Sept. 21 / Sept. 28 / Oct. 5 / Oct. 12 / Oct. 19
Sarah Gelbard
- Dig-ital by Kyohei Sakaguchi
A Japanese artist-architect who designs houses for the homeless (among other things).
Sakaguchi, Yikohei. “Dig-ital.” Zero Yen House. http://www.0yenhouse.com/(accessed Sept. 15, 2009)
Michael Dimock:
In regards to our discussion about what makes a building a home.
“All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.”
– Philip Johnson
Matt Henning:
Banksy, a pseudonym for a popular graffiti stencilist from Bristol, has been spreading by word of mouth since the early years of the new millenium. His work is well-crafted, humourous, politically-motivated, ironic, and powerful – albeit illegal. This summer, he showcased his work at the Bristol Museum from June 13 to August 31, the largest showing of his work to date – yet he still remains shrouded in mystery: who is Banksy?
I really wanted to make the trip across the pond to go check it out, but never managed to get there. Luckily, “Banksy doesn’t believe in copyright, [so] visitors are welcome to take photos” – check it out!
Jason Miao:
It is quite interesting for us to get a totally different feeling when viewing the same image
Yvonne Osei–
After seeing Shigeru Ban’s Nomadic Museum, Ive been interested otherways shipping containers are used in architecture.
Urbanist. “Shipping Container Homes & Houses, Designs & Ideas | WebUrbanist.” Urban Street Art, Abandoned Places and Amazing Designs | WebUrbanist. http://weburbanist.com/2008/06/01/more-cargo-container-homes-and-offices/ (accessed September 19, 2009).
Hussain Patwary
Think BIG- How you create mountains out of architecture.
(Kristen Van Haeren
Holl House by Andrew Maynard.
The house of multiple dimensions represents a search for a space that is adaptable to the whim of its user, a space that does not simply contain elements of one’s life but a space that recognises and allows for change. A house for the times.
http://www.andrewmaynard.com.au/holl01.html
(click images on site to further explore the adaptation processes of this house)
Rotem Yaniv
I took this photograph in front of the architecture building. Every day people (me included) tie their bicycles to the railing, thus making them part of the building. This inspires me for a number of reasons: the natural, unnoticed way people who use the building change its appearance and how this may be controlled by architectural design – attracting such activity by using other methods; the temporal quality of the changes – each day different models and colours of bicycles are being “displayed”; and the notion of using a practical device, such as a vehicle, and implementing it into the design of a building (which is something I know is already being done, home garages with clear wall that let owners see their cars from their living rooms for example).
Bill Tan
Designed by Vincent Vallebaut, a stunning design that aims to meet the food, housing and energy challenges for the future. The Dragonfly is an urban farm concept for New York City’s Roosevelt Island, modeled after the wings of a dragonfly and designed to provide fresh, local food within an urban environment. Fruit, vegetables, grains, meat and dairy would be produced on the Dragonfly’s 132 floors and the entire structure would be powered by a combination of solar and wind power. More pictures and information can be found here: http://vincent.callebaut.org/page1-img-dragonfly.html
Callebaut, Vincent. “Dragonfly, A Metabolic Farm For Urban Agriculture.” Vincent Callebaut Architectures. http://vincent.callebaut.org/page1-img-dragonfly.html (accessed September 20, 2009).
Sarah
BldgBlog is one of my favourite architecture news/inspiration sites. Worth adding to your regular reading.
Michael
Diva is a set of wood laminated floor and pendant light sculptures produced by the Norwegian manufacturer Northern Lighting.
By making a contemporary light object the two young designers, Thomas Kalvatn Egset and Peter Natedal, wanted to pay their respect to the proud Norwegian heritage of wood lamination craftsmanship, and at the same time challenge or reinvent how this material can be used.
Matt
So, I was working late in studio Sunday night, and I … re-appropriated some pencils I found to create The Founcil.
- 20 Pencils
- Cling
- Splash
- Just Add Water
I thought it was really interesting how the pencils projected the pattern in the fountain’s drain, giving it a three-dimensional quality that was visible from a profile view (instead of only from a “plan” view).
Now that I had a new design for this fountain, I wanted to see how/if the water would react differently. It wasn’t really that interesting … until I took pictures to freeze the water; now able to see how it scattered among the erasers on the pencils (such an odd juxtaposition), the fountain seemed to take on a new liveliness and energy!
