House of the Week 63: Shodan House

The Shodan House completed in 1956 in Ahmedabad, Northern India. The architect, Le Corbusier sought to marry climate and culture, tradition and modernism in the design of the house. The result both protects the occupants from the environment whilst creating an architecture that reveals the world.

Every now and then you have to show a classic.

blog wunderlust : 29 March 2010

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

The delicate beauty of the desert landscape | Cube Houses Hostel | mobile homeless shelters | 6 out of 10 unapproved | prison in Kenya constructs wetlands | jewelry from leftover scraps of buildings | arch-ninja interviews Natalie de Vries of MVRDV | apple's architect | how to fit a house & a garage in 2000 stylish sq ft | women architects: f'ing cool | Bilbao Effect - the play

Works of art must always be a reflection of their time

Otto Wagner

SANAA for the win... sorry Holl

Architects Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of Japan have become the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureates. The couple's practice, SANAA is often associated with such international projects such as the the Kunstline Theatre + Cultural Centre in the Netherlands and the Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland. Perhaps their most recognisable work is the glass pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art, with it's refined composition of lightness and transparency physically mirroring the context and inviting the viewer within. Sejima and Nishizawa are the second duo to be awarded the Pritzker and the 3rd 4th award for Japan (previously Ando, Tange & Maki).

The Pritzker Architecture Prize is the highest professional honour, bestowed on a living architect and represents an accolade of a body of work and it's contribution to the field of architecture.
see the media kit photos here

Who will win??

Fast Company lays their predictions for who will walk away with this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize to be announced tomorrow. Obviously following suit - our own polls and predictions (see side bar), they have New York based Architect Steven Holl as the front runner though would love to see Cameron Sinclair/ Architecture for Humanity steal the show.

Bonsai City

A contribution to an exhibition on urban visions in Stuttgart at the Kunstbezirk from the 12th March.

Feltrinelli Foundation

the Feltrinelli Foundation by Architects Herzog & de Meuron via ArchDaily

everyone deserves a roof

Short clip about the founding of EDAR (everyone deserves a roof) previously mentioned back in February 09, a mobile shelter solution for the homeless.

Lost in the Aughts

Lost in the Aughts from curbed Los Angeles a series of West coast mid century modernist icons destroyed in the 2000s

top 40

We received an email this morning saying we've been included in the Top 40 Architecture Blogs with some notable company (Dezeen, BLDGBLG, etc). Thanks everyone - you make this possible.

on the boards: Freegreen Homes

Twelve finalists have been chosen for the Freegreen competition that saw designers from all over the world submitting proposal for affordable green homes available for free online. Take a look at Inhabitat's picks or look through all the competition entries

on the boards: Johannisstraße Apartments

The apartments proposed for a site in Johannisstraße in Mitte, Berlin by architects J Mayer H will have a gill-like façade to allow privacy meanwhile suggesting a historical reference to the ornate elevations of the Wilhelminian period.

house of the week 62: Great Bamboo Wall

This sedate and minimal residence designed by Japanese architects Kengo Kuma & Associates for a site in mainland China evokes the layered translucency of a forest simultaneously filtering the surrounding environment.

on the boards: Container City for Haiti

A Container City project has just been given building approval to be built in the Dominican Republic designed by Richard Moreta, the proposal is to be made from a modular construction system incorporated with recycled shipping containers, to supply housing for victims of the earthquake.

blog wunderlust : 22 March 2010

HdM model for sale | adopt a future architect | learning from CCTV and TVCC to be resurrected | Who's Next housing competition | a chair by Pharrell & a vase by Fuksas | scaling Gehry's toxic fish | LEED in Trinidad | disturbance at the Hejduk house | container tanker living | How to stop buildings becoming killers in disasters | Inspired By The Natural World

Buildings and cities provide the horizon for the understanding and confronting of the human existential condition. Instead of creating more objects of visual seduction, architecture relates, mediates and projects meanings. The ultimate meaning of any building is beyond architecture; it directs our consciousness back to the world and towards our own sense of self and being. Significant Architecture makes us experience ourselves as complete embodied and spiritual beings.

