On the spot
News and observations
• The acoustic barrier-cum-showroom by Kas Oosterhuis / ONL along the A2 motorway between Amsterdam and Utrecht (NL)
• Transsylvanian manga: the conversion of a brick-vaulted basement in Romania into a cool bar space
• Günther Behnisch's new building for the Akademie der Künste on Potsdamer Platz seems to bring modernism back to Berlin's centre (DE)
• The much-discussed expansion of St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre (RU)
• Zechner & Zechner's airport control tower in Vienna (AT)
• An overview of the new stadiums that have been built for the 2006 Football Worldcup in Germany
• Recent plans for remodelling late modernist ensembles show how out of touch Berlin (DE) is with the current international debate on cities
• House or sculpture? A fairytale-like apartment block in Copenhagen (DK)
• An alumnus's view on the search for a new chairman of London's Architectural Association (GB)
and more...

Start
New projects
• HS99’s competition winning design for the university library in Katowice (PL) offers both an architectural and an urban intervention
ANCE's competition for a house of the future provides opportunities for the younger generation of architects (IT)
• Europan winners exe-arquitectos improve Tromsø (NO) with their urban interventions
• Youth services building in Tallaght (IE) by Henchion-Reuter Architects
• Young architects BWK from Zurich became local heroes by winning a competition for Lausanne's Art Museum (CH)
• Centra Nams in Riga: a mixed-use complex designed by Ugis Senbergs (LV)
• Danish office HLT proposes an aluminium-clad concert hall for Uppsala (SE)
• AllesWirdGut transform the site of a former steelworks in Esch-sur-Alzette (LU) into a public square

Interview
Hyperrealist Andreas Hild
Andreas Hild of Hild und K works on the poetic enhancement of everyday architecture. It is not inventions that interest him but discoveries. „It is my job to recognize beauty and, in a kind of hyper-realistic architecture, to find a crystallization point I can use to explain what I see to someone else.“

Ready
New buildings
• Muf’s first realized building is a pavilion for a Roman mosaic in St Albans (UK)
• Urban park restaurant in Beja (PT) by Santa-Rita Architects
• For Enric Ruiz-Geli fantasy is a potent architectural instrument, as two of his recent projects, Villa Bio and Villa Nurbs, reveal (ES)
• Italo Rota’s library design for the San Sisto neighbourhood of Perugia (IT)
• Veronika Valk's sports centre in rural Suure-Jaani (EE) is described by locals as a „vegetable soup“
• The conversion of an office building in Hamburg (DE) into a residential complex by blauraum
• Jószef Kocsis, together with his two sons, designed a protestant church in Szentendre, an artists’ town on the Danube (HU)
• Dietmar Feichtinger has transformed the image of stacked containers into a port building in Gennevilliers (FR)
• Geir Brendeland and Olav Kristoffersen designed an apartment building in Trondheim (NO) that lives up to its solid timber appearance
• Caramel's house in Linz (AT) is wrapped in yellow-beige lorry tarpaulin and was designed for a four-year-old girl
• The Tor Vergata Laboratories in Rome (IT) by IaN+

Eurovision
Focusing on European countries, cities and regions
• BTC City, Slovenia’s largest shopping and entertainment complex is far more than a mall – it’s a phenomenon in its own right. But is it a comfortable refuge from the conventional city or a threat to Ljubljana's historical centre?
• From the moment the Modern Movement gained a foothold in Catalonia (ES), local architects have interpreted it in their own pragmatic way. Five recent projects demonstrate that this „new realism“ is alive and well.
• Free to choose among alternatives, Lithuanian architects have been re-establishing the value of their profession as creators of form and space. An architectural tour guide to Vilnius (LT).

Instant History
Buildings that already get their share of media attention
Sauerbruch & Hutton designed a thoroughly ecological building for the Federal Environmental Agency on a former gasworks in Dessau (DE). Christian Welzbacher describes what he finds behind its colourful facades.