[the belly of an architect]

Siza sings The Beatles

2011-12-18T19:32:00.000Z

Álvaro Siza sings When I’m 64 by The Beatles while working on a new project. Via Últimas Reportagens.

DENSITY IS HOME

2011-10-18T00:00:00.002+01:00

DENSITY IS HOME is a new book from a+t architecture publishers.

DENSITY IS HOME, the latest title in a+t’s architectural catalogue, analyses a total of 37 contemporary housing projects. The book investigates the urban dimension of architectural design, studying the different ways in which life is affected by the programmatic orientations and philosophy behind each project.
The context of these housing proposals is varied, including cities with compact centers, with single or multiple cores, dispersed urban landscapes, recycled structures and more. A big emphasis is also set on the notion of re-densification, the regeneration of the built environment. As expected, the featured projects range both in size and typology.

Brendeland & Kristoffersen, Svalbard Housing, Longyearbyen, Norway, 2007. Image credits: David Grandorge.

Chiba Manabu, Stitch Cooperative Housing, Tokyo, Japan, 2009. Image credits: Masao Nishikawa.

The book is preceded with an essay written by Aurora Fernández Per, editor and director of the a+t Research Group, titled Density And Desire. It talks about the need to address the notions of urbanity and humanity in architecture. To embrace a sense of individual perspective and preserve the subjectivity of the user: Generic residents, she writes, do not exist, they are as unique as you are.
In a way, all the projects featured in this book share the aspiration to go beyond pre-defined solutions, beyond the regulations and financial constraints, addressing design problems with openness, innovation and ultimately giving the unexpected a chance.

Rueda Pizarro, 64 Social Housing Units, Madrid, Spain, 2010. Image credits: Ricardo Espinosa.

VA Studio, MD Housing, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, 2010. Image credits: Alberto Plácido.

This preface is followed with an interesting visual study of 14 contemporary home types, all of which are inserted in collective dwellings. These case studies are presented in the form of schematic plans, followed by annotations that highlight its most important qualities and specific design features.
Those with an interest in contemporary housing design, both architects and students, will likely find DENSITY IS HOME a powerful source of information, as it complements the quantitative analysis of density and costs we can find in previous titles of this collection, with a new approach to the matters of urban context and the human experience of architecture.

C. Colomès + F. Nomdedeu, Student Housing, Troyes, France, 2009. Image credits: Guilhem-Ducléon.

Aires Mateus, Housing for the Elderly, Alcácer do Sal, Portugal, 2010. Image credits: Fernando Guerra FG+SG.

Visit a+t architecture publishers for additional information on this book and other publications.

Returning home

2011-07-21T17:14:00.000+01:00

Via Activate the Mechanism!

Who is visiting the Moon these days?

2011-07-20T19:49:00.000+01:00

While I was being distracted with life in the outside world, The Sagan Series launched two new videos: SETI Decide To Listen and End Of An Era: The Final Shuttle Launch.
If you’ve missed the previous episodes, here are the links: Earth: The Pale Blue Dot, Life Looks For Life, A Reassuring Fable and NASA Per Aspera Ad Astra.

Not if you have cats

2011-07-20T12:07:00.001+01:00

This is, like, a great idea. And then I realize… That’s right, I have cats.

Simmetry

2011-06-30T01:11:00.000+01:00

Winner of the Nokia Shorts 2011 competition, Splitscreen: A Love Story was entirely shot on a mobile phone.

Lunch atop a Skyscraper

2011-06-22T14:15:00.000+01:00

Image credits: Mike Stimpson.

Lego version of the famous photograph Lunch atop a Skyscraper taken by Charles Ebbets. Also available in widescreen format. Via Live and Let Live.

Spring-Summer

2011-06-18T21:25:00.000+01:00

Kate Spade New York ad campaign featuring Bryce Dallas Howard. Via Debbie Does Detroit.

Estórias da Carochinha

2011-06-17T22:18:00.002+01:00

Estórias da Carochinha is a Portuguese tumblelog mostly dedicated to vintage children’s books illustrations.

Pascal Campion

2011-06-16T23:37:00.002+01:00

Strasbourg, 1996.

The wonderful art of Pascal Campion. More here.

ARX.pt

2011-06-16T23:03:00.002+01:00

Image credits: Fernando Guerra (FG+SG), House in Possanco (Comporta), Alcácer do Sal, Portugal, 2011.

ARX Portugal is an architecture firm based in Lisbon directed by Nuno Mateus and José Mateus. Originally founded in Berlin in 1991, it is celebrating 20 years of architectural activity with a relaunch of its website (www.arx.pt), now featuring a brand new design and extensive information about their most recent works.

Casa das Histórias

2011-03-29T17:35:00.003+01:00

Casa das Histórias – Storyhouse – Paula Rego exhibition space in Cascais, Portugal. It’s one of Eduardo Souto de Moura’s latest projects, captured by the lens of the Brazilian photographer Pedro Kok.

2011 Pritzker Prize: Eduardo Souto de Moura

2011-03-29T17:35:00.001+01:00

Museu Paula Rego, Casa das Histórias, Cascais, Portugal, 2009. Image credits: Fernando Guerra FG+SG.

Eduardo Souto de Moura was awarded the 2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Gonçalo Byrne: Estoril-Sol

2011-02-09T08:50:00.000Z

Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos: Estoril-Sol, Estoril, Portugal, 2004-2010. Image credits: Fernando Guerra FG+SG.

A complete image gallery of this project is available at Últimas Reportagens.

The implementation of this residential hybrid designed by Gonçalo Byrne proved to be a controversial and difficult process. Located by the sea in a site previously occupied by the Hotel Estoril-Sol, an icon of 1960’s Portuguese modernism, the new project raised concerns of intervention ethics regarding the transformation of the territory and the confrontation with the public memory of the place.

Urban space is often a stage for all kinds of conflict and tension, from the desire to promote a participated built environment to the respect for private initiative, between a sense of authorship and the expectations of the public towards the landscape that they inhabit. And here we recognise a project that represented a conflict for its own architect, as we can sense from Byrne’s concerns regarding the demolition of the previous building and the many urban and typological constraints that were pre-imposed to his design.

To propose an architecture of urban dimension is to negotiate, so often, contradictory interests and relationships, of connection and segregation, privacy and public life. Such endeavour calls for a driving urban critical vision, establishing diversity and functional intensity and still exercise its own sense of individuality. And maybe we should learn from the solemn attitude of Gonçalo Byrne who challenges us beyond the easy approach of a recognisable personal aesthetics.

The new Estoril-Sol is a building that defies tradition to propose new possibilities, a renewed experience of place. It’s a distinctive landmark that emphasizes its visual importance and sense of hierarchy. This is a compact hybrid of infrastructural nature and dimension, a dominant figure over the landscape. Harmonious or contrasting, this is an architecture that denies limitations of style or the representation or archetypes to suggest a critical sense of modernity.

Architecture: Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos.
Photography: Fernando Guerra FG+SG.

a+t Strategy Public: Landscape Urbanism Strategies

2011-01-26T13:03:00.005Z

Strategy Public: Landscape Urbanism Strategies is a new book from a+t architecture publishers.

STRATEGY PUBLIC opens a new series in a+t’s architectural catalogue. Although it follows a visual and diagrammatic style similar to their previous publication, the noteworthy urban landscape analysis guide titled THE PUBLIC CHANCE, this latest book is more focused on the subject of project design strategies – the fine balance between architectural manifestations and the primary set of objectives that guide their creation.

Kragh & Berglund, Plug’N’Play, Ørestad South, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2008.

It’s an unusual approach considering other forms of conventional theoretical research. The finished project is often the critical starting point in the search for meaning. Here we are confronted with an alternate investigation method: an attempt to scrutinize the strategies that precede the design process. To understand the methodologies through which concepts are put into practice. STRATEGY PUBLIC offers an outlook into different planes of intervention: economic, social, environmental, formal. It starts by inquiring project objectives, from the seminal programmatic considerations to the concepts through which these are translated into form. Additionally, external factors are taken into consideration – such as the specificities of the site, the ecological concerns, the target users, the financial constraints of the operation – and the ways these become determinant to the development of the project.

Mutopia, City Park, Ørestad, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2005-2008.

More than 20 built works of urban design and landscape architecture are represented and each one of them is analysed regarding these particular strategies and their subsequent conceptual outcome. This is definitely a+t’s most detailed book to date, containing meticulous technical drawings and informative diagrams that dissect every single project. Some address the need to reinterpret existing landscapes, to adapt surfaces, introduce new materials and explore inventive lighting solutions. Others are focused on the need to connect and activate interstitial spaces, to introduce new functions and themes or deal with sensitive issues such as rainwater and plantation management. These may range from ambitious, large scale operations, to projects that deal with more prosaic considerations such as spending cuts or the need to reuse pre-existing materials and structures. The careful selection and diversity of examples is ultimately what makes STRATEGY PUBLIC such an outstanding learning tool and a unique design resource manual, a book that every urban designer and landscape architect should definitely take into consideration.

Kristine Jensens, Nicolai Cultural Centre Courtyard, Kolding, Denmark, 2007.

Kragh & Berglund, Plug’N’Play, Ørestad South, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2008.

Michel Desvigne, Seguin Island Gardens, Paris, France, 2010.

Mutopia, City Park, Ørestad, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2005-2008.

Arteks, Perruquet Beach Park, Vila-Seca, Spain, 2009.

Ken Robinson animated

2010-11-08T12:03:00.001Z

Nowherescape

2010-08-19T22:59:00.001+01:00

As if things weren’t slow enough around here, I’ve actually decided to start a new blog. It’s called Nowherescape and is focused on the issue of art and architecture in video games. The making of fictional landscapes – buildings, cities, planets – is becoming a central element of this new form of interactive entertainment. Games are starting to transcend the mere attainment of objectives to penetrate in the realm of inhabitance, architecture often becoming the driving force behind these simulated subjective experiences.
If this is a topic you find interesting, make sure to visit, bookmark, link or subscribe at your heart’s content. Hope you all enjoy.

Of memory and ruins

2010-08-09T16:31:00.002+01:00

Image credits: Ruin’Arte.

Ruin’Arte is a Portuguese photoblog that is dedicated to the documentation of abandoned buildings. Noteworthy religious constructions, industrial structures, ancient palaces, noble countryside residences; many examples of an unfortunate disregard towards our heritage and history.
In its latest entry we are introduced to the story of the Casa do Passal, once the residence of Aristides de Sousa Mendes in the location of Cabanas do Viriato. The ruin of the house seems to resonate with the unfairness committed against him, one of the greatest heroes of our history.

I would rather stand with God against man, than with man against God - wrote Aristides de Sousa Mendes as he justified his disobedience to direct instructions from the Portuguese government at the outbreak of World War II. During his service in the consulate of Bordeaux, France, Aristides courageously issued thousands of visas to war refugees, among which are estimated over ten thousand Jews. For his actions, Aristides was discharged from his position and ordered to return to Portugal in 1940. He travels in his own automobile leading a column of vehicles of refugees, escaping from the Nazi occupied France and a certain deportation to concentration camps.
Many of the refugees of Aristides supposedly passed through the Casa do Passal. The house has been recently documented in its current condition by the author of Ruin’Arte, leaving an appeal to its restoration in honor of the life and memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Jump to Ruin’Arte for more pictures – it’s in Portuguese only but you can access it through Google Translate if you prefer.

Image credits: Ruin’Arte.

These fine gentlemen

2010-08-06T17:47:00.001+01:00

Image credits: Guillermo Pérez.

The fine gentleman of the Biel Ballester Trio, including the man himself, were here in Évora last night, performing as part of the Jazz na Cidade [Jazz in the City] festival. You may remember one of Biel Ballester’s compositions, the Formentera Bolero, composed for the film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. If it makes you curious, don’t miss the websites above to access additional music.

Mr. Serious

2010-08-06T17:28:00.001+01:00

Moby, our world famous three-legged dog, plays cool at his latest visit to the vet. Isn’t he something?

Oh, and yeah. I'm back!

