So how small is this house? (sqm)

http://www.hinemihi.co.uk/

In the lead up to the announcement of key 2013 architectural awards – with the Mies van der Rohe Prize for European Architecture, RIBA Awards and the Pritzker all due to be handed out in Spring 2013 – The “And The Winner Is..?” events series moves on to investigate the purpose and impact of architectural awards, and their effect upon the profession and the built environment. Coverage of the Stirling Prize may have been dropped from live TV in 2012, following a 10-year run on the airwaves, but new awards keep arriving on the scene; from industrial accolades to international celebrations of new architecture, from self nominated web-platforms to juried conferring of trophies from on high. Awards are growing in number and size, with increasingly diverse parameters, sponsors and objectives. But is this glut of awards reducing the significance of the culture of prize giving? The AF has chosen this moment to critique and explore the culture of award giving, with an invited panel of key award representatives. Dinner networking extravaganzas, or important platforms for the celebration of architectural quality? Prizes that encourage clients to commission agenda-setting architecture, or cliquey back-slapping exercises? Vital aids for public discussion of the built environment and the visibility of the profession, or cultural camouflage for real-estate endeavours? Ultimately, awards and prizes should recognise and encourage quality in the built environment, but how does and can this best happen? An international panel of key representatives, critics and practitioners will present their positions, across a condensed evening symposium. Panel:

• Farrokh Derakhshani, Director, Aga Khan Award for Architecture
• Tony Chapman, Head of Awards RIBA
• Martha Thorne, Executive Director, The Pritzker Architecture Prize
• Simon Allford, Director, AHMM Christine Murray, Editor, Architects’ Journal
• Sarah Graham, Ambassador, Global Holcim Awards, Founding Partner, agps architects
• Glenn Howells, Juror, BCO Awards; Director, Glenn Howells Architects
• Anthony Hoete, Referee, Game of Architecture, Founding Partner, WHAT_architecture Awards

Thanks to Amine, or is that Aminecraft (?), we have a new child engagement platform: MINECRAFTITECTURE! Next step is to reverse the conventional process of making virtual worlds out of the real (Minecraft, SimCity etc) by making a real world out of the digital: “Minecraftitecture”. How can one translate a computer game into the built environment? What is point of doing this when the game itself has no objective: architectural engagement?

The history of the underground makes us think that the history of Shoreditch Underground Station is one of balancing mobility, housing and infrastructure. Could the architecture of the railway arches be used to support housing: sustainable conservation is in the balance. A re-think is always useful.

Moving house? WHAT_architecture presents its preliminary design for the first Red Bull London Grand Prix…

ROAM: spotted by Dean Martyn Hook of the RMiT