Archive for Architecture
June 26, 2008 at 11:41 pm · Filed under Architecture
Remember Archigram, the futuristic, pop-infused collective from the 1960s? The group that dreamed up magical urban environments like the Walking City and the Plug-In City?
It seems like the spirit of Archigram has emerged once again in the 21st century, this time in Dubai. Italian architect David Fisher has designed a 1,378 foot-tall skyscraper with 80 movable floors, each capable of shifting a complete 360-degree revolution around a central column within three hours or less. Dubbed the Dynamic Tower, the new structure will house a luxury hotel, commercial space and private residences:
Despite its behemoth appearance, the Dynamic Tower touts impressive green design principles. Wind turbines located beneath each floor will allow the tower to generate enough power for itself as well as neighboring buildings. An entirely pre-fabricated construction process will further reduce costs, too.
Fisher shows no signs of slowing down; indeed, he’s hoping to take his skyscraper idea worldwide. The tower is scheduled for completion in 2010, but Fisher is already planning similar structures in Moscow and New York.
http://www.dynamicarchitecture.net/building.html
June 12, 2008 at 1:15 am · Filed under Architecture, Music, Travel
Events like Mutek remind me of the rip-roaring delight of being young, traveling to exotic locations (like Canada!), and indulging in sights and sounds from the outer fringe. Some festival highlights:
Morgan Packard and Josh Ott opened the week with ambient techno shavings, helix-like visual permutations, accordian drifts and bird whistles:
Barem and Chic Miniature warmed up the crowd on Friday evening at SAT, while artists worked on a large mural:
Half Hawaii shook the packed midnight down at Metropolis:
And Onur Özer unleashed horns onto the crowd on Sunday’s Piknic set. It started to rain, but who could stop dancing?
I also enjoyed a side visit to the Canadian Center for Architecture, where I caught an exhibition on residential case studies by SANAA partner Ryue Nishizawa:
December 31, 2007 at 2:53 pm · Filed under Architecture, Design
In school, I once had a studio project that called for the design of a stool made of corrugated cardboard. The idea was simple — to create a piece of furniture that was easy to assemble, structurally sound and made from inexpensive, readily available material.
Following this concept, Foldschool offers free furniture patterns which you can use to make your own chair, stool or cute little rocker from corrugated cardboard. Swiss architect Nicola Enrico Stäubli began Foldschool to provide “a face-to-face approach to design and [bring] together product and user the closest possible.” With beautifully sculptural lines, each of Stäubli’s designs strikes a strong impression.
www.foldschool.com
July 9, 2007 at 8:49 pm · Filed under Architecture, Design, Music, Travel
At last — here are the latest photos from my recent trip to London. This was an unorthodox journey, a few days to check out the small gems found off the beaten path (or, in one case, under a bridge!).
I can still feel the chill breeze through the wilderness of Hampstead, where I wandered by accident into the boys’ cruising area only to become even more lost in between vast stretches of heath. And tucked behind the busy streets of London was the Palladian splendor of the Spencer House (below) as well as countless architectural oddities at Sir John Soane’s Museum.
And to finish it all off, I loved the underground feel of Run Sounds‘ minimal techno party at Shunt Vaults, nested within a complex network of tunnels and run by a private collective underneath London Bridge Station. I’ll never forget the sensation of roaming around the dark tunnels, happening upon old pool tables, projectors and listening to the artists set up during sound check… ah, London. ‘Tis wonderful to uncover a few more layers of another great city.
March 22, 2007 at 6:06 pm · Filed under Architecture, Design
Swank certainly describes Lundberg Design’s the newest project, a 7,000 square-foot private residence in the elite Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. Upon client request, Olle Lundberg created an ambitious program to combine two 1950s-era homes into an ultra modern cube. Yes, it certainly set off the neighbors, but the result is simply stunning.
Amongst the subdued color palette of blue, grey, and wenge, every element of the home was considered with luxury in mind. Lundberg worked with Wendy Tsuji to custom design and fabricate both interior and exterior furniture and finishes. The bathrooms alone should receive special note for their stand-out cool factor: volcanic silicate and beveled glass frame a powder room lit with LED lights suspended in glass globes (above); the master bath sports transparent electronic windows that fog up for instant privacy. Check out this cuvacious steel staircase, which Olle Lundberg designed to provide a strong focal point and connect the residence’s three levels on a vertical axis (below). It’s all enough to make one drool in cutting-edge comfort.
March 14, 2007 at 8:40 pm · Filed under Architecture, Design
With the opening of the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, the Bay area feels like it’s experiencing a new wave in the institutionalized arts. And yes, the Other Side — namely, the East bay — is certainly stepping up to the plate.
Toyo Ito, one of Japan’s most inventive contemporary architects, has been selected to design a new home for the Berkeley Art Museum (BAM) and the Pacific Film Archive (PFA). After a 1997 campus survey found the BAM/PFA building to be seismically unstable, the call for a new museum endured years of planning and deliberation. The original 1970 museum, designed by Mario Campi, has been retrofitted in part to remain open while current plans are underway.
