Category: Architecture
Posted by Nico on 1/15/2010 12:17:00 AM
From "Junk Space" to inspiring playground
Architect Avi Laiser and his wife, performance artist Dana Hirsch Laiser, investigate the concept of “temporary private space” by transforming a forgotten piece of land adjacent to a major highway into a vibrant and innovative playground for the surrounding community.
Firm: Avi Laiser Architecture
Location: L+L Maps - The REAL Estate
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 8/4/2009 8:40:00 AM
An Intensive Design Workshop in New York City, August 2009
This is intensive design workshop from August 17-21 in New York City. The workshop will take place in a studio setting and will be devoted to exploring relational design strategies and digital design methodologies for speculative infrastructures--specifically with the Gowanus Canal.
The aim of the workshop will be to empower designers to negotiate the complex and data-rich environments that are available through professional mapping and information systems and to develop speculative design proposals through the use of computational techniques and methodologies. Participants will develop design interventions that address emerging ecological crises and opportunities found in New York ecologies of the present and near-future.
Workshop participants include students, academics, and professionals, and the program includes a number of interesting outside speakers and events. The instructors are Michael Chen + Jason Lee [Crisis Fronts] & Ronnie Parsons + Gil Akos [Studio Mode | modeLab].
There is still time to register for the full workshop. A public event and presentation on Friday the 21st will conclude the workshop.
Link: Crisis Modes | Workshop
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 7/27/2009 2:11:00 PM
Water Sports Center in Zahara de la Sierra, Cádiz, Spain
Spanish architect Julio Barreno Gutiérrez designed this boathouse just outside the small town of Zahara de la Sierra on the shore of the man-made lake, El Embalse de Zahara. The small structure serves as a boat storage facility and also houses changing rooms and restrooms for boaters, and is meant to be part of a larger recreation area in development.
While small and utilitarian, the structure responds elegantly to the native landscape, the high waterline of the resevoir, and the local vernacular of the "pueblo blanco" hillside town. The design was awared the 2008 Torres Key Prize by the College of Architects of Cádiz given every two years to honor the best new buildings in Cádiz. The architect describes the town "as a dense liquid falling down along the slope" and the small parcels and buildings along the shore as "small white pieces" scattered below; a green and white pixelated landscape.
Architect Julio Barreno Gutiérrez is an Associate Professor for the School of Architecture at the University of Seville.
Location: L+L Maps - Paisaje de Canoas
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 4/30/2009 5:27:00 PM
Abstracted Victoriana
 A tired San Francisco Victorian duplex is transformed by Oakland firm Envelope Architecture + Design in collaboration with owner and interior designer Claire Bigbie and landscape designer Flora Grubb.
Claire, a RISD trained designer, purchased this Noe Valley duplex in 2005 with her partner Jay Shapiro after returning to the US from London (where she worked for the hip interior design studio Precious McBane) to take a position as the style editor for ReadyMade Magazine. The house was in need of serious renovation, and the resulting project transformed the typical series of dark, cellular rooms into contemporary live/work spaces which respects the existing historic fabric while re-imagining the altered structure. Three days after Claire and Jay moved in, Claire began consulting on projects with Envelope A+D where she now leads the interiors component of the collaborative design process.
Architecture Firm: Envelope A+D
Landscape: Flora Grubb
Article: NY Times - When Skaters Grow Up by Penelope Green
Photo Gallery: NY Times
Photography: Todd Hido
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 4/29/2009 7:49:00 AM
Winner of the 2009 Mies van der Rohe Award
This landmark building in Oslo by Snøhetta (Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, Tarald Lundevall, Craig Dykers) is the
largest cultural centre built in Norway in 700 years. The competion brief stated that the operahouse should be monumental in it’s expression. Snøhetta's interpretation of monumentality is a concept of togetherness, joint ownership, easy and open access for all which is manifested in the warping roof plane making the an extended piece of civic public space. Monumentality is achieved through wide horizontal extension and not verticality. Integral to the 1,000-room interior, which is largely lined with crafted woodwork (using the traditions of Norwegian boat builders), are a number of art commissions interwoven into the structural fabric, including a cloakroom, a collaboration with their 2007 Serpentine Pavilion collaborator Olafur Eliasson.
