House of the Week 022: Cliffhanger

A modern 250 sqm residence on the Greek island of Antiparos by architects deca - subtlety contradicts the bold main space housing the main sleeping and living areas against the guest suites by submerging them in the earth and cladding them with local stone.

from prayer to power

Here is a novel concept...

Each year millions of tourists visit the temples in Tibet and spin the prayer wheels inside. A student at the Art Institute of Chicago, Taikkun Yang Li, has come up with a proposal to harvest the energy by this simple act to power hundreds of homes reducing the carbon footprint of the tiny mountain side villages.

Advertisement for the 2009 staging of the World Games to be held in Kaohsiung, Taiwan with Toyo Ito's recently completed solar powered stadium serving as the backdrop

maggie roack

An animated portrayal of Fountainhead, with the central character Howard Roark played by Maggie (daughter of Marge & Homer Simpson)

thanks Sean

thanks Chuck

On the 12^th May 2009, the Prince of Wales gave the key note speech for 175^th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In his words he aimed to lend support to, "traditional approaches to architecture and urbanism," but instead reopened a wound as equally damning as his 1984 speech that perhaps originally begun this style war or as I prefer to think of it, as the imposition of the natural progression of architecture to review, revise and express the emergent values of contemporary society.

Why is HRH Prince Charles hampering on the relatively small number of architects designing and building structural gymnastics when much of the United Kingdom and it's Commonwealth (expanding or otherwise) is littered with architecture that attempts to be historically iconographic? The question at my lips is if his motives are truly genuine to the practice, and as Jeremy Till states, the products of architecture or instead to preserve a lifestyle (the über affluent and blue blooded kind), that functions entirely on submission, order and the negation of independent thought.

The Prince has attempted to cloud his arguments behind a social and environmentally ethical shroud, creating a scenario of extremes, claiming support for "an architecture bound to place not to time." How unfortunate that at a point when architecture is redefining it's role in the face of a global financial and environmental crisis, that Brutus has chosen to stab us in the heart. HRH has called for a return to the good ol' days, and perhaps history has repeated itself.

more

blog wunderlust: 15 May 2009

Gehry vs Miami | green house of the future | scavenged building | modular containers | ihouse | Patron saint of the McMansion | OMA vs heritage | the green dilemma | Zaha on fire | modular rooms | how to identify your house from the air | edible wall | HRM Banksy?? | alcoholic architecture | the money tree: cedar island | architects for charity | architect designed appliances x 2 | defending starchitecture | and finally ice cream for architects | Green Expo - Jamaica

also preview Frank Lloyd Wright, Complete works 1943-1959 by Taschen

on the boards: UAE Pavilion, Shanghai Expo

Foster + Partners' 450 person/3000 sqm, sand dune inspired design for the UAE pavilion for the Shanghai Expo 2010.

we previously reported on the Polish and Danish pavilions

I believe Foster's inspiration is far more sexual- what's your take?

on the boards: Guangzhou Cultural Centre

This misshapen balloon odd blimb-like structure is a proposal for a new cultural centre in Guangzhou, China by Japanese architect Shuhei Endo .

on the boards: Birmingham Library

Dutch architects Mecanoo have unveiled designs with tasty renderings by Hayes Davidson for a new library bordering Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. When complete in 2013, the library will serve as prime attractor for the city’s largest public square and is expected to cost £193 million.

urban design? We have an app for that

Software company Urbs has announced the initial release of Modelur, an application that aims to make the design of urban space rapid and simple. The application is based on the insanely popular 3D modelling tool Google SketchUp and is available for testing free of charge via this link.

those of you in Jamaica please make every effort to attend

Carboard Chair Competition

The AIAS (American Institute of Architecture Students) hosted a competition to design a chair from cardboard sponsored by the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation in the Spring 2009 academic semester.

Corrugated board has the best recycling rate of any packaging material used today, roughly 77% (24.7 million tons),diverting these materials from the municipal solid waste stream.

A hard look at every scrap of corrugated can lead the creative mind to see it as a valuable raw material with great versatility and flexibility for design.

follow the link for selections

Villa Grow

Villa Grow by Swedish architects Kjellgren Kaminsky, is an adaptable housing concept catering to starting families that can be extended as they grow. Music by Derango

Ethics in Architecture and Urbanism

Architechnophilia has been invited to participate in the 11th Virtual Forum of Iran Architectural Blogs under the theme Professional Ethics in Architecture and Urbanism

follow the link to contribute to the discussion

House of the Week 021: Clontarf

Clontarf by Australian architects Molnar Freeman, is a tasteful and contemporary mix of wood and glass enhanced by an open and airy construction that allows light to flow about the house at will.

via Minimalist Houses by Evergreen Publishers

thanks Sacha

School and Classroom Design Symposium

The Education Discussion Group is hosting a symposium on the topic of school and classroom design as well as its impact on teaching and learning. Literature and policy documents on education and training are replete with indicators that speak of the ‘interactive, experiential, and dynamic’ climate of schools of the future and the symposium aims to grapple with school design issues through the lens of hypothetical scenarios that are reflective of real-world strengths and weaknesses.

The Education Discussion Group (EDG) is a 25 member, voluntary non-profit organization started in 2004 that shares a common interest in the furthering of education and training in Trinidad and Tobago.

date: Thursday May 14, 2009
venue: School of Education, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad
programme: keynote speaker to be announced

blossuming...

David Adjaye: Houses; Recycling, Reconfiguring, Rebuilding
Peter Allison & David Adjaye
Thames & Hudson (2005)
Rating: 5 stars

David Adjaye Houses: recycling, reconfiguring, rebuilding exhibits the overt of a blossuming architecture practice. The book is prefaced by "Negotiating Architecture" an original work written by post-colonial writer Stuart Hall as an integral presentation to this monograph of houses. The houses, nearly all in London, are mostly about their interiors, shown in a play of materials. The publishers, Thames & Hudson, took Adjaye's use of material a step further mimicking the look and feel of the facade of the Elektra house on the book's jacket. The dozen or so works in the book are punctuated by drawings and writings by Deyan Sudjic and Caroline Roux, as well as details that seek to capture the ethos of the relationship between space & form, information versus drama.

Kiefer technic showroom

beeple (Mike Winkelman) created “subprime” as a critique on over-consumption and the current housing crisis, but instead of making his argument with charts and graphs, he simply shows the fictional progression of upgrades at a single homeowner’s site. Music by Nobot

thanks Yorkali for the link

blog wunderlust: 01 May 2009

Open season on Prince Charles | green retrofits vs conservation | Rem confirms the end | accidental architecture | a pig's ear | less may have to be more | Mecca 2.0 | Mac 2.0 | did the best design win? | shit brick