If you find yourself traveling through the small Austrian town of Mellau, definitely drop into the Metzgerstüble Bar and Café. Designed by the Dornbirn, Austria-based architectural firm DI Bernardo Bader, Metzgerstüble is located between one of Mellau’s main roads and the water. Uncomplicated, warm and inviting, the establishment is built with wooden strips of varying size, a wooden box perched atop a wall of stone facing the water. [via arch daily]

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As a fan of Arsenal FC, it’s only right that I take a moment to spotlight their home field in London — Emirates Stadium. Designed by Populous and completed in 2006, the Emirates is located in Islington, north London, replacing the old stadium known as Highbury.

The building materials of the stadium give a clear reading of its central function, the aspirations of the Arsenal team and the supporters’ passions. The toughened glass plank façade at podium level responds to the more robust environment of large crowds and glazed and woven steel mesh screens overlap articulating the exposed concrete of the vertical circulation cores. Above the 60,000 seat capacity, a metallic under-clad roof seemingly floats above the exposed concrete seating bowl. [via populous]

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International Criminal Court (IOC) is not a place you want to be hauled into that’s for sure. But if you’re planning to be up to no good on an ‘international’ level, at least you’ll soon be able to enjoy the lovely new headquarters of the IOC. That’s because Danish studio Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects recently have won a competition to design the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. Located close to the North Sea, the new Court is situated in the rolling dune landscape at the edge of The Hague.

The building is a composition of 6 volumes; the tallest of the volumes is the Court Tower that rises up as a green element. The remaining volumes, the office towers, are draped in a tapestry grid, almost like embroidery. The overall building form can be seen as an undulating composition of volumes on the horizon, reminiscent of the dune landscape. “The building is designed as an abstract and informal sculpture in the landscape,” said Bjarne Hammer, Co-Founding Partner/Creative Director of schmidt hammer lassen. “This way, it becomes a backdrop for the ICC to communicate trust, hope, and most importantly, faith in justice and fairness.” [via dezeen]

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It’s Rick Carter, Kim Sinclair and Robert Stromberg for Avatar. No big surprise here. Hard to believe anyone missed this category in their Oscar pool. Even if you were just guessing, Avatar jumps out among the five nominees. It’s a big movie, and with it comes the requisite big set decoration (Sinclair) and even bigger production design (Carter and Stromberg); that equals Oscar gold, baby! For the record, I thought the awards show was terribly dull.

For more rip-roaring Oscar coverage be sure to cruise over to our cinematically-inclined siblings at ScreenCrave.

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Behold the luxurious Southern Ocean Lodge, designed by Max Pritchard Architect on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Floating atop a secluded cliff on a rugged stretch of coast, the architecture has a close relationship with the dramatic locale. The Main Lodge is tucked back into forty meter high cliffs, with large sweeping window walls capturing the expansive views of the wild Southern Ocean and wilderness. A strong sculptural element is the two hundred meter long wall of Kangaroo Island Limestone weaving from a covered entrance, through the largely untouched bush and into the Main Lodge.

Located at Hanson bay on the Island’s south west coast, the Lodge site adjoins both the Flinders Chase and Cape Bouguer / Kelly Hill National Parks.  The guest suites are constructed of lightweight materials that could be carried in, minimizing site disturbance. Foundations are steel screw piles, framing is timber and flooring is recycled timber and stone. [via aioa]

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Why yes, I might I be interested in a few days spent at the Tamina Thermal Baths located in the Grand Resort in Bad Ragaz, Switzerland. Designed by Smolenicky & Partner, the Tamina thermal baths is explicitly conceived as a part of the grand-hotel culture. The cultural and aesthetic identity of the project seeks an affinity to both Swiss tradition and the grand hotels of the Baltic coast. This strategy of using an explicit resort architecture is underscored in the building’s formally fanciful oval windows. Seen from the inside, the windows have the effect of over-dimensional picture frames.

The predominant landscaped, park-like atmosphere remains intact despite the compact manner of building. Thus the resort remains characterized by its park. The main entrance to the thermal baths, the spa spring hall, is set on the visual axis of the cul-de-sac in order, from the main road, to mark its presence in the depth of the site as a public facility. [via contemporist]

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Over at Architectural Record, Suzanne Stephens has a terrific write-up about the Neues Museum in Berlin, Germany – noting that, “scores of architects and consultants have labored on the $255 million project since 1997, when Chipperfield won the commission, after a drawn-out competition process that began in 1993.” Stephens adds that the result is a beautiful design that “brings to the foreground fragile traces of history in the palimpsest of its walls, ceilings, floors, and columns.”

In working with the  220,660-square-foot palatial block, the project focus was to re-complete the original volume, and encompassed the repair and restoration of the parts that remained after the destruction of the Second World War. The original sequence of rooms was restored with new building sections that create continuity with the existing structure. [via Architectural Record]

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Philadelphia-based architectural firm KieranTimberlake has won the design competition for the new U.S. embassy in London. The firm’s design met the goal of creating a ‘modern, welcoming, timeless, safe and energy efficient embassy for the 21^st century.’ The concept for the new London Embassy is the result of KieranTimberlake’s efforts to resolve, in architectural terms, what an embassy aspires to be and what present realities dictate it must do.

The design places the embassy building at the center of the Nine Elms site and develops the surrounding area into an urban park. The new embassy, with its gardens, will establish a framework for the urbanization of the Nine Elms redevelopment zone; seen from the north along the Thames embankment and Nine Elms Lane, the Embassy Park contains a pond with walks, places to sit and landscape along its edges, all open to the citizens of London. The anticipated groundbreaking will be in 2013 with a goal to complete the construction in 2017. [via styleture]

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Things have been graphic design heavy around here these days, but when you discover so much awesome stuff it’s hard resist not posting. This leads us to Austrian designer Albert Exergian and his kick ass TV poster prints. Designed out of a love for posters, modernism and television, Exergian created a self-initiated series of posters throwing all of the above inspirations into the creative blender. Online gallery Blanka is making the posters available as a series of epson giclee prints.

There’s more than 20 posters in the series so be sure to check out all Exergian’s work at the Blanka gallery. Personal favorites includes Exergian’s version of Kojak, The Wire, Scrubs and Nip/Tuck. What, no Office? [via bb-blog]

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