World Architecture Festival Barcelona - Competition

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) will celebrate the work, concerns and aspirations of the international architectural community, during a three-day event taking place in Barcelona, Spain from 22 to 24 October 2008.
The Festival will be an annual opportunity to compare and contrast the extraordinary range of designs created by a profession which has always looked beyond national borders to the wider world of architectural culture.
At the heart of the Festival will be the biggest architectural awards programme in the world.
The 2008 awards are for buildings completed between 1 January 2007 and 20 June 2008. Buildings in any country, by architects of any nationality, are eligible for entry.
International juries will shortlist the best entries in 96 building types, grouped into 16 categories. All shortlisted architects will present their work to live juries and audiences at the Festival, competing against each other to become category winners. (to find out more..)

passage & image from: http://www.worldarchitecturefestival.com/about_awards.cfm

posted by afterrabbit

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008 by Frank Gehry

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008 will give London the first example of Frank Gehry’s spectacular architecture. The highly articulated structure – designed and engineered in collaboration with Arup – comprises large timber planks and multiple glass planes that soar and swoop at different angles to create a dramatic multi-dimensional space. Part-amphitheatre, part-promenade, these seemingly random elements will make a transformative place for reflection and relaxation by day, and discussion and performance by night.(to find out more..)

image & passage from:
http://www.dezeen.com/2008/03/27/serpentine-gallery-pavilion-2008-by-frank-gehry/

posted by midori mizu

CV08 - Form, Representation & The Culture of Globalisation

Critical Visions: Form, Representation and the Culture of Globalisation
Thursday 10 – Sunday 12 April
Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour

We seem to be in a period of unparalleled excess, spectacle and formal indulgence played out against a backdrop of environmental crisis, extreme social inequity and cultural alienation. At the same time this appears to be a moment of great formal innovation, genuine creative insight and technological potential.
The Critical Visions conference will offer a moment to pause and reflect on the nature of this intense period of extreme architectural production, the globalised exportation of architectural culture and the generation of form and meaningful social representations. (to find out more..)

passage & image from: http://www.architecture.com.au/criticalvisions/overview.html

posted by afterrabbit

HOUSE kn, Kanagawa, Japan

This area scene is a suburb residential area. This architecture is formed by surrounding the site and makes big void. This box including gaeden is more scale up this architecture. The void choice the environment like normal house make window for the garden. The scenery of the resicential quarter in the surburbs where the detached house with a garden lines up has extended. (to find out more...)

By Kochi Architect's Studio

text and image from: http://www.kkas.net/e-base.html

posted by s-uper-chii

Sustainable Towers in Malaysia by Studio Nicoletti Associati

The winner of a recent contest, the design for Precinct 4 comes from Studio Nicoletti Associati and Malaysian architects Hijjas Kasturi Associates, who provided the masterplan of Putrajaya(pic below). The goal of the designers was to provide a model for sustainable residential design that was inspired by the city’s unique landscape which includes an expansive artificial lake. The biggest inspiration came from the sea and the entire development resembles a fleet of ships. The architect’s goal was to design buildings that tell “of its place of origin which is culturally modern, Islamic and tropical in nature.” Added to this is Nicoletti’s extensive experience in design and construction for extreme climates. For Precinct 4, the Italian firm brought sustainable strategies like terraces, sunshades, natural ventilation and integrated green space into the design. The buildings will source from alternative energy and are expected to produce 50% less CO2 emissions than similar residential projects.(to find out more..)

i felt this is it! For Malaysia to have this kind of work,i personally think that it is phenomenal!It might be the new putrajaya icon...who knows!Although i had heard about the critics on the architecture at Putrajaya, i thought this can breath a new dimension to Putrajaya and also this kind of development in this country. Taking note that this building is designed to tell “of its place of origin which is culturally modern, Islamic and tropical in nature”, i have to say the national identity is well preserved in this piece of architecture. It strikes the right balance between the national identity and the global world issues like design energy & building green.I will be eager to pay Putrajaya a visit after this development completes!