The Economist on blogging

2010-07-09T02:01:00.001+01:00

Ah, what a strange creature I am. I should have figured out something was wrong with me the day I stopped reading architecture magazines and started to buy The Economist. Go figure.
As it happens, they’ve decided to take a look at the current state of the blogosphere – The Evolving Blogosphere: An Empire Gives Away (spotted via Kottke). Well, then, the question for today is: has Facebook and Twitter broken the blogs’ monopoly?
The Economist makes the common mistake of mixing both. Twitter probably stands on its own as a short message web-based service. It successfully blends personal thoughts with special-interest news sharing. It has a simple and intuitive interface, it’s blog-friendly and integrates all sorts of external applications with remarkable versatility. It’s a sure winner.
Facebook and its siblings are completely different products. They’ve assimilated the blog dynamic and gave the user the possibility to engage in a personal network. Blogs have a slow growth rate and the blogosphere can seem like a lonely place sometimes. But blogs actually operate as networks, they intersect, they allow the user to control its connections and information feeds. The social networking world is an opaque digital landscape; it forces you to move within its own system. So Facebook may be good for immediate conversations, offering instant gratification within your group of friends and a misleading sense of feedback. Blogs, however, stand as a forum for individual publishing and personal expression.
These monsters of social networking probably stand as the greatest threat the blogosphere has ever seen. The reasons for that, as The Economist fails to apprehend, is not in the numbers alone. It’s not just the fact that blogs may be loosing their share number of online readers but that social networking is establishing a very different kind of web culture. Blogs started and remain, to a great extent, independent endeavours. They are public domain. Social networks, on the other hand, have seized the blog format and turned it into a corporate culture product. They are private domain.

Architecture in the age of incrementalism

2010-07-07T19:53:00.000+01:00

Political science states the difference between rationalism and incrementalism. A rationalist approach aspires to create an ideal system, identifying the factors, elements or activities that are essential to its foundation and providing the necessary resources to put them into practice. The latter approach, of incremental nature, is based on a contrasting set of principles. It is founded in the belief that a perfect system is impossible to establish. To create a system from what already exists consequently becomes the challenge, starting from the available knowledge and means and, from these, gradually introduce the necessary changes in order to achieve the best possible outcome. In conclusion, one could say that these approaches reflect the difficulty in reconciling the ideal with the real.
Both approaches have benefits and disadvantages. A rationalist model can eliminate barriers and promote radical transformations, achieving greater impact and visibility. It is more likely, however, to disregard existing assets and know-how by virtue of impositive measures. On the other hand, an incremental philosophy may benefit communication and participation, suggesting a bottom-up model of governance, but it is also more permeable to popular views that are not always conducive to effective solutions. The incremental approach is more vulnerable to demagoguery.

Our academic culture promotes theoretical, rational methodologies, in detriment of a more grounded, preconditioned, form of thinking. It is easier to envision a theoretical model based on analysis and synthesis of a controlled set of variables than to elaborate from the complex reality that comprehends innumerous factors and a broad range of uncertainty. One of the problems we face, then, is a tendency to generate simplified models of thinking.
As architects, Modernism is still a big part of our intellectual heritage. In no other time in history was the notion of rationalism engaged so deeply. As a movement, Modernism was an attempt to face urgent problems within new urban realities. It was a world pressured by industrialization, primary issues of urban health, housing needs, the introduction of the automobile. The depression and the war dictated systematization and economic restraint, which reflected deeply in the principles and work of architects such as Gropius, Breuer, Mies, Aalto, men that would personify the theoretical core of the international style. But Modernism as an ideology was firmly grounded on a world dominated by the ideals of a powerful, leading State, in the realms of politics and economics.

We are very distant from the world these men lived and believed in. The political centers of government are no longer the most influent forces of society. In the face of an unparalleled post-global economic austerity, the institutions of central government are likely to lose further influence and authority. This is not unrelated to the way architecture is evolving, not only in its aesthetic dimension but as a force of social transformation.
As the architectural landscape of our times is being shaped by the media-driven corporate world, few real movements have been able of pushing forward a new paradigm of architectural production. Although new web-based communication structures and an open-source mentality have been feeding remarkable possibilities (the most noticeable of which is the example of Architecture for Humanity) such manifestations remain overlooked as a source of investigation by both academies and published opinion. These incremental architectural manifestations are disregarded as marginalized forms of practice, perceived by the critics as lacking influence within the sphere of architectural discourse. Undoubtedly, the Cameron Sinclair crew isn’t trying to appease the critics taste for aesthetic radicalism and intellectual edge. What they are doing is promoting ground-breaking global conversations that acknowledge the importance of small, cheap and impactful design processes. And they are actually trying to build stuff on communities that lack means and resources most of us would take for granted. So maybe it’s time for us to start questioning what being influent is all about. Do we aim to establish our names as brands and feature in magazine covers, or have a deeper impact in peoples lives instead. It’s a matter of choosing which role we, architects, choose to play in the future of our discipline and in the society we live in.

Visual Acoustics, now on DVD

2010-07-02T00:14:00.004+01:00

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman is a documentary film by Eric Bricker, now available on DVD (US release).

Architectural photography is often questioned on ethical terms regarding the conflict between the objective documentation of the built environment and the creative endeavour of the photographer. There is an underlying misconception at work that resonates with the idea that photographs are taken instead of made, a notion that implies the sense that the images themselves are already there. This false impression disregards the fact that the task of the photographer extends far beyond the mere capture of the real; the very translation of the physical world into the realm of photography requires a complex thread of choices considering multiple factors such as composition, lighting and exposure.
In a world dominated by digital culture and the widespread use of composite technology, the work of Julius Shulman remains a tribute to the creative and visionary dimension of photography as art. His visual records of modern architecture and urban L.A. are a negation of neutrality, presenting both an ostentatious glamour and style as well as a personal sense of mise-en-scène. These calculated images, often introducing characters and implicit narratives, revealed an author actively committed to the pursuit of a modernist iconography.
Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman is a fascinating portrayal of the life and work of this self-taught master, revealing the memories and techniques behind his vision. The documentary revisits many of the houses photographed by Shulman in the past, capturing not only the buildings but the historical and sociological atmosphere that surrounded them. Trailer and additional details after the jump. Click to expand. [+/-]

OVERVIEW: Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, VISUAL ACOUSTICS celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman captured the work of nearly every major modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California’s modernist movement and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. This unique film is both a testament to the evolution of modern architecture and a joyful portrait of the magnetic, whip-smart gentleman who chronicled it with his unforgettable images.

Here we go, again

2010-06-16T23:35:00.000+01:00

Oh, no, not that song again. And here we go on another ride, following Bjarke Ingels himself as he pedals furiously through the Danish Pavilion. We just don’t seem to get enough of it. But, look! No helmet! How very uneuropean of you, Mr. Bjarke!
Don’t miss this and other videos on BIG’s channel @ Vimeo. Via Archinect.

The design bias

2010-06-15T01:00:00.002+01:00

I don't think sustainability is a design aesthetic, any more than having electricity in your building, or telephones, or anything else. It's an ethic, a basic consideration that we have to have as architects designing buildings. (…) in 10 years we're not going to talk about sustainability anymore, because it's going to be built into the core processes of architecture.

This quote from Robert Stern circled through the web recently. The notion that sustainability will cease to be an issue within a decade is quite debatable but Stern raises an interesting argument. He is correct to claim that sustainability is not a design aesthetic. In fact, it is not even a design problem as much as it is an industrial one.
Some of the greatest energy impacts that can be quantified within the process of building are the outcome of the techniques applied during its construction. Also, just as important as the efficiency of the materials applied, is the energy footprint of their fabrication. And this poses a problem for us, architects, because it is still very hard to get precise data regarding these issues. But what is worse is that, for the most part, we are not really paying attention to any of this. We are instead focusing on sustainability as a design problem.
The reasons behind this lie in the foundations of our education. The central part of architectural learning relies in the notion of architecture as a process of design. We are formatted to solve problems through design. That is what makes us most distinctive from engineers. But, when regarding sustainability, this might pose a problem of thinking. We must begin to address this issue through quantifiable numbers. It is not something we can solve through formal creativity alone.
When facing these problems at an urban scale, the implications seem even more daunting. REX’s recent proposal for the LOW2NO urban development competition in Helsinki presents an interesting effort to deal with these issues in their full complexity. It is an extraordinarily ambitious project with great theoretical repercussions. It attempts to deal with the phenomena of city dispersion considering its implications to a wider notion of ecological balance. Joshua Prince-Ramus reminds us that building energy efficiency is a relatively small factor when compared to the carbon intensive lifestyles that accompany mass suburban migration. A problem that needs to be addressed beyond design, looking into the very decision making processes that guide the management of resources and the distribution of buildings and infrastructures in the territory.

Trying to connect

2010-06-11T00:25:00.002+01:00

About a couple of months ago Bob Borson referenced me in one of his ever motivating posts as he contemplated the blogger’s million dollar question: How big is your blog? I’ve been wanting to give Bob some feedback on that topic but my life being crazy as it usually is, this time with a car crash in the middle to make things even more complicated, it’s been hard to get my thoughts together to write what I wanted to say. So, a bit late but still, here goes…

Bob started his blog – Life of an Architect – in January this year. If you haven’t visited it yet, you should. There’s some really great stuff going on there, not only because he is a truly diligent and prolific blogger but also because, as it turns out, he has very interesting friends as well. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying those guest articles although I would never make Bob’s mistake of letting my own wife write a post. Oho…

Anyways, just recently one of Bob’s friends, Derek Leavitt, wrote this interesting set of Rules for an Architect’s blog. It kind of goes full circle with his original post since writing a successful blog is about finding balance between what attracts readers and what makes the experience fulfilling to yourself. So, most likely quoting Mr. Miyagi, a personal blog is all about finding your own balance. And therefore the original question then becomes something like…

How big is big enough?

I started my own blog in December 2003. Now that’s a long time because, as we all know, blog years are like dog years. This blog has gone through many mutations and I’ve certainly made all sorts of mistakes in the process. But a couple of years ago I was making it big for an architecture-related blog, hitting the thousand daily visitors mark. Yep, those were the days because, for several different reasons, nowadays that average has been cut in half. And that’s okay.
Let me be honest about it. I’m not saying I’m happier for that fact. What I mean is that I’ve been trying to find that sense of balance, to find the reasons that drive my need to write a personal blog. And to me it has become a mixture of interrogations: who I’m writing to and who I’m trying to connect with. And the latter part of this equation really is a great measure of what makes a successful blog. Who are you reaching through the web? Who is tracking what you write and what feedback are you getting from it?
That has become a far more important measure of success than the single number of visitors one gets on a daily basis. And so I have come to realize that I’m trying to reach people who share similar interrogations, on architecture and life in general, and although I’ve been loosing ground on my home base of readers, the world map has been lighting up on my Analytics account. And it feels great.

As I face this new stage of my blogging experience, going through the set of rules outlined by Derek certainly makes a lot of sense to me. At the core of it lies the importance of humanizing the writing process. Simply put: be honest, be different. Share what you know. Share what you don’t know. A personal blog doesn’t have to be about yourself but it should be about your own vision, your doubts and your ideas. That’s what makes it universal, no matter where you are.
And if you stick to it, and keep learning and growing, people will come from all parts of the world. And in this nebulous landscape of the digital web, you will matter.

We love Denmark

2010-06-02T00:17:00.001+01:00

You don’t need to travel to Shanghai to get a glimpse of the Danish Pavilion with this incredible time-lapse rollercoaster. When you’re finished, don’t forget to watch the UK Pavilion as well: here and here.

Art on the wall

2010-06-01T16:32:00.002+01:00

Fragments of otherwise dormant urban fabric are brought to life by these eccentric figures. Sam3 (Spain), Os Gémeos (Brasil) and Blu (Italy) passed through Lisbon and left some inspired paintings on the walls of a couple of abandoned buildings. There are many of images to see on the web, just check the following links to get the idea: Stick2Target, Unurth, L (Flickr). Via Horizonte Artificial, People and Place.

Next: Collective Housing in progress

2010-06-01T00:29:00.004+01:00

NEXT: Collective Housing in Progress is the latest book from a+t architecture publishers.

