On Thursday October 17, The New Institute sets the stage for the Critics Night, an event organized by ArchiNed and Designplatform Rotterdam that wants to discuss the opportunities for new forms of criticism in the digital era.

After two successful cycles, the Zagreb Society of Architects set the stage for the third edition of international series of concept-based architectural competitions entitled Think Space. Featuring a number of established architects and curators, the program continues to re-think space in the 2013/2014 season. The new theme of Think Space, MONEY [The Echo of Nothing], was devised by architects, publishers and bloggers Ethel Baraona Pohl and César Reyes Nájera of dpr-barcelona.

Design magazine Frame dedicates its November issue to student work from design schools all over the world. As introduction to this dossier Frame organized a discussion between Design Academy Eindhoven Director Thomas Widdershoven, Leiden University Professor Design and Theory Timo de Rijk and Volume’s editor-in-chief Arjen Oosterman. Frame also asked each for three private picks plus short comment.

This Friday, managing editor Brendan Cormier and editor-in-chief Arjen Oosterman will be visiting Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV, on the role of rules in urban design. Are there any questions you'd like asked? Please send them to bc@archis.org!

It's raining triennales this fall! Last week the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale was officially opened, and this weekend the design world looks at Oslo where the Nordic region’s biggest architecture festival will kick off. Volume's editor-in-chief Arjen Oosterman will be one of the professionals who will guide visitors along selected items in the exhibition.

Last week the third Lisbon Architecture Triennale was opened. Curated by Beatrice Galilee
, the Triennale's central theme this year is 'Close, Closer', an investigation into the expanding field of contemporary architectural practice.

Tomorrow our Director Lilet Breddels will take part in a panel discussion during the Reading the City program at the 2013 Vilnius Book Festival.

During the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, Amsterdam-based design studio Rietveld Landscape successfully showed the world that thousands of inspiring public buildings in the Netherlands lay vacant. Many of these buildings have great potential, but focusing on re-development would be a long and difficult process. The real chances are in extreme temporary use, but the legal circumstances in the Netherlands are not fit for temporary use of buildings. After the Vacant NL exhibition, Rietveld Landscape continued their research on vacancy with a two-year long master program called Studio Vacant NL, that was organized in collaboration with the Sandberg Institute. Last month the program came to an end with a graduation exhibition in Amsterdam, which featured projects by seven master students.

‘Post-starchitecture’ is one of the terms used to describe the main theme of the recently released book Reactivate! Innovators of Dutch Architecture. Written by A10 editor-in-chief Indira van ‘t Klooster and published by Trancity/Valiz, it portrays a new generation of architects, designers and planners in the Netherlands who have left behind the urban master plans and iconic concepts, and taken a more small-scale, DIY and community-focused perspective on city-making.