images from:
http://www.europaconcorsi.com/db/pub/architecture.php?id_scheda=20477&idimg=184555

passage from:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/26/sustainable-towers-in-malaysia-by-studio-nicoletti-associati/

posted by midori mizu

Missed Tree I - II

The shape of “Missed tree I and II”, redolent of the elements of nature, is combined with a more technical aspect: the steel base. This contrast gives rise to an object that we might define as “techno-ethnic”, that brings to mind the forms of the plant world without ever breaking off completely from the technological world. The two versions, one formed of a single body (Missed Tree I) and the other with a branching element (Missed Tree II) offer the potential for endless combinations.

passage from: http://www.serralunga.com/pdf/67_1.pdf
image from: http://www.excite.co.jp/ism/concierge/rid_1548/pid_2.html

posted by afterrabbit

HL23 - Neil M. Denari Architects

Developed by Alf Naman and currently in construction, HL23 is a 14 floor condominium tower that responds to a unique and challenging site directly adjacent to the High Line at 23rd street in New York's West Chelsea Arts district. Partially impacted by a spur from the elevated tracks that make up the High Line superstructure, the site is 40' x 99' at the ground floor. The site and the developer demanded a specific response, yielding a project that is a natural merger between found and given parameters and architectural ambition. (to find out more..)



passage & images from: http://www.nmda-inc.com/index.php?/projects/high-line-23/

posted by afterrabbit

Metabolist Movement

In 1959 a group of Japanese architects and city planners joined forces under the name the Metabolists. Their vision of a city of the future inhabited by a mass society was characterized by large scale, flexible and extensible structures that enable an organic growth process. In their view the traditional laws of form and function were obsolete. They believed that the laws of space and functional transformation held the future for society and culture.
The group's work is often called technocratic and their designs are described as avant-garde with a rhetorical character. The work of the Metabolists is often comparable to the unbuilt designs of Archigram. The origins of the Metabolist movement lie at the end of the 1950s. After the fall of CIAM, which ceased its operations in 1958, the ideas of Team X were of great influence to young architects around the globe, also influencing young Japanese architects (i.e. Kisho Kurokawa). The World Design Conference of 1960 was to be held in Japan and a group of young Japanese architects were involved with the planning of the conference. Takashi Asada, Kisho Kurokawa, Noboru Kawazoe and Kiyonori Kikutake met and discussed frequently and began to think about the next generation of Japanese architecture. During the conference the Metabolist group presented their first declaration: Metabolism 1960 – a Proposal for a new Urbanism. Contributors to this work were Kiyonori Kikutake, Fumihiko Maki, Masato Otaka, Kisho Kurokawa and Kiyoshi Awazu.[2] The idea of Metabolism implemented in modern culture was, besides architectural, also philosophical. (to find out more..)

Nakagin Capsule Tower, Kisho Kurokawa, 1970.

Joint Core System, Arata Isozaki, 1960.

passage from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolist_Movement

images from: http://picasaweb.google.com/BordeauxComet/GinzaTokyo/photo#5101342107070031778 & http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/arch339/Modern.html & http://www.azuremagazine.com/images/content/1196787544_QNL.jpg

posted by afterrabbit

Mutsuro Sasaki, 佐々木睦朗

Although architects and their works ARE sometimes featured on these art pages, strictly speaking, Mutsuro Sasaki, a structural engineer, shouldn’t be here at all. Yet thanks to the talents of Sasaki and his colleagues, who know how to make architects’ fantasies come true, new possibilities for structural design are taking flight, contributing to exciting environments for the new millennium. (to find out more..)

In his collaboration with the architect Arata Isozaki on the 2002 design competition for a new train station for Florence, Italy, the Japanese structural engineer Mutsuro Sasaki reversed his traditional role. He started with what he calls the “target values” for stress and deformation loads, and then worked back to the final structure. Instead of taking a given form and optimizing its structural conditions based on calculated stress loads, Sasaki generated an otherwise unknowable form by applying those “target values” on individual components of the structure. Each application rippled through the structure until a definitive form emerged. (to find out more..)

passages & images from: http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/589/art.asp & http://archrecord.construction.com/tech/techFeatures/0803feature-1.asp

posted by afterrabbit

Cabbage Chair

The Cabbage Chair is created from a wrapped cylinder of pleated paper that is typically used to create the crisp, signature folds in Miyake’s garments. A roll of this by-product paper was slit vertically by Nendo’s designers, and a small nest of a chair was revealed by systematically peeling away each layer. Resins used during the original paper production process add strength and a bit of memory to the shaping process, while the pleats themselves give the chair elasticity and a springy cushioning. (to find out more..)





