DesignMind Forty|Forty - your weekly aggregator of the valuable news, industry insights, events and reviews.

Nominations for the third yearly Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) Halala Awards, which celebrate regeneration and development in the inner city, opened on Thursday.

This year, the ‘Sustaining Joburg' category has been amended to focus on the "green agenda" of development in the Johannesburg central business district (CBD). Read More

Japan's Shigeru Ban has shaken up the world of architecture with innovations that include paper buildings to provide fast shelter after earthquakes -- what lies ahead for his field?ating a landmark. Its main feature is an aluminium fin facade that allows views into and out of the building. Read more

Nearly 50% of the Gautrain rapid-rail link's 150 km of track had been laid by the end of January.

All the train depot facilities, including the maintenance workshops, the train system administration buildings and operations control centre, are already completed and operational. Read more

The first phase of construction for a new 94 000m² mixed-use project has commenced in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. The project has been designed by the award-winning South African architectural firm Bentel Associates International. Read more

The huge task of retrofitting UK buildings could offer three decades of work for architects, and overshadow new-builds by 2050. Speaking at an AJ100 Breakfast Club meeting last week, CABE chair Paul Finch said: ‘There are more than 25 million homes in Britain, most of which do not conform to current environmental standards. If we retrofit 4,000 homes per week, 
it would give us 30 years worth of work. If you choose to seize it, this is one of the biggest opportunities for architects that we’ve seen in this country for a very long time.’ Read more

Insulation may not be sexy, but it is important. Over the past years we’ve seen leaps and bounds towards creating cheaper, thinner, more breathable materials with higher R-values. There still isn’t “one” insulation out there that has all the best characteristics, but Aerogel is one of the top contenders. This space-age material has the lowest bulk density of any known porous solid as well as some incredible insulating qualities, and recently two companies rolled out Aerogel sheets that make installations a breeze. Read more

To stand on Bloor Street at the top of Philosopher's Walk is to be in the middle of a heated argument between two of Toronto's new iconic architectural projects. To the east is Daniel Libeskind's Royal Ontario Museum; to the west is KPMB's Royal Conservatory of Music. Both were commissioned as part of the wonderful wave of new construction intended to advance the city's cultural and tourism status. Both are transformative additions to original structures of some distinction; both house venerable institutions in need of change. Read more

The South African Institute of Architects invites its members to submit entries for The AfriSam-SAIA Awards for Sustainable Architecture. Only entries by SAIA members are eligible and are to be submitted for consideration for the awards by 12h00 on 26 February 2010 at SAIA’s offices at: Bouhof (Ground Floor), 31 Robin Hood Road, Robindale, Randburg.

At a glance, it is easy to spot the point of difference in this apartment interior – there are no obvious doors. All the doors are concealed and the floor plan is defined by an open, flowing layout that poses no restrictions on the use of the space. Read more

To get both an open interior and a full garage on a 30-foot-by-80-foot lot, architects Barbara Callas and Steven Shortridge, AIA, gave 543 House, as it's called, a section that rises in a staggered series of split levels. “The house sort of steps up over the garage, so you don't feel its impact,” Shortridge says. Including a roof deck, “there are actually seven levels in the house.” The kitchen, which floats midway between the garage and living room levels, stretches beyond the house proper to include a patio that more than doubles its floor area. An acid-washed concrete floor unites the two spaces, with radiant heating that maintains a constant slab temperature indoors and out. Read more

Designed by Michigan-based Yamasaki Architects, the Qatar Convention Center is slated to open in 2011. The $720 million dollar convention center will cater to 7,000 delegates and feature 10 conference and performance venues, including a 4,000 seat conference hall and a 2,500 seat theater. The stunning design of the convention center is centered around a steel replica of a Sidra tree. An icon in Qatari culture, the Sidra tree is the symbol symbolizes a "haven of learning" for the region. As well as hosting conferences and exhibitions, the center will also be a venue for local and international music and arts festivals. Read more

The Fougères Biblioteque follows the contemporary approach to libraries as meeting spaces, rather than just book storage. Due to the public function of the building,it expresses itself to the city trough the facade details seen on the above photo.

The program is distributed in two levels. The building is seen as a compact mass, with excavations to bring light and green into the building, as you can see on the complete photoset below Read more

Move over H&M, Uniqlo is making a run for the household name in affordable, trend-setting fashion. The Japanese clothing manufacturer just celebrated the opening of its third global flagship store in Paris following the 2007 opening of its London Oxford Street store and the 2006 opening of its New York SoHo store. Read more

The public feedback period for the new Retail Centre rating tool closes 19 February. Any person or organisation involved in the South African property industry is encouraged to provide feedback on the credits, and all feedback will be considered before the tool is finalised and released in April. For more information and to download the tool and feedback form, please go to http://www.gbcsa.org.za/greenstar/retail.php. ;

The thrill has gone. It's time to say farewell to an old high-street favourite – and reveal the interiors of new must-browse fashion shops Read more

South Africa's treasure chest of locally designed and printed fabrics is growing fast. The VISI Team recently packed a large suitcase with some of these exquisite materials and travelled to Elim and Kassiesbaai in the Overberg, stopping en route to display our favourites. Read more

