If you haven’t noticed, we’ve made sort of a big deal about education in the past couple days. Between nurseries and all-around learning, it’s more than an important topic. Today we are featuring all of the facilities that have been shortlisted for the A+ Awards’ “School” category. From kindergartens to higher education buildings, all of these projects create an environment that encourages the advancement of knowledge— plus they’re fun to look at! Click through to see them all.

Spot a favorite? Make sure to vote for it over at the A+ Public Voting site!

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Architectural photography is usually scorned for prizing the purity of its subject over the more practical realities of a building’s life. Basically, photographers forget the people, opting instead to depict the architecture as a pristine, empty object unmarred by the scuffmarks of use, age, or even weather. Then, of course, there’s the opposite tendency, which makes it a point of integrating people within featured spaces. The problem here is that people in architecture are quickly turned into props, strategically inserted to augment, or even compensate for, the building design. They are usually engaged in the most trivial pursuits, like walking your pet sheep in a party dress, or configured in preposterous poses. We’ve seen it before and have all asked the same question: “WTF is this person doing!?”

We’ve dug through our database to find some of the more quirky examples of this trend. There’s plenty of great architecture and more than your fair share of people doing the most head-scratching things. Click through for all the photos!

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Yesterday, we brought you our favorite razor sharp architecture, which got us thinking; “What if those spiky buildings were turned on other buildings?”Being the archi-nerds that we are, we started looking for some buildings that have benefited from a little slice-and-dice. Perhaps the architects behind these projects took cues from the precise knife-work seen on reality cooking shows, fierce sword fighting on Game of Thrones, the token Valentine’s Day slasher movie, or our culture’s obsession with plastic surgery. Probably not, but we’ve rounded up our top 8 buildings that appear to have gone under the knife. Click through for the slide show!

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ABC Centre in Madrid, Designed by Aranguren + Gallegos Arquitectos

Last week, we noted how, after a long period of disuse, “gilded” architecture is on the rise. Still, you can’t hit gold with every, er, gold building. But if you like your architecture flashy, we present you with a brilliant (oh, oh) alternative: silver buildings!

It’s true, silver isn’t nearly as flashy as gold, and it is definitely a more common sight in architecture. It’s gained most traction in the much-publicized work of Frank Gehry, who, it seems, can’t design a building without wrapping it in silver (and very much wrinkled) garb. But just because we’re sorta accustomed to seeing silver-cladded building doesn’t mean we don’t want more. These ten projects are covered in shimmering silver skins that project a glamor and exuberance that you just don’t see everyday in the world of architecture. Click through for the slideshow.

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The toy market is incredibly vast and diverse, yet there are few toys that budding architects can identify with. Sure, you have LEGO‘s Architecture Series, with its line of pixelated villas and landmarks. There’s Jenga, plus those anonymous 3D puzzles and model kits that faithfully, though boringly recreate famous buildings and cities in miniature. The less said about Architect Barbie, the better. And have you ever even seen a set of Froebbel blocks?

We can now add the Eames House Alphabet Blocks to that all-t00-short list. The set consists of 36 wooden blocks, each handmade and hand painted with letters and graphics that when stacked take the form of the Eames’ classic Case Study House No. 8 and studio. Of course, that likeness doesn’t come cheap, and at $150, we suspect that this toy is more for parents than their toddlers. Click through for more.

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Photo:  Masao Nishikawa

The world runs on coffee. Even if you—oh, strange one—aren’t a coffee drinker, you cannot escape coffee culture. And a big part of that culture is, of course, the café. Historically, the coffeehouse has functioned as a social fulcrum of urban life, a congregation space where artistic and intellectual ideas were fostered and developed. It was also an intimate, informal place where friends could gather and talk about the 19th-century equivalent of Girls.

We’re glad to say that the café is alive and well. Despite the flashy distractions of the contemporary city, people still spend time in coffeehouses—a lot of time actually. The last few years has seen a surge of creative café design that reflects this fact, with architects both obscure and famous brandishing their talents to elevate your coffee experience. These projects are each different in their own way, but they all push the limits of what a café can be. Click through for the slideshow.

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via GeekSugar

Payphones are at worst regarded as germ-riddled, sketchy punchlines; at best, they’re nothing more than an obsolete part of the landscape, useful only in the rarest of circumstances when you’ve lost your cell phone, there’s nobody trustworthy in sight, and you need to call a number you have memorized within the next fifteen minutes. There are only 11,000 left in New York City today, down from the 35,000 high of the late-90s.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, however, wants to change that image. Rather than banishing payphones to the technology graveyard populated by VCRs and (RIP) tape decks, he’s positing a challenge: redesign the ubiquitous, and seemingly useless, New York City payphone. A little over a month ago, Bloomberg and his office launched the Reinvent Payphones Design Challenge. Along with NYC’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications Commissioner Rahul N. Merchant and Chief Digital Officer Rachel Haot, the contest is designed to “rally urban designers, planners, technologists and policy experts to create physical and virtual prototypes that imagine the future of New York City’s public pay telephones.”

Because the current payphone contracts expire in October of 2014, and given how Hurricane Sandy left many New Yorkers with no cell service and no option other than to turn to payphones, the time is ripe to focus on the almost-but-not-quite-archaic devices. Continue.

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Children grow up knowing the names of famous sports players, pop singers, and cartoon characters. But what about notable architects? Where’s the respect? Architecture is rarely part of formal education (within and without scholastic settings), but things could be helped if the names of Le Corbusier, Arata Isozaki, or, yes, Frank Lloyd Wright were introduced to younglings in their early years. “The ABC of Architects” seems ideally suited for such a purpose, functioning as an introduction for budding students of architecture. The abecedary operates visually through a clever animation in which each canonical project flows seamlessly to the next. The horizontal planes of (M) Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion morph effortlessly into the space-age forms of (N) Niemeyer’s National Congress of Brazil. Watch the video after the break.

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Gammage Auditorium in Arizona. Photo courtesy Tempe Convention & Visitors Bureau

Ask average Americans to name their favorite architect, or any architect for that matter, and the answer will likely be Frank Lloyd Wright. His life may have been peppered with scandal and financial woes, but this pioneer of organic architecture was a genius—and he made an everlasting mark on the built world. We know you’ve all seen his brilliant work, but in case you’re craving a refresher: The Huffington Post, a media partner for the Architizer A+ Awards, has rounded up three dozen Wright-designed structures, most of which are open to the public. See them all here!

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Have you ever been to a 55,000-square-foot playground? No? Well, luckily for you (or at least New York City residents) that’s exactly what visual artist Ann Hamilton has installed at the city’s Park Avenue Armory. On display through January 6, 2013, “The Event of a Thread“ is an interactive exhibition that invites visitors to participate in the multisensory installations housed within the space, including taking a ride on the 42 swaying swings. Read more.

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