Just think it's amusing & hungering.. Forget about cabbage, I see it as multi-layered as sweetcorns husks (leaves wrapping around it), as thin and elegant as the skin of Siu Mai (a kind of Chinese dumpling)...

Hungry eh?

passage from: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/19/pleated-textile-waste-chair-by-nendo/#more-8910
images from: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/19/pleated-textile-waste-chair-by-nendo/#more-8910 & http://www.rwhirled.com/radarange/index.html & http://nookandpantry.blogspot.com/2007/03/sticky-rice-siu-mai.html

posted by afterrabbit

Death Star Lunar Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan

Why wonder if we’ll ever live on the moon when it’s being built right here on Earth? Heerim Architects are planning to bring Star Wars chic to the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, defining the look with two uber-futuristic buildings to act as markers of the gateway of one of the world’s fastest growing economies. (to find out more..)

image & passage from:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/05/lunar-future-for-azerbajan/#more-8762

posted by midori mizu

House in Toyooka - Kiyonobu Nakagame Architects & Associates

Since houses, offices, shops and temporary buildings coexist in the neighborhood making it difficult to identify “the face” of this area, we thought that it would be appropriate for the house to look somewhat independent from its surroundings.

The house is consisted of three simple boxes piled up on each other. Each box is shifted horizontally in different directions to keep the appropriate distance from its surroundings and to comply with building code height restriction, as a result creating various spaces such as terraces and eaves. The glazed corridor space which encloses the living areas brings a gentle continuity within the building as if it worked as an intermediate space connecting the shifted boxes. (to find out more..)

passage & images from: http://www.nakagame.com/works_en/works_ty.html

posted by afterrabbit

Wei-Ling Gallery

Wei-Ling Gallery, previously known as the Townhouse Gallery was set up by Lim Wei-Ling and Yohan Rajan in a townhouse in Bukit Bandraya, Kuala Lumpur in May 2002 to showcase the works of contemporary artists in Malaysia.
The gallery represents a wide spectrum of Malaysian artists, ranging from the forefathers of Modernism in Malaysia, to young, up and coming contemporary talents. The focus of the gallery is to nurture their stable of artists, so that they gain both local and international recognition, and to keep collectors abreast about the works they are collecting from both an aesthetic and investment angle. As their main concern is to introduce collectors to works by serious artists with integrity, the gallery is extremely selective about the works and artists it represents. The gallery hosts up to twelve exhibitions a year, showcasing the works of Malaysia’s most exciting artists. (to find out more..)


The gallery is located above the office of Jimmy Lim Design, housed in an old townhouse/shophouse.
The building actually got caught in fire few years back (it was already Jimmy Lim Design office then), after that, Jimmy Lim himself refurbished the upper floor into this art gallery, and extended the original building height of two-storey into three.
To speak of the hightlight, is that the remnants of the burnt timber beams & slabs of the original 1st floor was ingeniously preserved & 'showcased'. New timber slab was constructed on it, with glassed openings on the floor that enable people to look down at the coal-black timber remnants. (forgive me I don't have the photo)
The symbolic meaning of building new upon old & revive is effectively conveyed in this small volume of typical townhouses, and the mark of the fire was kept to speak about history.

passage from: http://weiling-gallery.com/aboutthegallery.htm
images from: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/dealers_galleries/Gallery/dg_id/17015

posted by afterrabbit

Holl to Design Toronto Waterfront District

Waterfront Toronto today announced the selection of Steven Holl Architects (SHA) to design the 3500 square meter District Energy Centre in the West Don Lands, which will provide centralized heating and cooling to the first new waterfront neighborhoods of Toronto. The District Energy Centre is expected to go into construction by the end of 2008 and is expected to deliver heating and cooling by the beginning of 2010.(to find out more..)

