A place to share architectural inspiration. Drawings, Photos, Articles, Websites, Quotes… anything that gives you pause to think. (Please cite sources appropriately)
See the pre-midterm inspiration
Nov. 2 / Nov. 9 / Nov.16 / Nov. 23 / Nov.30
Sarah
That was a locker prank!
And, my Halloween costume. I’ll post a montage of my colleagues soon. We were all famous paintings.
Michael
Design e2 is a really well put together program about sustainable design that used to air on PBS. This episode’s about New York.
Matt
In keeping with the Hallowe’en spirit, I recently stumbled upon this picture of a Jack-O-Lantern. I love looking up various pumpkin carving contests after Hallowe’en has passed, as people put up all the pictures of incredibly well-carved pumpkins – this one clearly stood out amongst my searches this year; somebody get this man a gold medal.
http://www.joystiq.com/photos/joystiq-pumpkin-carving-contest-2009/2407320/
Jason
It’s interesting to see that all the architecture are surreal. I also have a question about the bottom one. I have already seen a lot skyscrapes, why the majority are using the rotating shape?
Yvonne
Card board architecture. The first image is of the Paper Tea House by my architect Shigeru Ban. Most of his houses have a common concept of simplicity and emptiness. The second image is of a room made entirely of cardboard including the floors and the walls.
“Japanese Architecture .” Architecture List. http://www.architecturelist.com/category/japanese-architecture/ (accessed November 1, 2009).
“1960’s Bloomingdale’s Furniture Displays by Barbara D’Arcy : PopuluxeBooks, Retro Info For Your Mod Style.” PopuluxeBooks, Retro Info For Your Mod Style. http://www.populuxebooks.com/index.php?main_page=document_general_info&cPath=87&products_id=715 (accessed November 2, 2009).
Hussain
Kristen
Recent climate change campaign at Berlin by Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo was extremely creative and dark. It was an installation art consisting of 1000 tiny ice sculptures of men sitting on the steps of Berlin concert hall. This artistic installation on the occasion of release of the report entitled Impact of Global Climate Change was sponsored by WWF.
Rotem
Last year my concept for Studio One was to transfer sounds from different parts of a neighborhood into a structure where a person can stand and listen to what’s going on in other parts. Well, I’m not the only pervert trying to do that it seems.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/an_analogue_sound_cloud_15070.asp
This is the first time I’m putting an inspiration that’s actually related to my concept. The idea of “relocating” sounds from one place to another can be developed in all sorts of ways – what are the effects of hearing what goes on 1000 meters away? How will that change a space?
Bill
The Superstar was designed by Chinese architects MAD and it’s destined to become “A Mobile China Town” with shopping malls, Chinese food restaurants, and other cultural exhibitions. The project will be presented at the 11th Venice Biennale in the “Uneternal City” section where 12 architects are introducing their ideas for “an anonymous suburban area of Rome.”
The new China Town will be a floating city which will move all around the world and being a modern city of the future it will also be green as it’s going to produce its own energy and all the waste will be recycled. The Superstar will provide housing for 15,000 inhabitants who will enjoy health and sports facilities, drinking water lakes, and a “digital cemetery” among others.
The Superstar will be able to “land at every corner of the world” and it was called the Mobile China Town as it’s “MAD’s response to the redundant and increasingly out-of-date nature of the contemporary Chinatown.”
source: http://deviceinn.com/misc/superstar-worlds-most-futuristic-city-moves-around-the-world.html
Sarah
Here’s a list of some very handy FREE software.
Archimedes
Archimedes is a free and open source CAD (Computer Aided Design) software.Blender
Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.”CcPublisher
ccPublisher will help you tag your audio and video files with information about your license and it allows you to upload CCC-licensed works to the Internet Archive for free hosting.GIMP-win
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.Inkscape
An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.Paint.NET
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
Michael
“The Gyrofocus, designed by the award-winning contemporary fireplace maker Focus, has been named as the World’s Most Beautiful Object for the 2008-2009 Pulchra design competition. The suspended fireplace achieved the highest number of votes in the inaugural year of the ten-year design competition. Over a year, 74,425 participants voted by Internet for the 10 most beautiful objects among 100 selected by a jury of experts in design and architecture, including Alessandro Mendini, Italo Lupi and Matteo Vercelloni. The fireplace created by Dominique Imbert in 1968 came out as the voters’ top choice, over objects ranging from a television designed by Philips, a Sony Ericsson mobile phone, creations by Philippe Starck, and a Leo Cut diamond; their key point in common being the beauty of their design.”