As the long established correlation between urban growth and economic development is becoming increasingly questioned, in the aftermath of a global economic crisis, architecture is looking into the processes that determine the ever changing built environment with renewed interest. Every act of architecture carries the possibility of transformation of its external reality. In this unfolding debate, collective housing once again claims its central role in the balance between the autonomous building and the world that surrounds it.
NEXT: Collective Housing in Progress, questions the programmatic complexity of contemporary architecture in its utmost urban implications. Although remarkably different in their approach, the projects now featured in this book carry the strong attempt to preserve the social qualities of architecture in a mutating economic environment. Variables like density, energy efficiency, transportation costs, new structures of technology and communications, all come into play in a conscious effort to redefine public life within the city. These are projects that seek to refill and regenerate the urban landscape, proposing programmatic indetermination, integration of social and cultural spaces, flexibility of uses and, ultimately, a call to intensity beyond density.
NEXT is the latest book from a+t’s Density series, featuring 30 European and American projects designed by 29 different young architectural practices, fully illustrated, detailed and analyzed through technical drawings and schematic diagrams. Visit a+t for additional information on this and other publications.

Atelier Data + MOOV: Forwarding Dallas, Dallas, United States, 2009-2012.

REX: Low2No, Helsinki, Finland, 2009.

Modostudio: Kilpailuohjelma, Lohja, Finland, 2008.

AllesWirdGut: Herzberg Public Housing, Vienna, Austria, 2007-2010.

Atelier Zündel & Cristea: Rue de Charenton Residences, Paris, France, 2007-2010.

The tyranny of common sense: Ken Robinson on TED

2010-05-25T02:02:00.002+01:00

What’s there to say, really? It’s Ken Robinson. I personally love the man and vow to publish every presentation he delivers on TED for as long as I have a blog. He’s very funny but he delves into very serious issues. In this latest talk Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical change in the way we approach education and towards a greater sense of pursuit for that which moves us in life. Make sure to watch his outstanding TEDTalks – Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity and Bring on the learning revolution! – and don’t miss his previous presentation at the Hammer Lectures where he developed many of these ideas.

Ears to the wind

2010-05-24T17:09:00.002+01:00

What a beautiful example of design motivated by the will to explore and interact with the natural environment. Inclusive Studio’s intervention on the austere landscape of the Parc Natural del Garraf in Cataluña is guided by principles of accessibility, delivering a path of sensorial discovery. The outstanding sound capturing trumpets reveal the echoes of the mountain, the frogs and the crickets, the wind in the trees. The touching wheels invite to discover the texture of the branches and the surface of the rocks. Don’t miss Inclusive Studio’s website for this and other projects. Via Edgar Gonzalez.

Rethinking city streets

2010-05-21T17:24:00.003+01:00

It’s time to make our streets safer for everyone, purple creatures included.

The United States may be one the most motorized societies in the world but it is also witnessing a profound cultural transformation regarding the way city planners deal with the issue of transportation and its consequences on urban planning and street design. Streetfilms is a good starting place to discover many case-studies and good practice examples on a wide array of topics such as traffic calming , car-free design and pedestrian safety.

One of its latest videos – Fixing the Great Mistake: Autocentric Development – reveals the historical consequences of the implementation of wide roadways in New York in the first half of the 20th century. In the 1930’s and 40’s, virtually all major car lanes in the city were widened and the public sidewalks become greatly reduced, raising heated reactions from local residents.
Currently, the public administration is promoting a series of strategies to correct the mistakes inherited from decades of auto-centric development, to reclaim public space and improve the quality of life of its inhabitants. The revision of Times Square and the expansion of NYC’s Bike Network are the most visible projects of this undergoing urban design revolution.

San Francisco’s Pavement to Parks proposal is another interesting initiative – see People, Parklets, and Pavement to Parks. This urban program is promoting the conversion of parking areas into outdoor public spaces and cafes as an attempt to support commerce and social life in the local community.

The city of San Francisco has been developing a long-term plan towards sustainable mobility since 2006. The Better Streets Plan is a remarkable example of systematic codification of street typologies and urban practices. Its aim is to promote sustainable habits regarding transport in the urban neighborhood, establishing new forms of street design that invite multiple uses, including safe, active and ample spaces for pedestrians, bicycles and public transit. Access the Better Streets documentation page and download the plan draft to find more about it.

Landscape of audacity

2010-05-19T00:54:00.002+01:00

Belleville Park Playground, Paris. Image credits: BASE.

I remember seeing some images of this project over a year ago, most likely right here on the internet, but I missed to save any reference to it and was unable to find it afterwards, to my utter disappointment. Fortunately it’s been receiving renewed attention lately, most noticeably on landscape blogs such as Pruned, and I couldn’t resist making a mention to it as well.
The playground of the Belleville Park in Paris, designed by French based landscape studio BASE, presents an imaginative approach to the concept of recreational area. The «playhouse», as it is called by the authors, is developed over a high-pitched slope; a place we could find unusual for such public facility. It brings forth the notion of spontaneous structure, a place of adventure that resonates with the children’s capacity for imagination and experimentation as they interact with the built environment. The playground retains a sense of abstraction that allows for interpretation and discovery, mixing different structures and materials to create a free-flowing and powerful landscape.
In the face of such admirable approach, one has to wonder if the design of children’s playgrounds isn’t often confined by intricate regulatory requirements that limit imagination and innovation. For that reason, one has to praise the local authorities for carrying the audacity that nurtured this remarkable project. More images to see after the jump. Click to expand. [+/-]

Bjarke on the loop

2010-04-29T15:18:00.002+01:00

A great shot of Bjarke Ingels riding a bicycle on the roof of the Danish Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010. Full-size image and more at The Big Picture.

EDIT: The first pictures from BIG's Danish Pavilion, a delightful gallery not to be missed at GreenWabii (wonderful blog btw).

Would you kindly, Mr. Ebert?

2010-04-28T01:55:00.006+01:00

Roger Ebert says video games can never be art. Big Daddy isn’t happy.

Roger Ebert, one of America’s most esteemed film critics, triggered a monumental discussion on the gaming community with his recent journal entry: Video games can never be art.
The debate on whether video games are worthy of aspiring to become an art form isn’t new. Ebert’s take on the subject, although somewhat narrow considering the references provided and his own conceptions of what makes an art form, received well over 3000 comments online in just a few days and originated very interesting arguments on the web regarding both sides of the discussion. No matter how you look at it, as Adam Sessler said recently, video games present a very interesting problem to the question of what makes an object of art. Games are open experiences, unlike cinema, allowing the player to become both a participant and a director of the overall experience through variable degrees of interactivity and freedom. Still, every choice a player makes within the boundaries of a video game is determined by the vision and parameters defined by its creators. Interactivity is an integral part of the structure of a videogame, just as much as its conceptual design, its music, its storyline.

Perhaps the problem with this debate begins with the notion of “something” as an art form. For example: cinema (or painting, or sculpture) is an art form. Of course we know what this means in a normative sense. But the fact remains that these are abstract concepts, since we all comprehend that only a fraction of the films produced in the world are worthy to be defined as objects of art. In that regard, we should consider that what these are (movies, paintings, etc) are vehicles for human expression that carry the potential to transcend their medium and become very powerful transforming experiences. Michelangelo’s frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are not art because they are paintings on the ceiling of a church but because they transcend into the world of ideas, they express the frailties of human nature and our relation with the divine. La Gioconda isn’t art because it’s a painting but because it reveals the complexities of human expression and female beauty. We hardly know how to explain it but we recognize it, because once we see it we will never forget it. True art transforms who we are, our personal references, the foundations upon which we build the future of our experience as human beings. And in becoming these experiences, they become art.

Can video games be art, then? The problem with the question begins with that which we define as video games. Tetris is a game. Heavy Rain is a game. But are they even the same thing? The diversity of what falls under the category of gaming comprises a much wider assortment of creations than that which we would define as films. Tarkovski’s Stalker and Rambo 3 are both films, constructions built on image and sound, structure and sequence. And yet, concerning their nature as aesthetic objects or their potential value as art, we can hardly consider them products of the same discipline.
Interactive entertainment has witnessed an outstanding evolution in recent years regarding internal complexity, narrative quality, artistic design, every element that goes into the making of a video game. Maybe we have to recognize the fact that The Godfather of video games has not been made yet; a construction so perfect that would present itself as a moving experience capable of transcending into an object of art. And still, in many contemporary games, we find glimpses of what this incredible new medium is capable of.

The geek in me could bring forth many examples. I’ll state just one. Somewhere in Assassin’s Creed 2 you are transported to the streets of late 1400’s Venice during the carnival, as the night sets in, and you are free to wander through performing artists, vendors, people walking and talking. And there you are, not even rushing for the next “mission”, just strolling the narrow alleyways, appreciating the sights and sounds of it all, surrounded by outstanding architecture, wondering about that time in history and how it might have been something similar to this, realizing, if just for a moment, that a video game can truly transcend into a fabulous experience. So yes, maybe games are still a bit sketchy, too digitally clean, too mechanical in structure, but already there is so much amazement to be found in them.

And why should gamers care, anyway? Why should they require validation on the possibility of video games becoming an art form? Why can’t gamers just stay happy playing their games within their little nerd zone, leaving “serious arts” alone for the enjoyment of the highbrow. Maybe because we would like to say we’ve been appreciating art into the wee small hours of the morning instead of confessing we’ve been playing GTA all night long. Or maybe it’s because we know better and have our eyes wide open to this new, entertaining, educational, emotional medium that delivers such extraordinary atmospheres, landscapes, storylines and possibilities. And we’re wonderful, incurable geeks, just as well.

EDIT: New links added. INFO: The title of this post is a reference to the game Bioshock. NOTE: This article is based on a comment I wrote on Sessler’s Soapbox user comments section. IMAGES: Concept art from Bioshock 2, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Mass Effect 2.

Sketches at dinner

2010-04-27T00:38:00.003+01:00

Image credits Fernando Guerra.

As new forms of processing architectural design take over the way we approach, think and communicate architecture, the task of sketching seems to take a step back from our daily routines. And yet hand drawing has always been one of our most treasured tools, guiding us in the process of constructing meaning from the bits and pieces of life, building a travel log or capturing the details of the city and its inhabitants.
The collection of drawings by Álvaro Siza, now published under the title Sketches at dinner, presents an opportunity to discover the intimate dimension of his personal expression. In Siza’s own words, drawing is project, desire, liberation, chronicle and communication, doubt and discovery, reflection and creation, contained gesture and utopia.
More images to see after the jump but make sure to visit Últimas Reportagens for a wider selection. Click to expand. [+/-]

The collection «Sketches at Dinner» is also available for purchase as book / exhibition catalog.

The geek’s guide to green building

2010-04-21T10:14:00.001+01:00

Catherine Mohr, robotics engineer and green geek, talks about her experience of building a house. Her short presentation is quite a good reminder that, when it comes to energy efficiency, sometimes the elephant in the living room isn’t quite what you expect it to be. The techniques applied in the construction process are just as important as the materials used, and even then the finishes are just a tiny fraction of the energy footprint equation. Something we should all take into consideration when building or designing a house, discarding green propaganda with actual facts and quantifiable numbers.
Watch Catherine Mohr’s presentation on TED and make sure not to miss the interesting debate on the comments section.

Eyjafjallajökull time-lapse video

2010-04-20T12:50:00.000+01:00

A time-lapse video of the Eyjafjallajökull condensing 30 minutes of volcanic activity down into 18 seconds.

The brutal landscape

2010-04-20T01:33:00.002+01:00

Image credits: Örvar Atli Þorgeirsson, via Iceland Eyes.

The shocking images of the Eyjafjallajokull reveal the volcano’s unyielding confrontation with the measure of human scale. Consequences range from local impacts, as the settling ash becomes a toxic threat to Iceland’s agricultural region’s livestock, to global economic effects that spread out relentlessly across the globe.
And yet the Eyjafjallajokull proceeds in disregard for our fears and trepidations, releasing its mighty roar through the brutal landscape. There is startling poetry to be found on this blend of fire and ice, light and shadow, as caught by the lens of Örvar Atli Þorgeirsson.

