Global architecture firm Gensler has an impressive portfolio, to say the least, gathering the work of thousands of the world’s leading architects and designers and arranging towering glass and steel megastructures right alongside new university buildings, renovated interiors, and spruced up bars and restaurants. Despite the breadth of its designs, we were still impressed by the firm’s choice to award Pratt interior design student Tina Uznanski with the 2012 Gensler Brinkmann Scholarship. Uznanski secured her prized academic scholarship and internship at Gensler’s London office through her proposal for a renovation of the Clinton Hill Community Library in Brooklyn, New York.

In an official statement seen on Bustler, Gensler hailed Uznanski’s proposal for capturing the spirit of the firm and its will to “partner with…clients to deliver design innovations that transform their organizations.” The flexible program, composed of ‘shifting stacks,’ allows library-goers to immerse themselves in a fantastic variable landscape of books.  But what we found most refreshing was Uznanski’s architectural drawings and the presentation of her ideas, which uses collage to communicate a whimsical return to simpler times, when printed words on a page were the height of information transmission. Continue.

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Happy Friday, everyone! This morning we’ve got a visual treat in the form of a meticulously built (and filmed) Rube Goldberg device designed by Pratt MFA students Alex Crawford and Austin Nelson. The trick is in the ending, so watch and see what the device achieves.

Nelson explains: “We built the machine for our Multimedia Installation class.  We had both always wanted to build a Rube Goldberg machine but never had a good reason to and we could also never find anyone else interested in spending a lot of time and energy building a machine that is basically pointless. This was the perfect opportunity! We spent about 30 hours building it and the result is a process that lasts about 30 seconds. Time well spent, I believe.”

And on that point, we could not agree more.

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Winning sculpture design by Su Ting Chen and Samantha Johnson; Second-place garment design by Beatrice Weiland and Meredith Lyon, photo (c) Antoine Bootz.

Rotterdam fixture Neutelings Riedijk Architects have won a competition to build a new performing arts center on the site of an early OMA project in the Hague. The firm advanced to the final round of the competition along with Zaha Hadid and RAU Architects – check out their proposal (which stacks a 1800 seat Concert Hall, a 1100 seat Opera/Dance Hall, a 500 seat Theatre and a 700 seat Ensemble Hall vertically) after the jump. [via BD Online]

Ralph Pucci, the leading designer of showroom mannequins (who knew!) commissioned a set of Pratt design students to ‘dress’ his newest line of figures for his New York flagship. The result? An amazing set of monochromatic studies in texture, pattern and materiality (all done in paper). [via Metropolis POV]

Curbed has rounded up images of the digs from some of hip hop’s top  luminaries today, making us question the direction of our lives: how long do we have to wait until we can afford walls covered in diamonds?? [via Curbed]

The AIA New York has opened the call for entries to the 30th year of its Design Awards program. The deadline for submissions in the four categories (Architecture, Interiors, Urban Design, and Un-built Work) is February 4th, and includes work done by NYC architects globally, as well as work done in the City by firms outside of New York. [via AIA NY]

Urbanverse features an interesting TED Talk by author Jason Fried, in connection to last week’s twitter chat on the topic of “How will we work in 2020, 2030, or even 2050 differently than today?” Check out the video after the jump, and chime in to let us know what you think about rapidly transforming ideas on work and creativity. [via Urbanverse]

Happy 103rd Birthday to Oscar Niemeyer! The Pritzker-prize winning architect of Brasilia continues to practice in Brazil, and as Arch Daily points out, composes music as well.

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You have a little less than a month to get over to the Pratt Manhattan Gallery.  Presented there is the exhibit ‘Envelopes’ which is a wonderful and must-see exploration of new and sustainable potentials of the architectural surface both in terms of the skin of a building and as a sensorial space that envelops the body.

Among the many talented artists and architects featured in Envelopes, of particular interest to the Architizer community is the work of Future Cities Lab and Mary Ellen Carroll.

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