The prestigious Portuguese office Aires Mateus - formed by brothers Manuel and Francisco Aires Mateus - has won a competition to design the new headquarters of the University of Architecture in Tournai, Belgium.

The results are in: Dallas has selected Stoss + SHoP’s “Hyper Density Hyper Landscape” (HDHL) over finalists Ricardo Bofill and OMA+AMO to reunite its downtown with the neighboring Trinity River. The winning team’s pragmatic approach aims to activates the region’s “full potential” by introducing an alternating “grid-green” development that will transform 176 acres into three new “dynamic, mixed-used” neighborhoods.

The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest and the Városliget Zrt. 100 % owned by the Hungarian State announce an open, international, two-stage design competition for the design of museum buildings within the framework of the Liget Budapest Project on the territory of the City Park Budapest. The construction of the new buildings, the complete renewal of the green area of the City Park, and the renovation of the institutions already present Liget Budapest will be one of Budapest’s leading, well-known tourist and cultural destinations and a unique family park recognised as such all over Europe.

In an interesting article for the Architects' Newspaper, Marshall Brown explains why competitions are bad for architecture (both the business and design) and challenges his fellow architects to kick the habit. While competitions used to drive architectural innovation, he says they have become little more than "fantastic and relatively affordable publicity" for the developers who commission them, with competition masters such as BIG driving "an arms race of gigantic object-scape." You can read the full article here.

The Use-ReUse Adaptive Modernism Workshop will be held on June 7, 2014, during the opening day of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. It will be part of the 'Biennale Sessions 2014', Biennale's University Programme, a forum for universities. Its purpose is to suggest a wide range of perspectives on the contemporary significance of modernisms built legacy, within the context of the contemporary urban landscape.

Following the news last year that five teams had been shortlisted to redesign and reimagine the grounds of London's iconic Natural History Museum (NHM), five anonymous concept images have been unveiled. The brief called for proposals to "reshape the Museum’s grounds and reinvigorate its public setting" with an aim to creating "an innovative exterior setting that matches Alfred Waterhouse’s Grade I listed building and the award-winning Darwin Centre for architectural excellence, whilst also improving access and engaging visitors."

Berlin's Barkow Leibinger has won an invited competition to design a new hotel tower and conference centre as part of Berlin's largest hotel complex, the Estrel. Establishing a new gateway to the center of Berlin from Schönefeld International Airport, the tower will stand at 175 meters (578 feet) making it the tallest high-rise in Berlin to date. Located on the Sonnenalle at the intersection of the Ship Canal, S-Bahn and Autobahn, the site acts as a threshold between the heterogeneous industrial and residential periphery of the city and the historical neighborhoods of Neukölln.

Think Space has launched their latest competition in its MONEY cycle: Environment / Subtraction. The competition will be jurored by architect, urbanist, writer, and teacher Keller Easterling. Complete press release on the competition after the break.

Recently, City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado declared March as Miami Bike Month. And why shouldn’t it? Did you see the latest gathering this past Friday for Critical Mass? Hundreds of people, including celebrity cyclists and NBA megastars Dwyane Wade and Lebron James, were in attendance for a 13 mile trek around Miami. Cycling has become the latest “thing” in Miami. However, it could be more than just a monthly ride. Why not see cycling as a serious solution to the traffic congestion problems in and out of the city? Cities like Amsterdam and Chicago seem to think of it as a real solution. It doesn’t have to just be about bikes either, car sharing has become a major business as well and could also assist with making our streets safer. What if there was a place in Miami, built infrastructure that helped promote these solutions? Well there could be…..that’s where DawnTown needs your help.

GRAFT Architects have won an invited competition to restore and extend one of Germany's oldest youth hostels in central Munich, Germany. Their proposal, which was judged alongside designs by haascookzemmrich (Stuttgart), Snøhetta (Oslo), and YES Architecture (Munich), centers around the idea of "experiencing community." Their proposal enables exchange and communication whilst also alluding to the "established traditions of simple traveling, youthful curiosity and the thirst for encounter." Connecting the historic quality of the building with the challenges of modern habits and traveling practices, their design "builds a bridge between origins and departure."

David Adjaye and Daniel Libeskind are among six interdisciplinary teams competing to design Canada’s National Holocaust Monument. Planned for an empty, triangular site adjacent to Ottawa’s Canadian War Museum, the monument designs are currently undergoing public review before a final decision that will be made by an international jury of design and art professionals this spring. Construction is expected to begin in 2015.

Norwegian energy corporation Statoil has revealed proposals for a new corporate headquarters from the five architecture firms that were shortlisted last October: OMA, Foster + Partners with Space Group, Snøhetta, Wingårdhs, and Helen & Hard with SAAHA. The competition--announced in September of 2013--called for a project that would "take into consideration a number of new measures in the region regarding public transport, parking, roads and other types of infrastructure." The winner will be announced in April/May.

The Ukraina Hotel, with the support of the non-state educational institution Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, have announced the finalists for the Ukraina Hotel Entryway competition. Designs from ABD Architects (Russia) in cooperation with Werner Sobek Moskwa (Russia), TPO Lesosplaw (Russia) in cooperation with Malishev Wilson Engineers (UK), and Studio 44 (Russia) have been chosen from a total of ten competing proposals, one of which will now be implemented by the client. Offering the chance to design a new entrance to one of Moscow's foremost landmarks, the winning scheme will provide a rare opportunity to work with an unique example of Stalinist architectural heritage.

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Honour, glory and cash are at stake as Troldtekt A/S invites architectural and design students from all over the world to participate in the Troldtekt Award 2014. The most creative idea for using the company’s acoustic panels in a different and imaginative way wins a cash prize of EUR 5,000. The deadline for registering for the competition is 1 April 2014.

As we announced yesterday, IND [Inter.National.Design] + Powerhouse Company have won the Çanakkale Antenna Tower Competition to design a 100-meter Observation and Broadcast Tower in Çanakkale, western Turkey (the first international competition in Turkey since 1997). The team beat out an impressive shortlist of eight architectural heavyweights, including Sou Fujimoto Architects, Snøhetta, and FR-EE/Fernando Romero Enterprise; see all their proposals, after the break.

Cities are developing into increasingly complex systems. This is giving rise to new scales of risk, making preparedness measures and resilience planning more challenging to formulate and implement.

Reaching the second stage of the international competition to design Russia’s National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), which was won by Heneghan Peng Architects, WAI Think Tank put forth a proposal that projects the NCCA as not just a center "for the creation, study, and support of contemporary art in Russia" but also "a building as manifesto." WAI Think Tank focused on giving a flexible autonomy to the enclosed and external spaces, designing the galleries as extensions of the city, in an attempt to design "the first archetype of Museum as City."

The Morton Group announces the "Russian Character" International Architecture Competition to develop the concept for a Culture & Education Center.