Competition: we're giving readers the chance to win one of five copies of a book about the Golden Lion-winning Torre David project presented at last year's Venice Architecture Biennale.

Congratulations to the winners! Gregor Gaspersic from Slovenia, Julien Benayoun from France, Julieta Vasileva Zambarova from Bulgaria, Silene Rivera from Mexico and Nassos Mantas from Greece all won a copy of Torre David.

Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities contains photographs by Iwan Baan that document life in an unfinished 45-storey skyscraper in Caracas, home to more than 750 families. Pictures show how the residents have created a community  for themselves, introducing a gym, a hair salon, shops and other amenities.

The images were displayed in an exhibition and restaurant by Urban-Think Tank of Venezuela and architecture critic Justin McGuirk at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012, which received an award for best project at the event.

For more information about the project read our story about it here, or watch the movies we filmed with Justin McGuirk and Iwan Baan at the biennale.

Edited by Urban-Think Tank and published by Lars Müller, the book also contains plans and diagrams of the structure, plus information about life in the vertical slum.

This competition is now closed. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

See all our coverage of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012 »
See all our stories about books »

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Located in a dense commercial district, the building provides a combined home and workplace for two writers. The site was just four metres wide, so Nishizawa designed a building that has only glass walls to avoid narrowing the interior spaces even further.

"My final decision of structure consisted of a vertical layer of horizontal slabs to create a building without walls," said the architect.

Gardens are interspersed with rooms on each of the four floors of the building, creating a screen of plants that mask the facade from the eyes of passing strangers. Glazed walls beyond protect the interior from the elements.

"The entirety is a wall-less transparent building designed to provide an environment with maximum sunlight despite the dark site conditions," added the architect. "Every room, whether it is the living room, private room or the bathroom, has a garden of its own so that the residents may go outside to feel the breeze, read a book or cool off in the evening and enjoy an open environment in their daily life."

Above: floor plans - click above for larger image and key

Staircases spiral up through the building, passing through circular openings in the thick concrete floor plates. A similar opening cuts through the roof, allowing taller plants to stretch through to the upper terrace.

Above: west and north elevations

Bedrooms are located on the first and third floors and are separated from meeting and study areas with glass screens and curtains.

Ryue Nishizawa is one half of architectural partnership SANAA, which he runs alongside Kazuyo Sejima. The pair recently completed a new outpost of the Musée du Louvre in France, while other projects by the studio include the Rolex Learning Centre in Switzerland and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. See more architecture by SANAA.

Photography is by Iwan Baan.

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by Ryue Nishizawa appeared first on Dezeen.

Surrounded by glazing, the escalator streaks diagonally across the striated concrete facade then angles back inside the building. At the top, each visitor is faced with a view of the city before spiralling their way back down through five exhibition floors into the atrium where they first arrived.

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science is sited in Victory Park, downtown Dallas, and when it opens to the public next weekend it will replace some of the facilities of the existing Museum of Science and Nature, located further east in Fair Park.

Morphosis' founder Thom Mayne conceived the building as a large cube emerging from a series of landscaped lower tiers. These levels, designed in collaboration with landscape architects Talley Associates, are covered in stones and drought-resistant grasses that are typical of the landscape in Texas.

A 3D cinema, auditorium, cafe and shop accompany the eleven exhibition galleries inside the building.

Above: site plan - click above for larger image

"The Perot Museum of Nature and Science is a gift to the city of Dallas," said Mayne. "It is a fundamentally public building – a building that opens up, belongs to and activates the city. It is a place of exchange. It contains knowledge, preserves information and transmits ideas; ultimately, the public is as integral to the museum as the museum is to the city."

Above: exploded axonometric diagram - click above for larger image

See more projects by Morphosis on Dezeen, including a floating house for Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans.

Photography is by Iwan Baan.

Here's a project description from Morphosis:

Museums, armatures for collective societal experience and cultural expression, present new ways of interpreting the world. They contain knowledge, preserve information and transmit ideas; they stimulate curiosity, raise awareness and create opportunities for exchange. As instruments of education and social change, museums have the potential to shape our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live.

Above: east-facing section - click above for larger image

As our global environment faces ever more critical challenges, a broader understanding of the interdependence of natural systems is becoming more essential to our survival and evolution. Museums dedicated to nature and science play a key role in expanding our understanding of these complex systems.

