no vacancy | a denser solution for Kingston | the art of death | learning from architecture | look at what you eat | An architect's wit | Bondi Blue turns 10 | Gulf Architecture: A Tale of 3 Cities | the art of death II |

blog wunderlust: 06 May 2008

sleep with old Blue Eyes | misery | green think urbanism | the biological growth of cities | Working with Le Corbusier | modern retreats | daily dose: Chamber Orchestra of Cascais | from blog to books: first Bldg Blg now Apartment Therapy | airstream delight | skin architecture

10 x 10

Silvio Rech 10x10 South Africa Sketch Proposal

I can't help thinking that the way new architecture is being published internationally—so fast that you can see the same things simultaneously in every country—makes it more difficult for younger architects to take their time to find their own way of expression

- Raili Pietil

Breaking the Modernist Mold

Green buildings & infrastructure are ½ the Solution, help to enlist the ingenuity of green professionals to solve the other ½: making green lifestyles just as convenient as grey lifestyles.

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eco-cities
eco-buildings
eco-contractors
eco-celebrities

Holiday Tips for Architects

1. Several months before the proposed holidau, make sure all vacational qualifications are in order. Prepare an Architects Schedule of Holiday and get it checked by your insurers before submission to family members for approval.

2. Consultation (with Brochures) should be carried out in a professional manner. Liability should be limited excluding:
- any destination lacking items of verifiable architectural interest
- anywhere unrecognised by the Archi-Tourist
- anywhere recently bombed by the US, unless a "working holiday" is planned.

3. SOle vacationers are reminded that speculative holidays are undertaken at the discretion of the architect, and may not necessarily result in remuneration

4. Architects unable to take a holiday are advised to find a reliable sole practitioner who is prepare to as a a holiday locum eg. sending pre-signed postcards and sub-contracting mild forms of gastric flu.

5. Before deaparture remember to cancel newspapers, milk and dress sense.

6. Upon arrival at the hotel, inform staff and other guests of your occupation. This will allow them time to prepare for intelligent discourse in the dining room.

7. If self-catering, remind family members of your occupation in order to secure and maintain control of the daily itinery

8. If holidaying alone, remind yourself of your occupation by looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror in an urbane manner.

9. Once you've unpacked, start sketching immediately. If it is too dark to sketch landscape, simply sketch everything you've unpacked.

10. If holidaying in the UK, wake up two hours earlier than your partner and secretly study the local volume of Pevsner's The Buildings of Britain. Leave in a hurry after breakfast and "forget" to bring it with you. During the day, offer spotaneous insights into every building you "stumble across." Later, over dinner, you can both check in Pevsner to see if you were right!

11. Seek out local exhibitions of art, examine each piece carefully, maintain a enigmatic aura, leave without saying anything to anyone.

12. When setting up your easel at a popular beauty spot make sure your professional accreditation is clearly visible, so passers-by know whom they're dealing with.

13. Wear appropriate clothing. Tips for men: novelty blouson, khaki shorts with lots of pockets, knee-length socks. Women: fluourscent headband, 50s cotton print dress, hiking boots.

14. When in Italy, do spend hours taking a single photograph because, "I wait for the right kind of light, my friend." Say it in Italian, its charming.

15. When settling a restaurant bill, scribble a vivacious "urban scene" with your fountain pen next to your signature. It will delight the staff, and may be left in lieu of a tip.

16. Audit all boat trips, guided tours and areas of outstanding natural beauty for sustainability and WC provision

17. When camping, enunciate

18. If planning time on the beach, calculate the projected sweep of the sun with an electronic sextant before erecting a self-designed polymer parasol.

19. Do not arrive too early when catching a train/plane/coach or boat. Remember, you are an architect. It will not leave without you.

20. On return, be aware that everyone you know, however slightly, will be keen to see slides. Those unable to attend the official slide show should be sent a full set of images as email attachments. Do not comprimise your professional standing by over-compressing them. Each is a defining moment and is worth at least 2.5Mb.

I found this previously and had to share

Guerrilla Gardening 101

Guerrilla Gardening is political act - a form of non-violent action, towards issues of land rights, land reform, and permaculture where its activists recover abandoned lands for growing flowers, crops or plants.

Scattering seeds is the easiest way to guerrilla garden—just toss them and some will live and flourish, whilst others won’t. They just need to land in favourable growing conditions. You can even do it while driving.

It can be considered eco-graffiti for a green generation, being adopted even by multi-national coporations

A handbook
more via Wikipedia and Primal Seeds

blog wunderlust: 28 April 2008

Zaha's Chanel Container | One month to get ready | book review: 50/60/70 | Architecture + Fashion: an exhibition | guest editing: a guide from A to Z | book review: Element | Everyday Origami

the return of Nigel Coates | Blue Sky on Canal Street | One minute carbon calculator | funky stairs | Milan canopy | happy belated Earth day | Paper Spiral Island lamps by David Trubridge | Futuristic LEGO city | Unravelling the spaghetti | the slow home: a ten step process via arktek

Building Columbia Street by Triptyque

Another...Inconvenient Truth

Another Inconvenient Truth Slideshow in 2 Minutes from George Spyros on Vimeo.

ikea trains

As part of their global embrace, IKEA the lifestyle giant has begun fitting out train cars in Kobe, Japan.

more here

Lost City in the Woods | Exotic Urbanism | Pop-ups for adults | reinventing the cul-de-sac: honeycomb | Cooking for Engineers and what about architects | Lebbeus bashes the big prize | Leo buys green | I wanted to be an architect | anime-tecture | Libeskind is a hypocrite | Maya Lin to honour extinction flora & fauna |

David Chipperfield wins competition for an arts quarter masterplan in Spain

blog wunderlust: 07 April 2008

This week

Bilbao 12 | Design is dead - Starck | blog: a456 | slagging starchitects | landscape blog: Pruned | Eiffel's April Fool | Abolition of architects in Africa | good food | Prefab offices for the home | phayung - hate fakeness and doesnt like reality | What I am reading | Interview with Andrew Maynard re: Suburban eating Robots |

finally...

French architect Jean Nouvel has become the 2008 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate. His practice Ateliers Jean Nouvel is often associated with the Institut du Monde Arabe, the Foundation Cartier, and more recently the Reina Sofia in Madrid and the Le Musée du Quai Branly in Paris. He's the first, actually the second, French architect to win the award.

Anadyr Cultural Center

The facade faces the Black Sea, and is designed to withstand the harsh winds. The brief for the building desired it to be an internationally recognisable symbol for Russian culture. By Erginoglu & Calislar Architects

10 years ago, Rem Koolhaas created the Maison à Bordeaux a mechanically alluring houses. The house is a wonder of engineering with moving walls, lifting bedrooms, platforms and automated windows designed to allow complete free movements to its owner, a man who bound to a wheelchair after a near-fatal car accident. Now captured in a film by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, Koolhass Houselife is showing across America - part monograph, part science fiction.

Capilla San Peregrino Lago Pollux

Capilla San Peregrino Lago Pollux
Originally uploaded by Gu¡lle.