#23 Sept/Oct 2008

News and observations

• Luckenwalde's EU-funded station library (DE)
• Public opinion clashes with professional architectural judgement in Ireland
• Zagreb's unfinished Museum of Contemporary Art (HR)
• Rome-based Stalker Group designs a house for Roma community (IT)
• Update: Young Basques (ES)
• Reality check: Omnizorg multi-focus reception centre, Apeldoorn (NL)
• and more…

New projects

• Academy of Arts, Tallinn (EE) by EFFEKT and SEA
• Hotel, Belgrade (RS) by Mustafa Music
• Office campus, Istanbul (TR) by Emre Arolat Architects
• Mobile performance venue, Oslo (NO) by Various Architects
• Office building, Bacau (RO) by Carmen Tanase and Giuseppe Pietrobon

Helen & Hard: Local activists

Siv Helene Stangeland and Reinhard Kropf, founders of Helen & Hard, talk about the oil industry, recycling, collaboration and invention and about what it is like to live and work in Stavanger. Kropf: 'If you don't like the cafés, you have to design them yourself and if you don't like the housing, you make your own.'

New buildings

• Shopping mall, Lausanne (CH) by Ueli Brauen and Doris Wälchli
• Football stadium, Maribor (SI) by Ofis and Multiplan
• Villa, Cernosice (CZ) by ksa
• Kindergarten, Tartu (EE) by Kavakava
• Bar pavilion, Porto (PT) by Menos é Mais
• Motel, Moscow (RU) by X.Y.Z.architects
• Waterfront and maritime museum, Kotka (FI) by Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects
• Town hall, Sant Cugat (ES) by Xavier Vancells
• Treetop walkway, Kew Gardens (UK) by Marks Barfield
• Water filtration plant, St. Erasmo Island (IT) by C+S Associati
• Church, Jyllinge (DK) by KHR Architects

Designing with light

Architecture and urban design are more than ever connected with artificial light. Nearly every building nowadays is designed with a special lighting plan and every self-respecting city has a light management department dedicated to the lighting of streets, squares and buildings. The reason is not hard to find: light not only makes the built environment visible and visually attractive, it is an essential ingredient for a safe, liveable and commercially successful environment.

Focusing on European countries, cities and regions

• The predicted decline of Europe's population forces architects and planners to reconsider the current building practice
• Hanseatic self-confidence: an architectural tour of Hamburg (DE)
• Home: Guna Eglite's Modernist-inspired white villa, Jurmala (EE)

Buildings from the margins of modern history

Werner Bossman traces the journey of Vjenceslav Richter's Yugoslavian pavilion for the Brussels Expo of 1958. The crisp modern building got a second life after the world exhibition closed, when it was dismounted, transported and reassambled to become a school building in the Flemish village of Wevelgem.