THE 2001 AGA KHAN AWARDS FOR ARCHITECTURE

Once every three years, an international awards program honors the best of Islamic design. The Aga Khan Award for Architecture seeks to enhance the understanding and appreciation of Islamic culture by citing examples of architectural excellence, encompassing concerns as varied as contemporary design, social housing, community improvement, restoration, landscaping, and environmental issues. One of the winners was the SOS Children's Village, Aqaba, Jordan, which fuses a modern design vocabulary with a renewal of the local building vernacular. Next week we'll look at this and other winners.

TAKING TEA WITH A MASTER

Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh is famous for his tea rooms of the early 20th century. The Willow Tea Rooms in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow were among his most original buildings and the most complete in their scheme of decoration and furniture. He even designed the chokers and dresses worn by the waitresses. The Willow Tea Rooms, if they had survived in their original state, might stand with the Glasgow School of Art and The Hill House as the trio of Mackintosh masterpieces. Next week we'll look at the tea room interiors through the eyes of architectural historian Alan Crawford.

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SERVICES

In what has become a specialist market, the UK consulting group GENESYS offers a range of environmental engineering services revolving around the design of low-energy buildings. Their work ranges from facade design and solar shading to the energy auditing of completed buildings. They apply, for instance, computational fluid dynamics software packages to predict areas of overheating and stagnation in natural ventilation and air conditioning designs. By identifying areas of potential heat build-up they can recommend architectural forms to promote air movement and keep the heat levels within acceptable comfort factors. Next week ArchitectureWeek contributing editor Don Barker will demonstrate their work at the sketch stage of the design.