, are pleased to announce the opening of a competition for the redesign of the entryway to this cultural heritage site of regional significance. This two-stage competition, lasting from 17th September 2013 to 25th February 2014, gives architects from all over the world the rare chance to work with an example of Moscow’s unique Stalinist architectural heritage.

The Ukraina Hotel is one of seven original Soviet skyscrapers (‘sisters’) that form a famous silhouette on Moscow’s skyline. Built in the 1950s, the Ukraina is today a landmark, marking the beginning of Kutuzovsky prospekt, one of the city’s main transport arteries.

Complete details after the break.

The skyline rises in tandem with the population of the city. Demographers predict that New York alone will add one million more residents by 2040. Finding housing will pose a crisis for hundreds of thousands of them, unless new residential towers are built to house this urban influx.

In attempts to better define what it really means to be green, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, in partnership with Make it Right, has selected products from ten companies as finalists in the Product Innovation Challenge. 144 applicants were screened by toxicologists and building professionals, proposing new alternatives from insulation grown from fungi and bricks from living organisms, to roofing made from waste limestone and recycled plastic. The ten finalists represent the shared values of practical sustainability and entrepreneurship, creating "a building product that is safe, healthy, affordable, effective and designed to be returned safely to nature or industry after use."

Three winners will ultimately be announced on November 15, 2013 at the Institute's Innovation Celebration in New York City, offering a $250,000 cash prize: $125,000 for first place, $75,000 for second and $50,000 for third. The jury members, who include executives from Google, US Green Building Council and the Schmidt Family Foundation, will judge each product based on five categories: material health, material reutilization, water stewardship, renewable energy and social fairness.

Without further ado, the 10 finalists are…

The winners of the 2013 Lamp Lighting Solutions Awards have been announced. With a total of 608 projects submitted from 52 countries, €48,000 in prize money has been awarded to 5 winning teams. The Lamp Awards were given to projects that successfully met the architectural lighting needs of an interior or exterior space, having created a positive synergy between the architecture, interior design, landscaping and lighting. The four categories included Architectural Outdoor Lighting, Indoor Lighting, Urban and Landscape Lighting, and Students Proposals.

The 2013 Lamp Lighting Solutions Awards Winners are:

The Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark, The Danish Agency for Culture and the award winning architecture and design office SHL proudly announce a joint venture ‘Drawing of the Year 2013’.Entries are invited from all architectural students of drawings that inspire, communicate and engage. The internationally acclaimed jury will be looking to award drawings that focus on entries that express the architect’s aesthetic and conceptual approach as a dialogue with – and through the medium – of drawing.

SANAA, it is. In attempts to separate itself from its sister cities, Taichung City has named SANAA, led by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, winners of an international competition that intends to unite a newly formed city. As of December 2010, Taichung city executed a mega-merger that increased its population from 1 million inhabitants to 2.5 million, encompassing the skyscraping towers of downtown Taichung to the agricultural mountainside villages of Taichung County. As a result, the local government envisioned a new urban space that would place art at its core, celebrating the regions' disparate cultures.

A team from the Moscow Strelka Institute - Izabela Cichonska, Nathan de Groot, Lindsay Harkema and Ondrej Janku - has been awarded first place in the TAB 2013 Vision Competition, Recycling Socialism. Challenged to propose a scheme for urban remediation that could diversify the concentric plan of Väike-Õismäe - one of Tallinn's three larger Soviet-era panel-apartment districts - to enhance quality of life, the winning team envisioned Dynamo: a radical plan that would reactivate the sleepy district by “recharging the ground.”

The Center for Architecture + Design and the Seed Fund announced the winners of the Reimagine. Reconnect. Restore What if 280 came down?, a competition that explored the idea of removing San Francisco's 280 Freeway, north of 16th Street, in an effort to pedestrianize that portion of the city while generating funds for several regionally important transit projects. The open competition, which encouraged designers to submit urban design interventions, from public art to infrastructure, awarded $10,000 in prizes.

This is not the first time that San Francisco has demolished a freeway to successfully revitalize a neighborhood (remember the Embarcadero and the Hayes Valley?) and it certainly isn't a first for other American cities, either. In fact, demolishing old, ineffective and/or obstructive freeways has become a powerful vehicle for urban change in this country and the 280 Freeway Competition is just one example of that trend.

The IE-TEKA Awards for Design Talent is a design ideas competition hosted by TEKA, IE Business School and IE School of Architecture & Design for young professionals from the fields of architecture, interior design, engineering and other related fields working in the GCC Region. This first edition of the competition highlights the alignment of management and design strategies for innovative retail stores of the future.

The jury includes the winner of the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize, Wang Shu, and Martha Thorne, Executive Director of the Pritzker since 2005. Complete information on the requirements and awards after the break.

The Department of State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has shortlisted three design teams for the new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon for Stage 3 evaluation. The project is part of OBO’s Excellence in Diplomatic Facilities initiative in which seeks to provide safe and functional facilities that represent the best in American architecture.

The shortlisted teams are:

The Queen’s College, Oxford is delighted to announce the launch of the Florey Design Competition. The College seeks a dedicated team to restore and add new facilities to James Stirling’s modernist masterpiece, The Florey building, which is Grade II listed.

Boston Society of Architects Housing Committee and Emerging Professionals Network Presents reGEN Boston: Energizing Urban Housing, an international ideas competition with presenting sponsor First Republic Bank.