Juhani Pallasmaa

Mandilee Newton was a classmate at the Caribbean School of Architecture

Mini-Metrò, Italy

The Mini-Metrò in Perugia, Italy by Architect Jean Nouvel

Louis Sullivan Documentary

Whitecap Films presents Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture an upcoming feature-length documentary that tells the story of the revolutionary Chicago architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), his rapid rise to fame, tragic decline, and one man's lonely crusade fifty years later to save Sullivan's work from total destruction. Set for completion in late 2010
more

on the boards: Oslo Library

Competition entry for the Deichman Public Library for a site in Oslo, Norway by Belgian architects XDGA (Xaveer de Geyter). Aside from 25,000m² of programme for the library the architects had to reconcile an additional 45,000m² of plaza space adjoining the new Snøhetta designed Opera House.

on the boards: 36 the Calls

A competition entry for the 36 the Calls competition by Italian architect Davide Marchetti features a punctuated rammed earth façade creating a strong visual identity. more

house of the week 61: Slice House

The lot, a former street, is long and narrow; the scheme designed by London based architects Procter Rihl created novel sequences to maximize the site. The spaces of the house intersect creating innovative perspectives towards the internal courtyard and a swimming pool seeming floating, though structured by the walls on either side.

blog wunderlust : 15 March 2010

evolution of the hipsters and does modern architecture make us unhappy? | Historic Falmouth buildings soon to be restored | how green is my mansion? | world's largest house of cards | Europan for the UK | controversial architect barred by the city | Star Wars on Earth | the spectacle of fashion | the treehugging architect | award for the best design film |

To build is to create events

Walter Gropius

Place de la République

Competition entry for the Place de la République Josep Lluis Mateo (Mateo Architects)

Studio Banana TV: Fishermen Storage

Studio Banana TV features the fishermen storage in Cangas, Galicia, Spain, by Spanish architects Irisarri-Piñera.

on the boards: Gembloux Town Hall

In Gembloux, a small city of 22,600 inhabitants en-route between Bruxelles and Namur in Belgium architecture studio Demogo has designed a new Town Hall. A Winner of the Europan 10 Architecture Competition, the scheme is born from the wish to emphasize the symbols of the city of Gembloux particularly a series of UNESCO listed belfries.

on the boards: Old-Berchem Police Station

Architects JDS have been awarded 1st prize in an invited competition to design a police department in the heart of Old-Berchem, Antwerp, Belgium. The building as developed contains a public reception area, offices and a parking space. Construction is expected to begin in late 2010.

Melitopol 2010 Master Class

Stadslab, a postgraduate programme in the Netherlands is offering a Master Class in the Ukrainian city of Melitopol supervised by Beatriz Ramo, of STAR strategies + architecture & Swiss landscape architect Anouk Vogel. The programme will aim to develop new ideas for the Gorky Park into a culturally relevant area for its diverse population. Additionally the park should be commercially viable and to attract part of the 40,000 tourists per day who now bypass the city on their way to the Crimean coast.

on the boards:life of the ocean

A proposal by Dutch practice MVRDV for the 2012 World Fair in Yeosu, Korea. The façades and the hollowed interior of the cube are intended to evoke the theme of the pavilion, Life of the Ocean.

House of the Week 60: Les Aventuriers

Perched on a hillside in the Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan is a single family house by Shun Hirayama Architecture. Considering the slope of the land the form of the residence is made up of composed volumes which are connected through tight and angled accesses, bridges and corridors, shaped to fit the landforms.

blog wunderlust: 08 March 2010

Santiago stands firm | the pleasure of looking at other architect's work | I hate rendering | the Amazing Architecture Race | nest home | building Rome in a day | local area networks | rehashed vitrahaus? | readings: the digital city | World's Greenest Skyscraper planned for China | after you left | Prefab mansions | floating islands for the Maldives |

The body is implied not just in architecture, but in sculpture, generally. You understand a sculpture viscerally. You compare it, psychologically, by the scale of your own body

Diana Al-Hadid

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

Ole walks

Last week bdonline announced that Beijing based architect Ole Scheeren has left the international practice Office of Metropolitian Architecture (OMA) the influential firm started by Rem Koolhaas in the 1970s. Scheeren was a partner of OMA and headed the Beijing office where he oversaw the development of projects such as the CCTV, and joins an illustrious list of architects who've earned a measure of success since OMA - a practice Koolhaas has often described as an incubator for talent.

