LEGO Architecture Series

What architectural wonder would you like to see as the next LEGO® Architecture model? Inspire us by voting for some of these suggestions. Vote here!

House of the Week 125: Villa Grand Cayman

Located on an ironshore bluff on the Caribbean coast of Grand Cayman, the house is formed as a response to the nature of the site. The house, designed by architects YAR+D, is set on the highest point on a narrow plot, is oriented to receive the tradewinds via a clerestory of fixed louvres. The material palette of flat white paint and glistening dark plaster grounds the house to its environs and within the evolving idiom of Caribbean modernism.

Landscape::: Formosa Pocket Park

Designed by Katherine Spitz Associates, the 4,600 ft² Formosa Pocket Park, is constructed above an underground parking and adjacent to a Lorcan O'Herlihy designed condominium. The design of the planting areas mimic fallen leaves with both the shape and the colours.

MoMA PS1 Finalists

Announcing the 2012 finalists competing in the 12th annual MoMA PS1 competition. Each year a group of emerging architects compete for the opportunity to design and construct a summer installation within MoMA PS1’s courtyard; winners will be announced in February 2012.

The 2012 shortlist includes

• AEDS Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio (Paris and New Orleans)
• Hollwich Kushner (NY), 
• IK Studio (Cambridge)
• UrbanLab (Chicago)
• Cameron Wu (Cambridge)

Previous winners/installation Pole Dance

blog wunderlust : 28th November 2011

You can't rely on bringing people downtown, you have to put them there

Jane Jacobs

How I Survived The Housing Slowdown | Jane Jacobs’ Masterpiece, An urban legacy in need of renewal | Austrian Embassy, Jakarta’s first green building | Why Use Ipe when you can have Black Locust? | Manifest Destiny: A Guide to the Essential Indifference of American Suburban Housing | The Architecture Lover’s Manifesto | world's lightest material | 9/11 Museum Is Delayed | Classical Piano and Modern Design: Sundays with Rafael Viñoly | FIBandCO win Gold in Paris

last word: Occupy the streets - highlighting the subversive need for a shared reality of values and demands

New Work ::: Red Stair, Melbourne

Designed by Marcus O'Reilly Architects, the Red Stair is an urban amphitheatre and public square along the Yarra River in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia. Conceived as a place to hold small meetings and demonstrations, or for sitting in the sun enjoying a bite to eat before returning to work. The iconic form and bold use of colour of the Red Stair brings attention to the urban space. The structure is backlit, giving a glow in the darkness the form of the back wall cuts the wind and conceals the roadway below.

Bogota: Building a Sustainable City (Parte 3/3)

Bogota: Building a Sustainable City (Parte 2/3)

Bogota: Building a Sustainable City (Parte 1/3)

e2 is an award winning PBS series hosted by Brad Pitt, about the innovators and pioneers who envision a better quality of life on earth: socially, culturally, economically and ecologically

How Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia used urban planning to create alternatives to automobile culture.

on the boards: Bollywood Museum

Used as the informal label to describe the centre film industry in India, Bollywood has grown since its humble beginnings in the 1930s to become the world's largest film producer. The design of the museum, by architects Yazdani Studio, is to be located in Film City in Mumbai, India and aims to capture the layered expressions of emotions of Hindi cinema.

On the Boards: New Taipei City Museum of Art

The Taipei City Museum of Art, designed by architects WTA is intended to be a vibrant new cultural centre for the city and to jumpstart development in the area. With the focus on introducing contemporary art to today’s children providing a place for them to "explore, connect, create" which materialized into a flowing and infinite ribbon form that evokes Chinese calligraphy.

House of the Week 97: House R

4-storey single family House R designed by architects Christ and Christ is located in the Stadtgarten of Karlsruhe, Germany. The 455m² house functions without air conditioning instead utilises automatically controlled louver windows to provide cross-ventilation, exterior sun protection and privacy from the nieghbours.

blog wunderlust : 21st November 2011

A lot of the best design is generated when you have significant constraints

Andreas Stavropoulous

Architecture- A Profession at War With Itself | Ingenious Remodeling of 1960s London House Wins 2011 RIBA Manser Medal | Newspaper Vendor To Architect | Jeppe Utzon creates thoughtful designs in Denmark | Toronto's glass condos face short lifespan | The Future is Now – A Letter to Arup | Americans Are Now Living In a Society That Rivals Orwell’s 1984 | Affordable Housing That Doesn't Scream 'Affordable' | Cleveland's New Deal-Era Public Housing Posters |

last word: Jamaica Has Many Architects, But They're Unrecognised

A DWR Film: The Genius of John Kostick from Design Within Reach on Vimeo.