One of Coop Himmelb(l)au's latest competition winning designs is the Dawang Mountain Resort near Changsha, China, a combination of an entertainment ice world with an indoor ski slope, a water park and supporting restaurant and shopping facilities. Positioned directly on top of a historical cement mining quarry pit and lake, this proposal aims to combine "striking landscape with ambitious design" in a way that could redefine the idea and aesthetics of recreation for the south-central Chinese city.

Organized by Rublyovo-Arkhangelskoye CJSC, part of Sberbank Russia group of companies, the two-stage open international competition for the development of the masterplan of the International Financial Centre in Rublyovo-Arkhangelskoye (Moscow, Russia) launches this Monday, September 2nd. The International Financial Centre is a 460 hectare mixed-use development project located in the west of ‘New Moscow’, in the floodplain of the Moscow River, five kilometers from the Moscow Outer Ring Road. The project involves the construction of offices, housing, hotels, commercial and social infrastructure. Applicants are required to have expertise in masterplanning of projects measuring over 30 hectares in order to qualify. The deadline for submissions is October 4th. For more information, please visit here.

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Danish practice ADEPT has won an international, invited competition to master plan the 17KM2 site of Laiyan New Town and Binjian District in Hengyang, China. Their winning proposal, “Green Loops City” was lauded for developing an innovative and sustainable way to accommodate rapid urban growth while preserving Hengyang’s cultural heritage and lush surrounding landscape.

Aidi Su from ADEPT stated: “Much of Hengyang’s cultural and natural resources are still very much intact when compared to other Chinese cities facing rapid urban development. This is an incredible opportunity for us to make a difference in Chinese cities.”

The full shortlist has been revealed for the second phase of an international competition to design one of Denmark’s largest hospitals in Hillerød: Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland. Competing against the BIG+WHR+Arup team to design the 124,000 square meter, north of Copenhagen, will be C. F Møller+Alectia+Ramboll and Herzog and de Meuron+Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects.

Zaha Hadid Architects, Coop Himmelb(l)au, UNStudio, and Snøhetta are some of the 45 shortlisted practices competing to design the International Specialized Exposition (Expo 2017) in Astana, Kazakhstan. Each practice, selected from more than a 100 proposals worldwide, has submitted their own interpretation of the expo’s theme: "Future Energy". Come September, the jury will announce which vision best represents what will be the country’s first world fair.

“The theme of our exhibition is closely related to 'green economy', which takes into account the possibility of using alternative energy sources and the autonomous water and heat provision in each of the constructions," said Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

As we announced last week, BIG+WHR+Arup has been selected as one of three design teams to participate in the second phase of the design competition for Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland, a 124,000 square meter acute hospital in Hillerød, north of Copenhagen. BIG’s proposal for the new hospital, serving over 300,000 people, seeks to "preserve the site’s existing natural features while optimizing the efficient hospital machine."

Read on for more from the architect's description...

The Latvia Association of Architects recently announced the launch of their international competition for the best concept of an architectural idea and architectonic solution for the object, 'Food Supermarket with Additional Services.' Construction of the food supermarket is primary foreseen in St. Petersburg or its' closest proximity. For this reason it is essential that competition participants take into consideration climate conditions of St. Petersburg while choosing relevant materials and developing technical and constructive solutions. Submissions are due no later than October 15.. For more information, please visit here.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) has shortlisted nineteen, innovative proposals for the 2013 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. The annual international design challenge, who crowned The Living Building Challenge as winner last year, awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems.

Known to be the longest running architectural drawing competition in the work, the 2013 KRob Architectural Delineation Competition, invites professionals and students to enter this exciting competition for an opportunity to win great prizes, gain recognition across the industry and open up new opportunities with the publication of their ‘Award Winning’ work. Organized by the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects since 1974 and sponsored by Doghouse Computer Systems, the competition culminates in an award ceremony and event night with refreshments and a lecture by the jury panel on November 14th.

All entries must be of an architectural nature, and must be authored by one individual. Entries can be elevations, sections, or perspectives, and can be conceptual or final renderings. Exploration and innovation in unique techniques are encouraged. The deadline for submissions is October 28th. For more information, please visit the official website here.

BIG, WHR and Arup have been shortlisted alongside two other design teams to participate in the second phase of the design competition for what will be Denmark’s largest hospital. The 124,000 square meter facility, known as the Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland, is planned to be built north of Copenhagen.

According to the jury, “BIG’s ideas, together with the large green spaces and green surfaces, mean that we really can talk about a healing hospital in the best possible interpretation of the concept.”

We will keep you updated as details of the other shortlisted teams emerge. 

eVolo Magazine just announced the launch of the 2014 Skyscraper Competition which is open to architects, students, engineers, designers, and artists from around the globe. One of the world’s most prestigious awards for high-rise architecture, it recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the implementation of novel technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. The participants should take into consideration the advances in technology, the exploration of sustainable systems, and the establishment of new urban and architectural methods.

The competition is an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community. The early registration deadline is November 19, and the deadline for submissions is January 20. For more detailed information, please visit here.

In his day, John Jacob Astor's name was closely associated with the most innovative real estate projects and pioneering commercial buildings as he became a successful, results-focused real estate tycoon. In his honor, EXPO REAL is now seeking the most extraordinary and fascinating contemporary commercial real estate projects through the medium of the John-Jacob-Astor Competition. All new and converted commercial real estate developments or mixed use real estate completed between 2007-2013 are eligible for submission. Submissions are due no later than September 13. For more information, please visit here.