Everything is changing. The heart of our island is pulsing, throbs exposed for all to see, releasing a nature we've not witnessed for aeons. And we're to let our own hearts beat in time, push past the fear, find the Love we've forgotten or neglected, welcome the spirits, and dance. This is Paradise, and a most beautiful moment to be alive. (Via Iceland Eyes).

Where’s the Portuguese Pavilion?

2010-04-15T23:10:00.002+01:00

One thing we can say about the Portuguese pavilion: it’s really corky.

The Shanghai World Expo 2010 will open its doors in just a couple of weeks. Dozens of international pavilions are rushing through the final stages of construction and, as expected, news and images are being revealed all over the web – just take a look at ArchDaily to get the idea. And still, 15 days to go, this is the only image we can find regarding the design of the Portuguese pavilion.
The official website of the Portuguese participation does offer a glimpse into the ideas and themes that served as inspiration for its design – a public space of urban expression, referenced in the most iconic plaza of the city of Lisbon, the Praça do Comércio. When it comes to the architecture of the pavilion, however, the information is lacklustre to say the least. Besides the cork covered façade, reflecting the mandatory sustainable significance that fits well with the exhibition’s guiding principles, there’s not much to seduce the unsuspecting visitor. The unadorned programmatic description doesn’t help either. This is the kind of event that would justify greater vision and flamboyance, merging architecture with a deeper sense of storytelling. Considering the long historical relationship between Portugal and China, and the many ways in which online platforms can be used to promote such event, there’s just not enough to catch the fancy of potential visitors into a desirably memorable experience. And when that happens, people tend to move on.

UPDATE: There's an alternate image available, apparently. It's the same as the first one, it just has a little more bling.

CEBRA_toons: telling the story without words

2010-04-15T00:47:00.001+01:00

CEBRA is a Danish architectural firm founded in 2001 by the architects Mikkel Frost, Carsten Primdahl and Kolja Nielsen. Some of their projects were recently featured on ArchDaily, the latest of which is the winning proposal for a Design Kindergarten, a daycare center structured around a series of building modules dedicated to different artistic activities. The project is presented through a sequence of concept drawings that break down the design process and effectively communicate the guidelines and priorities that served as reference for the final architectural solution.
Besides having a rich and interesting website, CEBRA also shares a gallery of watercolor drawings on their sub-blog CEBRA_toons. It’s a gallery of cartoonish renders that sum up a selection of projects they’ve made so far, each presented in a single A4 sheet. What’s interesting about these drawings is not only their artistic quality but also the ability to combine all the ideas that sustained their architectural vision in a single image. I leave you with some examples but make sure to visit CEBRA_toons to see the entire collection. Click to expand. [+/-]

More at CEBRA_toons.

Not even the truth will set them free

2010-04-13T01:03:00.001+01:00

Michael Specter’s presentation on TED – The Danger of Science Denial – is a fascinating reflection on the many ways in which our society is becoming unscientific. It’s a good introduction to some of the ideas explored in his book Denialism, examining the many ways in which people are rejecting knowledge supported by scientific data to embrace what often seem to be comfortable fictions. As an example, Michael brings forth the debate between organic versus genetically modified food, and how it has become a purely rhetorical debate of ideological outlines having nothing to do with science. And this I find really interesting because I believe has correlation with what’s happening with sustainability regarding many fields of knowledge, architecture included, and how it’s also establishing itself as an ideology, propped up by design trends the likes of green rhetoric, and not as the subject of scientific investigation based on quantifiable data.
Another interesting notion brought up on his presentation is our negative notion of progress which reflects our common disbelief for institutions and dread for the corporate world. This may be justifiable in many ways, but has also triggered our society into becoming one of the most conservative in human history. Why is it that we have such a deep ambivalence towards progress, towards change? Why is it that we often express such a strong disbelief for ourselves? Michael Specter brings forth some powerful questions, remembering us that we’re entitled to our beliefs, to our fears, but we’re not entitled to our own facts. And if we’re not searching for knowledge, based on truthful observation, on causality and correlation, then, as he eloquently puts it, not even the truth will set us free.

Traffic visualization in Lisbon

2010-04-09T23:33:00.001+01:00

Pedro Miguel Cruz has published a series of video animations that reveal the traffic intensity in the city of Lisbon during a 24 hour period. It’s an example of information design applied to the field of urbanism providing a curious observation of the city as it comes to life, the streets pulsing as the arteries of a living organism as the traffic densities become more intense during the day. It would be interesting to further manipulate this data and associate these flows with different areas of the city considering factors like urban district period of origin or street typologies, exploring densities and occupation types within each sector. This would obviously involve the gathering of huge amounts of data and an army the size of Google to process, but it would also bring enormous potential as an auxiliary tool for urban planning.
I’ll keep paying attention to the work of this information designer and keep you posted as new things show up. Also, if you haven’t seen it before, make sure to watch his previous graphic experimentation titled Visualizing Empires Decline, which is really remarkable.
Via People and Place + The Pop-Up City.

How hard it is to know something

2010-04-09T12:46:00.000+01:00

I was listening to this old interview with Richard Feynman and it occurred to me how architects also present themselves as experts on something that is ultimately a subjective form of practice.
Architecture is not a pseudoscience, but it is not a science either. Architectural design relies on a subjective process of discovery that seeks to establish a structured construction of ideas; a sense of logic. We are required to provide solutions that are demonstratable, in one way or another, and so it is that we often find ourselves facing an ambiguous paradox. Because our whims are not recognized as a respectable foundation for a design we perform to our best ability as credible professionals, as we try to sustain some kind of scientific argumentation upon which we can assemble our ideas.
But how is it that we can establish logic from subjectivity. Yes, we collect data, we experiment with theoretical hypothesis, we ponder over the consequences, but in the end there are no deterministic laws that induce a specific solution or design. What drives us from A to B is a very subjective process we’ve come to know as creativity.
Maybe we can understand this better if we take note of what António Damásio wrote on his essay Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. He demonstrates that the absence of emotion in fact compromises the decision process, the human capacity of being rational. Maybe we can say, in very simple terms, that we need our subjectivity to be objective. It is through subjectivity that we are able to establish priorities and make sense of what is relevant and important.
It’s interesting how contemporary architecture has developed processes, like programmatic strategizing and creative diagramming, in the attempt to nurture a more solid foundation for its practice. To become more scientific, perhaps? But the truth is we rely on certain ideas we accept as valid by default. We hardly question what we already know, but how is it that we know what we know? Take sustainability, for example, and how it has so often become an aesthetic discourse. Green roofs, rotatable buildings, vertical farms; concepts seldom questioned on quantifiable terms. In urbanism these flaws are even more dramatic. We understand that lower densities will determine greater energy costs, and higher densities will result in more complex social realities. Some people say that taller housing buildings can be directly associated with certain forms of criminal behavior, resulting in higher crime rates. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t. But again, we’ve hardly established any demonstratable laws to quantify these realities, and still we are expected to develop accurate solutions that take these problems into consideration.
The truth is that we elaborate upon a painstaking process of trial and error. And we have large margins for error. Paraphrasing Feynman’s own words: I don’t know the world very well. That, my friends, is not humility. Just a scientific mind at work.

Skatepark madness

2010-04-08T01:23:00.002+01:00

UK based Maverick Industries presents some radical concrete skateparks on their website. Check their videoportfolio on Vimeo.

Geek moment

2010-03-18T13:48:00.000Z

Here’s the latest trailer for Red Dead Redemption. Clean up your rifle and get in the saddle for this absolute awesomeness coming straight from Rockstar Games, a tribute to the mythical Western genre in the style of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. Yeehaa!

My Playground, now on DVD

2010-03-16T14:42:00.001Z

My Playground is a documentary directed by Kaspar Astrup Schröder.

Remember this incredible trailer? Well, Kaspar Astrup Schröder’s documentary My Playground is now available on DVD.

My Playground explores the way parkour and free-running are changing the perception of urban space. Featuring the Danish performance freeruners Team JiYo, the film travels the world from Denmark to Japan, the USA, UK and China to explore where urban mobility is heading. Fascinated by the way Team JiYo convey architecture, Bjarke Ingels takes the team to some of BIG’s buildings to explore and unfold their skills which are as groundbreaking as the architecture itself.

You can purchase the MY PLAYGROUND DVD here: http://release.kasparworks.com;
For further information about BIG: www.big.dk;
For further information about Kaspar Astrup Schröder: www.kasparworks.com.

Grindhouse time

2010-03-11T12:10:00.000Z

They just don’t make movies like that anymore.

Embrace the epicness. Everything is Terrible elects the «World’s Most Action Packed Action Movie»: 1987’s classic action extravaganza Deadly Prey. Don’t miss the YouTube video with the finest moments of this outrageous flick that time forgot. Greatness begins around minute 1:30. You have been warned.

Is this really necessary?

2010-03-11T00:41:00.000Z

As if there aren’t enough temptations in this world already. Via.

Drawing the line

2010-03-10T00:16:00.006Z

The project is looking great. Now, will you please put a cartwheel in it?

What concessions are we willing to make in our profession. Where do we draw the line of that which we won’t do? And what reasons sustain those boundaries we set for ourselves?
In the course of our professional lives we seem destined to face the dilemma of yielding from that which we know is right. The author of Life of an Architect highlights this problem on his list of reasons not to become an architect.

Your ideals don’t really matter
Your clients hire you to give them a product that they want, not necessarily what you want. We basically go to school to learn how to learn – architecture isn’t a trade. As a result, you should be equipped to design projects that aren’t in the style of architecture that you would like to do for yourself. Most projects are developed for profit and despite the fact that good design equals good solutions which translates into a form of measured success, everybody wants more for less. There will be times when you are told to do something that you know is terrible and the absolute wrong thing to do. Based on your need for the work, or the force of your personality, you will make concessions that will make you want to die.

If your ideals are important to you, you will lose work
Because architects are opinionated, they will argue for points that the client has clearly stated that they do not want. You are probably thinking that a clearly stated result, while demonstrating the error in the alternative, will win out. It doesn’t always work that way. (…)

When I was studying to become an architect I attended a presentation by a team of young architects. They had graduated a few years back and had started their own little firm. To the eyes of young students like me they were living the dream, fighting to succeed in the real world of architectural practice.
They showed us a few samples of their work, a series of respectable contemporary designs. And then they talked about this particular project they had done for a restaurant. The work was about to be completed, the client was happy, all seemed to be going well. And then the client came up with a final request. He wanted the architects to introduce a new feature to the design: a big old wagon cartwheel to be displayed in grand view at the entrance of the restaurant.
The thing became the matter of great discussion. Designer team and client got to extremes and it all turned sour. Acknowledge the cartwheel or loose the commission, simple as that. The team remained firm in its belief, and so it was. The job was lost.

We’re all destined to find our cartwheels along the course of our lives. When such a metaphor takes the form of a literal cartwheel, the epitome of iconic rusticity, I suppose things may take a fast turn towards the dramatic. We all have to draw a line somewhere and a cartwheel sure seems like a good place to do it. And still, even though I acknowledge the bravery of our fellow colleagues, I’ve often thought about this little episode.
We don’t sell architecture. We provide a service, which implies a contractual relationship with the client. A contract, as we know, is a mutual acceptance of terms under which a process is developed. When those conditions are no longer acceptable, the foundation that sustained that relationship is no longer sustainable.
The restaurant episode is just an example of that, but the knife of incompatibility has two edges. Not always do conflicts arise from client impositions – often what happens is just the opposite: the architect will argument in favor of solutions the client finds objectionable. When that occurs, we better have good reasons to defend, objectively, what we stand for. Otherwise, our formal conjectures are just as detrimental as the irrational desires of the client – something we can’t support under the façade of subjective, unquestionable, conceptual intentions.

I recall a teacher of architecture who, as far as I know, designed two projects in his career. Both were canceled for «incompatibilities with the client». I’m sure he will die a hero without ever getting his boots in the mud. But, if you want to know my opinion, I think life is more interesting when we stand in the face of all those crazy cartwheels running around.