The new Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Victory Park creates a distinct identity for the Museum, enhances the institution’s prominence in Dallas and enriches the city’s evolving cultural fabric. Designed to engage a broad audience, invigorate young minds, and inspire wonder and curiosity in the daily lives of its visitors, the Museum cultivates a memorable experience that persists in the minds of its visitors and that ultimately broadens individuals’ and society’s understanding of nature and science.

Above: north-facing section one - click above for larger image

The museum strives to achieve the highest standards of sustainability possible for a building of its type. High performance design and incorporation of state of the art technologies yields a new building that minimizes its impact on the environment.

This world class facility inspires awareness of science through an immersive and interactive environment that actively engages visitors. Rejecting the notion of museum architecture as neutral background for exhibits, the new building itself is an active tool for science education. By integrating architecture, nature, and technology, the building demonstrates scientific principles and stimulates curiosity in our natural surroundings.

Above: north-facing section two - click above for larger image

The immersive experience of nature within the city begins with the visitor’s approach to the museum, which leads through two native Texas ecologies: a forest of large native canopy trees and a terrace of native desert xeriscaping. The xeriscaped terrace gently slopes up to connect with the museum’s iconic stone roof. The overall building mass is conceived as a large cube floating over the site's landscaped plinth. An acre of undulating roofscape comprised of rock and native drought-resistant grasses reflects Dallas’s indigenous geology and demonstrates a living system that will evolve naturally over time.

The intersection of these two ecologies defines the main entry plaza, a gathering and event area for visitors and an outdoor public space for the city of Dallas. From the plaza, the landscaped roof lifts up to draw visitors through a compressed space into the more expansive entry lobby. The topography of the lobby’s undulating ceiling reflects the dynamism of the exterior landscape surface, blurring the distinction between inside and outside, and connecting the natural with the manmade.

Above: west-facing section one - click above for larger image

Moving from the compressed space of the entry, a visitor’s gaze is drawn upward through the soaring open volume of the sky-lit atrium, the building’s primary light-filled circulation space, which houses the building’s stairs, escalators and elevators. From the ground floor, a series of escalators bring patrons though the atrium to the uppermost level of the museum. Patrons arrive at a fully glazed balcony high above the city, with a bird’s eye view of downtown Dallas. From this sky balcony, visitors proceed downward in a clockwise spiral path through the galleries. This dynamic spatial procession creates a visceral experience that engages visitors and establishes an immediate connection to the immersive architectural and natural environment of the museum.

Above: west facing section two - click above for larger image

The path descending from the top floor through the museum’s galleries weaves in and out of the building’s main circulation atrium, alternately connecting the visitor with the internal world of the museum and with the external life of the city beyond. The visitor becomes part of the architecture, as the eastern facing corner of the building opens up towards downtown Dallas to reveal the activity within. The museum, is thus, a fundamentally public building – a building that opens up, belongs to and activates the city; ultimately, the public is as integral to the museum as the museum is to the city.

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Iwan Baan also photographed the city from the air, creating a striking photograph that made the cover of New York Magazine (above). The image shows part of the city in darkness, while the rest is is filled with light and colour. "It was the only way to show that New York was two cities, almost," Baan told Poynter magazine. "One was almost like a third world country where everything was becoming scarce. Everything was complicated. And then another was a completely vibrant, alive New York."

A week later the city is now getting back to normal, with power mostly restored, schools reopening and subways running again.

Earlier this year Iwan Baan photographed a vertical slum in Venezuela for an exhibition that won the Golden Lion for best project at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Watch the interview we filmed with Baan about the project.

See more photography by Iwan Baan »

Here's a short statement from Baan on his experience photographing the city from above:

"I’ve photographed Manhattan from above many times in the past, so when I set out to shoot, I had already in mind my approach. I also thought, the only way to truly show how the island, which was now divided by those with power, and those without, was to find a helicopter, and shoot it from the sky.

I began calling on all of the heli-pilots I could think of in the Manhattan area, but each of them were either without fuel, on recovery efforts, or without power themselves. To my relief, after nearly exhausting all efforts, I managed to get a hold of a pilot who I had met just a week prior, and he said yes, he was able to fly.

The day after Sandy struck, I had reserved a car in Manhattan - just in case. But to my demise, the rental company had already given away my reservation, leaving me without a car, and without a means to getting to the helipad.

