It may seem ironic, but even petroleum research centers can be LEED certified if they meet the critieria. Case in point: the King Abudullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC for short), designed by Zaha Hadid, is aiming for LEED Platinum. Set to be built in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the state of the art campus will house research and development facilities on energy and environmental exploration and analysis. KAPSARC’s main building is a crystalline structure composed of modular six-sided cells with many connections between them, as well as a series of shaded outdoor spaces, gardens, and underground tunnels. Inhabitat.

In downtown Salt Lake City, the Mormon church is undertaking a massive commercial re-development project.

"'There will be no evidence of the church within those blocks,' said H. David Burton, a former corporate executive who oversees the church’s business interests as the presiding bishop. Mr. Burton said the civic spaces inside City Creek would be private property, but 'with all the attributes of a public venue.'

The next step in a creeping theocracy in Utah? Via the NYT.

Over the years, Barbie has been an astronaut, a nurse, the president of the United States and a police officer, among more than 120 careers. But she’s never been an architect, and a University at Buffalo architecture professor wants to change that. Buffalo News

Only a month after it's hyped opening, the Burj Khalifa (formerly known as the Burj Dubai), has been shut off from the public, apparently due to electrical problems. Sounds familiar | Guardian
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From the good people at Frame Magazine, who've given us the sparkling Mark Magazine before, now bringing us Elephant, "on art and visual culture. The magazine is divided into five parts: meetings, research, studio visits, economies and cities." I'm ecstatic. + full entry...

News
In a town in Upper Bavaria they do it differently. There as Orhan points us to Even the minaret is admired as a valuable addition to the cityscape. Read and Related

R.I.P. Eduardo Catalano 1917-2010

Philip Johnson's Glass House released tour tickets for the 2010 season.
The L.A. Bike Working Group proposed a backbone bikeway network for Central Los Angeles.
John W Chorley elementary school by Paul Rudolph may be demo'd.

Discussion Threads
Over on TC Holz.box shared some great images including this one;



Some suggestions on how to trick out a slideshow presentation with multi-media.
Archinect as support group?

Member tagalong is looking for some good leads on custom concrete furniture fabricators.

School Blogs
Max's post on toilets lead Holz to share some photos of great toilet design.
Faysal alerts us to the livestream of Peter Eisenman speaking at the AA on Lateness and the Crisis of Modernity. Eisenman spoke about the "disease" of Parametric Processing. He also provided an update on his project in Galicia Spain and showed some construction images.

Errata
Political blogger Matthew Yglesias opines on why "architecture photography still works much better in a magazine." than online.

Fullscale projection of a virtual building on the real version of itself. The building flies around and changes shapes. The building in this case is the icelandic parliament. By architect Andrew Burgess. *Thing is parliament in icelandic.

Philip Johnson's Glass House just released tour tickets for the 2010 season which runs from May 1 to November 30, including the new night time Twilight Tours with lighting designed by Richard Kelly. More

A recent editorial looks into the dynamics of the 21st century's first large scale cross religious conflict, Islam in Europe, a four way complexity of divided Germans and divided Moslems. Qantara.
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Alen Jasarevic, architect of a mosque built in Upper Bavaria writes about his work, "Even the Minarette Is Admired."

Image Via Flickr user Kappas photography

Latvia has sold an entire town once used by the Soviet military as a base. The deserted town formerly known as Skrunda-1 was auctioned off to a Russian firm for $3m (£1.9m) - about 10 times its list price, officials said. BBC News

Studio Gang Wins Second Prize at Taipei Pop Music Center Competition
The Taipei Pop Music Center International Competition recently announced the final winners of Stage Two with the first prize going to Reiser + Umemoto RUR Architecture PC, second prize to Studio Gang Architects, and a third prize for Office dA...

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Wins Tucker Design Award For Smithsonian’s Kogod Courtyard
The Tucker Design Award was awarded to the Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. The award-winning Courtyard was designed by landscape architects Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, within an architectural renovation by Foster + Partners...

A New Library for Montreal’s Saint-Laurent Borough
The winner of the Quebec-wide architectural competition for the new library in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent Borough was announced. The chosen project was submitted by the team composed of Cardinal Hardy/Labonté Marcil/Éric Pelletier Architectes en consortium/SDK et associés inc./Leroux Beaudoin Hurens et associés inc...

Point Supreme Architects with Alexandros Gerousis Win EUROPAN 10 for Trondheim, Norway
Last week, Bustler already featured two winners of three Norwegian sites for the EUROPAN 2010 contest: Vardø and Oslo. The proposal ‘Proscenium’ by Greek studio Point Supreme Architects, in collaboration with Alex Gerousis, is the winner of the third Norwegian EUROPAN challenge, Trondheim...

"A British farmer who secretly built a castle and hid it behind haystacks to avoid trouble from local planning authorities was ordered by a court Wednesday to demolish it." NPR