Reasons to be (and not to be) an architect

2010-03-08T21:43:00.001Z

Top Ten Reasons to be an Architect and Top Ten Reasons NOT to be an Architect, something every student aspiring to join the architectural profession should consider. Via Life of an Architect.

O Tejo

2010-02-17T20:31:00.000Z

I get the feeling that I’m spending too much time on the internet when I find “local” news on foreign blogs. Truth be told, I had no previous knowledge of this until I read about it on Treehugger just today.
What’s it all about, then? Well, it’s a “poetic” bike path that stands along the shore of the river Tejo (Tagus), in my hometown Lisbon. The pavement is decorated with phrases from “O Guardador de Rebanhos” by Alberto Caeiro – one of the pseudonyms of the great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. The outcome is quite interesting as you can see in the video above, authored by Abílio Vieira. If you’re interested you can find more pictures right here with some additional details.

There’s a cow on my Facebook

2010-02-12T20:26:00.001Z

Life is grand at Googleplex. Maybe you folks should stop staring at the fishes and get to work now, huh?

Google Buzz is here, yey!... Look. It’s this new thing on my Gmail where I can do really cool stuff like sharing links and photos and stuff. Damn, aren’t those Google folks brilliant. How did they come up with that? It’s not like you could be doing that same stuff on Tumblr or Facebook or every other space in the Social Web for years.

Yes, the Social Web… Just how bad can it be? Do we really need it so much that it has to be everywhere? So let’s look at Google for a second. I thought these guys were all supposed to be geniuses or something. Don’t they have to take this crazy admission test where you need a 165 plus IQ to pass? Well, my guess is maybe that’s the problem. Too many freakin’ geniuses running around staring at fishes and lava lamps. They’re lacking your plain average common sense. Or mine. Darn, I want my seat on that fish room too!

So what’s wrong with Gee Buzz? I understand what they’re going for. Integration, integration, integration. Nothing wrong with that. But the question remains: what’s Google bringing to the table that no one else has to offer? What’s new about Buzz? What can I do with it that I can’t be doing elsewhere, that’s going to make me feel like I really need it and can’t understand how on Earth I could live without it anymore?

The answer, sorry to say, is “nothing”. It looks like a poor man’s Facebook. And Facebook sucks, by the way, with all its corporate marketizing and useless apps. Get that goddamn cow out of my face will ya’?

Let me tell you about Facebook. It’s become the web’s entrance door for people who missed the blogging revolution. I don’t want to sound harsh but most of these people have no “internet culture” – I know, it's not like most bloggers have it, either. But Facebook is really great at deceiving you because it provides instant gratification within your group of “friends”. So you actually think you’re getting somewhere or, even worse, think you’re making a statement by subscribing to thousands of petitions or joining the group to save the frogs of Tasmania or whatever like you’re making a difference. What happens to Facebook is that, although it’s great as a concept, it gets ruined by spammy invites, useless quizzes and plain stupid games that I couldn’t care less about.

Back to Buzz, the real problem is that it has no punch. No personality. And the interface is unimaginative. Just look at Twitter. It’s simple and fun. It makes you want to say something. With Buzz, you stare at it and wonder «okay, so what am I supposed to do with it?» Sure, I can associate every other web space of mine like Blog and Reader and Twitter. But is that the way to really use it? What else is there? Oh, right. Links and images. How great.

As it is, Google Buzz is simply redundant.

Avatar

2010-01-18T16:32:00.003Z

The Na’vi have great big blue feet. Wait till you see those in 3D.

Avatar is a love story between a man and an alien. A romance of extraterrestrial proportions. The rest is a journey into fantasy.

I guess we all grow up with these kinds of movies, films that trigger the imagination and offer you a glimpse of alternate worlds and impossible landscapes. Sci-fi and fantasy filmmakers are obsessed with scenery. The physical world behind the narrative becomes a powerful element of the storyline.
The technological advancements in digital imagery have now made everything virtually, quite literally, possible. And still, for the generation that grew up watching the flying bicycles in E.T. and the archaeological adventures of one mister Henry Walton Jr., aka Indiana Jones, something may feel lost in the process. A sense of reality drawn from the physical representation of space as captured through visual storytelling and metaphor. Something entirely misplaced in many current productions, as in the digitally overdosed misadventure of Indy in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Avatar is very much centered on the recreation of a physical atmosphere. We are introduced to the splendid and hostile landscape of Pandora, an alien paradise depicted in full 3Delicious glory. For a film so overloaded with digital technology, James Cameron has the merit of never underestimating the material dimension of its environment. And still, with all its epic backgrounds, the finest moments in Avatar lie in Jake Sully’s intimate dreamlike experience: «Sooner or later though, you always have to wake up», says Jake as he begins to question where his true nature lies. The complexities of this transition – the blurry boundary between the human and the alien experience – regrettably, never fully become a main theme with visual, cinematic, implications. The digital hyper-realism of Pandora takes its toll on a desirable abstraction of the eye. Technology takes central stage over a more subjective and humane mise-en-scène.

Now, I’m a sci-fi nerd and I would recommend Avatar to everyone. It’s just so compelling at what it’s good at. It’s a film driven by passion for its world and characters, making no concessions to fully explore the many details of Na’vi culture, language and religion. It may have its shortcomings but, while it rolls, it’s a feast of popular cinema and one of the most imaginative cinematic experiences I can remember. Here is the kind of megalomaniac extravaganza that comes but once in a decade. And if you know what it was like watching a Star Wars movie as a kid, well then, you know that feeling.

It’s Pocahontas. No, wait...

Big boys with toys.

We are going to need bigger guns.

Director James Cameron setting the engines to warp speed.

Castle of Castelo Novo

2010-01-08T16:31:00.001Z

Luís Miguel Correia, Nelson Mota, Vanda Maldonado e Susana Constantino: Castelo Novo, Fundão, Portugal, 2008. Image credits: Fernando Guerra FG+SG.

Observing the recent work by AllesWirdGut for the roman quarry in the Austrian village of St. Mergareten, another project comes to mind: the intervention in the castle of Castelo Novo, in Portugal, by the architects Luís Miguel Correia, Nelson Mota, Vanda Maldonado and Susana Constantino (COMOCO).
The project is defined by an overlaying accessible structure located within the monumental district, drawing a path from the central square and the tower located on higher ground.
Here we find an architectural piece unrestrained from formal pre-definition, founded in the territory without compromising its integrity; a design that establishes a clear boundary between the ancient ruins and the new supports, needed for the appropriation of the visiting public.
A curious blend between architecture and landscape design, this small-scale project in Castelo Novo is an interesting affirmation of respect for the historical heritage while introducing new tensions and providing a more fulfilling relationship with the existing territory.
Don’t miss the full gallery on Últimas Reportagens, courtesy of Fernando Guerra, and the project details available at COMOCO and Habitar Portugal.

Luís Miguel Correia, Nelson Mota, Vanda Maldonado e Susana Constantino: Castelo Novo, Fundão, Portugal, 2008. Image credits: Fernando Guerra FG+SG.

AllesWirdGutt ROM

2010-01-07T16:58:00.001Z

AllesWirdGut: ROM (Romersteinbruch), St. Mergareten, Eisenstadt, Austria, 2006-2008. Image credits: Hertha Hurnaus.

Three years ago I featured this particular project by AllesWirdGut here on my blog. The preliminary renders were nothing short of amazing, a staggering blend between architecture and landscape design. Now, ArchDaily presents a wonderful set of images courtesy of Hertha Hurnaus depicting this outdoor installation built upon the ancient roman quarry in the Austrian village of St. Mergareten.
This unusual location is used as a playground for cultural activities during the town’s yearly festival. The intervention upgraded the site by setting new accessibilities and several public installations. The natural qualities of this open-air auditorium are now enhanced with the overlaying artificial morphology designed by AWG, providing an overwhelming environment for the nighttime musical events that take place during the Summer season.
Don’t miss the data available on AWG’s website and download the PDF document attached as well.

AllesWirdGut: ROM (Romersteinbruch), St. Mergareten, Eisenstadt, Austria, 2006-2008. Image credits: Hertha Hurnaus.

Hybrids III

2010-01-04T12:23:00.002Z

Hybrids III is the latest magazine from a+t architecture publishers.

Hybrids III is the latest double-issue from a+t’s Hybrids Series, focusing on Residential Mixed-Use Buildings.
Residential Hybrids are deemed as typological opposites to one of the most paradigmatic creations of the constructivist movement: the Social Condenser. Both typologies share their origins in the avant-garde era of the first quarter of the 20th Century. The Social Condenser, however, was born from State centered ideals under a recently created Soviet Union and would later become an extremely influential model for social housing in the European context, particularly after World War II.
The Hybrid was originated from a very distinctive set of circumstances, with its roots firmly embedded in the American capitalist system. Whereas the European city was guided by ideology, the American city was an outcome of the free flowing economy, a playground for profitability and speculation. The hybrid encouraged urban contact and cosmopolitanism, becoming consequential to a new paradigm of democratic city; a city born from multiple driving forces, integrating different programmes, different developers and different users.
Hybrids III presents an extensive investigation on the issue of housing integration in mixed developments, followed by a selection of 20 new projects that encourage the interaction of a variety of urban uses while also successfully combining private residential activities within the public realm. Featured projects include the works of MVRDV, Steven Holl, OMA, Neutelings Riedijk, Herzog & de Meuron and many more, carefully presented and analyzed through diagrams, technical drawings and construction details.
Visit a+t for additional information on this magazine and other publications.

MVRDV: Market Hall, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2004-2012.

Herzog & de Meuron: St. Jakob Turm, Basel, Switzerland, 2007.

OMA: De Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1998-2011.

Steven Holl: Sliced Porosity Block, Chengdu, China, 2007-2011.

Enough

2009-12-30T21:06:00.001Z

Muji’s mission statement for the New Year raises a couple of interesting issues relevant to the wide world of design culture. The initial premise is the focus on providing products that are “enough” and not necessarily “the best”. Basically, the idea is that we should aim to design goods that are adequate to the customers needs. Now the truth is that we live in a world where many of us are drawn to the concept of “top of the line”, even if that may not be the most rational choice regarding our own personal parameters. Say, for example, that you want to buy a mobile phone. You may fancy for the best mobile the market has to offer. You start desiring that Iphone or that Blackberry you’ve read about, even though you may end up not using a tenth of all the functions it has to offer. You’re fancying the object, not the tool that’s adequate to you.
Another example of this trace in contemporary consumption culture is a digital camera. Some people pay a lot of money for a top camera even though they have never processed (or plan to process) a RAW image file. Maybe they don’t even know what RAW is. It takes a lot of dedication and time to fully explore a powerful photographic camera these days, but again, it becomes a yearning for the object, that wonderful camera you’ve fallen in love with. And you may end up doing this in many other things in life, like that premium sound system you bought, even though you don’t have a living room big enough to sustain it. Or the lifestyle to invest some quality time into listening to that huge CD library you possess.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with having desires in life. But when it comes to consumption, often it’s not rationality that’s driving the consumer’s choices. And this is where sustainability comes into play. Because sustainability lies in the adequate use of resources to provide for the needs involved. It is, as Muji’s message states, a matter of minimalism, not as a style, but as a paradigm for a new economy.

Unless we adopt values informed by moderation and self-restraint, the world will find itself at an impasse. All people living today deep down are probably already beginning to consider greater self-restraint as a way of life.

So I was considering these ideas and wondering how they also relate to the field of architecture nowadays. We may still regard architecture as a realm for experimentation and technological innovation. But if we are not applying those values to provide for a rational use of materials and construction processes, aiming for the adequate needs of the users, then, we are failing to install an ethical form of practice. Experimentation is only relevant if guided by rationality. It is not a value in itself.
Via Core77.

Put a sock in it

2009-12-30T14:19:00.000Z

Knit graffiti. Now that’s funny. Check the website of Magda Sayeg and her blog Knitta Please for more. Via Begin Being

Songs about cities [1]

2009-12-29T19:52:00.002Z

Telegraph Road, Dire Straits, 1982.