After a bit of negotiating, I finally found a rental at JFK. And 4 hours of standstill traffic, closed bridges and a $2000.00usd price tag later, I made it to the airport and had the car keys in hand.

Before I could shake off a bit of the frenzy that was going around, my phone rang. It was New York Magazine calling, and all that I could make out through the broken network reception was the word helicopter. With the phone lines being as bad as they were, it was completely impossible to hear what they were saying, but I figured I’d make my way to the heliport no matter what. I had already made my 4-hour trek out of Manhattan, so I could make it there in a breeze.

Renting a car, hunting for gas and inching my way through traffic to get to the heliport was by far the most trying and difficult part of getting this shot!

Without doors on the heli, it was a freezing cold, hour-long ride to fly into Manhattan. I spent about an hour above the city, where I knew I wanted to capture these two cities – one, a vibrant and pulsating Manhattan that we recognise so vividly, and its antonym – a lifeless city turned pitch black and ominous.

Illuminating the bottom left of the photograph is the glowing Goldman Sachs building. Just next is the construction site for the World Trade Centre, which is top-to-bottom, lit with power (despite the rest of lower Manhattan being completely powerless). I think perhaps, this ‘division of power’ is an allegory for the county’s declining infrastructure, telling us also about who is truly prepared for when sobering events like Sandy strike."

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La Ruta del Peregrino has been popular since the 17th Century and each year around two million pilgrims embark on the journey from the city of Ameco, across the Cerro del Obispo mountain and along to the town of Talpa de Allende.

The new structures were designed to provide landmarks and shelters along the route, and Christ & Gantenbein has constructed one near the peak of the mountain.

"The pilgrims' column sets a mark that is visible from afar," said architect Emanuel Christ. "It also creates an exciting, almost transcendental space for those that have already reached it.

A simple doorway invites visitors inside, where an open ceiling encourages them to look up towards the sky. "The simple yet striking room inside the column, shaped by the contorted wall, is nothing more than the view to the sky, manifested in architecture," said the architect.

Despite being a religious pilgrimage towards the shrine of the Virgin of Talpa, the architect also explains how they avoided religious iconography and symbolism. "It was important for us to allow a spiritual experience that is directly connected with an immediate physical and spatial perception," he said.

Above: site plan

The Cerro del Obispo is the fifth structure we've featured from the route, following a precariously balanced viewing platform by Elemental, a stone pier by Ai Weiwei, a ring of concrete and a spiralling pavilion.

Above: floor plan

See all our stories about La Ruta del Peregrino »

Photography is by Iwan Baan.

Here's a project description from Christ & Gantenbein:

Cerro del Obispo Lookout Point Ruta del Peregrino, Mexico, 2012 Pilgrim's Column

Each year around two millions of people set out on their pilgrimage through the Mexican county of Jalisco, along the 117 kilometres of the Ruta del Peregrino. The route of their pilgrimage leads them from the city of Ameca, over the mountain Cerro del Obispo until the point of the Espinazo del Diablo and finally into the destination town of Talpa de Allende with the shrine of the Holy Virgin of Talpa.

Above: section

In 2008 the tourism office of Jalisco resolved upon a master plan in order to create a better infrastructure for the pilgrims and at the same time draw visitors from around the world to Western Mexico. The Mexican architects Tatiana Bilbao, Derek Dellekamp and Rozana Montiel have invited selected architects and designers to grapple in their designs with the history of the pilgrims’ route as well as with the craggy mountain landscape in the West of Mexico. Nine land-marks are the outcome of this process, among these places to rest and places of contemplation, designed by Dellekamp Arquitectos, Rozana Montiel (Periférica), Alejandro Aravena (Elemental), HHF architects, Luis Aldrete, Tatiana Bilbao, Ai Weiwei (Fake Design), Godoylab and Christ & Gantenbein.

Above: elevation

The column on the peak of the Cerro del Obispo, a mountain with almost 2,000 metres height, protrudes like a huge bone out of the woody landscape above the valley of Ameca. A detached, organically shaped monolithic concrete wall composes the tower of 26.55 metres that can be acceded from one side through a small entrance. Inside a unique view into the sky awaits the visitor – and the sunlight, that comes in through the opening, reflected from the light concrete walls, gathering on the floor.

Above: route diagram

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Lookout Point by Christ & Gantenbein appeared first on Dezeen.