Stantec • Fort Macleod, Alberta

Stantec's multibuilding design for the Alberta Public Safety and Law Enforcement Training Centre (APSLETC), in Fort Macleod, Alberta. Image: Courtesy Stantec

Stantec has unveiled its design for the Alberta Public Safety and Law Enforcement Training Centre (APSLETC) in Fort Macleod, Alberta.

The APSLETC integrates building and landscape design into a campus that meets the training needs of law enforcement agencies across North America. The design provides classroom, indoor simulations,  combat, and advanced driving skills training facilities.

The APSLETC facility occupies over one-half square mile (1.4 square kilometers) and includes indoor and outdoor training facilities, as well as a residence hall and classrooms.

John McAslan + Partners • Lancaster, United Kingdom

Rendering of the atrium space of the new University of Lancaster Engineering Department building designed by John McAslan + Partners. Image: Courtesy John McAslan + Partners

John McAslan + Partners have been appointed by Lancaster University to assist in the design and construction of a new home for the University's Engineering Department.

The competition-winning scheme will deliver 4,720 square meters (50,800 square feet) of workshop, laboratory, and office space in two concrete-framed wings set on either side of a continuous, four-story high atrium.

The building is targeting a BREEAM Outstanding rating, and will consider combining multiple renewable energy sources including solar, wind and biomass provisions as part of a visibly demonstrable sustainable design strategy.

A dramatic metal staircase, dropped into the atrium, provides circulation and breakout spaces linking the two wings together. The route also serves as an architectural promenade providing views into the diverse workshop and laboratory areas of the Engineering Department.

Lubetkin Prize Shortlist • New York, Guangzhou, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur

A multistory skylight atrium of the Solaris, in Singapore, designed by TR Hamzah and Yeang and CPG. Photo: Albert Lim

The Royal Institute of British Architects has announced its shortlist for the 2012 Lubetkin Prize, given to a new building located outside the European Union, designed by a RIBA member firm. The winner of the award be announced on the evening of Saturday 13 October at a special event in Manchester, England.

The nominees are:

• Guangzhou International Finance Centre, Guangzhou, China, by Wilkinson Eyre Architects
• One KL, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by SCDA Architects
• Solaris, Fusionopolis 2B, One North, Singapore, by TR Hamzah and Yeang and CPG
• Sperone Westwater, Bowery, New York City, USA, by Foster + Partners

Guangzhou International Finance Centre

Guangzhou, China

The 103-story Guangzhou International Fincance Centre designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects. Photo: Jonathan Leijonhufvud

The Guangzhou International Finance Centre is the tallest building to be designed by a British architect, anywhere in the world. Wilkinson Eyre Architects won the competition with a slender triangular mixed use tower rising to 103 storys out of a podium containing shopping and a connection to the subway system and three levels of parking, as well as two linked smaller towers of accommodation.

Robert Venturi Retires • Philadelphia

Fire Station Number Four (1966), in Columbus, Indiana, designed by Robert Venturi. Photo: Don DiBernardo/Artifice Images

The firm Venturi Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. –– the contemporary incarnation of the architectural practice from which architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown have produced buildings such as Fire Station Number Four (1966), and Gordon Wu Hall (1983) –– announced that as of July 2012, Mr. Venturi has retired. Venturi, who celebrated his 87th birthday on June 25, has practiced for 50 years. 

According to the firm, Ms. Scott Brown will continue to publish and present her work.

Although Venturi designed many buildings throughout his career  –– including the Vanna Venturi House (1964) for his mother –– his theories have probably created more impact. Based on the philosophy of 'complexity and contradiction', he reassessed architecture to stress the importance of multiple meanings in appreciating design.

The firm, which is now under new leadership, has also been renamed VSBA, LLC.

Daniel K. McCoubrey, president and principal, together with fellow principal Nancy Rogo Trainer, will lead the firm going forward.

Venturi and Scott Brown designed Gordon Wu Hall (1983), a student dining and recreation building on the campus of Princeton University, in Princeton, New Jersey. Photo: Tom Bernard

Stirling Prize Shortlist • London, Wakefield, Belfast, Glasgow, Cambridge

A skylight and bench seat inside the Maggie's Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, designed by OMA, one of the six projects shortlisted for the 2012 Stirling Prize. Photo: Philippe Ruault.

The Royal Institute of British Architects announced a shortlist of six buildings for its 2012 Stirling Prize.

The 2012 RIBA Stirling Prize judges will visit the six shortlisted buildings and meet for a final time on the day of the presentation (13 October) to pick the winner.

The six buildings now competing for this year's title are the Hepworth Wakefile museum, the London Olympic Stadium, the Lyric Theatre, Maggie's Centre in Glasgow, New Court, London, and the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge.

The Hepworth Wakefield, Yorkshire by David Chipperfield Architects

The Hepworth Wakefield art museum, in Wakefield, England, by David Chipperfield Architects. Photo: Hufton+Crow

On arrival at the Hepworth you are drawn across an elegant bridge surrounded by strange river craft and motley industrial buildings. The gallery works beautifully with this varied and gritty context, both suggesting it belongs and at the same time is something rather special. Its scale changes as you approach and enter it, big and dramatic where it needs to be, but welcoming where it doesn't. The carefully cast dusky mauve concrete forms make you want to stroke them as you get closer.

What appears to be a fairly random set of boxes in plan soon reveals its logic inside, with the shop, cafe, education room and offices on the ground floor radiating out from the entrance space. In the first floor galleries the circulation pattern changes subtly from radiating to radial as the promenade takes you through a series of galleries with deep walls concealing the ventilation services.

