Copenhagen darlings BIG have unveiled their design for the 490-foot-tall Beach and Howe tower in Vancouver, a collaboration with Westbank, Dialog, Cobalt, PFS, Buro Happold, Glotman Simpson and local architect James Cheng. The new mixed-use tower marks the entry point to downtown Vancouver, forming a welcoming gateway to the city, while adding another unique structure to the city's skyline. — bustler.net

The proposal is for a mixed-use development. On the Howe Street side, there will be a 49-storey residential tower with a 9-storey podium which includes market rental housing, commercial uses, and a childcare facility. The building height is at 150 metres and will be the tallest building on the southern end of downtown and the 4th tallest building in the city, unless the Ritz Carlton site gets developed before this, in which case it would be the 5th tallest. — vancitybuzz.com

He plans to build an 80-foot-tall tower by stacking former railway planks at a slight spiral so that the entire structure will appear to change directions midway up, like a game of Jenga gone askew. Inside, a restaurant will sit on the building's lobby floor while a cantilevered, wooden staircase will lead visitors to the various white-cube gallery floors above. — wsj.com

BIG has just been announced winning an invited competition for Koutalaki Ski Village, a 47,000 m2 ski resort and recreational area in Levi, Finland. — bustler.net

Last year, when BIG unveiled its fantastical ski resort on top of a waste-to-energy incinerator plant in Copenhagen, we were admittedly intrigued. But we weren’t at all surprised when the City of Copenhagen denied the project yesterday because they believe it will damage the climate and environment. — Inhabitat.com

Danish and French architects BIG & OFF, engineers Buro Happold, consultants Michel Forgue and environmental engineer Franck Boutte is the winning team to design the new 15,000 m2 research center for Sorbonne Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. The winning team was honored as the best design among proposals from MVRDV, Lipsky Rollet, Mario Cucinella and Peripherique. — bustler.net

Architects do a lousy job of selling their ideas to the general public, said Bjarke Ingels, on Thursday morning during his keynote address at Architectural Record’s annual Innovation conference in New York. They need to “find ways to present their ideas or concerns in words that are so clear that non-architects will actually take an interest in them” — archrecord.construction.com

The plan is to transform a 1960s warehouse into a multifunctional space dedicated to the intersection of art, commerce, working, and living. Called, Transitlager, the restored building is part of a larger redevelopment of Basel’s upcoming Dreispitz neighborhood, which is becoming an attractive and inviting urban quarter. The industrial area is characterized by hard lines and the renovated and extended warehouse will reflect its origins with a modern twist on those geometries. — Inhabitat.com

CLOG slows things down. Each issue explores, from multiple viewpoints and through a variety of means, a single subject particularly relevant to architecture now. Succinctly, on paper, away from the distractions and imperatives of the screen. — CLOG

Six New York City firms were selected, including BIG, which Saitowitz said had designs of past projects that were "jaw dropping." — St. Petersburg Times

How do you turn a 100-metre-tall incinerator in the heart of Copenhagen into a social and cultural hub? By building a ski slope on the roof, of course. — guardian.co.uk

Although Mr. Ingels is one of Europe's best-known young architects, he actually entered the profession by default. "I wanted to be a cartoonist," he says, speaking earlier this spring from Spain, where he was attending a friend's bachelor party. "There is no cartoon academy in Copenhagen but there is an architecture school." — WSJ.com

BIG, Martha Schwartz Landscape, Buro Happold, Speirs & Major, Lutzenberger & Lutzenberger, and Global Cultural Asset Management were today announced as the winning team of the international design competition for a new 27,000 m2 cultural complex in Albania, consisting of a Mosque, an Islamic Center, and a Museum of Religious Harmony. — bustler.net

"It's a bug," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, "that cars were invented before computers." So Ingels reimagines city streets and highways crowded with tight-packed, auto-piloted cars, taking up one-quarter of the road space and allowing for precision guidance alongside people and other vehicles -- all of which would together reboot the city's streets as vibrant public spaces. A smart transport grid, in essence, in parallel with the rise of smart energy grids. — Chris Turner, Mother Nature Network