Danish architectural firm Henning Larsen Architects has won first prize in the invited competition for a new aquarium in the Georgian seaport of Batumi.

The 2,000 m2 aquarium will replace the previous aquarium of the port and will be situated on the beach side of Rustaveli Str. adjacent to Batumi 6 May Park featuring a Dolphinarium and Zoo.

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‘The Cornerstone’ is the name of the winning proposal for a combined shopping and office complex in Vanløse, Copenhagen.

It is located in a fragmented area that consists of small houses, housing blocks, future shopping mall and highrises.

Instead of imitating or blending itself into its surrounding, it detaches itself into a building object that creates public space in front, below and behind it. Doing so, it becomes a public landmark that invites people into the developing center of Vanløse.

The project is expected to be completed in 2011-12.

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The new Museum Aan de Stroom (MAS), designed by Rotterdam-based Neutelings Riedijk Architects as a sixty-meter-high tower landmark in Antwerp, Belgium, has recently been completed. During one week in May, the public could visit the new building on guided tours. Now the MAS will be closed for another year to move the collection and set up the exhibitions. Official opening is foreseen in Spring 2011.

MAS seeks to become a contemporary museum of, for and about the city and the world. Visitors will discover how Antwerp and the world have been indisputably linked with one another for hundreds of years. In it, they will recognize hand prints as the traces left by others among us, and vice versa, they will understand Antwerp’s imprint on the world. The new museum gathers ethnological, maritime, ethnic and art historic collections in a new surprising story, so MAS announces.

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Frits van Dongen of de Architekten Cie. has won an international invited competition for 1400 units of social housing in Seoul, South Korea.

This competition for Seoul Gangnam District is an initiative by the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (KLHC) with the objective of providing affordable public housing for low income families.

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The City of Frederiksberg, Denmark, the Danish Foundation for Culture and Sport Facilities and Realdania recently announced the winners of the ‘House of Culture and Movement’ competition in Frederiksberg.

The winning project is designed by MVRDV, Rotterdam, and ADEPT, Copenhagen, in a joint effort with SLA landscape architects, Søren Jensen engineers, Imitio, Winnie Ricken, Copenhagen, Max Fordham, London, and Ducks Scèno, Paris.

The building is a new urban typology with its mix of community center, exhibition and performance, playground, park and health center. The ‘House of Culture and Movement’ is aimed to engage the population of Frederiksberg in a healthy and active life style. The 4,000 m2 building is set in 4,500m2 public gardens and is the first in a series of 3 buildings. The first phase is to be completed in 2015 and has a total budget of 17 million Euro.

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“The proposal for the revitalization of the Marstall area in the heart of German city of Hannover by Rotterdam-based practice Maxwan architects + urbanists in collaboration with Lola Landscape Architects has won the first prize. This urban design concept is part of the larger international urban and landscape design ideas competition ‘Hannover City 2020+’.

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CO Architects continues its restoration, renovation, and modernization of the venerable Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) with an innovative expansion and re-imagination of the institution’s North Campus, which dates back to the 1920s. The $30-million project’s elements include a redesigned front façade with entry bridge, pedestrian-friendly terraces and communal areas, a new two-level car park, and a major landscape program encompassing 3.5-acres of recovered green spaces with programmed gardens and outdoor learning environments. The outdoor garden spaces are created in collaboration with landscape design firm Mia Lehrer + Associates. Currently under construction, the North Campus is set to open 2011/2012, and is overseen by project manager Cordell Corporation.

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Young Danish practices WE ARCHITECTURE and Sophus Søbye Architects have won the first prize in the invited competition Kulturcenter Mariehøj. The proposal for the culture center in Denmark’s Rudersdahl municipality seeks to create open spaces for various activities where interactivity and connections between people have room to grow creatively. Other project collaborators are MASU Planning, Øllgaard Consulting Engineer, Spangenberg & Madsen Consulting Engineer, Hausenberg.

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