At right: Lifecycle Building Challenge winner: South Lake Union Discovery Center. David Miller, The Miller|Hull Partnership.

Enter the second year of the Lifecycle Building Challenge competition to shape the future of green building and facilitate local building materials reuse. Submit your innovative project, design, or idea for reducing to conserve construction and demolition materials and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by designing buildings for adaptability and disassembly.

Lifecycle building is designing buildings to facilitate disassembly and material reuse to minimize waste, energy consumption, and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Also known as design for disassembly and design for deconstruction, lifecycle building describes the idea of creating buildings that are stocks of resources for future buildings.

Only residents of the United States and its territories are eligible. Registration closes 31 July 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

The character of a neighborhood is a reflection of the people who live there. When people feel connected to a place, they feel more connected to one another. The community becomes an extended family and life more meaningful. Thus, Re:Vision is looking for urban planning approaches where revamped environments bring current residents together, particularly families. This is a chance to repair the essential relationships between social work, nature and urban infill with ideas that value humanistic thinking and imagination over bulldozers. Ponder the kinds of structures and landscapes that typically exist in run-down areas and transform them into eco-wise spaces that make life better. How might you overcome the inevitable resistance to change, and harness the community’s human resources? Introducing eldercare and childcare programs or sustainable landscaping with useable harvests might be just what’s needed. The best plans, no matter their originality or scale, will aim to positively affect neighboring blocks as well.

The Re:Connect registration and entry deadline is Monday June 2nd, 2008. Visit the site to learn more.

The Architecture Firm Award is the highest honor that The American Institute of Architects can bestow on an architecture firm for consistently producing distinguished architecture. It is conferred by the Board of Directors. Any firm or successor firms, whether an individual or an organization of architects, in which the continuing collaboration among individuals of the firm has been the principal force in consistently producing distinguished architecture for a period of at least 10 years, is eligible for the Architecture Firm Award. While serving on the Board of Directors, Board members and their firms are ineligible to be nominated for this award. No more than one such award shall be made in any year.

Nomination binders must be received no later than July 11, 2008. This date is firm and no exceptions will be made. Visit the site to learn more.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was founded in 2002 when the Rome Statute, which was adopted in 1998, came into force. Currently 105 countries have become parties to this International Treaty. The ICC is an independent and permanent court that prosecutes those accused of the most serious crimes of international concern: genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The establishment of this Court is a milestone in the development of international justice.
The aim of this project is to construct permanent accommodation for the ICC on a prime site bordering the North Sea dunes and the city of The Hague and covering over 72,000 m². The ICC and the host State of The Netherlands share the conviction that the new ICC premises should provide suitable working conditions, functionality, security and ecological fit.
Within the premises, up to 1,200 workstations, courtrooms, and various ancillary facilities will have to be provided with a total gross floor space of up to 46,000 m². Furthermore, parking facilities as well as plans for two expansions of 150 workstations each are foreseen. The spatial and functional design should take into account the need for flexibility and scalability on the long term.
A worldwide architectural design competition will take place in order to select the best architect for this unique project for which this is a call for candidature. The competition is organised by the Chief Government Architect of The Netherlands. It is a restricted anonymous project competition that begins with an open application for candidature, followed by a pre-selection of up to 20 participants and a design competition.

For entry details, please visit ICC.

Call for entries
The Royal Institute of British Architects is once again on the lookout for potential RIBA Stirling Prize winners. Following on from the success of David Chipperfield’s Museum of Modern Literature in Germany in October, the search has begun to find the best examples of new British architecture. Practices up and down the country are urged to submit projects of architectural excellence to the 2008 RIBA Awards scheme.

The RIBA awards programme, supported by The Architects’ Journal, is largely unchanged following the successful introduction of a new pyramid structure in 2007.

RIBA Awards |are judged and presented locally. The next level is the RIBA National Awards |which are judged and presented nationally.

The RIBA Stirling Prize |shortlist is selected following further visits to winners of the RIBA Awards and of RIBA European Awards |for buildings in the rest of the EU.

From 2008, the RIBA Stirling Prize goes back to its roots as a ‘built or designed in Britain’ prize, for which only RIBA Award-winning buildings in the UK by RIBA chartered members and International Fellows, or buildings in the rest of the EU by practices whose principal office is in the UK, will be considered. The move will strengthen the British connection with the prize, while maintaining the competitive edge that buildings in Europe have always provided. Eligibility for all awards up to the RIBA Stirling Prize remains unchanged.

