Last Call for Planet Earth

A film recently premired in Belgium offered twelve highly renowned architects the opportunity to express themselves about the means they have implemented towards more sustainable practice. The architects include Françoise-Hélène Jourda, Thom Mayne, Massimiliano Fuksas, Kengo Kuma, Qingyun Ma among others.

View more at the Last Call for Planet Earth website.

AJ Small Projects Award

Entries are being sought for the Rambøll Whitbybird sponsored 2008 Architect's Journal Small Projects Award. Short listed projects will be published in the January issue of the AJ and displayed with a short description. All projects entered must be have been completed between the 1st November 2006 to 2007 and with a total value of less that £250,000. All projects must be unpublished and the deadline is Friday 2nd November 2007.

Old Havana wins the UN World Habitat award, and with it are seeking to restore the city lost in the time. More via the BSHF website.

Following the success of this summer's movie Transformers.... the Push Button House
by Adam Kalkin. The fully furnished space opens like a flower completely revealing a functional living room. The container has motorized walls that on a button reveals an elegant all white space or closes for easy and conventional transportation.

see video

Home + Office

Who says you can't find high design in the suburbs? This home and office for a small advertising agency features an interesting response to the pitched roof context of surrounding buildings whilst marrying a design where natural light plays a central role. Daylighting streams through the all white interior from a series of roof lights positioned to capture the Northern sun. The exterior of the mixed-use building is limited to glass and timber cladding on the walls and the roof. LINQ home + office by NU Architecture Atelier

From the portfolio of Aaron Tang a proposal for a staircase made of simple mechanical hinges and pistons, that folds flush against the wall to allow easier access a lower space.

thanks Sticky

The hall house by architects Alphaville (Kentaro Takeguchi + Asako Yamamoto).

Do you remember that previous post...no one could figure?
It was about a live-studio with a hand painted mural on the building's black exterior, turns out its by Klein Dytham (of Pecha Kucha fame). The project is called the Sen-Den

many thanks Martin

1/4 million visits later...

Another architechnophilia milestone has been reached...250,000 visits!!

these are unique visits as the counter records only IP addresses

the other library in Seattle

The Douglass-Truth branch of the Seattle Public Library has recently been expanded by Schacht Aslani Architects combining historic and contemporary architecture. The design creates a striking composition with its sculptural copper shape in contrast to the landmark 1914 building. Previously an icon of the city’s Jewish neighborhood, the museum today sits in the center of Seattle's African American community and also houses the Northwest's largest collection of black literature.

The first proposal for a new £20m Filmhouse Centre dubbed the Sean Connery Filmhouse, for the International Film Festival and Scottish Screen Industries by Richard Murphy Architects. The brief allows for a roof top restaurant and terrace, offices for the festival and filmhouse, lettable space, a main auditorium with a 600 seat capacity and four smaller auditorium spaces. The placement of the building gives a fulcrum to the Festival Square whilst framing the entrance of the neighbouring hotel and is roughly on axis with opposing Cambridge Street.

The best archi-blogs of 2007

Part IV has created an opinion poll on their favourite architectural blogs of 2007. Show your support by voting

Metabolism is dead!

Japanese architect, Kisho Kurokawa passed away last week at the age of 73. Kurokawa was a leading proponent of the Metabolists - a group of architects following the modernists traditions of CIAM and Team X with aims to construct (Japanese) cities with large scale and immensely flexible structures that responded to their balooning population growth

serpentine gallery

Photos of the recently completed 2007 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designed by award-winning Norwegian architect Kjetil Thorsen of the architectural practice Snøhetta, and the internationally acclaimed artist Olafur Eliasson

Casa Kike

A tropical retreat in Costa Rica by Gianni Botsford. The architects aimed with this project to create an architecture of local adaptation; to climate, environment and culture. Casa Kike located on a beach lot facing the Caribbean Sea for the architect's father - a writer and his extensive library of books.

The design is a response to the tropical environment and the local culture, built using available materials and construction techniques. The distinctive roof shape, seamlessly rising from the walls, maps the path of the sun keeping the glazed elevations in shade.

The house is raised slightly off the ground and is comprised of two pavilions connected by a elevated walkway. Spatially the buildings serve the day and night time uses, a separation of public and private - one for work or leisure, the other more intimate containing a master suite. Nature prevails in this jungle respite for the writer, with its shape and minimal footprint offering an ode to the environment

Stroh Haus

This experimental house in Switzerland by architect, Felix Jerusalem, is constructed generally of compressed strawbale, as the principle structure for the external walls and as a sound/barrier insulation for the interior. The exterior is finished with translucent sheeting with a composite green tint both protecting from the elements and revealing the strawbale underneath.

also check out SSD proposal for the Czech Library competition recently awarded to Future Systems

Although similar to typical pre-fab systems, this prototype is comprised of steel and concrete from Boston's Big Dig, utilizing over 600,000 lbs of salvaged materials. The house, by Cambridge based architects Single Speed Design, demonstrates an untapped potential from the public realm: trash!

LEGO Towers by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

see also todays feature on archinect with an interview with the architects' principal

the way we work

The design & construction weblog (MAKE) of Front Office Tokyo - Architects shows a series of images of the design intent of a small renovation project called the Tomigaya House.

The image featured struck me as being bargain contextual

Peter Eisenman's City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela, Spain is featured in this week's Build it Bigger on Discovery Channel

image via arspace

This stackable housing unit, by Lateral Architects, allows prospective buyers to select the location, and means of support for the A.I.R. unit (hung, cantilevered, suspended, etc). Each basic unit is also designed to provide 75% off-grid power.

An interesting photo series at City of Sound of the staircase at the University of Sydney