I thought it was awesome – how about you?
Jason
Maybe one day in the future, architecture will go back to its original shape..
Yvonne
The Scotts Tower is a 36-storey residential high-rise, and supposed to be completed in 2010. It gives you the feeling that the towers are floating.Whats also pretty coool is that because the towers are lifted, it reduces the buildings footprint!
“Singapore Scotts Tower, Orchard Road, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), world architecture news, architecture jobs.” World Architecture News, Official Home Page, architecture news, architecture jobs. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?upload_id=946&fuseaction=wanappln.projectview (accessed September 28, 2009).
Hussain
Architectural Facelift?
This is what happens when architects crosspolinate with graphic designers & all kinds of other artists. Crosspolination = Innovation.
Watch awseomeness at work here ->
Project by URBANSCREEN
Kristen
Interactive architecture
http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/
Crystal Mesh is a new media facade consisting of 3000 modules of deep drawn polycarbonate, with 1900 of them containing a regular matrix of compact fluorescent light tubes that allow ‘active patches’ to exist on tessellated exterior pattern. This enforces “medianess” as an ingredient of this architecture. When lit up, each crystal in the mesh can act as one object or its subpixels can be controlled to create a movement of light across the surface.
Be sure to check out the video on the site, it is nothing short of mesmerizing!
Rotem
For some odd reason, the people deciding on bay placements in our school found it entertaining to put me and Kristen in the same bay. Again. Over the past year, Kristen and I developed a very sophisticated relationship of love/hate, respect/disrespect, and agreement/disagreement. We also compete who spends more time in the studio (I work, Kristen, ok? I can’t be in the studio my ENTIRE shift!). Yesterday, for example, I stayed up late and slept at the hub and today she’s really upset because she left studio before I did.
Every time I look at the stuff at her desk I get annoyed because she’s making me look bad. Here’s another photo of her, all happy to see me.
Seriously now.
One of my favourate authors is Kurt Vonnegot. I draw a lot of inspiration from his novels and short stories as a writer and generally as an artist. The way he writes is – he puts togather incidents and dialogs that seem random at first, but as the story progresses readers understand subtle moral lessons derived from those pieces of information. To understand how he writes, you gotta read an entire novel, but I got an excerpt from my favourate novel by him, Sirens of Titan, to give a little idea.
There was a crowd.
The crowd had gathered because there was to be a materialization. A man and his dog were going to materialize, were going to appear out of thin air—wispily at first, becoming, finally, as substantial as any man and dog alive.
The crowd wasn’t going to get to see the materialization. The materialization was strictly a private affair on private property, and the crowd was empthatically not invited to feast its eyes.
The materialization was going to take place, like a modern, civilized hanging, within high, blank, guarded walls. And the crowd outside the walls was very much like a crowd outside the walls at a hanging.
The crowd knew it wasn’t going to see anything, yet its members found pleasure in being near, in staring at the blank walls and imagining what was happening inside. The mysteries of the materialization, like the mysteries of a hanging, were enhanced by the wall; were made pornographic by the magic lantern slides of morbid imaginations—magic lantern slides projected by the crowd on the blank stone walls.
The town was Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.A., Earth, Solar System, Milky Way. The walls were those of the Rumfoord estate.
Ten minutes before the materialization was to take place, agents of the police spread the rumor that the materialization had happened prematurely, had happened outside the walls, and that the man and his dog could be seen plain as day two blocks away. The crowd galloped away to see the miracle at the intersection.
The crowd was crazy about miracles.
At the tail end of the crowd was a woman who weighed three hundred pounds. She had a goiter, a caramel apple, and a gray little six-year-old girl. She had the little girl by the hand and was jerking her this way and that, like a ball on the end of a rubber band. “Wanda June,” she said, “if you don’t start acting right, I’m never going to take you to a materialization again.”
Link to the rest
Bill
Songjiang Hotel, Songjiang, Shanghai, China
This stunning design is going to be a five-star resort hotel set within a beautiful water-filled quarry in the Songjiang district close to Shanghai in China. The way this hotel is integrated with the landscape is amazing. I like the waterfall is falling through the middle of the building. Martin Jochman, who led the design team, says, “We drew our inspiration from the quarry setting itself, adopting the image of a green hill cascading down the natural rock face as a series of terraced landscaped hanging gardens. In the centre, we have created a transparent glass ‘waterfall’ from a central vertical circulation atrium connecting the quarry base with the ground level. This replicates the natural waterfalls on the existing quarry face.”
source: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=766
Sarah
North House in setting up on the Mall in Washington at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon.