A combination of mathematics and art, the Foldable Star Sculptures by John Kostick are as mesmerizing as the designer himself. In this interview he explains the principles of tensegrity and non-Cartesian axes, which he refers to as "mathematical truths that you can hold in your hand."

Skateboarding VS Architecture: A Study of Public Space and Materiality in Auckland

A new mini-documentary that takes a fascinating look at the spacial relationships skateboarding and architecture. Produced by SwineTrotters, the film by Johnny Agnew interviews members of New Zealand's skate community as they speak intelligently about how they perceive the city environment around them, and how skateboarding has given them a unique perspective.

The documentary discusses all sides of skateboarding in public areas, council views and skatestoppers placed on the beautiful architecture in the City.

competition ::: stcRIO

The contamination of our atmosphere is a problem that affects all countries of the world, this is felt most in large cities where sources of pollution are often concentrated. Every country, developed or emerging, has considered plans to control and restrict their level of emissions to the atmosphere - nearly all recognise the role of private motor vehicles in this aim.

STCenters is a new initiative by ArchMedium that will be dedicated to study the future of sustainable transportation in our cities from an architectural point of view. The first work case is an ambitious competition to be sited in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Submission deadline: 29th February 2011

For more about the competition

house of the Week 073: Queens Park House

The concept for the Queens Park House was a room in the garden, the result created a house designed around openness where spaces would flow and extend from one to the other allowing for seamless interaction. Designed by MCK (Marsh Cashman Koolloos Architects) the facade responds to the context of modest suburban bungalows common in Sydney, Australia.

Continued effort to fill the gaps in the House of the Week list

House of the Week - a retrospective (part deux)

This is the second retrospective of the House of Week category. It is sadly a little late in coming, the first covering numbers 1-49, this retrospective attempts to cover the balance to 100. There are some obvious exceptions which I intend to fill shortly. Enjoy

050 The Cube (Lac Superieur), Quebec, Canada
051 Casa Santa Margarita, Spain
052 Uccle 2003, Belgium
053 House K, Croatia
054 House Saramago, South Africa
055 Talo Kekkapaa, Northern Finland
056 Studio-House in Acorán, Spain
057 House in Lubienica, Poland
058 East Windsor Residence, Texas
059 Villa Pinia, Sweden
060 Les Aventuriers, Japan
061 Slice House, London, England
062 Great Bamboo Wall, China
063 Shodan House, Northern India
064 House on Takapuna Clifftop, New Zealand
065 Bar House, Colorado
066 San Remo Drive, Southern California
067 Szirtes House
068 Krater, Greece
069 Concrete Studio, Texas
070 Bamboo House, Costa Rica
071 Norman Fisher House, Pennsylvania
072 Lifeguard Tower, California
073 Queens Park House, Australia
074 Origami House, Singapore
075 Vacation home in Pyranèes, Spain
076 House on Cluny Hill
077 Lago Vista, California
078 Ranu House, Australia
079 Artreehouse, Connecticut
080 Sugarbowl, California
081 Woodstock Farm, Vermont
082 House in the Woods, Italy
083 Lee House, California
084 Leavitt Residence, Chicago
085 Yard House, Sweden
086 Sagaponac House, New York
087 Ijburg House, the Netherlands
088 Mill house, Sweden
089 Hill residence, Texas
090 Oxlade House, Australia
091 House at Berrima, Singapore
092 Barnes House, Canada
093 Casa Cubo,
094 Lembah Kemang townhouses, Indonesia
095 House for a Photographer, Spain
096 Rodríguez Harvey House, Chile
097
098 Deep Eddy Residence, Texas
099 Casa Tropical, Brazil
100 Bequia House, the Grenadines


We are still seeking suggestions for the next 50 especially from cities & countries not listed.

blog wunderlust : 14th November 2011

Wherever the city is functioning below standard, architecture takes action. It takes the place of the city's spontaneous and organic functioning; it is a prosthesis, architecture is always the place of, in the place of.