image & passage from:
http://archrecord.construction.com/news/blogs/post.asp?bbPostId=B5CdHf4AXShUBAB7twODruWrB34TbgHjTrKMBAAsCMKWI6O0&bbParentWidgetId=B8DqOkt2n9WmEYV0CohfoWb

posted by midori mizu

Thermal Baths- Vals, Switzerland

image 1


image 2

The bath house is a simple rectilinear structure, constructed of a local stone, gneisis, formed from the same heat that warms the water of the baths. In plan, the building is organized around a rectangular outdoor pool and a square interior pool, with auxiliary spaces (showers, toilets) contained in small block adjacent to the pools. The separation between indoor spaces is minimal and creates a succession of spaces in which temperature and lighting guide the body. Narrow slots and openings in the ceiling of these spaces adds to their eerie, grotto-like character, established by the stratified facing of the gneisis. On the outside, large openings on the facade link the outdoor pool to the surrounding landscape, while smaller apertures bring light to the small spaces of the ground floor. (to find out more...)
By Peter Zumthor

text and image 2 from: http://www.archidose.org/Jun99/062199.htm
image 1 from: www.pushpullbar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3796

posted by s-uper-chii

Concrete Canopy, Saint Cyprien, France

The Concrete Canopy building is located in the middle of a park with sycamore, acacia, oak and poplar trees. Inspired by the silhouettes of the trees Serero architects created a computer script, generating a facade that assembles non-repetitive and non-standard components.The building’s roof, despite its irregular appearance, is generated from simple geometrical rules, allowing a variation of shapes between the elements.

“ ... Trees are often a source of inspiration to me; they are complex structures elaborated from simple rules, growing coherently and continuously in time and space. The efficiency of those structures are based on the notions of redundancy and differentiation in opposition to the concepts of modern engineering such as modern optimisation and repetition...”David Serero (to find out more...)

text and images from: http://arcspace.com/architects/serero/canopy/canopy.html

posted by s-uper-chii

Serie

Serie, [formerly Chris Lee Architects and Contemporary Urban] is an international practice based in London and Mumbai. Serie works in the diverse field of architecture, urbanism and design.
The practice is fascinated by the evolution and mutation of building types in today’s cities and the projection of these forms of intelligence into spatial solutions. Working typologically, or in our terms, thinking and exploring in series - harnessing the cumulative intelligence of building types - is key to the work of Serie. (to find out more..)


Granada University, Spain.


C House, Bangalore.

passage from: http://www.serie.co.uk/HTML%20Files/About/About.html
images from: http://www.serie.co.uk/HTML%20Files/Project/Serie%20Project.html

posted by afterrabbit

Blue Frog

Based on this desire to have it all, the question for us is: how do you collapse a theatre, restaurant, bar and club into a warehouse whilst maintaining all the performative characteristics of each individual type? The deep structure that was employed is of a cellular organization composed of circles of varying sizes in plan approximating a horse-shoe configuration. The differential extrusions of these circles encapsulated at different levels as tiered cylindrical seating booths, allow the eye level of diners and standing patrons to be distributed across staggered levels that increase in height away from the stage. (to find out more..)




passage & images from: http://www.serie.co.uk/HTML%20Files/Project/Blue%20Frog%201.html

posted by afterrabbit

Herzog & de Meuron Tap Tropical Climate for Design Ideas

It’s not quite the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but it will come close enough to stir a visitor’s imagination just the same. Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the new Miami Art Museum (MAM) aims to produce a living building where the outdoors come inside to frame galleries that bridge continents and cultures.
The indoor-outdoor goal spawned an elevated, open-air terrace shaded by a broad roof of perforated slabs. A hanging garden will literally be rooted into the structure of columns and brace frames. It will help visitors gradually transition from Miami’s tropical climate to the museum’s more regulated interior. (to find out more..)



passage & images from: http://archrecord.construction.com/news/OnTheBoards/0803miami.asp

posted by afterrabbit

Akron Art Museum

A hovering “cloud” connects a new light-filled atrium and windowless gallery to an existing museum.