Matt
On Saturday night, I found myself on the roof of a four-storey apartment building in Montreal, very close to the McGill campus. Even though there was a party with about a hundred people beneath our feet, and even more milling about at the street level, it was nearly silent up here. For a moment, I stopped and just looked around; the tall buildings further off, the McGill campus, the car head- and street lights reflecting from the street level, and a massive glowing cross atop a hill in the Parc Mont-Royal.
I thought it was interesting how easy it was to find a moment of peace in the middle of such an urbanised area – albeit on a rooftop you weren’t supposed to be on.
Jason
The Dubai developer Nakheel – the company that created man-made islands in the shapes of a palm tree and the world – said the structure would be the centre-piece of an inner-city harbour planned as the emirate’s unofficial capital.
It would not comment on the exact height or cost of the Islamic design-inspired Nakheel Tower. The building will have “more than 200 floors” and be part of “a multi-billion pound development”, the company said.
The tower and harbour project will take more than 10 years to complete. Apart from the landmark structure, there will be another 40 towers, ranging in height from 20 floors to 90 floors. The entire development will be home to more than 55,000 people and a workplace for more than 45,000.
The tower, which will take more than a decade to complete, will be the centerpiece of a sprawling development state-owned builder Nakheel plans to create in the rapidly growing “New Dubai” section of the city. Foundation work has already begun, O’Donnell said.
About 150 elevators will carry residents and workers to the Nakheel Tower’s more than 200 floors, the company said. The building will be composed of four separate towers joined at various levels and centered on an open atrium.
Yvonne
This building is entirely made up of Recycled Kitchen sinks. The Sustainable Sky Box functions as a multi purpose space for cultural activities.
“eco recycled plastic art | IGreenSpot.” IGreenSpot – Your daily source for green products and green innovations. http://www.igreenspot.com/search/eco+recycled+plastic+art (accessed November 10, 2009).
Hussain
Kristen
Blur Building
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
The Blur building was built by New York-based architects Diller and Scofidio on Lake Neuchâtel at Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland on occasion of the Swiss Expo 2002. The Blur building uses various forms of water –mist, dew, fog and drinking water– as the substance of its architecture. Water is pumped from the lake, filtered and shot as mist.
The public can approach Blur via a bridge. Visual and acoustical references are erased along the journey. Prior to entering the cloud, each visitor responds to a questionnaire and receives a ’smart raincoat’. The coat is used as protection from the wet environment and storage of the personality data for communication with the cloud’s computer network. Using tracking and location technologies, each visitor’s position can be identified and their character profiles compared to any other visitor.
Diller and Scofidio define Blur as ‘decidedly low-definition’. Inside Blur there is nothing to see but our dependence on vision itself. ‘The building is formless, featureless, depthless, scaless, massless, surfaceless and dimensionless. Movement within is unregulated’.
During the final ascent the public walks through the cloud towards the open sky. There, visitors enjoy the view, and can choose from a large selection of commercial waters, municipal waters from world capitals, and glacial waters. Visitors can drink the building, too.
Rotem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGrlWOhtj3g
Lewis Black, yes, another Jew (they’re all over the place), is a comedian who hosted the show The Root of all Evil and appeared regularly on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In my opinion, Black’s comedy act is more developed and structured than other comedians. His subject matter is usually more politically or socially oriented and I find a lot of subtext behind his words. His act, in a way, is like a polished novel or an well writen academic essay – everything is clear and focused. In the bit that I linked you can hear how he starts with a certain subject (Bush’s statement about queers), focuses into a certain part of it (the old testament), focuses again (earth was created in 7 days), then comes back to the old testament, then back to Bush.
Bill
The Nautilus Shell House was build for a Mexico City couple by Senosiain Arquitectos. Leaving heavy architectural details aside, the house is put together using a frame of steel-reinforced chicken wire with a concrete spread over it, resulting an earthquake proof structure.
I would love to live in a house like this.
Source: http://stylefrizz.com/200802/the-amazing-nautilus-shell-house/
Sarah
Potentially of interest for research relating to our current studio assignment….
