Serious money is in play in the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ “Mayors’ Challenge” for cities competing to show they have come up with promising innovations to cope with 21st-century challenges.

“It was a big surprise to hear we’d share our ideas with competitors,” says Gomes. “But it works brilliantly. It’s exactly what you need—everyone sharing and trying to help each other. It’s crazy, but it works.” — urbanland.uli.org

Cummins Inc. hasn't revealed even a back-of-the-napkin sketch of what its regional headquarters in Downtown Indianapolis might look like, but one thing is certain at this point:

It won't be locally designed.

The engine maker said today it's picked three small to mid-sized New York City architectural firms to compete for the contract to design the $30 million multi-story building [...].

The competitors are Deborah Berke Partners, SHoP Architects, and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. — indystar.com

The top three winners of the Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 were recently announced during the awards ceremony this past weekend in Versailles, France. For two years, the 20 student teams worked to build a full-scale, fully functioning solar-powered house. — bustler.net

It's that time of year again. Six buildings were just announced for the 2014 shortlist of the prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize for best new building in the UK. Each contender will be judged particularly for its design excellence and its significance in the evolution of architecture and the built environment. — bustler.net

The world championship for the "72 Hour Interactions" realtime competition is taking place in Witten, Germany later this month! For 72 intense hours starting July 23 at 6 p.m., five international teams will venture out and transform Witten's neglected public sites through nothing other than creativity and architectural design — while having fun in the process. — bustler.net

The challenge requires sophisticated understanding of the resources — human, physical, digital, spatial, and civic — that libraries offer to their users. In the conversation below, Shannon Mattern, a scholar who works on libraries, archives, and media infrastructures, and Nate Hill, Deputy Director of the Chattanooga Public Library, talk about what these resources are, how they are evolving, and what design can contribute to how they are deployed. — urbanomnibus.net

Designed by a renowned team of Parisian Ateliers Jean Nouvel in collaboration with Australian firm PTW Architects, One Central Park in downtown Sydney has received some high recognition in just the past few weeks alone. — bustler.net

City boosters in this Nordic capital dream of a Guggenheim museum of Finnish wood rising near the Baltic Sea and one day drawing millions of tourists and cruise passengers. But the huge costs of the proposed development are stirring a backlash here against an institution that is ordinarily accustomed to eager suitors. — nytimes.com

Although anyone with Internet access can do a quick search online, nothing replaces a brick-and-mortar public library for quality resources and info — yet these centers are consistently overlooked by city policymakers. After setting up an RFQ for the Re-Envisioning Branch Libraries Design Study in New York, the Architectural League and the Center for an Urban Future selected five interdisciplinary teams out of 45 submissions. — bustler.net

The New York City Design Commission presented its annual awards for excellence in public design on 7 July—and among the winners is a company run by the commission’s president. Signe Nielsen, who has been the government agency’s president since 2012, is also a principal at Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects. [...]

This is not the first time that Nielsen’s firm has been recognised by the Design Commission while she has been at the head of the award-giving body. — theartnewspaper.com

Ukraine's largest architectural event CANactions held its 2014 ideas competition, whose theme was "User-generated Kyiv". Based on reinforcing the valuable idea that a city is shaped by its citizens, the competition sought architectural ideas to help Kiev further develop towards the ideals of creativity, peace, justice, and of course, happiness. — bustler.net