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Click on the slide show button to view additional images. A state-of-the-art headquarters for China CITIC Bank designed by Foster + Partners is starting to rise along the banks of the Qian Tang Jiang river in Hangzhou. The building, designed in collaboration with East China Architectural Design Institute, will serve as a high-tech landmark in a new business district that is taking this ancient city into the 21st century. Construction workers broke ground for the project in March, 2011 and are now sinking pilings for the foundations of the 63,000 square-meter, 20-story steel structure. The design of the 100-meter-high building

Shanghai, China Years in the making, the prominent project, designed by the Shanghai office of Sparch, will wrap up construction next year. Photo © Christian Richters. Photo © Lin Ho After eight years in development, the Shanghai International Cruise Terminal will soon be completed. The architecture firm Sparch began work on the multi-use project (and opened its Shanghai office) in 2004, broke ground on the site in 2006, and will be fitting out its final buildings there in early 2012. In designing the project, the firm had to consider two nearby districts: the concession-era buildings of the Bund, and the

Click on the slide show button to view additional images. Area architects may not have had to claw their way in but they recently put their design and engineering skills to the test on an animal-rescue mission to design warm, weatherproof, portable and safe shelters for New York City’s stray cats. The designers volunteered their time and resources to design and build the shelters for the second annual Architects for Animals competition, part of the non-profit Mayor’s Alliance for New York City’s Animals. There are more than 10,000 stray cats in New York City, says Co Adaptive Architecture, a Brooklyn-based

Union Square, looking south, 1849, published by John Bachmann. Click on the slide show button to view additional images. NYC: The Death and Life of A Great American City Roche Retrospective Opens at MCNY Manhattan’s defining street grid turned 200 earlier this year, and the Museum of the City of New York is marking the occasion with “The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011,” the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the grid’s planning and implementation. Though ostensibly a celebration of New York, the show is more importantly a celebration of long-range urban planning. The grid has been at

An audacious plan is under way to build as many as 24 new schools in key markets across the U.S. solely through corporate funding, donated materials and volunteer labor. Stantec architect Annette Zacherson designed the project to maximize natural light through clerestory windows. Images courtesy Stantec / Cause and Effect Evolutions Shaded light wells and outdoor screens are a major feature of the school design. Related Links: Sustainable Solutions: Green Schools Movement Gaining Steam Dubbed the Green Schoolhouse Series, the idea sprung from father-and-son team Marshall and Jeff Zotara, co-founders of Cause and Effect Evolutions, a Carlsbad, Calif.-based firm acting

"Everybody who donates the components wants them to be their showcase products," says Alex Bertolini, project manager with the Phoenix office of Hensel Phelps Construction Co., the first schoolhouse's general contractor. "We get to play with the newest and most interesting systems out there." But it also means altering the typical project flow. "A company wanted to showcase a chilled-beam system—a totally different type of air-conditioning system than what you would find in a typical structure," he says. "All of a sudden the design needed to change to match what product [was] being offered." MEP engineer Heideman Associates, St. Louis,

The architecture and design profession lost many notable figures in 2011. We profile some of the leading minds who left an enduring mark on the community and the world at large. Post tributes to these innovators and others who passed away this year in the comment section below. Ray Anderson Photo courtesy Interface Flor Ray Anderson, the founder and chairman of Interface who passionately advocated the business case for sustainability, died at his Atlanta home on August 8 after a 20-month-long battle with liver cancer. He was 77 years old. Born in Georgia, Anderson founded his company in 1973, producing

Cornell University and its partner, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, have won New York City's competition to build a $2-billion-plus applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced December 19. The partnership team beat out seven other bidders for the mayor's Applied Sciences NYC initiative, launched last winter, which aims to build or expand a state-of-the-art engineering and applied sciences campus in the city. Rendering Courtesy of Cornell University The announcement follows Cornell’s news last week of a $350-million donation made to support the project. Cornell did not initially release the source of the donation, however, it recently confirmed

Photo courtesy Rob Pyatt The students will build the first four homes on this site, located on the OLC campus in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Related Links: Design Build Bluff Teaching by Example The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Dakota, home to an estimated 40,000 members of the Oglala Sioux tribe, is one of the poorest areas in the country. The unemployment rate is well above 80 percent, and an astonishing 97 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty line. Many of the houses on the reservation are considered substandard and lack basic water and sewage

Walking through HafenCity, it’s difficult to imagine the grungy shipbuilding yards and warehouses that once dominated the area.