Apparently it is also a BBC television series.
Michael
With her architectural installations the young US artist Rebecca Ward creates impressive effects by using nothing more than different coloured isolation tape.
“Utilizing existing lines, beams, and angles, each piece I create is informed by the individual site and its unique linear movement… I choose patterns and shapes according to detailed measurements of the installation site. Ideally these patterns are numerically symmetrical or somehow numerically balanced, producing a dialogue between line and space”, explains the artist.
Matt
HEY! Check this out –
“The Leonid meteor shower is active from November 5 through the 30th. This shower is produced by the outbound particles of comet 55P Temple-Tuttle, which last passed through the inner solar system in 1998. The Earth passes closest to the comet’s orbit on November 17. It is during then that the best Leonid activity can appear …
In mid-November the constellation of Leo rises near 2300 (11pm) local standard time. LST is your time local regardless of location. You may see meteor activity during the early evening hours, but they will certainly not be Leonids! The Leonids (like all meteors) cannot be seen until they strike that portion of the atmosphere that is visible from your observing site. … You may get lucky and actually see an Leonid “earthgrazer” during the late evening hours. These meteors are different than your average “shooting star” in that they are very long and also long-lasting. The brightest ones can stretch from horizon to horizon, lasting five seconds or more (an eternity compared to the average duration of 0.3 seconds). …
One should plan to watch for at least one hour to get a good feeling for the meteor activity. Meteor activity notoriously occurs in bunches with one period being very active and another totally lacking. These odd periods usually don’t last longer than 15-30 minutes so at least an hour’s watch is recommended. No one can stand for an entire hour and be comfortable so it would be advisable to use a lounge chair. November mornings can be downright cold in some areas so wrap up warmly and keep your head covered.” (read more)So apparently you should be able to see one of the best meteor showers in the last couple years on Monday night / Tuesday morning (it’s not terribly clear, as they keep referring to “universal time”). From more than one source, it is said that the best activity will be visible from 11pm to 4am – according to these basic viewing instructions, you’ll get a better show as the night goes on, especially before the morning twilight (a few sites have said that you’ll begin to lose visibility shortly after 4am – but that is when the most activity should be happening). Bit of a stretch, I know, but this comet only passes once or twice in a lifetime – I’m going to give it a shot.
Jason
Situated in Rijeka’s quarter Zamet, the new Centre Zamet in complete size of 16830 m2 host various facilities: sports hall with max 2380 seats, local community office, city library, 13 commercial and service facilities and a garage with 250 parking spaces.
One third of the sports hall’s volume is cut in the ground, and other public facilities and services fully fit into the surrounding. The main architectural element of the Zamet centre are ‘ribbons’ stretching in a north-south direction, functioning at the same time as an architectural design element of the object and as a zoning element which forms a public square and a link between the park on the north and school and B. Vidas street on the south.
The ribbon-like stripes were inspired by “gromača”, a type of rocks specific to Rijeka, which the centre artificially reinterprets by colour and shape. Stripes are covered with 51.000 ceramic tiles designed by 3LHD and manufactured specially for the centre. Steel girders of 55 meters span and different heights enable the natural light illumination of the sports hall.I think this building is amazing, thought the different layering, the lights can shot into the gym in different angles.
source:http://www.zavodbig.com/2009/10/14/zamet-centre-in-rijeka-croatia-by-3lhd/ http://www.dailytonic.com/zamet-centre-in-rijeka-croatia-by-3lhd/
Yvonne
The movement of stones” by David Ralston who is a sculptor, musician and clock maker.
Hussain
Edward Burtynsky photographs the landscape of oil
– Reminds me of the documentary “Manufactured Landscapes”. Watch it if you haven’t and if you like also watch Up the Yangtzee.
Kristen
Chic Hobo Living
Zo-Loft Architecture & Design knows what it is like to stay homeless and be exposed to the elements. They have thus created the WheeLY which is a prototype shelter for the homeless or the chic hobo. It is an expandable tent which is made of recycled materials and is very portable, just as a hobo would like it.
These days, it is quite common to see chic people turning in to hobos as it gives a lot of freedom and is the ultimate form of defying the society and culture. The WheeLY can be pushed during the day like a wheel and it can also hold a number of good up to 250 pounds.
