The 2011 Open Architecture Challenge: [UN] RESTRICTED ACCESS challenges architects and designers to partner with community groups across the world and develop innovative solutions to re-envision closed, abandoned, and decommissioned military sites. The six-month competition requires designers to work with the communities surrounding these former places of conflict to transform oftentimes hostile locations into civic spaces built for the public good. — theepochtimes.com

The inNATUR Competition, organized by OPENGAP, recently announced three winning entries and five honorable mentions. The international contest sought for innovative and cutting-edge ideas for a Nature Interpretation Center committed to a strategy of implementing architecture in a protected natural environment. The jury comprised architects Edgar Gonzalez, Liong Lie, Gerardo Mingo, and Paula Montoya. — bustler.net

Danish practice DEVE Architecture has shared with us their prequalified entry for the expansion competition of Copenhagen's Rigshospital. This hospital is the main hospital in Copenhagen and is the foremost treatment and teaching hospital in Denmark. The design is a collaborative proposal with fellow Scandinavian firms COWI A/S, WHITE Arkitekter A/S, LAND+ Landskabsarkitekter, Aps, and Lyngkilde A/S and was prequalified alongside 6 other international teams for this project. — bustler.net

The winners for the EUROPAN 11 challenge for Vienna, Austria were announced just last night, and the first prize, by unanimous vote, went to the urban design proposal of Dreiecksplatz (Triangle Square) by an international team comprising Artur Borejszo (PL, Architect), Leena Cho (US, Landscape Architect), Jason Hilgefort (US, Architect & Urbanist), and Andreas Karavanas (GR, Architect & Urbanist). — bustler.net

“These churches must become not only a decoration of our city, but truly a phenomenon of civic and church art of our 21st century,” said Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, the executive secretary of the Patriarchal Council for Culture, at a news conference. “They must become a kind of pearl of ancient tradition, uniting historic Moscow with its new districts and buildings.” He said the terms of the competition would be announced by the end of the year. — theartnewspaper.com

One of the largest plots in the square, in front of the Egyptian museum and Ritz Carlton hotel, has been fenced off for more than a decade by a company linked to former members of the regime. "My question is what is the intention of any urban intervention by the government or by a competition," said Nasser Rabbat, the Aga Khan professor of Islamic architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. "Is there a movement to make the square more controllable?" — thenational.ae

Following the regional Holcim Awards for sustainable construction projects for Latin America, Europe, Africa Middle East, and North America, winners of the Asia Pacific Awards have recently been announced, bringing the regional phase of the 3rd International Holcim Awards competition to a close. A total of USD 300,000 was presented to twelve groundbreaking projects at a ceremony in Singapore. — bustler.net

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

Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the first model of "Urban Umbrella," a beautiful new design for the city's scaffolding structures, in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday.

The design was the winner of the urbanSHED competition which sought to revamp the city's current scaffolding designed more than 60 years ago. Project Engineer Sarrah Khan, Architect Andres Cortes, and Designer Young Hwan Choi who all helped bring the structure to life were also present for Wednesday's unveiling. — huffingtonpost.com

United States Artists has honored the USA Fellows for 2011 at a festive event earlier this week in Santa Monica, CA. Fellowship grants of $50,000 each were awarded to fifty outstanding performing, visual, media, and literary artists or artist teams. USA Fellowships are presented annually in the disciplines Architecture & Design, Crafts & Traditional Arts, Dance, Literature, Media, Music, Theater Arts, and Visual Arts. — bustler.net

The winner of the 2012 TED Prize has just been announced, and being awarded is not a single person, but - for the first time in the history of the prize - a collaborative idea: the City 2.0.

TED Prize Director Amy Novogratz: "This year, we’re challenging everyone in the TED Community to embrace radical collaboration on one of the most pressing issues we face: how to build sustainable, vibrant, working cities." — bustler.net

Speaking at the V&A last week, the former Foreign Office Architects partner said that she was "dubious" about volunteers who see working in these places as an "easy option". — Architectural Record

A few days ago, we published the winners of the Architect's Eye Awards, a British competition celebrating excellence in architectural photography. Today, we are happy to also post all finalists from the 'Architecture and People' category. — bustler.net

If bookmakers put odds on architecture, they surely would have made Chicago architect Jeanne Gang one of the favorites to win the big design competition to remake the public spaces of Navy Pier. [...]

But when Navy Pier officials winnowed 11 semifinalist teams to a list of five finalists last week, Gang, surprisingly, lost out. And she wasn't the only high-profile name who didn't make the cut. — chicagotribune.com

The entries in the Pier Design Contest are in, and the options are as interesting as they are different.

The three architectural firms, selected from a field of nine diverse semi finalists yesterday are Michael Maltzan Architecture, West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture, and BIG. — I love the 'burg'