Sit and soak in this stylish Japanese bath tub, by Victoria & Albert. Inspired by the traditional Japanese ofuro tubs, the Sorrento sit bath features a deep soaking tub designed for a full-body immersion. The solid oak steps make entry and exit easy. The nice thing about this design is it doesn’t take up the whole bathroom, so you can enjoy the luxury of a soaker tub even in a small space. This freestanding tub can be installed virtually anywhere: in a corner, or as the centerpiece of your bathroom. And what a focal point! Check out the fabulous floral-patterned design, it’s a sure showstopper. Whether your preferences tend toward the minimalist white finish or the artistic floral design, this Japanese sit tub is a must-see. Check it out by visiting Victoria & Albert. Read more

Great modern apartment interior designed by Stefan Boublil is very perfect inspiration for us. This New York City apartment luxury and minimalist interior decorating ideas combine with white paint wall and contemporary furniture design. The apartment interior designer also has position as director of The Apartment Creative Agency. The beautiful apartment interior decor pictures gallery shown below is unique and innovative and purpose for people that looking for classy living space. Though it is hard to find such surroundings in busy region like New York this apartment is little cut away from the full of activity streets and does have honest surroundings. The main apartment area is around 2800 sq meter and there are large bedrooms with balconies in each room. Here it is best sample modern minimalist New York apartment photos for inspiration. Read more

When you crack open this chest, you’ll find something better than a pirate’s treasure – something hotter! 'Malle a Feu' by Atria is a hot fireplace design that disguises the traditional fireplace within a contemporary white trunk Read more

Although Bryce does have some 3D modelling tools, they are a little basic. Also, building accurate 3D models in Bryce is difficult. If you need to build an accurate 3D model, you're much better off using an application specifically designed for this purpose such as AutoCAD. Models built in AutoCAD can easily be imported into Bryce where they can be given an appropriate setting. The bonus is that Bryce has a much better renderer than AutoCAD and much better control over materials Read more

AutoCAD is a very flexible tool and it can be used for a wide variety of tasks. However, one thing you can't do with AutoCAD is animate a 3D model. You can, of course, create slides of perspective views and show them one after the other using a script file (see "Perspectives, Slides and Scripts" for details) but this doesn't begin to approach the quality of animation which can be produced with the aid of some other software utilities. This tutorial shows how to create an animated walkthrough of your AutoCAD 3D model using 3DS MAX 5. All you need to start is an AutoCAD drawing with some 3D content. The end result will be a .AVI file which can be viewed on any Windows PC. AVI files can also be embedded within PowerPoint presentations along with text and other graphics to really demonstrate your design proposal. Read more

I discovered recently that it is possible to use regular expressions in the purge command. If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will. A regular expression is a way to define a pattern. The pattern can be used to include or exclude the name(s) of a layer, linetype, registered application, or anything that can be purged. You need to use the command line version of purge (prefix the command with a minus sign: -PURGE). Read more

An inter-Ministerial committee on energy has been created to develop a 20-year integrated resource plan (IRP) for new generation capacity for power-stressed South Africa, President Jacob Zuma reported in his State of the Nation address to a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament in Cape Town on Thursday night.Read more

Beautiful apartments suffer a stigma shared by beautiful blondes: No one quite believes they can be very smart or practical. But when a pair of empty-nesting New Yorkers called on Hariri & Hariri Architecture to design a Modernist apartment on the 45th floor of a Manhattan tower, the clients asked for environmental intelligence. Collectors and travelers, the couple brought a sophisticated eye to the commission, matched by elevated environmental expectations. They had stayed in many hotels wired to optimize comfort and minimize energy consumption. “They wanted a smart home,” says Gisue Hariri, who worked on the apartment with her sister Mojgan Read more

On Tuesday, the state unanimously approved a green building code that is the most stringent environmentally friendly building code in the U.S. Read more

Can a parabolic mirror be flat? Dominic Wanjihias latest invention may prove that this is the most efficient way of capturing solar energy. Read more

According to a 2009 Booz Allen Hamilton study, green construction will skyrocket in the U.S. over the next five years. The report projects green construction to generate $554 billion dollars in GDP, provide $396 billion in labor earnings and support or create over 7.9 million jobs from 2009 to 2013. These figures are way up from the previous 8-year period. From 2000-2008, GDP from green construction was just $173 billion, labor earnings was $123 billion and number of jobs created was 2.4 million. Read more

Building a building on top of another building is a challenge at the best of times, but the developers of the Hype Park Shopping Centre in Johannesburg were determined to complete their exclusive service offering with the construction of a four star hotel atop the shopping complex, and to do it in record-breaking time. Read more

12, 13, 14 FEB : 3 intensive masterclass days

19 Feb: intermediate crit

26 FEB: public presentation

http://architectafrica.com/masterclass-jhb-02-2010 ;

'Architecture: rethinking sustainability'

15 - 20 February 2010

Contact SACAP for info

06 - 09 April '10

Learn the fundamental principles of 3D parametric part design, assembly design, and creating production-ready part and assembly drawings using Autodesk ® Inventor ® . Hands-on exercises representing real-world, industry-specific design scenarios are included.

http://www.cadco.co.za/training/inventor_learning.htm ;