The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the shortlist of 6 projects competing for the Stephen Lawrence Prize. Now in its 20th year, the prize is the highest honor in the UK awarded to projects with a construction budget of less than US$ 1.3 million, reported the Archdaily. Previous winners of the award include House of Trace by Tsuruta Architects (2016); The Fishing Hut by Niall McLaughlin Architects (2015); House No 7 by Denizen Works (2014); Montpelier Community Nursery by AY Architects (2013); Kings Grove by Duggan Morris Architects (2012); and St Patrick's Primary School Library and Music Room by Coffey Architects (2011). The 2017 shortlist is: • The Compound, Birmingham / BPN Architects. Former textile factory turned into an art venue, a workshop and a client's home. • Fallahogey Studio, Kilrea, Northern Ireland / McGarry-Moon Architects. Studio space set within the garden of the architects’ award winning house. • Houseboat, Poole, Dorset / Mole Architects with Rebecca Granger Architects. A new nautical-inspired house overlooking Poole harbor. • Peacock House, Aldeburgh, Suffolk / BHSF Architekten with Studio-P Suburban. Courtyard home complete with studio space for a private art collection. • Silver House, Swansea, Wales / Hyde + Hyde Architects. Concrete, timber and steel layered family home overlooking the Bristol Channel. • Wolfson Tree Management Centre, Tetbury, Gloucestershire / Invisible StudioTwin timber buildings to house equipment and staff facilities at the National Arboretum The winner of the 2017 Stephen Lawrence Prize will be announced alongside the RIBA Sterling Prize at a ceremony on October 31st in London.

According to ctbuh.org, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat announced the winners of its annual "Best Tall Building" awards for 2015. This year's winners will be recognized, and the awards conferred, at the CTBUH Annual Awards Ceremony on November 12. All the winning projects and finalists will be celebrated at this gala event. Additionally, from the four regional best tall building winners, one overall winner will be selected and bestowed with the "Best Tall Building Worldwide" award, to be announced on the night. This year's selection was the most competitive yet, with winners selected from a pool of 123 entries, which is up nearly 40% from 2014. Besides this year's winners and finalists are remarkable in that they show a strong commitment to sustainability, with some exemplifying dramatic progress in the use of greenery both to enhance the comfort of the building's users and reduce the environmental impact of the building. Others show dramatic sculptural form and urban presence. The Best Tall Buildings have been named from each of four competing regions in the world, from nominees representing a total of 33 countries. This year are awarded to: "One World Trade Center", New York (Americas); " CapitaGreen " tower, Singapore (Asia & Australasia); Bosco Verticale, Milan (Europe); and The Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower, Abu Dhabi (Middle East & Africa). "One World Trade Center" is a bold new icon for New York City built on the World Trade Center site, whose design acknowledges the adjacent memorial, and whose symbolic importance to the city and the country cannot be overstated. Its form calls to mind several classical New York skyscrapers for which the city is best recognized. The building had high design expectations which the jury felt were met and exceeded. United States and Western Hemisphere tallest skyscraper "One World Trade Center" is 546.2 meters tall, it has 94 over ground and 5 underground floors, 73 lifts and the total area of skyscraper is 325 thousand square meters 40 stories, 242 meters tall skyscraper "CapitaGreen" hasn't any records. It isn't the tallest; more it is only on the 175th place in skyscraper ranking. But Toyo Ito's skyscraper is the green island situated in the heart of Singapore. The building is designed like a plant growing towards the sky. Green living vegetation covers 55 percent of the perimeter of its facade, giving the landmark its iconic appearance. Its innovative double-skin facade features an outer layer of frameless glass and an inner envelope of double-glazed floor-to-ceiling glass that reduces solar heat gain by up to 26 percent. At the top of the tower, a petal-like structure serves as a wind scoop to draw in the cooler, cleaner air from above and channel it though a cool void that penetrates all 34 stories of the building delivering fresh air to tenants. World's first vertical forest "Bosco Verticale" comprises a fantastical pair of luxury high-rises that add nearly 10.2 thousand square meters of lush vegetation to the skyline of Milan, a city notorious for its air pollution. However, "Bosco Verticale", which translates in English as "vertical forest," is more than just a beautiful sight to behold--like a pair of green lungs, its forested facade of 21 thousand plants absorbs CO2 and particulate, dampens noise pollution, lessen the urban heat island effect, and creates oxygen and favorable microclimates. The towers, measuring 80 meters and 110 meters, house 800 trees between 3 and 9 meters tall, over 4 thousand shrubs, and 15 thousand ground cover plants including vines and perennials Middle East & Africa region winner 93-storey, 381 meters high The Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower was designed by Foster+Partners architectural company, and main contractor and developer was Aldar Properties. The Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower is located in the heart of Abu Dhabi at the site of the old Central Market, a traditional crossroads and meeting point in the city. A souk extends the marketplace into the building, facilitating a gentle transition between public and private spaces.