COOP HIMMELB(L)AU believes that art should flow out of the building and the city should flow inside. Rather than going to the museum simply to look at art, visitors are encouraged to engage in artistic discourse, attend music and arts festivals, or simply to pass the time. This belief led the firm to divide its addition to the Akron Art Museum into three parts: a “Crystal,” a “Gallery Box,” and a “Roof Cloud.”
The Crystal serves as the main entry and operates as an orientation and connection space serving both the new and old buildings. It is a grand, flexible space that can also be used for banquets, arts festivals, and events hosted by outside organizations. The mass and location of the gallery box and high roof protect the southern-oriented Crystal glazing from direct sunlight. At the same time the reflectivity of the façade material raises natural light levels in the Crystal and reduces the need to power artificial light sources. Inside the Crystal, the architects and engineers created microclimate zones for heating and cooling. These different zones are determined by analyzing the type and anticipated length of occupancy in various areas of the crystal and are conditioned through both active and passive means. By eliminating the need to condition the entire volume in the Crystal, and by focusing the energy used to condition the space in the areas where people are located, operating costs and energy use are significantly reduced.
The Roof Cloud, which hovers above the building, creates a blurred edge to the museum while also providing shade for exterior spaces and operating as a horizontal landmark in the city. (to find out more..)




passage & images from: http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/museums/0803_akron/

posted by afterrabbit

Ferry Shelter, Tiree-Scotland

located near to the pier, the structure is intended to act as a ‘shelter’ whilst waiting for the ferry. conceived of in three parts it is hoped it will reflect some of the qualities of the island, distilled as a line in the landscape; the white walls, the bridge, the glass box. (to find out more...)
By Sutherland Hussey Architects

text and image from: http://www.sutherlandhussey.co.uk/public/tiree_1.htm

posted by s-uper-chii

Footbridge, Boudry-Switzerland

When a place speaks, the most constructive reaction is to listen to it rather than to converse with it. The crossing of the Areuse at a precise point of the gauge was the demand.The answer is this footbridge, an organic structure, ensuring a better echo with the site and the river. The objective power of this artefact holds in its ability the power to blend in perfectly with the site and get clearly noticed. There is no submission to the place but just respect. (to find out more...)
By Geninasca Delefortrie

First and foremost, i would like to apologize that the link is in Francais. But nevertheless, this is a very interesting architecture by Geninasca & Delefortrie. the entrance provides a very nice screening and the design concept of this bridge is to be smooth and fluid.

text and images from: http://www.gd-archi.ch/anglais/passerelle2.htm

posted by s-uper-chii

Eric Van Hove

Man is composed of an infinite number of words,
word, of a finite number of lines,
line, of an infinite number of points,
plane, of an infinite number of lines,
space, of an infinite number of planes,
hyperspace, of an infinite number of spaces

Inspired by a deep sense of wanderlust and the experience of foreignness, Van Hove questions the limits, “moral competence” and modes of persuasion of western contemporary art, once brought to the “audiences of the border.” If he defines his work as “poetic” and “tempted”, it has recently been advanced by some that while pondering on Globalisation it inscribes in the current of Fantastic Art. Prolific artist, he reflects on materialism and nomadism, whereas his insubstantial and subtle interventions often question in a discursive way sociological, political and ecological issues. Having made displacement his studio, he is in perpetual movement ; residencies in 2006 include Kolin Ryynänen (Karelia/Finland), MIDBAR (Mitzpe Ramon/Israel), Paradise Art Center (Tehran/Iran), Sharjah Art Museum (United Arab Emirates), Lijiang Studio (Yunnan/China), while that same year he lectured in ten countries including the West Bank. (to find out more..)

passages from: http://www.transcri.be/anglais1.html & http://www.location1.org/eric-van-hove/
image from: http://www.wwwebart.com/riverart/paradise/artists/eric/main.htm

posted by afterrabbit