Long before the MakerBot hit its stride as a favored source for jewelry, chocolate goodies, and even hermit crab shells, silkworms had been 3D-printing their own houses for ages. In their pupal stage, the critters spin about a kilometer of silk thread into the cocoons that protect them as they develop into moths. Now the geniuses at the MIT Media Lab have figured out how to get the common silkworm to 3D print houses for us. Read more!

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The first phase of the inaugural Architizer A+ Awards is over, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the response from you guys! Since launching the awards program in mid-October, we received a phenomenal number of projects by architects from all over the world, all vying for the top prize in 50 categories.

We’re now onto Phase Two:  every single one of the projects you submitted to us has already been sent to our illustrious jurors, who have 2 weeks to spend with the entries before selecting their top picks. That means architects like Steven Holl and Jeanne Gang, innovators like Neri Oxman and Aaron Koblin, designers like Rem D. Koolhaas and Eckart Maisse, developers like Ian Schrager and MaryAnne Gilmartin, curators Barry Bergdoll and Paola Antonelli, and even celebs like Moby and Elle Macpherson are looking at your projects right now. They’ll choose the top 5 buildings and spaces from each category (both architectural typologies likes “Residential Housing” and Plus typologies like “Urban Transformation”), and we will announce their shortlist on February 14. The jury’s final selections will be kept under wraps for one month, just until phase three of the awards has concluded.

Phase Three might be the most fun of all: public voting. The shortlisted projects will all be posted to the A+ Awards site, where starting February 14 you can vote for the Public Choice winners! Voting is open to everyone and will run through March 8. The best architecture of the last 3 years is in your hands, so don’t forget to vote!

After the public voting period is closed, we’ll tally the numbers and announce both the jury award winners and the public choice winners on March 19. We’ll continue to roll out A+ content thereafter, but that date will mark the end of the first year’s awards. All of the winners are invited to a big gala event on May 16 to celebrate with the architectural community. That’s smack dab in NY Design Week, so we expect a lot of people to be there. We’re still working out the deets, so stay tuned for more.

Finally, thanks to you architects, designers, and fans for making the first annual Architizer A+ Awards such a great success!

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A+ juror Neri Oxman with a look she helped design from Iris van Herpen’s Spring Couture collection. 

MIT Lab designer (and A+ juror!) Neri Oxman‘s amazing bio-armor made an appearance at Iris van Herpen’s Spring 2013 runway at Paris Fashion Week Monday. Oxman teamed up with the Belgian couturier and 3D printer Stratasys to create a bubbled mini skirt and cape covered in trip-tastic trompe l’oeil seashells. (We’re swooning over the photos!) The sci-fi collection also included a flexible, harness-like little black dress designed with Austrian architect Julia Koerner and laser-sintered by Materialise. Click through for more!

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By Karen Wong
Karen Wong is the Deputy Director at the New Museum and an Architizer A+ Awards juror. In an on-going series, she profiles the latest and most interesting architects, designers, and thought leaders to join the A+ jury. See her previous post on Arup’s Rory McGowan here.

Maps are beloved by architects and designers. They reveal the nature of civilizations, migration of peoples, and often surprises that lie just beneath our feet, like the secret tunnels below the Vatican City. Mapping, as in the process of plotting data to inform a design practice, takes this affinity for logistics even further. The process is being readily integrated by architects and designs as a tool with which to craft anything and everything from monumental parabolic architecture to artificial ligaments and tendons. Three high priestesses have made mapping a new religion, and each has gained a devoted following: Paola Antonelli (the discourse on mapping), Zaha Hadid (mapping buildings) and lesser-known Neri Oxman (mapping matter). Continue.

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The High Line Phase Two is open! After a surprise soft opening yesterday, today is the (official) day. Pictures from the new section of elevated park in our post below; plus, the New York Times reports on the project as an conomic powerhouse for the city. [via NYT]

Geoff Manaugh blogs on a recent conference (Political Equator 3) where a temporary “pop-up” border crossing between Mexico and the States was opened. [via BLDGBLOG]

Wondering what the real estate market in Marfa is like? Curbed makes everyone feel bad they haven’t “followed through” on their “dreams” of moving to “west Texas” with this guide. [via Curbed]

Here’s an interesting piece on Israeli architect Neri Oxman (currently of MIT’s MediaLab), who’s designing everything from buildings to splints informed by naturally-existing phenomena. [via Haaretz]

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