In fact, the homeless would not even need to pay anything for this if advertisers want to advertise on the WheeLY and thus pay for the WheeLY as well. The WheeLY can also be used as a furniture or a couch depending on how much you ‘open’ it. It does not need any electricity or energy and thus is completely green and clean. I would say, this is sustainability at its best.
Rotem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzlaCqSIyzg&feature=related
Just before 1970s, several British bands started to develop the 60s Rock&roll and Classic Rock into something more complex. Bands such as King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Yes, Jethro Tull, Gong, Caravan, Camel, Renaissance, and a few others investigated jazz, classical music, and other genres and at the same time concentrated on elements from rock. The result was longer songs with a more complicated and sophisticated structure (tossing aside the chewed “verse A-chorus-verse B-chorus-solo-verse-end”), each band sounding completely different from the other. Other bands such as Queen, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple soon came up with singles composed in the same spirit – most renowned are Stairway to Heaven and Bohemian Rhapsody.
Unfortunately at around 1975 audience demand changed completely and punk rock – a very simple genre – pretty much killed the movement, which is now known as Progressive Rock.
So again, as with Lewis Black and Kurt Vonnegut, I am inspired by the thought and effort that was put into the composition of these songs. The two songs I’m giving here (from two different albums of the band called Yes) are examples of this effort, and when I design my projects for studio I always remember this quality in Progressive Rock since we’re attempting to do the same – make every little part of our design work with the rest.
Bill
Since we are doing projects relating to public transportation, I’ve found something interesting:
Animals made up using tube lines, stations and junctions on the London Underground Map.
This is an interesting and unique way to look at a boring transportation map. Hope this will bring some good ideas to what we are working on now.
The Animals, made up using tube lines, stations and junctions on the London Underground Map
Sarah
Connector Mobile Villages by Lucy + Jorge Orta
Michael
The music video was directed by Esteban Diacono for Ólafur Arnalds’ song, Ljósið. It started off a personal project for Esteban but the musician made it the song’s official video after seeing it.
Matt
Sometimes you have to be a little bit silly to captivate your viewers … check out this video.
(apparently WordPress doesn’t like videos named in foreign characters, so this is the only way I can pass this along to you… watch the first video in the search results)
Jason
Farrari is my dream car, i know all the types of farrari, but for the building of farrari, it is my first time to head it.
Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, the new holiday destination will be the world’s first Ferrari theme park and largest attraction of its kind to open in 2010.
The theme park will feature an iconic sleek red roof that’s said to be directly inspired by the classic double curve side profile of the Ferrari GT body, spanning 2,152,782 square feet and carrying the largest Ferrari logo ever created.
There will be a number of attractions, including rides for children of all ages and the world’s fastest
rollercoaster, travelling at speeds exceeding 124 mph. Another ride will rocket passengers through the roof and to a height of 203 feet to simulate the G-forces experienced by a drivers in an F1 car.
The site is located on Yas Island on the North East side of Abu Dhabi’s mainland, which is about a 10-minute drive from Abu Dhabi International Airport and 50 minutes from Yas Marina Circuit, which will host the inaugural Abu Dhabi GP later this year.
http://damncoolpics.blogspot.com/2009/11/ferrari-theme-park-in-dubai.html
Yvonne
The Wooden Mirror is made of 830 square peices of wood each with its own motor. It explores the line between the digital and the physical by using wood to portray digital pixel. Any person standing in front of the mirro is instantly reflected on the surface.
Hussain
In preparation/ follow up to the Edward Burtynsky exhibition, watch this video. It’ll make you never want to eat beef again and leave you with a miserable feeling by the end. If you like this also watch the whole Earth series by BBC, it’s a little more positive and incredibly beautiful.
Kristen
KUBIK
Where do architecture, sustainability, light and music converge? At Kubik a very hip, greenly-designed nightclub currently located in Barcelona, Kubik is a temporary open-air installation linking architecture, light and music with a contemporary air of reclaimed material usage. A radically different nightclub, the space is open to the sky and besides the sea, the structure built from hundreds of reclaimed, stacked, and illuminated industrial tanks.
