This past October, the Brooklyn Night Bazaar drew in a crowd of over 5,000 visitors with its impeccably curated offerings of local food, art, architecture and urbanism. Setting up shop in Brooklyn’s Dekalb Market, the Bazaar took the model of the Asian night market and invited a host of artists, food purveyors, and musicians to bring life to the colorful hub of readapted shipping containers during its usually dormant hours. The event was wildly successful, echoing the liveliness of night markets in China, Taiwan and Vietnam but set instead in a landscape of tents, stalls and freight containers and carried out to the live soundtrack of YACHT. New Yorkers got a taste of a bustling night life that could exist outside of bars, restaurants, and swanky concert venues, a taste that included buttery lobster rolls, savory pies and endless baked and fried treats.

Met with such an enthusiastic response, the producers of the Bazaar have decided to bring the night market back in December, just in time for crafty New Yorkers to pick up artisanal holiday gifts and treat themselves to some piping hot local fare. As if Dekalb’s shipping containers were not hip enough, the Bazaar is bringing in Architizer favorites JDS/Julien de Smedt Architects, fresh from designing a Norwegian ski jump, to create a masterplan for the market. It looks like the team is seriously upping the ante with plans to take over a 40,000 sq ft warehouse on the Williamsburg waterfront using demarcated spaces inspired by the set of Lars Von Trier’s Dogville. The rendering reveals a stage curved like a half-pipe along with light and video installations by NBNY, the stars of Greenpoint’s Bring to Light festival, projected onto the 30-foot tall walls and ceilings.

It is refreshing to see such a burst of energy from local creatives, and it is particularly exciting to witness a new appreciation for architecture coming from an unexpected place. As we are seeing more and more, good architecture is no longer restricted to its service to the rich and powerful, but it is increasingly used as a means to empower more democratic enterprises. On a lighter note, we expect this to be one hell of a party.

The Brooklyn Night Bazaar will take place December 15, 16 and 17^th from 5 pm to midnight each night, located at 149 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For more information, visit www.bkbazaar.com.

All images courtesy the architects.

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Just when we had thought the building boom had come and gone in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we learned that a 440 ft tall hotel designed by Oppenheim Architecture + Design will soon tower over South Williamsburg, looming over the historic and industrial urban fabric of the neighborhood with a slender, triple-tiered, ultra shiny façade. Described by the architects as a “third pillar of the Williamsburg Bridge to emerge after 108 years,” Oppenheim’s competition-winning design for the Williamsburg Hotel is a visceral emblem of Brooklyn’s foremost cutting edge neighborhood. Read on.

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When we read last year that former Blue’s Clues host Steve Burns is now shacked up in Brooklyn and living life as a musician, we were delighted, and very curious. Despite New York magazine’s digs about Burns’s bachelorhood, the home is no disappointment: the 2,100-square-foot pad is the work of “residential-conversion king Eric Liftin at MESH Architectures, and it’s set down in an old wood shop in the heart of New York’s very own hipster slum, Williamsburg.”

Well, now it’s on Architizer, and we’ve got an outtake ripe for captioning (above).

You know what to do: comment here with your best caption, post it on our Facebook wall, or re-Tweet us @architizer. We’ll pick the best one and send out a prize! May the wittiest captioner win.

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First cancelled (leaving outraged applicants high-and-dry), the Kaohsiung competition is now being “re-procured” with more judges. See our appended Call to Action, with the official statement (Update 2) at the bottom. Does this appease anyone? Note: Shipping materials twice will run about two grand.

A future centerpiece in many serious design book collections, the newly released Ando: Complete Works 1975-2010 is mostly “authored” by the 20 photographers who documented Mr. Ando’s concrete and light-filled architecture. Philip Jodidio’s commentary tries to hold its own—but how could it against such powerful imagery? [via Archnewsnow]

A fight is brewing over Rafael Viñoly’s massive rethink of the former Domino sugar refinery site near Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The project, which includes office, housing (some affordable), shopping and open space, is being cut down so some towers don’t cast shadows over Grand Ferry Park. The developers are not happy. [via Architectural Record]

“ReSource,” an Architectural League competition, is awarding new and inspiring young firms that are responding to the new “economic sobriety” with a fresh attitude and process. One winning firm, Austin+Mergold “infiltrate existing systems that are responsible for constructed environments.” After New York City’s High Line, is this the next big thing (see A+M pics below)? [via Bustler]

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