The first of three phases for the new Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research (WIMR) at the University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health has been completed. Phase One of the project included master planning and building design by HOK of a 469,000-square-foot East Tower at the center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison health sciences campus. Milwaukee-based Zimmerman Architectural Studios, Inc. (ZAS) served as architect of record.

The new seven-story tower houses the UW Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center – one of the leading cancer research facilities in the U.S. It also accommodates Radiation and Imaging Sciences, Orthopedics and Regenerative Medicine Research, Medical Physics, and a Vivarium.

The building’s research floors feature state-of-the-art, open-plan laboratory benches located adjacent to principal investigator office suites. Light-filled, two-story conference rooms, lounges, and meeting spaces are situated throughout each research laboratory floor.

Butler Rogers Baskett Architects (BRB) has designed a new aquatic center for the Canterbury School, a college preparatory, coeducational boarding and day school for students in grades 9-12, in Milford, Connecticut.
The Williams W. Higgins ‘53 Aquatic Center is comprised of an 8-lane, 25 yard pool for competitive swimming, diving and water polo; seating for 200 spectators; Canterbury team rooms; visiting locker rooms; and an Aquatic Director’s office.

Photographs courtesy of Woodruff/Brown Photography

An international idea contest was held for Tallinn’s new City Hall in Estonia and the best concept was presented by the Bjarke Ingels Group from Denmark together with Adams Kara Taylor of the UK.
The purpose of the international idea contest was to find the best architectural solution for the new administrative building of the city government that will be situated on a 35,000 m2 plot near the Linnahall building. The contest for the new city was met with a great interest, 81 architects and their teams were willing to present an entry. Of those, the international jury chose the best 9 to shortlist as finalists into the second phase of the competition.

The Knut Hamsun Center, located in Hamarøy, Norway and designed by Steven Holl Architects, will open to the public on August 4, 2009 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Knut Hamsun’s birth.


Dedicated to Norway’s most inventive twentieth-century writer and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2700-square-meter center is located above the Arctic Circle by the village of Presteid of Hamarøy, near the farm where Hamsun grew up. The building includes exhibition areas, a library and reading room, a café, and an auditorium for museum and community use.

Influenced by Hamsun’s explorations of the intricacies of the human mind, the building is conceived as an archetypal and intensified compression of spirit in space and light, and as the realization of a Hamsun character in architectonic terms. Inspired by passages of Hamsun’s texts, there is an "empty violin case" deck, while a viewing balcony is like the "girl with sleeves rolled up polishing yellow panes."
The concept for the museum, “Building as a Body: Battleground of Invisible Forces,” is realized from both inside and out. The wood exterior is punctuated by hidden impulses piercing through the surface. The spine of the building body, constructed from perforated brass, is the central elevator.

The board form concrete structure with stained white interiors is illuminated by diagonal rays of sunlight calculated to ricochet through the section on certain days of the year.

The tarred black wood exterior skin alludes to Norwegian Medieval wooden stave churches, and in the roof garden, long chutes of bamboo refer to traditional Norwegian sod roofs.

Designed in 1994, the building has survived Norwegian controversy with over 300 local articles. In 2005, the original design was reinstated with the support and dedication of Alf Einar Øien and Aaslaug Vaa and in close collaboration with Oslo-based LY Arkitekter.
The realized building embodies all the original design concepts and includes the addition of a community auditorium. The auditorium is connected to the main building via a passageway accessed through the lower lobby, which takes advantage of the natural topography, allowing for natural light along the circulation route.

The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), in collaboration with Shenzhen-based architects Urbanus, has been awarded first prize in the design competition for a major new cultural center, transport hub, and public landmark in the heart of the city of Shenzhen, southern China.


The design, led by OMA partner Ole Scheeren, was selected from 32 entries by an international jury.

Photographs and Illustrations Shenzhen Crystal Island © OMA / Ole Scheeren

The Imperial War Museum North (IWMN) has selected Landscape firm TOPOTEK 1 to develop the external spaces of the Museum following a RIBA international design competition and public consultation with visitors and key partners.
The proposed scheme was the one which, in the opinion of the selection panel, best addressed a complex brief asking for zones of contemplation, creativity and play which would complement the Daniel Libeskind building.