Niemeyer in Ravello

[...] It's not the right angle that attracts me, and not even the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the sensual free curve, the curve that I meet in the mountains of my country, in the preferred woman, in the clouds of the sky and in the waves of the sea.

Oscar Niemeyer

Zaha's House of Culture

The King Abdullah II House of Culture & Arts by architect Zaha Hadid

on the boards: xixi wetland art museum

The Xixi Wetland Art Museum is proposed for a site in a rural nature preserve just outside of Hangzhou, China. The architects Studio Pei Zhu derived the concept from the naturally occurring shelter that is created when leaves fall to the ground.

house of the week 58: East Windsor Residence

East Windsor residence by Texas based architects Alterstudio

on the boards: Aquatic Recreational Centre

A new 47,000m² aquatic centre is to be built along the banks of the Anning River in China. The proposal by California based architects Studio Shift seeks to re-envision the existing hydroelectric dam by creating new model for recreational tourism whilst incorporating public amenities.

on the boards: the Circle

A proposal by the Japanese architectural firm Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop has been selected for the Circle - a development area adjacent to the Zurich airport. The 37,000 m² crescent-shaped project upscale development complex is within walking distance of the terminals.

on the boards: Into the sea

A hotel in Da Nang, Vietnam plans to extend into the sea. The proposal by U:phoria architecture + design will afford residents to enjoy completely unobstructed views of the sea whilst the natural coastline can remain minimally unaffected.

blog wunderlust : 22 February 2010

passionate about architecture | structural integrity and people too | containers could help | city in a suitcase | Tafoni floating homes | objectum sexuality | the work of a genius | amazing prefab | greenest neighbourhood | weird apartments and floating houses | the life of an architect | kings kongs of architecture | out of necessity

2nd Latin American Architecture Symposium
The Centre Pompidou-Metz by Shigeru Ban via Archidose

Architecture begins where engineering ends

Walter Gropius

Ron Arad - Restless

Ron Arad: Restless - "When we got here it was full of sewing machines" from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Eva Jirnica

Architect Eva Jiricna talks about her move to London in the 1960’s and her big break on the Lloyds building. Filmed by Dezeen for the Design Museum in London

on the boards: Elliptical City, Dominican Republic

Bernard Tschumi Architects have designed a new master plan proposed for a heavily vegetated site just outside of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The Elliptical City project aims to merge nature and finance in a flexible landscape of buildings and gardens that can accommodate up to 30,000 people on the near 8000 acre site.

on the boards: Low2No

Proposal for the first carbon neutral district in Finland by the Berlin based architects and urban planners Sauerbruch Hutton

more

A House in Luanda

The Lisbon Architecture Triennale is hosting an International Competition: A House in Luanda: Patio & Pavilion. The aim of the competition is to design a single family dwelling that is radically cheap to build and that is suited to the cultural, economic and social circumstances of the area of Luanda, a city which is undergoing an intense process of transformation.

on the boards: Housing Tomorrow

d3 has announced the winners of the Housing Tomorrow design competition. The competition called for transformative solutions that advance sustainable thought, building performance, and social interaction through research and study of environmental geometries, social behaviors, urban implications, and programmatic flows.

previous

on the boards: Youth & Women's Leadership Centre

Proposed for a site in Santa Cruz, Rio de Janiero, Brazil the Youth & Women's Leadership Centre by Cassio Orlandi Sauer & Elisa Toschi Martins aims to provide an open space, community meeting point and a place to inspire sport practices. The design captures the local identity, by the use of familiar materials and local labor, affording a cheap, simple and emblematic design.

The proposal was a finalist in the Homeless World Cup Legacy Centre hosted by Architecture for Humanity

house of the week 57: House in Lubienica

A private residence in Lubienica, a small town outside of Warsaw, Poland designed by architects APA Kuryłowicz & Associates

Camera Obscura

FAR architects (Marc Frohn & Mario Rojas) have proposed an exhibition to be held at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Guggenheim Museum in New York. Called Camera Obscura the design aims to continue the void of the spiral space onto infinity capturing the movements of birds, planes, satellites and stars traversing the space.

Green Shed Design Competition

Pandora Park Community Garden Society is hosting an international design competition to design a Green Shed. The competition is open to student and professional architects, landscape architects, builders, engineers, gardeners and designers of all kinds. The goal of this international competition is to generate buildable designs for a storage shed and outdoor common space for a new community garden that will showcase sustainable building strategies and materials.

