Year in Architecture 2017

Week 1: New York City's Second Avenue Subway opened on the first day of 2017; Winners of the 28th annual international Piranesi Awards were announced.
Week 2: George Lucas selected Los Angeles as the future home of his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art; American Institute of Architects announced the winners of the 2017 AIA Institute Honor Awards.
Week 3: Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects were named curators of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale; Better Shelter won the Design Museum's Beazley Design of the Year 2016.
Week 4: 40 projects were shortlisted for the 2017 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award; Ten teams were shortlisted for the UK Holocaust Memorial in London.

​Selected Building: Bibliothèque Alexis de Tocqueville in Caen, France, by OMA, Barcode Architects, Clement Blanchet Architecture
Selected Insight: A Studio Visit to Gensler's Manhattan office
Selected Product: A floating "cloud" in Rome's New Convention Center designed by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas

Week 5: design/buildLAB's Sharon Fieldhouse in Clifton Forge, Virginia, won the American-Architects Building of the Year 2016.
Week 6: Denise Scott Brown was named the 2017 recipient of Architects' Journal's Jane Drew Prize
Week 7: Five finalists were named for the 2017 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award; Jenny Sabin won MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program; we learned that Frank Gehry would be giving a MasterClass – to anyone paying $90 for the online instructional.
Week 8: OMA's Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten were selected for the fourth MPavilion in Melbourne; Francis Kéré was selected for the Serpentine Pavilion in London.

​Selected Building: Oberholz Mountain Hut in Obereggen, Italy, by Peter Pichler Architecture & Architekt Pavol Mikolajcak​
Selected Insight: Swiss architect Peter Zumthor at the Guggenheim Museum, in conversation with Paul Goldberger​
Selected Product: A "Salt Crystal" in Germany made with LUCEM translucent concrete

Week 9: Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta of RCR Arquitectes were named the 2017 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureates.​
Week 10: BIG and Heatherwick Studio released updated renderings for their design of Google's new campus in Mountain View, California.
Week 11: Winners of the 27th MIPIM Awards were announced at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France; Vargo Nielsen Palle bested BIG and SANAA in a competition for the new school of architecture in Aarhus, Denmark.
Week 12: A rendering of a supertall design by the late Zaha Hadid for 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan was unveiled; World-Architects toured Renzo Piano's new Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia University.
Week 13: The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles announced the acquisition of more than thirty years of Frank Gehry's drawings, models, and other artifacts on 283 projects.

​Selected Building: Internet Conference Centre in Shitang Village, China, by AZL Atelier Zhanglei​
Selected Insight: A visit to The Architect's Studio: Wang Shu - Amateur Architecture Studio at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark​
Selected Product: The three-dimensional facade of Zaha Hadid's cantilevered addition to Antwerp's Port House

Week 14: The Bahá’í Temple of South America, designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects, won the RAIC Innovation in Architecture Award for 2017; Updated renderings of Peter Zumthor's design for LACMA were released.
Week 15: Winners of the annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition were announced; 79 winners of the American Architecture Awards were announced.
Week 16: Just in time for Earth Day, the American Institute of Architects released a list of principles to highlight architects' role in combating climate change.
Week 17: I.M. Pei turned 100.​

​Selected Building: Vitrolles Media Library in Vitrolles, France, by Jean-Pierre Lott​
Selected Insight: The Promise of Generative Design – the next big thing in architectural production?​
Selected Product: The doweled facade of Fougeron Architecture's 400 Grove in San Francisco

Week 18: Artist Vito Acconci died at the age of 77; Renderings of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects' design of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago were unveiled; New York's Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum announced the winners of the 2017 National Design Awards; Peter Zumthor unveiled renderings of his expansion to the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland.
Week 19: Amsterdam's DeFlat Kleiburg by NL Architects and XVW Architectuur won the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award; World-Architects visited the American Planning Association's National Planning Conference.
Week 20: Thomas Heatherwick's Silo hotel opened in Cape Town; Alejandro Aravena won the Art Mill International Design Competition in Doha.​
Week 21: Seoul opened its own version of the High Line: a highway overpass transformed by MVRDV; Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Shed topped off at Hudson Yards in Manhattan.
Week 22: Four finalists of the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize were named.​

​Selected Building: Gallery of Furniture in Brno-Vinohrady, Czech Republic, by CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects & Urban Designers​
Selected Insight: Appraising Starchitecture through two critical books on the global phenomenon​
Selected Product: An apartment building in Prague with a poetic facade "written in light"

Week 23: Architects responded to Trump pulling the US from the Paris agreement on climate change; Norman Foster Foundation opened in Madrid.
Week 24: More than 80 people died in a fire at Grenfell Tower in London's North Kensington area; American Society of Landscape Architects' 2017 honors were announced; Yvonne Farrell and Shelly McNamara announced "Freespace" as theme of next year's Venice Architecture Biennial.
Week 25: Design of OMA's MPavilion was unveiled; Francis Kéré's Serpentine Pavilion opened to the public; Finalists for design of Ross Pavilion in Scotland were announced; Winners of RIBA National Awards were announced.
Week 26: Jenny Sabin's "Lumen" opened at MoMA PS1; Victoria & Albert Museum in London opened V&A Exhibition Road Quarter, designed by Amanda Levete.

​Selected Building: Ruyton Girls School - Margaret McRae Centre in Melbourne, Australia, by Woods Bagot​
Selected Insight: MoMA's Frank Lloyd Wright at 150 unpacked their archive to explore the architect's legacy.​
Selected Product: The technology behind Herzog & de Meuron's and Ai Weiwei's Hansel & Gretel installation

Week 27: Azure Magazine revealed the 20 winners of its seventh annual AZ Awards competition; Work wrapped up on the restoration of the teak panels at Louis I. Kahn's Salk Institute for Biological Studies.​
Week 28: Six finalists for the planned Centre for Music in London were revealed; UK's Royal Mail released a special issue of ten stamps that feature "some of the finest public buildings erected in the last 20 years."​
Week 29: Six buildings for prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize were announced.
Week 30: Seven teams were shortlisted in the competition to transform the Citroën Yser garage in Brussels into a cultural center.

