The winner of the 2013 Stirling Prize was announced at a special ceremony in London tonight: Astley Castle, a groundbreaking modern holiday home inserted into the crumbling walls of an ancient moated castle, in Warwickshire, England by London-based Witherford Watson Mann Architects has won the coveted trophy for the best building of the year. — bustler.net

The Royal Institute of British Architects has revealed its shortlist for the 2013 RIBA Manser Medal - Best New Home -- the UK's most distinguished private home design award. [...] Locally presented and judged, the RIBA Awards are specifically for structures in the UK by RIBA Chartered Architects and RIBA International Fellows. Winners are also considered for the RIBA Stirling Prize. — bustler.net

Cramped rooms with low ceilings and one small window facing directly on to a brick wall. If you crane your neck, you can just about see the outside world. It could be a description of the cells in Pentonville Prison, but these are the conditions enjoyed just down the road from the Victorian jail in a new student accommodation block for University College London – today announced as winner of the Carbuncle Cup by Building Design magazine, for the worst building of the year. — theguardian.com

Votes have been open for the Carbuncle Cup's annual naming and shaming since May. And now, here's the shortlist for the ugliest building of the year – from a swirly vertical pier to faux-fronted student flats. — theguardian.com

It is a sad fact that the number of women in architecture is dropping, whilst in many other professions women have long had parity in numbers as well as pay and status. Of the Royal Institute of British Architects' (RIBA) 27,000 chartered architects, just 4,000 are women.

Whilst the number of female architecture students has grown – now 44%, we can't seem to retain them in the profession. Just 34% officially qualified chartered architects are women. — theguardian.com

The Institute also announced the selection of the three best international buildings which will now be competing for this year's Lubetkin Prize. The final winner will be announced - together with the Stirling Prize winner - on September 26th by the RIBA in London. — bustler.net

The Royal Institute of British Architects today announced the UK & Ireland's six top projects shortlisted for the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize. The selected buildings will now go head to head for the prestigious prize, and the winner will be announced on the evening of Thursday, September 26th in London at Central Saint Martins, King’s Cross, designed by last year’s RIBA Stirling Prize winner Stanton Williams. — bustler.net

In a damning indictment of the prevailing culture of her own profession, Dame Zaha Hadid, the world's leading female architect, says she has faced "more misogynist behaviour" in London than anywhere else in Europe and that things are not improving at all for women in architecture. — guardian.co.uk

"I'm going to be intolerant of bad architecture," he says, describing how the former head of planning was a highways engineer who "let anything and everything through – including office blocks stacked on top of multistorey car parks.

"My idea of good architecture is about creating place. It's not about providing glitzy iconic buildings, competing one against the other, but how we use the best of what we've got." — guardian.co.uk

The building, known as 1 Angel Square, has been designed to deliver a 50 per cent reduction in energy consumption compared to The Co-operative’s current Manchester complex and an 80 per cent reduction in carbon. This will lead to operating costs being lowered by up to 30 per cent. — DesignBuild Source

This year, David Adjaye, whom President Obama refers to as his favourite architect, is at number one on the list, selected by a panel of independent judges working from a definition of influence as "the ability to alter events and change lives in a positive way". — guardian.co.uk

Curves are to be banned in a new generation of no-frills school buildings, according to a government crackdown on what it believes is wasteful extravagance in educational architecture.

Design templates unveiled for 261 replacement school buildings also prohibit folding internal partitions to subdivide classrooms, roof terraces that can be used as play areas, glazed walls and translucent plastic roofs. — guardian.co.uk

The architects, Grimshaw, have taken something delicate and beautiful and surrounded it with a building that looks like a 1980s bus station. Clumsy and ineptly detailed, their new glass greenhouse around the Cutty Sark totally ruins her thrilling lines, obscures much of her exquisite gilding and cynically forces anyone who actually wants to see her to pay their £12 and go inside. — blogs.telegraph.co.uk

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the winners of the 2012 RIBA Awards. Honored for architectural excellence are 50 buildings in the UK and 9 buildings elsewhere in the EU. The shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize for the building of the year will be drawn from the 59 RIBA Award winners. — bustler.net