blog wunderlust: 23rd June 2014

We see architecture as the direct result of the way of life.

Peter and Alison Smithson

Archimusic: If Songs Were To Look Like Buildings | Constructing identities: Contributions from Iran, Morocco, and the UAE | When it comes to housing, small is the new big | Modern soccer football wouldn't be the same without an architect's invention | Newsmaker: Marc Norman | 22 Questions for Stanley Tigerman | This is not actually an abandoned building with overgrown plants | Why architects love Surface Pro

last word: Taylors Win Architecture Award

blog wunderlust: 12th May 2014

By tattooing walls, graffiti writers free them architecture and turn them once again into living, social matter, into the moving body of the city before it has been banned with functions and institutions.

Jean Baudrillard "Kool Killer, or the Insurrection of Signs"

When Architects Build Brands: Is Architecture’s Future in Advertising? | Meet the Dynamic Duo Behind Architecture Firm Fuksas | Why Architects should Blog | The Green Building Reality: Why Two-Thirds of the Profession Are Cowards | One of America's Most Famous Architects Was a Nazi Propagandist | A beautiful mobile home for just $33,000? | A degree in architecture … but all I can get are menial jobs

last word: 2014 - End of Year Exhibition at the Caribbean School of Architecture

Conference: Forum on Caribbean Architecture

The Federation of Caribbean Associations of Architects (FCAA) is hosting a conference and forum on Caribbean Architecture entitled, Caribbean, beyond architectural and urban characteristics in the culture of our people. The conference will be held in Santiago de Cuba from the 5th to 7th July 2013.

Sessions will include

• Caribbean Vernacular Architecture. Conservation Strategies
• Contemporary architecture in the Caribbean

For more details

On the Boards: Baimbridge Lycée Général et Technologique

Architects Pile et Face have proposed a renovation to the Baimbridge Lycée Général et Technologique (general high and techology college) located in Les Abymes, Guadeloupe. The new works will include modern sporting grounds, classrooms and facilities.

On the Boards: Xcalacoco

Xcalacoco, designed by Mexican practice Hierve, is a proposed apartment complex located on a long heavily landscaped site infront of the Caribbean sea . Each apartment building has only 7 122m² units with facades that open to control the sunlight and privacy. The floors of each block is painted in a different sharp color, resembling the colours used on the local fishing boats.

blog wunderlust: 31st December 2012

Space always intrigued me, with its incredibly rich possibilities, space alteration by (architectural) objects, objects' transformation in space (sculpture, design), movement in space and in time, their correlation, their repercussion on mankind, the relation between man and space, the object and time.

Ernő Rubik

We Make (NEW) Carpets | Can other cities emulate the success of New York’s High Line? | Working out of the Box: Airi Isoda, Architect-turned-Fashion Designer | railroad revival | Building Stories, Panel by Panel | Cathedral of Light: Bent Beams Create Illusory Arches | Frank Lloyd Wright’s Heart Island House | Coolhaus Ice Cream truck | Stunning Photographs of Vintage Parisian Architecture |

last word: Architects Alberto And Angelina celebrate a year after opening restaurant Casa B

blog wunderlust: 24th December 2012

I'll plan anything a man wants, from a cathedral to a chicken coop. That's the way I make my living

Henry Hobson Richardson

images (c) Miami Herald

Self-Help Housing: The Story of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board | Why The Starchitect? Foster Unveils Plans For New York Public Library | CityHome Transformer Apartment "Functions As An Apartment Three Times Its Size" | What did Oscar Niemeyer mean to you? | MyArchitects – David Baker + Partners | What does it take to build a livable home for under $100 per square foot? | 2012 in review - Top 10 projects

last word: Puerto Rican team wins design competition hosted by the University of Miami School of Architecture to rebuild Roman Catholic Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

blog wunderlust: 5th November 2012

Architecture is art, but art vastly contaminated by many other things. Contaminated in the best sense of the word – fed, fertilised by many things.

Renzo Piano

Oscar Niemeyer Hospitalized - Brazilian Architect At Hospital Samaritano | Subsidized Housing in Chicago Began With Frank Lloyd Wright | Richard Branson on the importance of design | The Mysteries of The Bartlett (UCL) Unravelled | Stirling prize 2012: virtual tours of nominated buildings | Bjarke Ingels Tears Into Florida | Who Cares Who's a Licensed Architect? | A House That Is Like A Small Town |

last word: New Directions for Contemporary Caribbean Architects

Embracing Modernity: The Transformation of Jamaica's Architecture after 1962

Ministry of Education Building, architect Wilson Chong

image (c) David Cuthbert

Architectural Historian and Senior Lecturer at the Caribbean School of Architecture, Dr. Elizabeth Pigou-Dennis will be presenting a paper entitled "Embracing Modernity: The Transformation of Jamaica's Architecture after 1962" as part of the History at Fifty Conference at the University of the West Indies. The event will be held on Saturday, 10th November 2012 at the Council Room, UWI, Mona at 1:30pm.

blog wunderlust: 29th October 2012

In many ways the problems in architecture are reflections of other things in the capitalist society. It’s becoming increasingly clear that in many ways we are reaching the end of the road, and that the idea of perpetual growth is a suicidal ideology.