Here is an incomplete list (part deux) of practices launched from Koolhaas/OMA

MVRDV, Zaha Hadid, NL architects, FOA, Xaveer de Geyter, Monolab, Julian Montfort, Space Group, REX NY, Studio Gang, RAD, Mass Studies, Sauerbruch Hutton, Gigon/Guyer, KCAP, Neutelings Riedijk, Urban Lab, Shrinking Cities, Hackenbroich Architekten, Tina Manis Architecture, LAR, Work AC, Matthias Hollwich/Xpekt, Galia Solomonoff Architecture, Touraine + Richmond, Hosoya Schaefer, 99ic, Buro Moscow, BIG, JDS, Coda, Artgineering, Scape, Notoscale, MOS, Park, Fun dc, TD, STAR, Kim Young-Joon, Studio n-1, Xaveer de Geyter, Peter Pran, Lab Studio, Archi-Tectonics, Metrograma, Ian+, Uni-A, SUPERCOOL, WW Architecture

New Town, Scotland

New Town: Annie Griffin's appealingly weird take on Edinburgh. A sly dig at snobbish architects, an off-kilter murder mystery, a refreshing look at Scotland – there's a lot to like in BBC4's new drama. Read more

William Krisel, Architect

William Krisel, Architect from Design Onscreen on Vimeo.

on the boards: Newark's Visitors Centre

The competition proposal for a new Visitor Centre in Newark, New Jersey by architectural practice Super-Interesting!. The design proposes the construction of wetlands both to enable visitors to engage with nature, as well as a bioremediation system to gauge climate change.

on the boards: Nordholmene

Danish architects Cobe, in collaboration with Sleth modernism, Polyform and Rambøll, are currently developing the largest urban transformation project in Scandinavia covering over 200 Ha. The development when complete will be powered by renewable resources and aim to reduce the city's CO² output by 25%.

more

on the boards: Théatre le Bateau Feu

The Paris based architects Mikou Design Studio have won a competition to renovate the Théatre le Bateau Feu located along the Place du Général de Gaulle in Dunkerque, France. The ground floor of the theatre opens to the adjacent square and is clad in visually matching golden-coloured perforated metal, rising in stepped volumes.

house of the week 59: Villa Pinia

Designed as a summer house for a small family, by Helsinki based architects ARK-house, Villa Pinia sits on a pine-forested plot near the sea. The great natural beauty of the site inspired the concept of the house seen as a dialogue between the man-made and the organic - a levitating white rectangle against the dark tree trunks.

New Work ::: Singapore Chancery

Singapore’s new Philippines embassy designed by Forum Architects is an open and expressive space with expansive courtyards, cooling ponds, and greenery, all contained within a sedate enclosure and shaded with a roof delicately balancing on a row of thing columns.

more

the thin line... Artist Diana Al-Hadid

Artist Diana Al-Hadid, a sculptor/mixed media whose more architecturally-focused works that although less animated, are still hauntingly imbued with the same sense of humanness and unsaid presence. Her architectural mixed media pieces are featured in this month's Flaunt Magazine #107 (the art issue)

blog wunderlust : 01 March 2010

AIA Young Architects | HdM take the stage | archigram + LEGO had a bastard child | the Queen's new eco-palace | design copycats | In Focus: Kim Høltermand | ugly IKEA | 81 reasons why it has never been a better time to be an architect | Cuba struggling to preserve the past | New Urbanism Andrés Duany for Haiti | Aalto survives geopolitics | shoes inspired by Calatrava (bridges)

Architecture can't change the way things work. But it can create a place for rest, a place for silence.

Axel Schultes

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