The galleries are daylight through slit skylights and carefully placed windows which frame views of Hemsley Moor, the Town Hall, the Weir and the Chapel on the Bridge.

The building gives a sense of being made specifically for the work of Hepworth whilst at the same time being very much of Yorkshire, grounded and granite like. An affirming project on every level.

Pelli Clarke Pelli • Singapore

The entry gate to the new Yale-NUS College Campus, in Singapore, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli. Image: Pelli Clarke Pelli 

Ground was broken July 6th for the Yale-NUS College campus, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in collaboration with Forum Architects of Singapore.

Jointly created by Yale University and the National University of Singapore, Yale-NUS College, the campus is scheduled to open in 2015, and is designed to achieve the highest rating under the Green Mark, Singapore's benchmark for sustainable design.

The 62,000-square-meter (670,000-square-foot) campus is composed of courtyards punctuated by residential towers, along with a community of learning, and social spaces. At its heart is a campus green flanked by academic and administrative buildings, including the learning commons, auditorium, sports hall, and an open-air, sheltered gathering place -- the Agora.

Brick Awards • New York, Boston, Chicago, Portland

A top BIA award went to the LEED Platinum-certified Bud Clark Commons in Portland, Oregon, designed by Portland-based Holst Architecture, recently covered in ArchitectureWeek No. 555. Photo: Courtesy BIA

Some really nice projects done with stacked pieces of baked clay can be seen in the Brick Industry Association's 2012 Brick in Architecture Awards.

Projects were awarded in one of seven categories and were selected by an awards jury for their innovative use of brick, with eight projects getting the program's highest award level, and over 50 projects getting awards in three other award tiers.

Atlantic Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts

Commercial - Photo: Courtesy BIA

• Architect: Cbt Architects 
• Associate Architect: Building Conservation Associates 
• Builder: John Moriarty & Associates, Inc. 
• Mason Contractor: A. Jandris & Sons, Inc. 
• Owner: Boston Properties, Inc. 
• New Brick Wall Contractor: Phoenix Bay State Construction
• Restoration Contractor: Grande Masonry

Apollo Architects • Kamakurayama, Japan

The five-sided open living space on the upper floor of Le 49 House, in Kamakurayama, Japan, designed by Apollo Architects. Photo: Masao Nishikawa

Located on Mount Kamakura, the Le 49 House, designed by Apollo Architects, boasts a stunning view overlooking Sagami Bay. The clients, a couple who had been living in a high-rise condominium in downtown Tokyo, fell in love with the location at first sight, taking an instant liking to the view and the lush green surroundings. The husband is a keen architecture buff who went on architectural tours throughout Europe to see buildings while he was working in the UK, and decided to commission a new residence with an attached workshop for his wife.

The house consists of rectangular volumes with concrete bases to which a white photocatalytic pigment has been applied. These volumes are staggered to create an overlapping effect that projects a modern sensibility while also embodying a certain Oriental aesthetic. As you descend the narrow slope, the triangular pilotis at the entrance to the house come into view.

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson • University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson's design for the new residence hall at University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, Washington. Image: Courtesy University of Puget Sound

Puget Sound breaks ground on a new academic residential community.

A contemporary new residence and event hall, with modern interior spaces and a traditional Tudor Gothic exterior, will open on the campus of University of Puget Sound in autumn 2013. Preliminary work for the 55,000-square-foot building began in May on the corner of North 13th and Lawrence streets, near the center of campus overlooking Commencement Walk.

The 135-single-bedroom residence features innovative spaces and amenities that encourage students to connect academically and socially with their peers, while providing them with privacy and independent living. The hall also gives the Puget Sound community new spaces for teaching, meetings, and activities.

Finne Architects • Mid-Century Modern Reno in Lake Forest Park, Washington

Finne Architects has designed a major renovation of a mid-century northwest modern home located outside of Seattle, Washington. Photo: Benjamin Benschneider

Located on a secluded, wooded site about 25 miles north of Seattle, Washington, a 1950's northwest Modernist house has been completely and sensitively renovated by Finne Architects. With extensive new windows and light monitors, the renovated house opens out to the surrounding forest.

During the renovation, the plan was reorganized to create a larger master bedroom and bathroom, with each space afforded views of the forest. The main living and dining spaces have also been slightly enlarged, and a new roof monitor was added to bring daylight to the entire space.

The combined kitchen/dining space is at the heart of the home's layout. Photo: Benjamin Benschneider 

An existing hemlock ceiling with exposed fir beams has been retained in roughly half the house and new fir ceilings were added to the remainder of the house. Similarly, existing terrazzo flooring was refinished and new areas of terrazzo were added in a complementary color.

Grimshaw, Gruen • Union Station Master Plan in Los Angeles

Aerial view of Union Station (1939), in Los Angeles, California.  Photo: Courtesy Grimshaw

Grimshaw, in partnership with Gruen Associates, has been selected to design the Los Angeles Union Station Master Plan.

Los Angeles Union Station listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, featured frequently in film and other media. The building was designed by John and Donald B. Parkinson, Architects, and was built from 1936 to 1939. The building's Fred Harvey Company restaurant was designed by Mary Jane Colter.

Today, it is the primary station for rail service in southern California, offering both long distance and commuter rail service in addition to local subway, light rail and bus lines. Union Station also anticipates the potential arrival of high speed rail in the future, offering another vital link to the region's transportation network.

The station and the area surrounding it are at the nexus of multiple vibrant communities. The Master Plan project will create a new vision for Union Station, in conjunction with the general revitalization and growth of downtown Los Angeles.