Wiel Arets

Learning from Passive House | Africa’s First Plastic Bottle House Rises in Nigeria | Zaha to build her own home in San Diego | The Cult Satirical Design Bloggers Play Guest Editors With the Nowness Archive | Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper: Transform Your Public Spaces Now | Lessons of design learned from nature | Designer Living: A place to reflect in Amsterdam | David Chipperfield to curate 2012 Venice Biennale | In Ontario, Some Like it Hot

last word: Instead of buying kitchen gadgets, why not share?

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

Rome Reborn

Rome Reborn is an international initiative to create a 3D digital model of the ancient city as it might have appeared in A.D. 320. For more about the project

HP Designjet 3D Printer

The HP Designjet Color 3D printer sets the standard for office-ready, anyone-can-use 3D printing. In this video, Matias del Campo shows off his models and describes how he has been using the machine to save time and create difficult structures that would normally be unthinkable to a model maker in the same circumstances.

e2 design II — Greening the Federal Government

This is the second in a series of video podcasts for the PBS series e2 design II. Each podcast takes you beyond the episodes and deeper into the world of sustainable design. In this episode, architect Thom Mayne describes his philosophy toward sustainability and design. Mayne, a Pritzker Prize-winner and the architect of the San Francisco Federal Building, is a maverick and a leader in his field. He believes that people will have to adapt to new, sustainable building designs now and into the future.

On the Boards: Hotel Liesma

Hotel Liesma is a 15,000 m² music-themed hotel in Jurmala, Latvia designed by architects Praud Studio. The hotel is structured on a number of cones containing public facilities (café, restaurants, etc), freeing up the ground level as a open plaza. The angled slab contains hotel rooms, a lounge and an observatory taking advantage of the views beyond the canopy of the trees.

competition ::: Lest We Forget

UNESCO has launched an international design competition for the creation of a Permanent Memorial at United Nations to the honour victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.

The theme chosen for the competition is : Acknowledging the Tragedy; Considering the Legacy; Lest We Forget.

Artists, designers, sculptors and other visual arts professionals are invited to submit their proposals, by 19 December 2011 the latest. The design of the memorial will be selected through an internationally acceptable, credible and transparent global competition. The actual monument is expected to be unveiled at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2013.

With this permanent memorial, the international community wants to ensure that the world will never again endure another tragedy of such immense proportions, which today is commonly referred to as a crime against humanity. The memorial is aimed at honouring the victims of this crime

Tete Antonio, Permanent Observer of the African Union

blog wunderlust : 7th November 2011

Drawing is a tool that helps me design and then build. For me, it is a way to test an idea or prove a point, to make the unclear clear, and to move the internal (subjective) to the external (objective).

Ann Armstrong

Cuba legalizes sale, purchase of private property | if architects... | Habitat for Humanity & the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter to build 100 homes in Haiti | House in Horinouchi, Japan by Mizuishi Architect Atelier | Built-in Obsolescence | Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation rebuilds, seeks CEO | What did you want to be when you grew up? | Getting an architecture degree is expensive. Is it worth it in a recession? | The Pritzker Prize is headed to China | archi-kids

last word: Interviews with 4 Irish Female Architects Shaping the Future of architectural practice.

RIP - Denny Repole

Renowned Jamaican architect, Herbert Denham Repole passed away on the 1st November 2011 - days before his 77th birthday.

Denny, as he was affectionately known, was the recipient of numerous national and regional honours and awards, including the Order of Distinction, Commander Class (C.D.) in 2003. Much of his work in the 1960s helped, especially in the New Kingston area helped to define both culturally and physically the landscape of a newly independent Jamaica, moreover his monuments to Paul Bogle and William Gordon remind us to have courage and hope. He was one of the forebearers of the Caribbean School of Architecture - serving both in an advisorial and teaching capacity.