Michael
“With her series of wooden sculptures the German designer Judith Seng continues the research on conceptual surfaces. She explores the ideal of perfect surfaces by creating and destructing them within the same object. The upper parts of the pieces are perfectly high-glossy lacquered while the lower parts are roughly brushed. Thus the colour gradiant is a result of the changing structure of the surface.”
Matt
Diego Stocco is a “sound designer/composer” born in Italy, but now based out of Los Angeles due to his recognition for his radical sonic experiments that result in a wonderfully new and unique type of music – he records music with sounds from everything from sand to trees, drying racks to burning pianos, and even builds his own instruments to realize new sounds. One of the first videos I found that best introduces his style is his constucted “Experibass”; in his own words:
“Few weeks ago I visited a luthier looking for instruments parts, I had an idea in mind for an instrument I wanted to build. My curiosity was to hear the sound of violin, viola and cello strings amplified through the body of a double bass. I came up with a quadruple-neck experimental “something” that I thought to call Experibass. To play it I used cello and double bass bows, a little device I built with fishing line and hose clamps, a paintbrush, a fork, spoons, a kick drum pedal and a drum stick. I hope you’ll like it!”
I was blown away. If you’re into this stuff as much as I am, let me know if you can find any of his “Epic Textures” CD’s for download on the ‘net, I’d love to get a copy! In the meantime, take a look at Diego Stocco’s website for more AMAZING works!
Jason
This is the Jumeira garden that designed in Dubai. I think this contruction is very special. There are four sky bridges that connect the entire building, so it strengthen the interreaction among people that form different building.
Yvonne
The “Iceburg” Housing project is a housing complex in Denmark due for completion in 2010. It includes over 200 apartments and a variety of shops. The building was designed so that the canyons and peaks of the “Iceburgs” provide enough natural light and a waterfront view.
“”Iceberg” housing project by Julien de Smedt & CEBRA » Yanko Design.” Yanko Design – Modern Industrial Design News. http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/05/21/iceberg-living/ (accessed October 5, 2009).
Hussain
This is probably the best source for eye candy/ inspirational concept work. Bookmark this site> http://www.conceptart.org/
Kristen
Party Dress:
by Dana Rivers and Karla Karwas is a roving performance that is part living architecture: part monumental fashion. It functions as a pavilion worn exclusively by five women that seamlessly injects architecture into fashion by using the body as space.The dress begins as a shared, bustled garment that gradually unfolds to create a temporary, inhabitable structure. Each seam, each dress, and each body are interconnected by a single, amorphous surface of flowing material.
This is literally a “party dress” as this fabric evolves into a party within it!!!
http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/party-dress-dana-karla-karwas.html
Rotem
My favourate director has always been Terry Gilliam. The mind and force behind movies such as The 12 Monkeys, Baron Munchausen, Fisher King, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam is (in most cases) able to provide a unique vision, both in his narration and visual elemants (Gilliam used to be the animator of The Monty Python group and its members appear in many of his films). My favourate Gilliam movie, which is also my favourate movie in general, is Brazil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wh2b1eZFUM&feature=related
Note the set design in the quick flashes in this video. This is a movie that truly takes viewers to a different world, where even common things as computers and cars are not the same.
Bill
This so-called Lilypad Project has the idea to create a series of floating self-sufficient ocean-going eco-city islands. Each one would be able to house 50,000 residents and would support a great deal of biodiversity. Collecting pools located in their centers would gather and filter water for use on board. These would be places for adventurers and refugees alike as water levels rise around the world and threaten many, particularly island, habitats.
Personally, I think these kind of architecture is the way to the future as environmental issues are getting more serious. People need to find ways to design architecture that not only does not damage the nature, but also protect or even help to create nature. A project like this creates a whole ecosystem within itself would be really ideal.
Sarah
Food to go!
Michael
The Livraria da Vila is the result of the refurbishment of a two-story house, built on a very narrow plot in São Paulo. The bookshelves actually rotate and act as doors.
Matt
I stumbled across this image in the archives on my computer recently:
Reminded me of the struggle of decoding the concepts behind our buildings – what may be apparently obvious, may be the wrong conclusion.
