The City of Melbourne has been certified carbon neutral, an important step toward its goal of becoming one of the world’s most sustainable cities.

In a carbon constrained economy, councillor Arron Wood said the certification by Low Carbon Australia against the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS) “was a solid demonstration of the City of Melbourne’s commitment to a more sustainable Melbourne.” — DesignBuild Source

Billionaire businessman, James Packer has shortlisted four of the world’s best architects (Adrian Smith + Gill Architecture, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Renzo Piano and Wilkinson Eyre Architects) to bid to design and build the urban masterpiece that will be Crown Sydney.
The proposed $1 billion six-star Crown Sydney resort will be a dramatic addition to Sydney’s skyline and be built across a giant 6,000 square metre site in Barangaroo. — DesignBuild Source

Destination Sydney led by Lend Lease with Australian firm HASSELL Studio, Dutch office OMA and Populous (formerly HOK), has been unveiled as the winning consortium for the redevelopment of the Sydney Entertainment Centre, Convention Centre and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour. — australiandesignreview.com

While becoming the tallest in architectural terms will always garner attention, taller building often harbour some of the lengthiest development periods.

With a rise in the prominence of prefabrication, however, large is no longer necessarily equated with lengthy. — DesignBuild Source

The moment whereby a burning crane which caught fire on a construction site snapped and fell on top of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) building on Broadway in inner Sydney this morning has been caught on tape.

A video, which was filmed by a passer-by and supplied to Channel Nine, shows the upper portion of the crane above the main boom tip collapsing onto the building rooftop. — DesignBuild Source

The Herald was granted a first look at a mock-up of the facade on Thursday. It will be built brick by brick, rather than using a cheaper "brick curtain" method, which would have detracted from the fluid, undulating design, Professor Milbourne said.

It is due to be completed in mid-2014. Construction will be a "bespoke", at times slow process, said the managing director of Lend Lease's project management and construction business, Murray Coleman. — smh.com.au

The Australian Institute of Architects has unveiled plans and preview images of its exhibition, Formations: New Practices in Australian Architecture, which will open at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale this August. In the face of new economic, social and cultural challenges, the exhibition at the Australian Pavilion seeks to act as a catalyst for discussion and debate around the changing role of architects and the ways in which they influence the world around them. — bustler.net

Architecture critics are in a particular bind. Like art critics but unlike, say, those of film, they must swim in the same social sea as their targets. Further, because useful architectural criticism requires experience of the design process, they must also be prepared to offend those by whom they might otherwise be employed. — theage.com.au

Life Architecturally follows internationally acclaimed husband and wife team, architect Robert McBride and interior designer Debbie Ryan... This intimate documentary observes the pressures of building a multi-story, twin-tower development; revolutionary new schools, one in the shape of an infinity symbol, and the ongoing construction and design of their own family home – which is on the backburner once again due to how busy they are. — vimeo.com

This crazy building is a real live structure and it's also Australia's very first carbon neutral building. Recently completed, the Pixel Building is an office building located on the former CUB Brewery site in Melbourne. — Inhabitat.com

Over twenty architects, designers, philosophers and photographers across Sydney have participated in a series of creative conversations, which transform the image of this harbour city from generic postcard perfection to a set of multiplicitous, individual urban narratives. These are networks of surrender, whose ambition is not the cohesion of a finished, consumerable product, but the construction of new communities for creative work. — Gwangju-Design-Biennale_MEDIA-RELEASE.pdf

GLENN Murcutt, Australia's most internationally recognised architect, famous for the expression ''touching the ground lightly'', won't be able to get his hands near the competition to design a new Australian Pavilion in Venice. — smh.com.au