The new Pérez Art Museum that opened here last week embodies a vernacular style—deep-shaded, loose-limbed and connected to the tropics—that should have been but never was because of those two invasive species, Art Deco and the air conditioner. — online.wsj.com

In the competiton seeking proposals to replace Bertrand Goldberg’s iconic Prentice Woman’s Hospital in Chicago, Northwestern University has selected Perkins+Will as the winning firm.

P+W prevailed over two other shortlisted teams — Goettsch Partners/Ballinger and Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture/Payette — and will get to design the new 600,000 square foot Biomedical Research Building for the Feinberg School of Medicine on Northwestern University’s downtown Chicago campus. — bustler.net

As America's East Coast continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy, MODU's recently completed "Weather (Un)control" exhibition of the Marfa Dialogues/NY highlights an overlooked issue of the storm's aftermath that still remains: the invisible contaminants in indoor air. — bustler.net

The shakeup means there will be no Lubetkin Prize or RIBA International awards given next year.

Named after the Georgian émigré and Modernist Berthold Lubetkin, the 8-year old accolade had been open only to RIBA chartered architects and international fellows with its shortlist drawn from each year’s set of RIBA International Award winners.

The new International Prize will have a wider remit and is expected to be open to all architects, although the exact criteria has yet to be announced. — architectsjournal.co.uk

After three years of construction, NL Architects' B05 Kuifje is now complete. Nicknamed Tintin, B05 is located in Nieuw Crooswijk, a residential area near the city center of Rotterdam and the Kralingse Bos park.

With its "deformed" silhouette, Tintin was constructed as part of an urban plan by West 8 to redevelop the area into a distinct cityscape. — bustler.net

Architect Josep Lluís Mateo has now completed the final phase of the Castelo Branco Cultural Center in Portugal. Mateo first proposed the design, which won first prize, in an invited competition in 2000. The new Cultural Center in the historic town of Castelo Branco features an ice-skating rink, an exhibition space, and an auditorium — all integrated into one fluid structure. — bustler.net

With help from volunteers, we took pictures of dozens of buildings and found that on average, blinds or shades covered about 59 percent of the window area. And over 75 percent of buildings had more than half of their window area covered. As the study puts it, “Tenants are moving into these rooms with a view, but more often than not, can’t see out the window.” — blog.urbangreencouncil.org

There’s a reason it’s a struggle to save buildings like the Astrodome. They were built less than 50 years ago, the usual cutoff for inclusion on the government’s National Register of Historic Places... it’s relatively young buildings like these, from the 1960s, ’70s, and even ’80s, that preservationists are fighting to save. And in doing so, they are having to confront a tough question: What does tomorrow’s historic architecture look like? — bostonglobe.com

Space Oddity was conceived by rub-a-dub in 2012, while studying under the DRL at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, a post-professional MArch program. They state that while their proposal "is obviously not a viable option for actual space travel...Lately there has being a lot of noise about space design...We believe a lot of these projects are only solving technical issues".

Fred Scharmen was intrigued "Very nice work. Thanks for posting this".

schmidt hammer lassen has been chosen to design the new 30,000 m2 Ningbo Central Library in the coastal city of Ningbo, China. shl's winning design will display the library's collection of more than 2 million books — including the largest number of historic and ancient books in Ningbo, one of China's oldest cities. — bustler.net

Bramberger [architects] from Graz, Austria had the winning scheme to design the High Tech Campus in Villach, Austria.

Bramberger's clear-cut scheme integrates office and educational facilities with green space that will eventually connect with surrounding buildings to create a fully functioning campus. — bustler.net