According to a University press release, programming for the new BAM/PFA facility will combine research, education and gallery space. The future museum’s location has been set at the corner of Oxford and Center Streets on UC Berkeley’s campus, visually connecting the University’s main western entrance to downtown Berkeley. Ito and the University are also committed to enforce high green design standards that either meet or surpass Silver-level LEED requirements. With an estimated total cost of $80-100 million, this may prove to be an ambitious goal indeed. Preliminary designs will be revealed this summer, and museum director Kevin E. Consey has suggested that the new design will include rooftop gardens on a distorted grid.
I am ecstatic about Ito’s selection. The design for the Sendai Mediatheque (2001, above) is a brilliant example of his futuristic vision of an interactive arts incubator (a radical departure from than traditional museum’s passive viewing environment). Housed in a transparent cube supported by organically latticed service columns resembling trees, the Mediatheque supports the fine arts, film, digital media as well as an expansive library and open audiovisual studios. Other acclaimed projects include the Serpentine Gallery in London (2002) and the Matsumoto Performing Art Center (2004).
Ito always surprises with his hyper media and design sensibility, which differs from the cutting-edge likes of Frank Gehry or Daniel Liebeskind; in place of glitzy materials and forms that don’t follow function, Ito offers a much more subdued form of visual distortion. With Gilles Deleuze and the natural world as cited sources of inspiration, I can’t wait to see what he dreams up for the new BAM/PFA center.
NB: For those of you who haven’t caught the Bruce Nauman exhibition at BAM, A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s, run over soon before it closes on April 15. The exhibition also may remind experimental music fans of Matmos‘ latest album, dedicated to philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.
January 16, 2007 at 2:51 pm · Filed under Architecture, Design
Photo by Art Gray
It’s a minimal match made in heaven: Tadao Ando, a pioneer of modern Japanese architecture, and Georg Jensen, one of Denmark’s best-loved design houses, joined forces in the creation of Jensen’s new Rodeo Drive boutique in Los Angeles.
According to an interview with Interior Design, Ando describes his vision for the 2,500 square-foot space as an aquatic environment with Jensen’s quintessential Danish design pieces emerging like “fireflies on the sea.” Ando designed the two longitudinal walls of acrylic tubes, punctuated by recessed display areas and backlit by over 100,000 LED lights to imbue the rectangular space with a cool sapphire glow. An oak floor connects the two walls with a series of simple white pedestal stands and spot lighting.
Ando is perhaps best-known for taking the most fundamental of geometric forms — whether it be a circle, square or triangle — and utterly transforming the shape with a razor-like precision which captures light, materials, and unusual spatial programming in a strikingly simple plan. He often refers to materials by their spiritual qualities, and some of his best works reflect a zen-like simplicity: his Water Temple in Hyogo and the Church of Light in Osaka are excellent examples. Ando has also won several awards, including the Pritzker Prize of Architecture in 1995.
October 23, 2006 at 1:38 pm · Filed under Architecture, Design, Fashion
Louis Vuitton has retained 9 of the world’s greatest artistic minds to reinterpret selections from its classic handbag collection. Shigeru Ban, James Turrell, Robert Wilson, Zaha Hadid, Sylvie Fleury, Bruno Peinado, Andr???e Putman, Ugo Rondinone and Tim White-Sobieski have offered their individual artistic versions of the tony line, which are currently on display at Espace Louis Vuitton Paris until the end of the year.
Espace Louis Vuitton
60, rue de Bassano
101 avenue des Champs-Elys???es, 75008 Paris
Open: Mon-Sat 12-7 pm, Sun 1-7 pm
More info and pictures available at LVMH’s online Magazine.
December 29, 2005 at 10:42 pm · Filed under Architecture, Design, Music
Yay… my best buddy Alexa has moved from Paris to London… congratulations darling. And she is going to work for Foster + Partners!
Lo and behold, I just found out today that the British super design firm is working on an elephant house for the Copenhagen Zoo, which is set to be completed in 2007. Looks like there will be more of their gorgeous curved glass domes, much like the ones seen at the Reichstag in Berlin and the British Musuem in London. Landscape design by Stig L. Andersson.
Track of the day: Johan Skugge | “Voodoo Version” (Skyddsnisch EP)
December 27, 2005 at 11:22 pm · Filed under Architecture, Design
Former Young British Artist Damien Hirst, renown for slicing up cows and sharks and presenting them in formaldehyde blocks, has snapped up a new home — and it’s as shocking as his art. Hirst’s macabre aesthetic sensibility suits Toddington Manor, his new Gloucestershire residence.
Built in the 19th-century gothic revival fashion, this 300-room mansion rests on a 124-acre estate and is believed to have inspired the Houses of Parliament in London. He plans to use his new digs as home base for his family — he’s married to Maia Norman, with whom he shares three sons — as well as an art museum for his own and other artists’ works.
At a mere $5.4 million, this purchase was practically a steal. But it’s no ordinary fixer-upper: vacant for 20 years, both the home and grounds have suffered from neglect and disrepair. According to the artist’s spokesman, Hirst sees this property as a lifelong restoration project. It will certainly keep him busy; experts estimate $18 million in initial repairs, which will be conducted with the English Heritage.
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