Juhani Pallasmaa

image (c) acla:works & melon:design|architecture

Design as Balm for a Community’s Soul | Find a design to allow entry to Fort Augusta | Embracing In-Between Landscapes | Sainsbury Laboratory wins Stirling architecture prize | Famed Architecture Firm's Latest Project: an Educational App for Children | The Urban Planner Reveals All | Zaha and the Neoliberal Avante-Garde | Is there an Ecological Architectural Design Method? | Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park |

last word: Trinidadian practice acla:works who partnered with our friends at the St Lucian practice melon:design|architecture have takes second place in the design of the new parliament building in Grenada. The competition was won by Grenada based practice COCOA.

Affordable Housing Architectural Design Challenge

The National Housing Trust is hosting a competition to conceptualize an affordable home not exceeding J$ 3.2 million. Guidelines for the entries state that they must be;

• aesthetically pleasing
• cost efficient
• structurally sound
• innovative
• expandable
• multi-functional in the use of space
• energy efficient

Participation is encouraged, but not restricted to, those within the built environment such as - architecture students and graduates, designers, contractors, architects and engineers. Overseas entries are required to partner with Jamaican nationals for submissions.

Entries regarding the competition can be sent to: housingexpo2013@nht.gov.jm

Deadline for registration: 26th October 2012
Entry & Submission: 10th December 2012

blog wunderlust: 8th October 2012

I hardly dared, in view of your serious employments, to publish my writings and long considered ideas on architecture, for fear of subjecting myself to your displeasure.

Vitruvius Pollio (translated from Latin)

Caribbean School of Architecture by architect Lascelles Dixon

photo (c) architechnophilia

Civic Waterfronts | Sitcom Architects | [video game] prison architect | More Than Machines For Writing | Artist Chris Burden's Quasi-Legal Skyscraper Rises Again | Ai Weiwei’s company faces shutdown | Design Explained in Pie Charts | UK government bans curved school buildings | 10 things you dont get taught in Architecture School and radical pedagogies in architectural education | Modernism in architecture: No exit? | Fewer housing opportunities for the world’s poor


last word: World Habitat Day 2012 - Changing Cities, Building Opportunities

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

FCAA 2012 Biennale and Congress Design Competition

The Winners of the FCAA 2012 Biennale and Congress Design Competition, are as follows:

Small Buildings under 10,000 ft² – built
Edwin Quiles-Rodriguez (Puerto Rico) – “Haiti School” – winner
Studio Blue Architects Inc (Barbados) - Special Mentor

Small Buildings under 10,000 ft² – unbuilt
Alain Nicholas (Guadeloupe)- Administrative Tribunal of Fort-de-France – winner

Large Buildings over 10,000 ft² – built
Segundo Cardona (Puerto Rico) - New Library addition to existing supreme court – winner

Large buildings over 10,000 ft² – unbuilt
Pascal Berthelot BMCDM (Guadeloupe) - Memory of Trafficking and Slavery – winner

Urban Design – built
Zoohaus – Mae Durant Vidal (Dominican Republic) – IntelligenciaColectiva – winner

Restoration and contemporary additions to historic buildings
Marc Jalet and Emile Romney (Guadeloupe) – Communauté des Communes de Marie-Galante – winner

Students projects
Reva Watson (Jamaica) - Barbados Naval and Maritime Museum – winner
Ricardo Newallo-Christain (Jamaica) – Barbados Naval and Maritime Museum - Special Mention

FCAA Biennale

2012 FCAA Biennale 

blog wunderlust : 23rd July 2012

Nature Envelopes the Building in Natural Manner

Interview with Eneko Atxa

The advantage of size | Pedro Gadanho: curating is the new criticism | Massive 200,000-Piece Roman Colosseum made from LEGO | Architecture + motherhood | The Most Beautiful Skate Parks in the World | 1X20: 20 design studies for an urban infill lot | Falmouth redevelopment plan by year-end | New Face of Design | Inside the houses that Brad Pitt built | Architects face uphill struggle for public recognition | London 2012 Olympics: A story of sustainable architecture

last word: Green and Pleasant Lands: Eco-Friendly Caribbean Living

Public Spaces

FCAA Biennal and Congress

(c)Hugh Walker

The Federation of Caribbean Associations of Architects (FCAA) 2012 Biennal and Congress will be held in Bridgetown Barbados from September 27th until 30th. More information regarding registration to follow.

House of the Week 134: Villa Shoestring

Located on Gibbs Beach, on the West Coast of Barbados this single-family beach house is framed by the vegetation on site and the sea. The residence designed by Architects Cubed (Linda Moore & Shawna Beechley) with landscape by Talma Mill Studios is a modern interpretation of the Chattel - a timber vernacular house native to Barbados.

Photography: Bob Kiss

Study Tour

For the next two weeks I will be travelling with the 4th year undergraduate students from the Caribbean School of Architecture on their Study Tour of Bridgetown Barbados. For more information on our travels click on the daily journal.

Study Tour: Barbados

Day #2
Day #3

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.