A day after his death, German architect Frei Otto was named the 2015 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field's highest honor. The award typically goes to a living architect. Otto died on 9 March at age 89, so the announcement of the prize, scheduled for March 23, was hastily moved up. The executive director of the prize, Martha Thorne, a former architecture curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, told Otto of the award before he died. Mr. Otto's work grew out of a time of scarcity after World War II, when a shortage of construction materials encouraged him to innovate. One inspiration, he said, was the soap bubble, which showed him how to create the maximum enclosure with the minimum material. Without Frei Otto, many of the structures and buildings of the past 50 years wouldn't exist. Because Otto wasn't just an architect-he was also a brilliant inventor and engineer who pioneered some of the most far-fetched feats of structural engineering ever completed. "Throughout his life," said the citation from the nine-member Pritzker jury, "Frei Otto has produced imaginative, fresh, unprecedented spaces and constructions." Otto's major buildings include the German pavilion at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal, roof for Olympic Stadium, Munich in 1972, Tuwaiq Palace, Saudi Arabia, with Buro Happold in 1985 and the Japan Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany. The award comes with US$ 100,000 and a bronze medallion. It will be presented, presumably to representatives of the architect, on May 15 in Miami Beach. Founded in 1979 by Jay A. Pritzker and his wife Cindy, the award is funded by the Pritzker family and is considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes; it is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture. The Pritzker Prize won such architectures, as Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Oscar Niemeyer, Wang Shu, Toyo Ito . Otto is the second German architect to win the award. The first was Gottfried Boehm, the 1986 winner.

The awards ceremony for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition is known and the results are in! The Golden Lion for Best National Participation went to South Korea for "Crow's Eye View: The Korean Peninsula". The jury cited Korea's "extraordinary achievement of presenting a new and rich body of knowledge of architecture and urbanism in a highly charged political situation." Chile received the Silver Lion for a National Participation for "Monolith Controversies". The jury said, "Focusing on one essential element of modern architecture - a prefabricated concrete wall- it critically highlights the role of elements of architecture in different ideological and political contexts." The three Special Mentions to National Participations went to Canada - Arctic Adaptations, France - Modernity, Russia - Fair Enough. Armenian delegation also is presented in XIV international Architecture Venice Biennale. Our pavilion is dedicated to Yerevan and called "The Capital of Desires". National Coordinator of Armenian delegation Arev Samuelyan reported that Armenia participates in exhibition for 6 years. This year Armenian side invited well-known international curators Ruben Arevshatyan and George Shellhammer. According to Ruben Arevshatyan there are presented three key Armenian modernist architecture schools of XX century. First, it is "Tamanyan School", second is "Constructivists School" and the third is "Rafael Israelyan School". XIV Venice Architectural Biennale under the slogan "Fundamentals" opened for visitors on June 7. This year it doesn't present any new architectural solutions or projects, instead, architectural experts of different countries tries to present their vision how architecture has evolved in the last century and what we can do with it now. Curator of the Biennale, which takes place every two year, became famous Dutch architect, Pritzker Price winner Rem Koolhaas. Exhibition theme "Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014" he announced early enough to invite national pavilions to discuss a single theme. In the contest Biennale attended 65 national teams.

The Shard in London has secured the top prize for the world's most renowned prize for high-rise architecture - the Emporis Skyscraper Award 2013. The Shard, currently Western Europe's tallest building, was selected for first prize from more than 300 skyscraper submissions from around the world. The award, which is now in its 14th year, is issued by Emporis, the international provider of building data. To qualify, skyscrapers had to be completed in 2013 and reach a height of at least 100 meters. London's winning mixed-use skyscraper rises 306 meters and was designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano. The Shard crystallizes the skyline with its sharp, angled glass facade. Second place was awarded to "DC Tower 1" in Vienna, Austria, designed by Dominique Perrault Architecture. According to the architects, the facade's folds give DC Tower 1 a malleability which constantly adapts to the light, a reflection or an event. They said its shimmering undulated facade is a prominent part of the Vienna skyline; it now holds the title of Austria's tallest building at 250 meters. The skyscraper also impressed due to its comprehensive sustainability concept, including photovoltaics to generate energy, local plants with low water requirements in the green areas of the building, and electric car chargers to save on CO2 emissions. China's unconventional Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort by MAD architects took third place. The hotel skyscraper reaches 102 meters and echoes the shape of a giant ring. This enables all rooms to have balconies and views and absorb daylight from all directions. An impressive 19,000 LED lights illuminate the facade at night, imposing reflections on the building of it's Lake Tai location. Last year's top prize went to the curvaceous Absolute World Towers in Canada, while Frank Gehry's stainless steel skyscraper marvel New York by Gehry secured top honor's the year before. In 2010 Prestigious architectural award Emporis Skyscraper Award won the Hotel Porta Fira in Barcelona.