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