Today marks the official start of construction of the new building for Onze Droomschool in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, designed by Mecanoo architecten. The new 5,322 m² school brings together education, child care and medical care. [...] In addition to classrooms, the building will house practical training studios, a mediatheque, music studio, sports center and an outdoor Johan Cruijff court for soccer and basketball. — bustler.net

Every building is unique, and each has good things and some not-so-good things. The new website Honest Buildings launched today to make it a lot easier to learn about projects and open up a discourse on how to make them perform better. As the site matures, the creators see it developing into an organic gathering place for discourse on the built environment – a social media hub just for buildings. — Inhabitat

Austrian firm soma is updating us on the latest construction status of their “One Ocean“ Thematic Pavilion for the EXPO 2012 in Yeosu, South Korea. The pavilion is a major and permanent building for the Expo and is scheduled for official opening on May 12, 2012. [...]
The building will house two kinds of exhibitions that will give the visitors an introduction to the EXPO’s theme, The living Ocean and Coast. — bustler.net

Peter Gluck & Partners’s innovative approach to project delivery, “Architect Led Design Build”, is simple: the New York City-based firm acts as both the architect and the contractor. The client gets two separate contracts with different legal entities but the same people. A typical project goes from schematic design, directly to subcontractors who estimate cost and contribute useful information on alterations or alternatives. — metropolismag.com

What can you accomplish in 360 hours?
The Chinese sustainable building company, Broad Group, has yet attempted another impossible feat, building a 30-story tall hotel prototype in 360 hours, after building a 15-story building in a week earlier in 2011. — youtube.com

Semi-autonomous flying robots programmed by Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler "will lift, transport and assemble 1500 polystyrene foam bricks" next month—starting 2 December 2011—at the FRAC Center in France. The result, they hope, will be a "3.5 meter wide structure." — bldgblog.blogspot.com

Construction of the new Maritime Museum and Science Center started this week in Porsgrunn, Norway. The building, designed by Danish architecture offices COBE and TRANSFORM, conveys Norway’s transformation from a seafaring nation to a modern society based on knowledge industry. The project is expected to be completed already in fall of 2012. — bustler.net

JDS Architects’ Holmenkollen Ski Jump has been announced as the winner of the 2011 ECCS Structural Steel Design Award today at the ECCS Congress in Potsdam, Germany. The award recognizes outstanding design in steel construction emphasizing the many advantages of steel in construction, production, economy and architecture. — bustler.net

After years of controversy and delays, the 16-acre World Trade Center site is finally taking shape. Construction cranes and exposed steel frames dominate the site, towering over the National September 11 Memorial. Here is an update on the major projects — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com