The European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe announced today that the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, Oslo, Norway by Snøhetta is the winner of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2009.
Link: Snøhetta
Location: L+L Maps - Norwegian National Opera & Ballet
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 4/21/2009 10:45:00 AM
Audio: A discussion with Frank Gehry and Architecture for Humanity’s Cameron Sinclair.
Will an architecture of "excess" will be replaced by one of "relevance?" Frances Anderton talks to Cameron Sinclair (Co-founder of Architecture for Humanity) and Frank Gehry. Listen below:
Via: KCRW
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 4/13/2009 5:29:00 PM
2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate
Peter Zumthor of Switzerland has been chosen as the 2009
Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The Zumthor choice marks the second time in three decades of the Pritzker
Architecture Prize that Switzerland has provided the laureate. In 2001, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron were the honorees.
In Zumthor’s own words as expressed in his book, Thinking Architecture:
I believe that architecture today needs to reflect on the tasks and possibilities which are inherently its own. Architecture is not a vehicle or a symbol for things that do not belong to its essence. In a society that celebrates the inessential, architecture can put up a resistance, counteract the waste of forms and meanings, and speak its own language. I believe that the language of architecture is not a question of a specific style. Every building is built for a specific use in a specific place and for a specific society. My buildings try to answer the questions that emerge from these simple facts as precisely and critically as they can.
The formal ceremony for what has come to be known throughout the world as architecture’s highest honor will be held on May 29 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
After the jump is a sampling of Zumthor's work.
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 4/13/2009 12:02:00 PM
MoMA Exhibition
The exhibition, running at MoMA in New York City from April 8, 2009–September 14, 2009, draws from the rich collection of The Museum of Modern Art to examine the diverse attitudes toward landscape over the last hundred years.
I saw a sneak peak of the exhibit before it opened a couple of weeks ago, and what I saw left me wanting to see more. Featured designers include Roberto Burle Marx, Frank Lloyd Wright, Hans Hollein, Diller + Scofidio, Tadao Ando, Mies van der Rohe, Bernard Tschumi, Enric Miralles, and many more.
Link: MoMA
Article: Art Daily
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 4/9/2009 11:43:00 AM
The Polshek Partnership's High Line hurdling hotel
 It's been around the blogosphere for a while... and we've mused on the nice lap dance it gives the High Line park. But in a striking bit of coincidence, I just recently had the opportunity to see The Standard with my own eyes, and NY Time critic Nicolai Ouroussoff has reviewed it. So I'm inspired to post a nice, old-fashioned bit of archiporn... yes, lots of pictures after the jump. But I'll keep writing so you can say you read the articles.
Sure, it's a bit over-the-top and extravagant in the face of our current economic woes, but why not wax a bit nostalgic... nay... optimistic for the good days to come. Heck, the hotel hasn't even been completed! And neither is the aforementioned elevated park. So, I suppose we're looking to the future.
Link: NY Times
Link: Standard Hotel NYC
Firm: Polshek Partnership Architects
Related: "Down-to-Earth Masterpieces of Public Landscape Design" (L+L)
L+L Map: The Standard New York
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Category: Architecture
Posted by James on 3/5/2009 8:43:00 AM
Tadao Ando's mixed-use complex in Hyogo, Japan
 This massive mixed-use complex was constructed on the remains of a hillside whose earth had been used for a huge landfill project for the Osaka Bay area. The design reconstructs the landscape that had been destroyed but also, through the idea of rebirth and reconstruction, serves as a memorial to the thousands who had lost their lives and the destruction of land in the massive earthquake that shook the Kobe region in 1995. The complex is vast in scale, yet the design manages capture the small quiet moments for which Ando is known.
Link: Awaji Yumebutai International Conference Center
Photos: 0lll
More Tadao Ando: Design Boom - 2001 Interview
Location: L+L Maps - Awaji Yumebutai Conference Centre
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