[I] was driving down that road and I was reading a book at the time, called Growth of the Soil, and I just put the two together. I was driving down this Telegraph Road… and it just went on and on and on forever, it's like what they call linear development. And I just started to think, I wondered how that road must have been when it started, what it must have first been. And then really that's how it all came about, I just put that book together and the place where I was, I was actually sitting in the front of the tour bus at the time.

Inspired by the expansion of suburban Detroit, Michigan, Telegraph Road is a universal portrait of the close relationship between the evolving urban space and the human lives that dwell within. The song’s narrative begins with the tale of a man’s individual journey into the mainland, followed by the steady expansion of the built landscape along the path. The musical structure is divided into three separate acts: a crescendo narrating the growth of the city, up to 5 minutes; a slow decline reflecting the stagnation of the industrial boom, the consequent unemployment and personal crisis, up to 9 minutes; and a slow rebirth, expressing hope in a better future ahead. Telegraph Road was written by Mark Knopfler and was originally released in the Dire Straits album Love Over Gold, in the year 1982. A shorter version of this song can be found on the live album Alchemy, recorded in 1984.

Top 10: The architecture of computer games, reloaded

2009-12-24T03:23:00.002Z

Heaven forbid The Architect’s Journal from making a serious article about the architecture of computer games. No doubt they would be prohibited from using the architect's secret handshake ever again. Fortunately I'm here to save the day with my own scoop on the 10 greatest architectural achievements in video game history, after the jump. Click to expand. [+/-]

10: Halo.

The original Halo introduced the player to an artificial planet of unknown alien origin, a gigantic space arc with an external living ecosystem and a complex web of underground tunnels. Later games in the Halo franchise would also introduce the setting of New Mombasa, a mega-city located on Mombasa Island in Kenya, the World’s busiest sea port of the 24th century and Earth’s first Space Elevator city.

9: Tomb Raider.

Tomb Raider revolutionized the 3D genre, becoming one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time. From the lost tombs of Qualopec in Peru to the City of Khamoon in Egypt, the original title of the series presented some of the most memorable built environments ever seen in a videogame.

8: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

The fantastic province of Cyrodiil is one of the largest virtual environments created for a game, allowing the player to travel freely in over 40 km2 of open landscape and marvel at the extensive views of distant towns and mountain ranges.

7: Mirror’s Edge.

Mirror’s Edge is set in a futuristic dystopian city dominated by a totalitarian regime. It’s gleaming, clean environment is hampered by the presence of invasive surveillance, tracking all forms of electronic communication in order to reduce crime to nearly nonexistent levels.

6: Modern Warfare (Prypiat/Chernobyl).

The city of Prypiat was founded in 1970 to house the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers. It was abandoned in 1986, following the events of the Chernobyl disaster. The ghost city is portrayed in the game Modern Warfare as a gloomy, dark, lonely and scary place with gray skies and long, unkempt grass.

5: Fallout 3 (Washington D.C.).

Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after a nuclear war. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic version of Washington D.C., taking the player on a journey through an area known as the Capital Wasteland.

4: Half Life 2 (City 17).

City 17 is a metropolitan area in Eastern Europe that forms the primary setting for Half-Life 2. The city features a variety of architecture types, from mostly Eastern European architecture dating from pre-World War II neoclassicism, to post-war revival of classical designs, Soviet Union modernism, and post-Soviet contemporary designs, as well as alien structures. The city is quite large, consisting of a railway station, a dilapidated canal system, underground road tunnels, and multiple communal living quarters and buildings.

3: GTA IV (Liberty City).

Liberty City is a fictional city portrayed as a generic version of the metropolitan area of New York. The city’s geography and alignment of districts features two major mainlands with a Manhattan-like central island (which contains a large park at the center, a reference to Central Park), and several smaller islands connected primarily by road bridges. Train services with lines running in the city are also present, providing GTA IV with one of the most convincing, living urban environments ever created for a video game.

2: Assassin’s Creed II (Florence, Venice).

Assassin's Creed II takes place in an open world with nonlinear gameplay, allowing the player to roam freely within several regions throughout late 15th century Italy such as Venice, Florence, and the Tuscan countryside. With its focus on real-world locales like The Duomo in Florence or Piazza San Marco in Venice and historical figures like Lorenzo di Medici and Leonardo da Vinci, this game offers an evocative setting filled with visual details that infuse the world with life and elegance.

1. Bioshock (Rapture).

Rapture is a massive underwater city that lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Created by a fictional business magnate called Andrew Ryan, it is a utopian metropolis of Art Deco-styled buildings connected by a network of glass tunnels and a Bathysphere system. The city is completely self-sustaining, and all of its electricity, food, water and air purification are powered by the volcanic vents originated from the bottom of the sea. Rapture is intentionally isolated from the world, and the only way to access it seems to be bathyspheres taken down from the lighthouse perched on an island above. Bioshock presents a fantastically speculative world that is both a shining example of science-fiction and a brilliantly drawn architectural world.

Interesting links:
Sightseeing in Liberty City: Liberty City vs. New York City, A photoset showing the similarities between Grand Theft Auto 4 and real life, Flickr.
Game / Space, an interview with Daniel Dociu, BLDGBLOG.
Evil Lair: on the architecture of the enemy in videogame worlds, BLDGBLOG.
Los Angeles: Grand Theft Reality, City of Sound.
Visualizing Geographic Environments: City 17, Digital Urban.
Cities in Games: Chernobyl in Call of Duty 4, Digital Urban.
The Role of Architecture in Video Games, Gamasutra.
Videogames and architecture, Polygon Web.

One day all critics will be supermodels

2009-12-15T23:08:00.001Z

Kneel, you middlebrow old philistine you!

Pedro Gadanho reflects upon the rise of the middlebrow as a representative symptom of the digital age. The digital landscape of social networks and blogs provided new grounds for the ascension of unaccredited participations in the realm of specific, once closed, fields of knowledge. It would be wise, however, to consider the differences between the cult of the amateur and a wider notion of open source culture, and its likely implications to a new paradigm of architectural criticism.

One of the first questions to be asked is whether the internet is a platform for accreditation of what is to be considered a relevant form of practice. To that regard, one could say that what makes digital media so effective is also what afflicts it the most. The most successful blogs are aggregators of information, aspiring to provide their readers with the latest eye-candy available. If you follow some of them on your regular feed reader you’ll realize it takes only minutes until the latest press release gets published in a competition to see who’s first. That said, most of these blogs are not really aiming to contribute to a critical debate about architecture.
On the other hand you’ll find many blogs out there trying to do just that. And although most of them have much less visitors, they probably reach an audience that’s actually interested in reading what they have to say, instead of merely browsing through the visual gimmick of the day.
In the chaotic sea of web information, the user becomes the editor and the critic. It’s up to the reader to establish its own criteria of what is relevant. Subjectivity becomes the key, as one cannot be a neutral recording machine of the infinite stream of information. So even though subjectivity establishes a problem of knowledge, it’s our own personal filter that allows one not to sink in irrelevant details and observations, establishing a sense of what is in fact relevant and important.

What needs to be questioned then is not the role of these digital tools as «platforms aiming to reveal yet another potential claim to stardom», but what established circles of architectural knowledge are doing to provide an alternate kind of critical judgement. The real drama is not the ascension of the middlebrow but the fall of the highbrow in our current world of academic inflation. Many academies – particularly in our own southern European scene – have become contributors to a general culture of intellectual acknowledgment: something is considered respectable for the mere fact that it is recognizable within the codes, languages and typologies of its own mentors.
Since traditional printed media has customarily been closer to academic sources of knowledge, they’ve often become supporters to a narrow view of what is relevant, with an antagonistic but just as shallow approach to what is considered middlebrow architecture. And so you’ll find established architecture critics despising Bjarke Ingels as they reveal the utmost indulgence towards the latest whimsies of Zaha Hadid. The highbrow despises the star-system but, just as much, acknowledges the architect over the architecture.
This is so evident that you can pretty much guess what the establishment will say about any design from a reputable figure. When was the last time we read something original about Álvaro Siza, Souto Moura, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, just to name a few?
Highbrow critics will need to muster the bravery to go beyond the obvious if they want to reclaim their significance in the new landscape of information overload. The problem is that once you journey off the beaten track of thinking, chances are you’ll not be making many friends in the establishment. Thinking outside the box comes at a price not many are willing to pay. And if that’s the case, well then, I rather stick with blogs instead.

Sagan

2009-11-09T17:33:00.001Z

Carl Sagan, scientist, astronomer, teacher, author, singer. Singer? That’s what it looks like, judging from this musical hit that also features Stephen Hawking. Don’t worry, though. It’s only an homage aimed at the hearts of Cosmos-loving geeks everywhere, in celebration of the beloved master’s 75th birthday.

Joshua Prince-Ramus - What if?

2009-10-16T00:38:00.003+01:00

Diagrams, diagrams. Don’t you just love diagrams?

Joshua Prince-Ramus, principal in charge at REX, is interviewed by Designboom just as the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre is about to open in Dallas. The interview extends both into the personal and professional areas of his life, covering the ascension at the Koolhaas talent factory and the culmination with his own practice in New York during the intense production of the Seattle Public Library.
Joshua refers the influence of OMA as the foundation to the design methodology developed by REX. Defying the very notion of authorship, architecture is faced as a process that transcends the definition of form and volume, embracing creative diagramming to rethink preconceived notions of building typology. The new Wyly Theatre is another example of this hyper-rational approach; and one that Prince-Ramus had already revealed during his conference at TED Talks in 2006. Also of interest is an additional video documenting the construction of the building's façade, a corrugated surface created by a series of aluminium tubes: The Wyly goes tubular. Construction details and some additional diagrams are also available in ArchDaily.

REX / OMA: Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, Dallas, USA, 2006-2009. Image credits: Iwaan Baan.

Do the revolution

2009-10-12T09:22:00.000+01:00

Someone should have warned Bjarke Ingels that, as an architect, no one is supposed to be that good looking and brilliant the same time. Brilliant architects are required to be bald and wear large spectacles. Seriously, though, I was fortunate to listen to him a couple of years ago and his ideas on the pre-conceived rhetoric of the architectural avant-garde sure made a lot of sense to me. Those same notions are introductory to his conference at TED, following a presentation of several high profile projects from BIG, from the mid-scale VM Houses and Mountain Dwellings in Copenhagen (both done in collaboration with Julien de Smedt), to his latest large-scale creation of the Zira Island Masterplan.
Bjarke offers an insightful glimpse of the creative diagramming processes that have become a signature method of the architects of the Rem generation, such as Winy Maas and Joshua Prince-Ramus - the latest of which, by the way, also had a fabulous presentation on TED a few years ago.

Mirrorcities Exhibition - Lisbon / Tokyo

2009-10-06T23:17:00.000+01:00

Two distant cities portrayed by two women. Images that share a common theme, exploring the similarities and differences concealed in the daily life of Lisbon and Tokyo. A photo essay that began as a blog and is now revealed in an exhibition titled Mirrorcities. Photography by Sara Lopes Godinho (aka Sushi Lover) and Patrícia Chorão Ramalho, on display at the Lounge space of the Oriente Foundation Museum until November 1st.

Cape Verde workers by Fernando Guerra

2009-09-28T14:20:00.001+01:00

Cape Verde workers collecting basalt for use in local constructions – photography by Fernando Guerra on display in Oporto at Galeria Colorfoto, until October 17th. Exhibition catalogue available online - Entre Reportagens.

Cinza

2009-09-26T10:09:00.001+01:00

I wonder now what she must have thought, behind those green eyes, as I invaded the sacred territory of a life shared with the one she deemed to be her only companion. Who is this man? What brings him to our place, invading our time of cuddling, when the night falls and the world belongs to just the two of us? I ignored Cinza just as she ignored me. Not for contempt or lack of affection. It was, in fact, the opposite, for when it comes to cats one should always respect their own time and space.

Two weeks passed. I thought she would never offer me the compassion she candidly expressed for the woman I would one day marry. And there I was, distracted by some kind of business, when she came walking through it all and surprised me with her first sand paper kiss. Wonderful Cinza.

