“Who are you?” asked a Machias Elementary School first grader as she ran out of her classroom on the way to recess and spotted out-of-place adults.

The architect discusses winning this year's Driehaus Prize, which honors classical architecture and traditional urbanism, and how he plans to spend the $200k award. 2012 Driehaus Prize winner Michael Graves Photo courtesy University of Notre Dame School of Architecture Michael Graves is better known for appropriating traditional forms in his monumental Postmodern compositions than for being a strict classicist, so it may seem surprising that in December he was named the winner of the 2012 Driehaus Prize, which celebrates architects who advance classicism in their work. Graves, the founding principal of the New York- and New Jersey-based firm Michael Graves

U.S. firm Moore Ruble Yudell is master planning a huge development for China's largest agriculture company. Click on the slide show button to view additional images. China's largest agriculture company has hired California-based Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners (MRY) to master plan a 1,215-hectare agricultural and residential development 30 miles southwest of Beijing. The project, called the Agricultural Eco Valley, will be carbon-neutral. With all of the recent tainted food scares in China, the client, COFCO, has a high stake in ensuring its brand is equated with food safety, says James Mary O'Connor, a MRY principal. "[COFCO sees] themselves

An architect in northwest Arkansas converts a typical metal shed into a striking place of worship.

Smithgroup had completed four Microsoft Technology Centers (MTC) for the software giant by the time the multidisciplinary firm was asked to design a fifth, in Southfield, Michigan.

World Building of the Year (and Office): Media-TIC, Barcelona, Cloud 9, Spain The fourth annual World Architecture Festival (WAF) wrapped up in Barcelona on November 4. More than 1,300 people attended this year’s awards ceremony, which capped the three-day event, and got a peek at the 700-plus international projects entered. Seminars and keynote speakers touched on issues of “disaster” and “difference,” including David van der Leer, assistant curator of Architecture and Urban Studies at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, who also led the museum’s team in executing the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a touring project that wrapped up its New York City

Frank Gehry drapes his first skyscraper in rippling stainless steel, bringing luxury living to lower Manhattan.

Image courtesy Perkins + Will Shanghai Natural History Museum, Shanghai, China, Perkins + Will When it is completed at the end of 2012, Perkins + Will’s nautilus-shell-shaped Shanghai Natural History Museum will emerge from a proposed sculpture park and provide views of the surrounding city. Perkins + Will won the international competition in 2007 to design the museum, which will replace an existing natural history museum. The architects were inspired by the classical gardens in Suzhou with their water features, rock formations, and screened walls, which they abstracted in their design. “It’s important that the museum is in the old