The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, a reimagining of a conventional theatre building, with a ground-level performance space and auditorium visible from the outside, opens in Dallas this week.

The Wyly Theatre, part of the city’s new AT&T Performing Arts Center, is designed by Joshua Prince-Ramus (partner in charge) and Rem Koolhaas (founder of OMA).

Unlike a typical theatre, the Wyly accommodates back-of-house and front-of-house areas above and beneath the auditorium rather than wrapped around it, liberating its perimeter – a glass façade with optional blackout blinds – for direct contact with the urban surroundings. Passersby have the chance to glimpse the action inside; the theatre itself, which seats up to 575, can offer views of the city of Dallas as a backdrop.

Perkins Eastman announced yesterday, that the 280,000 sf new headquarters of GE Energy Financial Services in Stamford, CT has attained LEED Gold status for Commercial Interiors.

This is the second project in Connecticut to attain LEED Gold-CI, and one of 111 projects in the United States.

Manitoba Hydro Place has officially opened today. This world class office tower is a model for the next generation of extreme climate responsive architecture.

Designed by the integrated design consortium of Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (Toronto), Smith Carter Architects (Winnipeg) Transsolar KlimaEngineering (Stuttgart), the tower has already gained attention with the prestigious “Best Tall Building in North America” award that is granted by the CTBUH (Council for Tall Buildings), the world’s leading body dedicated to the field of tall buildings and urban habitat. In October, Manitoba Hydro Place will also go on to contend for the “Best in the World” prize. Already generating international interest, the project has appeared in the Princeton University Press, the Architectural Press, and various other journals in Europe and Asia.

Photographs by Gerry Kopelow

The Thor Heyerdahl School of Advanced and Further Education in Larvik, Norway was inaugurated today (Friday). The 33,400 m2 new school, designed by the Danish architects schmidt hammer lassen, is the largest new school in Norway. Schmidt hammer lassen won the international competition for the school including a 4000 spectator sports arena in 2005. One year later, the company won the competition for a 25,000 m2 school building of City of Westminster College.
The new school is pointing to the future as a social and educational experiment. The students of the technical educations are deliberately mixed with college students aspiring for later university degrees. Thus, schmidt hammer lassen have made Norwegian thoughts on educational reform concrete.

Technology company Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD) new “Lone Star” campus – located at 7171 Southwest Parkway in Austin – has been awarded LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, making it the largest LEED-certified corporate campus in Texas.

The $190 million, 870,000-square-foot campus opened in early 2008 on a 59-acre tract in south Austin. Project elements include four four-story office buildings, three recessed parking garages and the Lone Star building, which features an employee fitness center, cafeteria, gourmet coffee bar, casual meeting space, outdoor decks and a gaming center with table tennis, billiards tables and video game consoles.

Rafael Viñoly Architects announces the completion of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, Urban Design and Landscape Architecture at City College of New York.

The 135,000 square foot facility houses administrative offices, classrooms of varying sizes, an exhibition space, an architectural library, design studios, faculty offices, a model shop, mechanical rooms, a rooftop open-air amphitheater and a separate facility for the City College Architectural Center - an outreach group that provides advocacy and planning and design assistance to community organizations. The new building will officially open on September 16, 2009.