elastico has a nice post (in spanish but most of the links lead to websites in english) about the New Architecture in Spain exhibition at the MOMA, New York, February 12–May 1, 2006. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post have picture galleries.

My favourite projects are the Metropol Parasol to be built in Sevilla by J. Mayer H. and
Habitat Hotel by architect Enric Ruiz-Geli of Cloud 9 Architecture.

The hotel will be wrapped in an “energy mesh.” The light mesh, developed by James Clar, has individual nodes that will read the daylight sun amplitude and then at night each node will give off color according to how much sunlight that node collected. The mesh reflects the energy levels of each day and will change according to seasons and weather.

The model’s mesh consists of 500 tri-color LEDs controlled by a PIC microprocessor. Also imbedded in the model’s mesh are photosensors which determine the brightness on them and give off a color according to the energy color scheme.

The building should be completed in 2008 and will be located in L’Hospitalet, Barcelona.

Just like Hotel Puerta America in Madrid, big names have been invited to contribute to its general design. Vito Acconci (see also his Island in the Mur) is working on a garden which will start in the main hall of the ground floor and will continue outside to create a confusion between public and private space. Evru (previously called Zush) has designed a small meditation room shaped like a bubble. And Dutch designers Droog Design will mark every step of the main stair with the number of calories burnt to climb them. On the top floor, Brazilian architect Ruy Othake plans to grow a kind of Amazonian jungle.

Via noticias arquitectura. More information in El Pais.