Adam Williams

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced this year's winners of its annual National Awards and EU Awards. The competitions offer an excellent opportunity to look at some of Europe's most interesting new architecture. This year's UK winners include a variety of building types, and most of the country is well-represented (except Wales, which didn't snag a single win). A chapel in a back garden in Edinburgh, a visitor museum in Northern Ireland's Giant's Causeway, and a commercial building on London's Regent Street all attest to the range of buildings which took the judge's fancy. However, educational facilities were the big winners this year, with a full third of the winners dedicated to learning.  Read More

Exbury Egg is a floating off-grid workspace and home, installed on the shore of the Beaulieu River, UK. It was conceived by artist Stephen Turner, and created with the help of both Perring Architecture and Design, and SPUD design studio. The egg-shaped structure will support Turner for a year as he carries out observations on the local environment and produces his works of art.  Read More

Hathigaon (or elephant village) is an ongoing low-income housing project by RMA Architects designed to provide a suitable habitat for 100 working elephants and their keepers. The project is located on the foothills of the popular tourist destination of Amber Palace, near Jaipur, India, and sees land once devastated by sand quarrying once again reclaimed for use.  Read More

Originally constructed in 1972, the former Castle Boutique Megastore in Phoenix, Arizona, has been transformed from an adult-themed store into the new headquarters of sustainable-building firm DPR. Despite its origins, it would be a mistake to underestimate DPR's new premises, as the building received both LEED-NC Platinum certification and Net-Zero Energy certification from The International Living Future Institute, thus making it currently the largest net zero building in the world.  Read More

Mood Map is an art exhibit created by New York-based E/B Office that expresses the mood of the South Korean populace by analyzing their tweets. The data is visualized through six fiber optic lights located on the roof of the Data Curation section of the Museum of Art, at Seoul National University.  Read More

The official residence of Australia's current Prime Minister (known as "The Lodge") was only ever intended to offer temporary accommodation when constructed back in 1925. To celebrate this year's Canberra centenary celebrations, the University of Canberra and the Gallery of Australian Design invited architects to produce a modern replacement for the venerable lodge. Sydney-based Other Architects duly produced its "A House That Floods" concept.  Read More

However efficient a prison may be, it still typically expends significant energy resources. But what if a prison could actually create power, rather than just consume it? That's the thinking behind lecturer in architecture Dr. Margot Krasojevic's futuristic offshore floating Hydroelectric Waterfall Prison concept, which isn't just self-sustaining, but produces excess energy for homes on the mainland too.  Read More