Allied Works Architecture’s tasting room for the Sokol Blosser Winery, nestled in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, is a low-profile building with a complex flavor profile. Architect Brad Cloepfil set the low-slung, 5,000-square-foot structure into a hillside and clad the interior and exterior walls in earthy-hued bands of tight knot cedar, Douglas fir, and hickory. Large windows frame vistas of the landscape, while large, striated skylights cast shadows that evoke the grape trellises of the surrounding vineyards. The Allied Works addition gives the winery, which opened Oregon’s first tasting room in 1978, a new centerpiece. It serves as a point of orientation

One of the world’s most ambitious civic projects, the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong gained momentum today. The District announced that Herzog & de Meuron, in partnership with TFP Farrells, won the job to design Hong Kong’s largest contemporary art museum called M+. Herzog & de Meuron and TFP Farrells beat out five other teams: Renzo Piano Building Workshop; Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizwas/SANAA; Toyo Ito & Associates and Benoy; Shigeru Ban Architects and Thomas Chow Architects; and Snøhetta. The M+ project, slated for completion in 2017, will join several other proposed cultural venues, including the Xiqu Centre designed

On Thursday, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Shaun Donovan launched Rebuild by Design, a multistage competition meant to generate designs that increase resiliency in vulnerable coastal communities. 

French Architect Rudy Ricciotti recently unveiled his completed Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM), a cube of lacy concrete resting at the lip of the Mediterranean Sea. Located in Marseille, the museum chronicles more than 4,000 years of Mediterranean history with a collection of art and artifacts spread over 40,000 square feet of exhibition space. The project also includes a 335-seat theater. A delicate walkway bridges Ricciotti’s building with Fort Saint-Jean, the city’s historic military stronghold built in the 17th century. Click the image below to view a slideshow. Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM)Rudy RicciottiMarseilles, France