Founded and first installed in Berlin, Kubik now settles for the limited time of four months from June 13th until September 29th at the Fòrum Barcelona. Two-hundred seventy-five illuminated industrial tanks are piled one on top of each other, building a spectacular designed object of walls and columns. Inside Kubik, visitors experience illuminated cubes, whose light geometry constantly changes to the rhythm of music.
Kubik was launched for the first time in Berlin last summer, revitalizing an unused site of the city. In Barcelona, Kubik aims at enlivening a location for four months that the city still needs to fully embrace. This extraordinary concept of temporary architecture as a home for cultural activities was developed by Balestra Berlin in cooperation with modular and LightLife.
Rotem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyd4EPxP_fs&feature=related
Bill mentioned Space Odyssey, which is a movie writen by Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick, and that reminded me of a number of scenes. One of the things this movie investigated is – how will day to day life be in space? C. Clark, inventor of satellite communications, suggests that the spaceship rotates around its long axis to create centrifugal gravity. This is why the jogger is running on a looped floor.
The ideas of living in space and designing for living in space have been explored in other movies and many science fiction books. Space architecture sometimes rely on ship design and sometimes purely on speculations. The question is – what will happen when there comes a time that so many people will be living on a spaceship, that an architect (a designer thinking about more than functional design) is called?
Bill
The Loope is a circular designed chair that looks like it came from A Space Odissey.
Made from a single piece of red oak, the Loopita is covered in high density foam for comfortable seating.You can connect multiple loops together and have people sitting right next to one another – each in their own comfortable space. This dynamic and striking concept is worthy of special attention.
Sarah
This song has been stuck in my head since Friday when I wrote “maybe tomorrow” as a way to define Matt’s station.
Michael
Matt
As Sarah has reminded us, our deadlines are fast approaching, so we need to be able to make the most of our time. While it is important to put as much time as possible into our pavilions, we also have to make sure that we are taking enough time to sleep at night. And when we don’t get all of the sleep that we need, maybe it would be better if you just took a nap!
Jason
LESS IS MORE
” less is more” –Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Yvonne
“A Castle On the Ocean”. A city made entirely of paper! It was created by art student Wataru Itou who took four years building it. The city has its own lighting and motorized paper trains.
“4 Years in the Making: Insane Papercraft City « Wonderment Blog.” Wonder How To » How To Videos & How-To Articles. http://www.wonderhowto.com/wonderment/4-years-in-the-making-insane-papercraft-city-0113610/ (accessed November 30, 2009).
Hussain
Kristen
Origami in the pursuit of perfection
Here is a really cool Asics add. It is very interesting how something so small started something so huge today, and continues to explore new and innovative ideas. The most amazing part though is the graphics all made from folded paper…it shows that really anything can be made from a small piece (like our traveler and his poetry and music).
Rotem
http://www.rossracine.com/artwork/artwork.html
This artist investigated suburbs in a very ¨literal¨way, creating a certain sensibility (I think) beyond the visual representation. Note that these are not actual arial photos and everything was generated by the artist and his computer.
Bill
Here is an ad campaign from Diesel showing what would it be like in the near future with Global Warming. The title is called “Global Warming Ready”. So fashion is ready for Global Warming, but what about the architecture? Is it ready yet?
source: http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2007/diesel-global-warming-ready/
Studio 2, Fall 2009 
I guess Hussain and I read the same architecture sites. I was about to post the same TED talk.
Thanks for week 1 posts everyone. An interesting collection of bits and pieces to occupy the back corners of the brain until they find the right moment to emerge.
Bansky (Matt’s inspiration) does something similar to people parking bicycles on the architecture building – in both cases an outsider adds to the design of a building without the permission of the architect.
What if Bansky took, in some fantastic way, one step further and reconstruct buildings over night?
Once again a great variety of interesting miscellany. Please remember to credit sources at least by linking to the original website.
Careful when inserting images and editing the page. Looks like a few have been lost. I was able to find ones that had links to the original sites but others will need to be reloaded. (Another good reason to cite sources properly).
I’ve removed some of the images from the page because it was starting to get a bit overloaded. Consider posting one image and linking to the page where you found the rest.
Refer to Jason’s post: “Less is more”
Selecting one key image is often more powerful and communicates better than showing ten. If you choose wisely, you’ll peak the reader’s interest enough to click on the link.
(An important lesson when considering what to post in a crit)