The winning design will be built by a team of volunteers over the summers of 2010.

blog wunderlust : 15 February 2010

England's most hated building to be demolished | Zaha plays Bach | cancer & housing | disaster-proof house | man in a box | how much does your building weigh? | Shigeru Ban interview & a store made of cardboard | new lamp by David Chipperfield | 50 years of Architecture in London | wee, made of straw bale, and awesome? | built to wear

what a little ambition and community involvement can do, the Gando Primary School by Diébédo Francis Kéré and recipient of the 2004 Aga Khan Award for Architecture

Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consummated by a collectivity in a state of distraction.

Walter Benjamin

Studio Banana Tv ::: Carlos Arroyo

Studio Banana interviews architect Carlos Arroyo

TED talks ::: Joshua Prince-Ramus

on the boards: Latvian Pavilion (Shanghai Expo)

The façade, composed of 100,000 multi-coloured transparent plates, will sparkle and sway in the wind, generating a dynamic, kinetic effect. Designed for the 2010 Shanghai Exposition by Mailītis A.I.I.M, the Latvian Pavilion will also feature wind turbines located on the roof that will project a professional team of flying acrobats 20 metres into the night sky.

on the boards: Public Library, San Cristóbal

The San Cristóbal Public Library by the Colombian based architects Paisajes Emergentes is designed to follow the natural slope of the land, fragmenting to form an open-air interior or great public street. A system of green patios with humid tropical vegetation articulates the spaces for reading and studying.

on the boards: Palacio de Congresos Lanzarote

The renowned Danish architectural company Henning Larsen Architects have been awarded first place in an international design competition for a new 15,000 m² concert and congress hall in Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands.

house of the week 56:Studio-House in Acorán

Urbano Yanes Tuna & Juan Antonio González Pérez of gpy architects designed this studio-house on a steep site in an Acorán housing estate in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The living areas located at the higher levels with slots and voids punctured into the angular white façade to orient views.

also take a gander on this house in Marseille, France by architects Claire Helene Drouin and Jean Marie Sanchez made from 15 shipping containers

blog wunderlust : 08 February 2010

urban sprawl repair kit | the farmer that wanted to be king | AFH responds to Haiti | a miniature forest | more about empty Beijing architecture | who would want to be an architecture student? | material girl's eco school in Malawi | 5 examples of stylish housing projects | 2009 design winners | 1:1 architects build small spaces | house moving

When a building is as good as that one, fuck the art.

Philip Johnson (reference to the Bilbao Guggenheim by Frank Gehry)

Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito

sendai mediatheque by Toyo Ito from Luisa Mendez on Vimeo.

master of bamboo: Simon Velez

Living Architectures ::: Xmas Meier

A trailer for one of the films in the Living Architectures series called Xmas Meier by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine

on the boards: Energy Neutral Portable Classroom

The Energy Neutral Portable Classroom designed by Anderson Anderson Architecture, provides an optimized educational facility whilst conserving, collecting and generating natural resources, including electrical and wind energy, natural lighting, and rainwater.

on the boards: Ecological Resort, Dominica

The resort aims to create a dialogue with Dominica's lush natural coastline; the architects BURO II, strengthened the relationship further by mimicking the terrain of the site, integrating garden walls, and the use of sustainable materials.

on the boards: Solar Orchard

The challenge for the project was to combine a tourist resort with a photovoltaic solar plant for a proposed site in Izola, the sunniest place in Slovenia. The hybridised landscape designed by Mi5 architects, celebrates the act of solar hedonism whilst embodying the layout of a typical solar plan.

house of the week 055: Talo Kekkapaa

Located in the rural district of Espoo, northern Finland, lies the 400 m² residence Talo Kekkapaa which translated means wood in rock. Designed in harmony with the forested area and the existing scale; Pook architects has produced a contemporary but respectful solution.

Also take a look at the proposal for Bascombe Bungalows, an urban duplex in Barbados designed by archipalego.

blog wunderlust : 01 February 2010

best architecture of the decade - the mammoth edition | Hanover 2000 Expo ten years later | the furniture of death | did architects fail Haiti? | Nakatomi Place or "lessons in the inappropriate use of architecture" | best new blogs of 2009 | on the architect's bookshelf | architectural sweets | top 50 travel spots for architecture buffs | Switzerland, we have a problem, finale

some more links: some landscapes | Wallpaper interactive floor plan of the Capilla del Retiro, Chile | An integrated film/walk-through by Brooklyn Digital Foundry for Droog Design by Atelier Bow-Wow | and architects are apparently excited about the release of the iPad

Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.

Frank Gehry

The blog wunderlust is a weekly round up summarizing the architectural highlights, news and web links, that don't otherwise fit the format of this blog. If you have any to share feel free to drop me an email