Now in its third year, the Lubetkin Prize |shortlist is drawn from winners of RIBA International Awards for buildings in the rest of the world. Supported by The Architectural Review, the Lubetkin Prize will be presented to the most outstanding work of architecture outside the UK and the European Union by an RIBA member. The Lubetkin Prize will be judged by a jury which will visit the buildings on a shortlist drawn from winners of the RIBA International Awards|.

Awards ceremonies
The RIBA Awards will be presented at local ceremonies; the RIBA National, European and International Awards, the Lubetkin Prize and the award for RIBA Client of the Year, will be presented at a dinner to be held at the Hilton Hotel, London on 27 June 2008. Winners of RIBA National Awards and RIBA European Awards will be eligible for the RIBA Stirling Prize (given the above proviso) and for the Stephen Lawrence Prize|. All RIBA Award winners will be eligible for a series of special awards to be presented at the RIBA Stirling Prize Dinner in Liverpool on 11 October 2008.

Commitment to sustainability
Once again the RIBA’s commitment to sustainable architecture is reflected in its awards programme, with all entries requiring a description of the building’s performance in use with particular reference to energy use. Energy performance statistics, signed by an environmental engineer, are highly desirable for all entries and mandatory for those projects with a contract value over £1 million.

To download the entry forms, please visit www.architecture.com/awards

Zehnder America is excited about the fact that their products have been so well accepted by the design community for their high quality, innovation and functionality. For this reason, Zehnder is announcing the first Zehnder Design Contest. The contest is open to industry professionals who would like to showcase their talents and ideas through their entry of a completed bathroom, master bathroom, powder room, spa or mudroom. The project must demonstrate the practicality, versatility and functionality of a Zehnder towel radiator with regard to efficient heating and creation of a comfort zone in the home.

The contest is open to kitchen and bath designers, architects, interior designers, and custom builders. Each entrant must show the use of a Zehnder towel radiator in the project. First place winner walks away with $3,500. Entries must be postmarked no later than 15 August 2008. Download the PDF to learn about more prizes and rules and regulations.

The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [SMoCA] announces a major design competition and public exhibition, “Flip a Strip.” This innovative project will foster creative new visions for the renovation of the small-scale strip shopping plazas that line the streets of this metropolitan area-and virtually every suburban zone in the country. (Note: this is an idea-generating competition, not a design/build project.) “Flip a Strip” continues SMoCA’s commitment to creating a forum for public issues of both local and national importance and to generating ideas that better the quality of civic life.

The competition is a hybrid, both open and invitational, with a nominal registration fee of $60. Participants must be professional architects with at least five years professional experience. Participants can select one model site from among three sites that have been submitted by city planners from the municipalities of Scottsdale, Tempe and Phoenix, Arizona.Ringed by parking and adjacent to thriving neighborhoods, these strip malls have great potential for adaptive re-use and architectural upgrades. They are an undervalued and neglected building stock. This competition will look at options for making strip malls economically viable, aesthetically interesting and communally meaningful.

Specifications and detailed information will be available through the competition/registration web site. Submissions must be received by mail at SMoCA by 31 March 2008.

The Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, the Stiftung Zürcher Kunsthaus and the City of Zurich announce an international architectural competition for the Kunsthaus extension. Architects are invited to apply for the pre-qualification round. Design work will begin in April, and the winning submission is to be chosen by the end of 2008. The application deadline is 1 February 2008; relevant documents and an updated list of jury members can be found at http://www.stadtzuerich.ch/hochbau.

Re: Dexigner

The Chronicle of Higher Education is currently hosting a contest for Bush Library Design Proposals that are to be sketched on the back of a size-10 envelope as if you were just conversing with the President and quickly jotting down some ideas.

Design proposals cans be ’serious, humorous, adventurous, or all of the above’ and the grand prize is a iPod Touch. Plus, the posterity of being the one who offered the design in the first place. I know I’m going to enter this one. I have a great idea (it has something to do with the moon). Postmark deadline is 1 February 2008.

Via: TOI Studio

AIA St. Louis hosts AIA National Photography Competition for Architects each year. The competition was founded to capture and highlight the multi-talents of the architect. Winning images from the competition are published in a succeeding year’s Rizzoli Engagement Calendar, an internationally recognized and sold publication. Entries are juried by a panel compromised of acclaimed architects, professional photographers or graphic designers.

The competition is open to any and all architects actively registered in the United States. The contest is also open to Associate members of the AIA, and student members of AIAS in good standing. Professional Affiliate or Allied members are not eligible. Entries must be postmarked no later than 1 March 2008. Visit the site to learn more.