Jason
This is Shanghai China the place where I come from. The reason why I post these photos is that I want invite my hometome to you. Also, give you a sense what the architecture looks like out of Canada. The city is combined with modern architecture and old fashioned building.
Yvonne
Let me introduce you to the “Ultra Modern House on the Water”. Is is in Navagio Beach on the Greek Zante island. It is completly eco friendly and based on alternative sources of energy, such as water desalination and recycling, tidal and solar energy systems. The orientation, which seems to defy gravity was developed this way to maximize the use of solar energy!!
“Design Modern Villa – Interior Design Ideas, Architecture, Photos Gallery – HomeHouseDesign.Com.” Interior Design Ideas, Architecture, Pictures and Photos Gallery – HomeHouseDesign.Com. 12 Oct. 2009 <http://www.homehousedesign
Hussain
Hope you guys had a chance to check out the third year pavillion projects. My fave was the first gigantic one. This “Evolver” project was designed by second year Arch students- much like the pavillion project it is very site specific, temporary and experiential except its a helluva lot cooler.
read more here ->http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=92648_0_23_0_M
Kristen
During my thanksgiving holiday back home I went on a tour of a sustainable home. Now this was not any regular sustainable home, but one designed and built as a regular/everyday residential house. I was able to see some of the new technologies placed in situations where the objective was to implement these new energy efficient materials into houses that both you and I could live in (while incorporating affordable costs). The tour was very inspiring and I was able to apply alot of the knowledge I have learned about my Solar Umbrella House to a real life situation. It was cool to see first hand how we can be more ‘green’ ourselves in our own homes. Some features include:
-The upper structure is not made with traditional roof trusses that you normally see as part of the roof. They use beams (slightly more expensive) with foam insulated fibre board, which has enough structural rigidity that trusses are not needed (and that represents a cost saving, and environmental saving – less wood). It also creates more open or utilizable space that would otherwise be wasted (our entire attic at home is in essence wasted space.
-The roof is flat and allows rainwater from the upper roof to be directed to a small garden (either flowers or herbs) on top of the garage roof. This insulates the garage from extreme summer heat. Excess water from the roof is drained and directed to a cistern.
-The foundations were not poured concrete, but were made with Durisol insulated concrete forms, made from cement-bonded wood fiber material that has only natural ingredients. It is composed of specially graded recycled waste wood (100% clean, natural softwood lumber). This wood is first chipped into a wood fiber. It is then mineralized and bonded together with Portland cement. This Durisol material is then molded into large blocks. Thermal insulating mass effects are maximized by positioning the insulated material towards the exterior, resulting in additional insulating energy efficiency that is not possible with other types of insulated concrete forms. R values range between R-14 and R-28.
-One of the houses has a different type of solar panels installed on the roof. They are not the traditional glass panels, but these are ones where the panels actually form part of the roof membrane. They are a frameless, flat roof membrane that is lightweight but waterproof. A small air space under the panels allow air to circulate behind the panels to help keep them cool in the very hot summer months since the efficiency of the panels decrease in extreme heat. The other thing they mentioned for which I have no photos is that the windows are glazed and treated, but they have different treatments depending on their exposure. In other words, South facing windows may be triple pane, e-glazed with Argon or Krypton gas, while North facing windows are not glazed at all to allow maximum light transfer.
Please explore the site to see some of the features of these houses.
Rotem
As everyone in the school knows, last Friday was the “Feast” event with the 3rd years’ pavilions. Apart from the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed it, something very interesting happened toward the end of the night, well after the crits were over. One of the pavilions, a wooden frame suspended in the air from two trees with stacks of reeds hanged from the frame to create an interior, had an accident in it and a large flame burnt some of the ropes holding the reeds. About 10-20 of those stacks fell randomly on the earth, turning an orgenized space into a mess.
One of the students who was there to witness the flame called it poetic, and he and everyone kept laughing. It was fantastic.
This just goes to show how Architecture cannot always be planned in advance. Maybe this is what Josep acebillo (Cheif Architect of Barcelona) meant in his lecture when he said “The project must be primed before the plan”, that doing is more important than planning. A few hours before “Feast” started the students incharge of the suspended pavilion hung strings from its roof to guide the drainage coming from the cloth ceiling. The effect was lines of water running diagnolly through the interior. The “renovating” fire changed the space without any human intent and the strings came as a last minute solution to a problem, but both happened quickly and left their mark on the project.