If you ever lived with a cat or a dog you know they are all very different. Not just in temper but in regard to intellect. Yes, I said intellect. Cinza was, and probably always will be, the most intelligent cat I have ever known. And so we gave her the nickname of “cat-person”, for her clarity, profound affection, neediness, jealousy, for all the magical things that made her the brightest presence in our home for years.

Cinza left this world, as I held her in my hands, last Sunday, joining our little white dog that passed away two months ago. Every life begins soaked in pain and perhaps a new life began that very moment. A life that Cinza will not be a part of, but in which the memory of her gestures, her hugs and kisses, her scent, will always be a part of us. May everyone know, at least once in this lifetime, the miracle of love and purest devotion that Cinza blessed us with, the most extraordinary cat that ever existed.

HoCo – Density Housing Construction & Costs

2009-08-05T16:18:00.003+01:00

HoCo – Density Housing Construction & Costs is a new book from a+t architecture publishers.

The house building industry is the area of architectural production that’s more vulnerable to the effects of the economic crisis. It means that, all around the world, architectural studios are being downsized and construction companies are shutting down. Innovation is therefore needed not only to address the needs of contemporary life, merging the requirements of efficiency and environmental sustainability, but also to meet the demands for rational, budget-wise solutions to these new challenges.

MVRDV: Celosia Residence, Madrid, Spain, 2009. Image credits: Ricardo Espinosa (photos).

Dosmasuno Arquitectos: Carabanchel Housing, Madrid, Spain, 2007. Image credits: Miguel de Guzmán.

BIG+JDS: Mountain Dwellings, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2008. Image credits: Jens Lindhe.

HoCo – Density Housing Construction & Costs is a new book that gathers a wide selection of recently built housing projects. This is the third volume in a+t’s Density Series, presenting a comparative analysis of several key issues like urban insertion, dwelling capacity, promotion model (public or private) and, most interestingly, construction costs. Each project is featured with a comprehensive set of photos, drawings and building details that allow for a better understanding of the technical systems applied in its construction.

HoCo raises a debate on the issue of systematization within the construction industry. The building industry remains, to this day, a large-scale multi-disciplinary work of craftsmanship. But we now face the need to establish viable solutions regarding material design, energy efficiency and overall sustainability in architecture, and keep it on budget. Architects have to merge two opposing realities: the lean efficiency of industrialized production with the imaginative mind of a craftsman. This book presents an exemplary set of projects that reveal that creative spark, materializing atypical associations of components and design solutions to meet the finest results, and placing innovation, once again, at the heart of the architectural debate of our times.

Visit a+t architecture publishers for additional information on this book and other publications.

Beyond

2009-08-03T15:43:00.000+01:00

Beyond is a new book series devoted to the exploration of the boundaries between architecture, literature and visual arts. The first edition of Beyond, directed by Pedro Gadanho and suggestively subtitled Scenarios and Speculations, addresses our common uncertainties towards the future of the urban world through a series of prospective essays authored by European architectural writers.

Science fiction was always built upon the reality of its time. As the world changes, so does our imagination and our fears. The fiction of the modern world was dominated by the oppression of ideology and collective control. Huxley’s Brave New World is a powerful manifest against the menace of an absolute Utopia. Forty years later, George Lucas envisioned such a world in his first feature film. THX 1138 was released in the height of opposition to the Vietnam War and portrayed a dehumanized world where individual feelings and compulsions were suppressed, through drugs and indoctrination.
Interestingly, contemporary fiction is not so much about control as it is about the loss of control. The post-contemporary is a world of uncertainty, of spontaneous, uncontrollable phenomena. If we were once afraid of that which we expected, perhaps we are now more terrified of a future we cannot perceive in depth and scale.

The stories presented in Beyond range from near-fiction to the realm of pure conjecture. In his introductory article, Taken to Extremes, Pedro Gadanho speculates about the future of high-rise buildings under a declining economy: vertical megastructures become strongholds for the chosen few, surrounded by never-ending urban slums. A dystopian future that could pay tribute to the fictional works of William Gibson, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick. A place where architecture may become the greatest social divide of mankind.

Facebook gossip

2009-07-17T15:00:00.003+01:00

And now for some architectural gossip: Fredy Massad has written some of the harshest things I’ve ever read about Bjarke Ingels, but, as it turns out, they’re actually friends on Facebook.

Feynman lectures online

2009-07-16T10:29:00.000+01:00

Well, that was a coincidence. I’ve just read on Kottke that, thanks to Bill Gates and Microsoft Research's Project Tuva, everyone can watch Feynman’s lectures on Physics, recorded by the BBC at Cornell University in 1964.

Feynman

2009-07-09T17:18:00.001+01:00

This blog began with a quote by Richard Feynman. Today I was searching for videos in Google and his name came into my mind. Here’s what I found.

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Take The World From Another Point of View – Part 1
Take The World From Another Point of View – Part 2
Take The World From Another Point of View – Part 3
Take The World From Another Point of View – Part 4

Richard Phillips Feynman - The Last Journey of a Genius

It Took a Genius

There's other stuff to see out there. Don't you love the internet?

Samparkour

2009-07-02T15:22:00.001+01:00

Samparkour. An incredible journey through the megacity of São Paulo and some of its modern architectural icons. Main website at samparkour.com.br.

Save the purple building!

2009-07-02T15:21:00.002+01:00

Recently featured on Guardian online, this interactive guide created by English Heritage gives you the basics on what to do to improve the urban environment of your cherished historical town. It’s very traditionalist, I know, but the interface is really entertaining. I would leave the purple building, though. It’s the funniest house in the whole neighborhood.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

2009-07-02T15:21:00.001+01:00

An Engineer’s Guide to Cats. «When you have 3 cats you start to get to be that guy who has all those cats»... I know that feeling!

Where would you like to wake up?

2009-07-02T14:23:00.000+01:00

Fifty People, One Question. A simple idea. Go to a place. Ask fifty people the same question. Film their responses.
There’s something delightfully interesting about this. How often do we see anonymous people questioned on television about all sorts of issues? And what do we see, really? In the profusion of the mass media stream, how is the public portrayed?
Here is a cinematic exercise that breaks through the noise and the irrelevant to catch a glimpse of the essence of these individuals. Visit the main website at fiftypeopleonequestion.com.

I see Jawas on Casa da Música

2009-06-19T01:11:00.000+01:00

It’s not everyday that one witnesses The Architect’s Journal going into geek mode. The recent article Top 10: The architecture of Star Wars presents some of the most architectastic examples of the epic sci-fi saga, as well as their substitutes in the real world. One has to laugh at the comparison between a colossal Sandcrawler and Koolhaas’s Casa da Música.
The image above is courtesy of Fernando Guerra. The little Jawas are from Wookipedia, where else?!

Yann Arthus-Bertrand on TED

2009-06-19T00:11:00.000+01:00

Yann Arthus-Bertrand, creator of the movie HOME, delivers an outstanding presentation on TED Talks.
Presenting some of the direst crisis of our planet – the end of the oil economy, global warming, shortage of water, famine – Arthus-Bertrand states that “we don’t want to believe what we know”. With the wisdom of such simple truth we are confronted with the culture of denial that persists throughout our society.
He also presents his latest project titled 6 billion Others, a portrayal of the contemporary mankind composed by statements of citizens from every corner of the world about universal issues.
In our age, often dominated by a profusion of images and media noise, here is a work that invites us to “listen to the other” in the most profound sense. Simply amazing.

Home

2009-06-08T20:43:00.000+01:00

The movie HOME is available on YouTube until June 14th – links below.
HOME is a documentary directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand and produced by Luc Besson and Denis Carot. It offers a different perspective over our planet, portraying the small balances of life and the disruptions caused by human activity. It’s a film that invites us to reflect on our own circumstances and the close relationship between all life-forms on Earth.

Official web site: HOME.
YouTube: HOME - full version available in English, French, German, and Spanish, until June 14th.

Geek moment

2009-06-03T19:25:00.002+01:00

The architecture enthusiast will likely feel compelled to explore the hyper-realistic recreation of 15th century Venice portrayed in Assassin’s Creed 2.
I know that will be my excuse…

Via GameSpot.

Portuguese-architects.com

2009-05-18T23:27:00.000+01:00

The international architecture network www.world-architects.com has recently released its latest portal: www.portuguese-architects.com.
World Architects is both an internet portal and a platform for contemporary architecture, featuring a range of work from successful and emerging talents in architecture, landscape architecture and supporting design professions. It currently expands through 16 regional portals, includes a project gallery of 18.000 selected buildings worldwide and receives an impressive figure of 500.000 monthly visitors.
Visit Portuguese Architects for additional information and subscribe the world-architects newsletter to keep in touch with the newest entries and updates.

Jacques Herzog on TateShots

2009-05-09T21:11:00.001+01:00

Herzog & de Meuron: New Development of Tate Modern, view from the South at dusk. Image credits: Hayes Davidson.

Jacques Herzog talks about the process of designing the extension to Tate Modern. The new addition is conceived as a multi-shaped surface, revealing a sculptural form that merges the defining boundaries of its land parcel with the more complex distribution of functions inside the building.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the project is a noticeable gesture of detachment between the external skin of pyramid-like form and those internal masses of rational nature – an approach that resonates with other recent works of Herzog and De Meuron. This ‘space between’ is used as an intermediate void, a public gathering space that emphasizes an idea of proximity and connection.
The building is almost archaic in its expression, as the brickwork of the façade delivers a strong sense of materiality and contrast with its surroundings. The new Tate Modern seems to question the very nature of form, detaching itself from the clean, fluid expression of certain contemporary buildings of iconic ambition.

Herzog & de Meuron: de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, USA, 1999–2005. Image credits: Mark Darley.

Herzog & de Meuron: CaixaForum Madrid, Madrid, Spain 2001–2008. Image credits: Iwan Baan.

Herzog & de Meuron: Elbe Philharmonic Hall, Hamburg, Germany, 2003-2010.

Lorcan O’Herlihy talks about innovation in architecture

2009-04-28T01:45:00.000+01:00

Arch Daily presents a very interesting interview with Lorcan O’Herlihy. His ideas on innovation in architecture are particularly thought-provoking as he addresses the need to rethink form, space, materiality and the functional parameters of a project, even when facing strict financial constraints. Visit Arch Daily to see the interview and don’t forget to visit LOHA’s outstanding website afterwards.

High Line Design

2009-04-27T22:33:00.001+01:00

Here’s an interesting visual representation of the High Line project designed by Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The video was conceived by Brooklyn Digital Foundry and I recommend a visit to their website for some other interesting clips, most noticeably the presentation of the Museum Plaza by REX studio.

The iCube

2009-04-22T01:32:00.001+01:00

With a price tag over half a million dollars, chances are this iCube won't be coming to a living room near you as soon as you’d wish. Still, EON Reality’s 3D room is one of the most remarkable displays of stereoscopic 3d immersion I’ve ever seen. I can imagine lots of uses for this, in education and marketing for example. But since I’m a big geek, what I’d really love to do is to play Halo on that beauty.

Sexy Mi

2009-04-22T00:55:00.000+01:00

And here I am, back to you with some seriously important news. Those nice folks at MIMOA have recently organized a T-shirt design contest. And the winner was none other than Liliana Sousa, from Portugal. She also looks pretty cool wearing it. :))

Hybrids II

2009-04-03T00:46:00.003+01:00

Hybrids II is a new magazine from a+t architecture publishers.

Hybrids II is the latest launch from a+t architecture publishers, focusing on Low-rise Mixed-use Buildings. This is the second issue in a+t’s Hybrids series and features a good selection of projects - most of them currently under construction in Europe and Asia - carefully presented and analysed through technical drawings and diagrams. The magazine also includes an extensive theoretical essay that contextualizes the evolution of hybrid typologies through time, from the invention of the skyscraper to the utopian mega-structures conceived by Archizoom in the 1960s.

Jakob+Macfarlane: Docks de Paris, Paris, France, 2007.

Hybrid buildings have adapted to the needs of contemporary cities, mitigating the division between the private and public realms. These are horizontal projects that are invasive in nature, proposing complexity of form, volumetric fragmentation and functional diversity. Often experimental in their design approach, they shatter the borders between the architectural and the urban, challenging pre-established notions of density and scale.