​Selected Building: Stage of Forest at Songhua Lake Resort, Jilin, China, by Wang Shuo and Zhang Jing​
Selected Insight: Architecture 4.0, on parametric design, building information modeling, computer-aided manufacturing
Selected Product: More Herzog & de Meuron, this time their Tate "pyramid" veiled in brick

Week 31: The Getty Foundation announced the recipients of its 2017 Keeping It Modern grants; Carol Ross Barney was named the recipient of AIA Chicago’s 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award; wHY wins the Ross Pavilion competition.
Week 32: On vacation.
Week 33: Thomas Heatherwick's Garden Bridge officially bites the dust; Architect Gunnar Birkerts died at the age of 92​; Shortlist for Beazley Designs of the Year was announced.
Week 34: Renderings of Herzog & de Meuron's Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles were unveiled.
Week 35: LEGO releases a model kit of its BIG-designed LEGO House opening in September in Billund, Denmark.​

​Selected Building: Y House in Nonthaburi, Thailand, by Anonym​
Selected Insight: Ulf Meyer explored the art island of Naoshima in Japan's Inland Sea.​
Selected Product: Inside Pritzker Prize winner RCR's ENIGMA Restaurant in Barcelona

Week 36: A memorial honoring the twelve people killed in the hostage standoff at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich opened in the city's Olympic Park; Winners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for Africa and the Middle East were announced.
Week 37: Spanish architect Rafael Moneo was named a recipient of the Japan Art Association’s 2017 Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award.
Week 38: Tezuka Architects’ Fuji Kindergarten was named the winner of the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize; Nine architects reimagined the Chicago River in an exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Week 39: Ottawa's National Holocaust Monument, designed by a team led by Studio Libeskind was inaugurated on September 27th; RIBA announced architect Neave Brown as the recipient of the 2018 Royal Gold Medal; Chinese architect Zhang Ke won the Alvar Aalto Medal; Winners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for Europe were announced.

​Selected Building: Campground in Ranwu Lake, Tibet, by Arch-HERMIT Architects​
Selected Insight: A long feature on Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee's Chicago Architecture Biennial, Make New History​
Selected Product: dRMM's Maggie's Centre near Manchester and Tulipwood's role in soothing the building's occupants

Week 40: OMA's MPavilion opened in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Gardens; Wwinners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for Latin America were announced; Plans for Thomas Heatherwick's Lincoln Center renovations were scrapped due to expense.
Week 41: Diller Scofidio + Renfro won competition for Centre for Music in London; 2017 American Architecture Prize winners were announced; Landscape architect Kate Orff and designer/urban planner Damon Rich are among the Class of 2017 MacArthur "Genius" Fellows; OMA was selected to expand SANAA's New Museum in New York; Winners of LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for North America were announced.
Week 42: Apple Michigan Avenue, designed by Norman Foster, opened in Chicago; Students from four Swiss universities won the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2017 with their NeighborHub design.
Week 43: Team led by David Adjaye and Ron Arad won the UK Holocaust Memorial International Design Competition; Thomas Heatherwick's Pier55, considered dead, was resurrected; Snøhetta unveiled plans for renovating the base of Philip Johnson's AT&T Building, sparking controversy; Norton Museum of Art unveiled new plans for the first public garden designed by Lord Norman Foster.

​Selected Building: Mannheim Business School Study and Conference Center in Mannheim, Germany, by schneider+schumacher​
Selected Insight: World-Architects headed to Baltimore to cover the Vectorworks Design Summit.
Selected Product: A Tribeca apartment building clad in bluestone blocks

Week 44: dRMM's Hastings Pier was selected for the RIBA Stirling Prize; New renderings of Peter Zumthor's LACMA were revealed; Australian Institute of Architects' National Architecture Awards were announced.
Week 45: Frank Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial (finally) had its groundbreaking; London's V&A announced its acquisition of a three-story section of the soon-to-be-demolished Robin Hood Gardens.
Week 46: A rammed earth dwelling was named World Building of the Year; Marina Abramovic cancelled her eponymous, OMA-designed institute planned for Hudson, New York.
Week 47: Recipients of the 29th Piranesi Awards were announced; Winners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 for Asia Pacific were announced.
Week 48: Plans for a demountable stadium at the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar were announced; Caring Wood was named the RIBA House of the Year; Architectural historian Vincent Scully died at the age of 97.

​Selected Building: Marina One in Singapore by ingenhoven architects​
Selected Insight: World-Architects was in Berlin to cover the World Architecture Festival.
Selected Product: Tracking some innovations in textured brick

Week 49: New York architect James Stewart Polshek was named the recipient of the 2018 AIA Gold Medal; Minneapolis, Minnesota's Snow Kreilich Architects was named the recipient of the 2018 AIA Architecture Firm Award.
Week 50: Richard Meier's Getty Center turned 20 and the J. Paul Getty Museum celebrated with a new exhibition of photos; Photos of the $1 billion U.S. Embassy London were released a month ahead of its opening.
Week 51: On holiday.

​Selected Building: Mortuary Chapel for the Soriano-Manzanet Family in Villarreal, Spain, by Vegas&Mileto​
Selected Insight: A profile of London's BPR Architects and how the office uses BIM in their public projects
Selected Product: Dichroic film and its colorful effects in an installation inside a Renzo Piano tower in Turin