Impressionist architecture
Bill
These are some amazing works cut out of paper. It’s really interesting how these simple paper-cut works create visual depth and illusions of space. I think it is similar to what we have done in first year drawing course. Sometimes we can just use something very simple to achieve something extraordinary. Sometimes just paying attension to details can lead to something that might have a very big impact on others. So by keeping this in mind, it will definitely help us sometime in the future.
Sarah
Michael
Alex Dragulescu’s “Spam Architecture” project designs virtual houses by mapping the content of incoming spam to structural and decorative elements: “he images from the Spam Architecture series are generated by a computer program that accepts as input, junk email. Various patterns, keywords and rhythms found in the text are translated into three-dimensional modeling gestures.” Click for more pictures
Matt
“For three weeks in October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy will host the Solar Decathlon—a competition in which 20 teams of college and university students compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. The Solar Decathlon is also an event to which the public is invited to observe the powerful combination of solar energy, energy efficiency, and the best in home design.” (read more)
I came across this year’s winner on Inhabitat, a design site that I stumbled upon a few weeks ago (there’s just so many out there). Kind of interesting to look at other design projects during our own investigations into residential works. Check out the 2009 winner of the decathalon, Germany:
(Kristen – I’m interested to see if there are any parallels with your Solar Umbrella House …)
Jason
The buidlings are all built in very “special” places, I think the inspiration to building itself is critical, however the inspiration to the spot is inportant as well.
Yvonne
My inspiration today is is more a series of related buildings. The churches that are below are “modern churches”. They dont follow the typical look for a Church.
“Unique Church | Ocean Banana.” Ocean Banana. http://oceanbanana.com/?tag=unique-church (accessed October 19, 2009).
Hussain
Kristen
This is one project I investigated last year with my program “archive of lost negatives”.
The Brother Claus Field Chapel is located in Mechernich near Cologne, Germany. The Chapel, dedicated to the holy Niklaus von Fluehe and built by local farmers on the edge of a field. Zumthor used a technique called “rammed concrete” where farmers poured a layer of concrete over a teepee of timber every day for 24 days, leaving a texture similar to that of rammed earth. The timber was then burnt out by colliers, using the same process as making charcoal, leaving a charred inside. An oculus at the top is open to the sky letting in rain and light. Filtered light also enters through holes in the walls.
Imprint of the trees is left leaving the walls to serve as a memory of what once was. The negatives of the trees make up the postive wall of the space.
Rotem
I think my inspiration for this week is disease. I have been quite congested in the past few days, dizzy, and disgusted with my body in general. My mind went into “ill” state and everything is slower, more agressive, and I get tired really really fast.
With that I went through what must have been the most creative part of this assignment. I think it’s safe to say that my drawings look “sick”. Maybe I’m taking too much from that video we saw about Tadao Ando, but I feel like I’m fighting with my drawings. And I love the result, for some reason, it seems like a little victory every time. When I finish (or at least let go of) a drawing, I feel sick and tired and happy and frustrated that I have to start another one and at the same time happy about that as well.
Making art when you’re sick – gotta try it.
Bill
Architects LAVA have created an installation called ‘Green Void’ in the central atrium of Customs House in Sydney, Australia.
Some more information from LAVA:
“A spectacular architectural installation of green Lycra inspired by the geometries of plants, spider webs and soap bubbles has taken over five levels of the central atrium of Customs House in Sydney, Australia ….Green Void is a 20‐metre high, suspended site‐specific installation by international group LAVA, using the latest digital fabrication and engineering techniques. The potential for naturally evolving systems such as snowflakes, spider webs and soap bubbles for new building typologies and structures has continued to fascinate LAVA- the geometries in nature create both efficiency and beauty. Their luxury residential tower for Michael Schumacher in Abu Dhabi which starts construction later this year, for example, is based on the design of a snowflake. Green Void, based on minimal surface tension, consists of a tensioned Lycra material, digitally patterned and custom‐tailored for the space. They wanted to see how far they could take the idea of creating more space with less material, filling 3000 cubic metres, the equivalent of 8 million cola cans, with a minimal surface of 300 square metres and weighing only 40 kilograms.”
Studio 2, Fall 2009 
Matt, I think you’re cheating :P
Your Week 5 is the same event as my Week 3.
This architecture designs are so amazing i like them so much .