OMA: Bryghusprojektet, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2008.

Visit a+t for additional information on this magazine and other publications.

Mr. BIG talks bicycles

2009-04-02T23:47:00.000+01:00

Bjarke Ingels talks about the Danish Pavilion for the Shangai Expo 2010. Visit BIG for the full project presentation with all the usual cool diagrams.
Via darren.webb

Postopolis! channel

2009-04-02T13:43:00.001+01:00

Looks like you don’t have to stay awake all night to see Postopolis! after all. Check the Postopolis! channel at Ustream.TV and browse through the pre-recorded videos of all the presentations.

Postopolis! Live, right now!

2009-04-01T01:39:00.001+01:00

Postopolis! LA mega-blogathon has begun. Check the video feed streaming live from Storefront for Art and Architecture website. And if you’re based in Europe, don’t sleep for the next 5 days.

If you build it, they will come. Actually, no they won’t.

2009-03-25T01:53:00.001Z

Well, it worked for Kevin Costner.

There I was perusing through Gamespot’s Work In Progress Blog, having my regular geek moment, when I found this interesting post about the upcoming game Cities XL. It’s the usual sim-city-building extravaganza in a virtual world where you – yes, you – can become a successful architect and create fantastic megastructures withouth the annoyances of a real economy to bother you. Just the kind of escapism we need right now, as it seems likely that we’re all going to be out of our jobs in the near future.
What’s interesting about the concept of being a triumphant virtual city builder is the notion that building an attractive monument will bring in a bucketload of happy money-spending tourists. This sounds pretty great in a virtual la-la-land, but probably should be taken less lightly in the outside world. It’s all Gehry’s fault I guess, but the Bilbao effect has become so embedded into the minds of real life polititians that architecture seems to be the ultimate purple cow. So, for my next project, I’m paiting the whole thing purple. And put a giant lava-lamp on top. That will do it!

What bothers me about the way architecture is discussed nowadays is that, for the most part, it isn’t. Just recently I’ve tried to open a discussion about the greatest architectural investment of the decade to be built in the city of Lisbon. Here is a museum for an institution that currently receives 200 thousand visitors every year. The new construction is expected to boost that number to a million. And how did they come up with that figure? Well, surely there was an assessment of the needs and demands for such a building, extensive studies were made. Otherwise, it would all reside on good old fashioned ‘faith’, wouldn’t it?
So, as it turns out, the project is rather controversial. On the left corner you have the naysayers, petitioning against the «concrete monster». On the right corner is now a group of prominent personalities, including some of the most notorious Portuguese architects, petitioning for the building that is said to be a «lesson of the evidence of man in the universe». Holly Moses!
And here I am, crushed in the middle. I’m thinking to myself that maybe I am really stupid, because I just don’t get it. So would it be possible that these people could bring their staunch certainties and shed a light over my undersized intelect. And explain, in architectural terms, how the building is either a monster or a metaphysical phenomenon?

This is it. Democracy at work. The debate is on, only there is no debate at all because there are no arguments of fact. Architecture, as it turns out, is all subjectivity and abstraction. It’s a freakin illusion. So maybe what’s good for videogames is true after all. «If you build it, they will come». Well, it worked for Kevin Costner.

Bodø International Design Competition

2009-03-24T23:55:00.000Z

Bodø Kulturhus and Library proposal by Langdon Reis Zahn.

The final results for the Bodø Kulturhus and Library International Design Competition have been announced recently. London based drdh architects won the first prize with an interesting proposal that explores a careful balance between scale and transparency of the new buildings. Their project can be seen on Bustler.net - direct link.
Bustler has also published an extensive article on the submission presented by studio Langdon Reis Zahn - direct link. LRZ’s design featured an engaging connection between built masses and public spaces – a full set of images can be seen on the studio’s main website, right here.

New National Coach Museum

2009-03-15T22:07:00.000Z

The project for the New National Coach Museum, designed by Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha in collaboration with Ricardo Bak Gordon, has been surrounded by controversy since it was first presented to the public last year. Besides specific reservations that were raised regarding the sensitivity of the operation, it’s the very procedure that seems to motivate the most passionate reactions. The site is, after all, one of the most important urban fronts of the city of Lisbon.
The construction of the new museum will celebrate the 100th birthday of the proclamation of the Portuguese First Republic in 1910. The closeness of the inauguration date is most probably the reason why the process has been running so hasty, resulting in a small public participation – of particular importance in such sensitive context.

The initial proposal received a negative review of the city’s administration, that objected to the construction of a multi-storey car park in the riverfront area. The architect Mendes da Rocha acknowledged his discontentment for the modification to his original concept, sustaining the maintenance of the long aerial walkway that connects the main buildings with the northern margin of the Tagus river.

Sustaining the concept of the new museum, Mendes da Rocha underlined two questions: «a basic criteria for the exhibition of the remarkable patrimony» and the insertion in the monumental urban context. The project therefore faces a double challenge: to review the architectural identity of the museum – the most visited in Portugal – and the urban identity of one of the most significant tourist attractions of the city.

Facing such a great responsibility, it is imperative that we reflect on how contemporary values of ‘modernity’, as stated by the architect, are materialized by the proposal. Contemporary urban design faces many important issues such as the balance between built fabric and empty spaces, the restoring of identities, the intensification of land use, the promotion of mixed uses and, finally, the introduction of sustainable habits in city life. The expression of these functions should materialize in design solutions that open the possibility to multiple forms of engagement. Contemporaneity has been establishing exactly the rejection of mono-functionality. The city should offer the possibility of appropriation, experimentation, evasion. It should allow people to meet one another and provide the freedom to be isolated from the flow of activities.

As we consider the available images of the project it is possible to elaborate an appreciation of how – or if – those theoretical possibilities where translated into practical strategies of design.
The new buildings widen the open space of the equipments, offering an extensive area to the public domain. They also introduce a basic connection of those spaces, both by making the ground level accessible and by setting up a walking passageway to the riverfront.

Other issues remain, however, open for questioning, for example regarding the definition of that wide walking space, concerning its differentiation and the necessary balance between the different rhythms of users. Are recreational activities, or information technologies, going to be implemented? Is it going to allow interaction and experimentation? How is the local identity going to materialize, both in the landscape and in graphic elements? How is the public going to relate with the space, colonize it, and give it a sense and urbanity?

The project of Mendes da Rocha is, in that sense, a work that doesn’t ‘hybridize’ with the action of urban planning. The big volumes stand over the new territory, its architecture revealing itself as the opposite to a possible material celebration of complexity and programmatic diversity.

The presence of the new elevated building results in a staggering structural and formal weight. It is, in fact, that infrastructural expression that motivates the harshest reactions – and this is something that should be thought upon, as to the way in which the possibilities of a desired public life are to be cherished in that setting.

It is, then, an architecture of grand gesture. The wide volumes produce extensive walls that collide with the ‘small urbanity’ of the surrounding buildings. Here is a building that doesn’t envelope space. Intentionally, or not, it is the opposite of that which one can find in the Belém Cultural Center, by Vittorio Gregotti, where public space is interiorized and scaled.

It’s legitimate to question how these worries were – if at all – considered in the intervention programme and its resulting architectural design. In this project one can clearly recognize that which Paulo Mendes da Rocha brings to Lisbon – in continuity to some of his recent works in very diverse contexts. It is not so easy to identify that which, in this particular work, Lisbon has brought to the Brazilian architect.
The confrontation with the Belém Cultural Center is therefore relevant. For in this building a sense of observation and reciprocity between the city and the architectural design is revealed, and not a preconceived idea of style.
As a public project, on its most representative dimension, one must question the way in which architecture expresses its values – and which. The New National Coach Museum is presented as a gesture of ‘modernity’ and «contrast between the new and the old» - as stated by Álvaro Siza. Lets question what that means, then. Do we talk of modernity as a ‘style’ – a recipient to a merely formal logic, whose legitimacy is achieved from being recognisable and institutionally certified?
Or do we think of ‘modernity’ as an affirmation of contemporary values of innovation and creativity, of urbanity and public life? Do we talk, then, of forms or their content? These are questions that cannot simply remain in the realm of dissertation, as they should translate in the concrete materialization of the building and its surrounding spaces.

Fresh air

2009-03-14T16:17:00.000Z

«I believe that this invention of ‘modernism’, as applied to architecture, is a critical distortion related to a certain time in the history of architecture. Does one still ask oneself in painting, literature or the cinema if a work of art is modern? (…) In architecture, however, this absurd question is still of importance. Does a patient ask himself if his doctor is modern or not? It is more important to establish that a contemporary doctor practices modern medicine and can naturally prefer certain methods of healing to others. When I answered that I cannot be postmodern because I was never modern, I simply wished to state that I was simply an architect and practiced this profession, just as architects have always done.
(…) In actual fact, the disease of modernism (or at least one of its diseases, resulting in the ruin of large areas of our cities) is its moralizing, that is to say the intrusion of the question of morality into the architectural debate. Regrettably, we still suffer from this disease today. When I say that I am not modern I am declaring my refection of moralizing in architecture, a moralizing that rages like this in no other artistic discipline. (…) Yet a supposedly democratic Europe regards an architectural style as democratic (and it is moreover hideous), simply because it made use of glass and built roofs that have regular, flat roofs sloping towards all sides!»
Aldo Rossi, A Conversation with Bernard Huet, «Aldo Rossi Architect», Academy Editions, 1994.

Bling my bling

2009-03-05T20:05:00.001Z

The awe-inspiring design of the pyramids had an amazing effect on the spirit of the slaves. Those whips helped as well.

There's a lot of interesting writing about the depression on architectural blogs these days. Kazys Varnelis writes about the architecture of bling and points out to 15 skyscrapers currently on hold due to the economic crisis. [Can anyone invent a new word for it, I’m tired of writing “crisis” on this blog.] He rightly states that the aesthetics of these buildings is little more than a shallow celebration of excess, retrieving "no culture, no history, no morality, no taste, merely the desire to display wealth".

Interestingly, just today the Guardian published an interview with Zaha Hadid. Focusing on one of her latest projects, the Olympic Aquatic Center for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, Hannah Pool questions Hadid if she wishes she had designed a more modest building in regard for the current state of the economy. "No" - she says - "In these moments of recession, uplifting the spirit is even more important and we should learn from things that were done in the past that were done in a hurry".
It's quite unfortunate to witness someone who started her career with one of the most challenging approaches to convention and norm, now embracing this impudent architecture of representational power. And practice it without a hint of reflection on plain economic legitimacy, not to mention morality.
The sophistication of Hadid's architectural design now seems to be the epitome of late-post-modern and kitsh, an architecture devoid of any sense of belonging or social function other than that startling motif: to uplift the spirit, to revere through monumentality and awe. In these harsh times, one whould rather feel uplifted by a rational and balanced application of public money. Zaha’s lighthearted display of disregard to the seriousness of the matter is hardly a sign of irreverence, but plain social negligence.

Design and the Depression on Blueprint

2009-03-04T23:37:00.000Z

“Recessions”, writes Kevin McCullagh, “are marked by bankruptcies, mass unemployment, house repossessions and general misery, not by moral renewal”. Two outstanding articles on Blueprint Magazine: Design and the Depression, The Debate; Part One and Two.

Quotes on Horticulture

2009-02-28T21:33:00.001Z

Quotes On Horticulture is a lovely website by José Rui Fernandes - the author of Jardinagem.org (a gardening journal in Portuguese only).

WALL-E lives

2009-02-28T21:31:00.001Z

Okay, so this is the only thing I’ll say about the Oscars: Peter Gabriel’s Down To Earth should have won the award for Best Song. And here’s an amazing home video by Anthony Meadows with some seriously groovy WALL-E action. This is just one of the sweetest things I’ve seen in a long time. And if you like it, make sure you click here for more.

Carlos Hernandez fotografo

2009-02-28T21:30:00.000Z

Beautiful website by photographer Carlos Hernandez featuring amazing portraits, landscape and architecture. The “Urban Climbing” series is particularly engaging. He also has some great stuff on his personal blog.