FIBER CITY / Tokyo 2050

A Fiber can be understood as an organizing grain or thread. In terms of city form it is a linear space.

Contemporary cities are full of these kinds of fibers, one example being the extensive transportation system that extends from air to ground to underground throughout any urban conurbation. In much the same way, the communication network that supports and connects the city is shaped by the logic of its function, and takes on a similar fiber-like configuration. Fibers are spaces with velocity...

...Fiber City 2050 focuses on the use of urban fibers to develop an alternative model of the metropolis in an era of shrinking cities. (to find out more..)

passage & image from: http://www.fibercity2050.net/eng/fibercityENG.html

posted by afterrabbit

Instant Architecture for China’s Earthquake Victims

This May, a massive earthquake rocked Sichuan Province in China. Reaching a magnitude of 8 on the Richter scale, it claimed the lives of 400,000 people. Half a year later, though the destruction seems to have lost its newsworthiness, the reconstruction is still very much a reality. However, it doesn’t have to be hopeless! How about a temporary shelter made of paper? In Chengdu city in Sichuan, students from Japanese banlab, architect Shigeru Ban’s research center, and the Hironori Matsubara Lab at Keio University used cardboard tubes to build temporary school buildings. Today, PingMag talks with Wataru Doi, the director of this student project, about the role of architecture after disasters. (to find out more..)





texts & images from: http://pingmag.jp/2008/11/14/sichuan/

posted by afterrabbit

FLUID FORMS - Your Unique Designs

Personal taste is simply that, it's personal!

For this reason Fluidforms offers everyone an individual design. Our website enables you to design your own fluid forms, according to your own preferences. Just a few clicks of the mouse and you're on your way. Create your own unique forms, and bring to life your own individual design.

Earth Pin Stripe Bowl

Each part of the earth is unique in then design of her heights and depths. Fluidforms enables customers to have a piece of this singularity on a table at home. The different contour lines of a chosen area define the shape of the bowl. An expedition into landscapes and cities only known from hiking. The earth becomes a sensory experience, that can be filled with the fruits of the earth.

(to find out more..) or (design your own products..)

texts & images from: http://fluidforms.eu/shop/catalog/index.php & http://fluidforms.eu/shop/catalog/product_info-cPath-21-products_id-80.html

posted by afterrabbit

Copenhagen Gateway

Mr. Mikkelsen said "The project combines the esthetical, the functional and the business minded. This winning proposal is architecture in high, high class."
The current lord mayor of Copenhagen, Ritt Bjerregaard, praised the design, saying "With the winning project, we get a great high-rise building, which will bind the city better together and function as a landmark in the harbor."

Steven Holl Architects' design for the dramatic new harbor entrance to the great city of Copenhagen is based on a concept of two towers carrying two bridges at two orientations all connecting back to the unique aspects of the site's history. The Langenlinie site, a berth for ocean ships for decades, is expressed in the Langenlinie tower with geometry taken from the site's shape. A prow-like public deck thrusts out to the sea horizon. This deck is the level of public entry to the bridge elevators and has public amenities such as cafes and galleries. It can be reached by a wide public stair as well as escalators. The Marmormolen tower connects back to the City with a main terrace that thrusts out towards the city horizon shaped by a public auditorium below. It can also be reached by escalators and is adjacent to the public bridge elevator lobby. (to find out more..)




passage & images from: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=10609

posted by afterrabbit

Chipperfield to build new Kunsthaus in Zurich

David Chipperfield has been announced as the winner of the international competition to design an extension to the Kunsthaus (art museum) of Zurich, Switzerland. 214 architecture offices from 22 countries were taking part in this competition. As usually in Zurich only the architect has been announced yet, images and more information is yet to be published at a press conference in December. According to the press briefing, a large majority of the jury voted for Chipperfield's project, which is supposed a "classic Chipperfield".(to find out more..)



images & passage from:
http://cisar.blogspot.com/2008/11/david-chipperfield-has-been-announced.html

posted by midori mizu

Extraordinary Sustainability at Japan Society’s Bamboo Exhibit

Bamboo is being used in everything these days: cutting boards, bikes, folding houses, and furniture. Its versatility, however, is truly evident in the exhibition New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters at New York’s Japan Society. Images of the exhibition show bamboo doing things you don’t really think of it doing: curving into rope-like knots, weaving into mesh, twisting into triangular angles. While immediately captivating your attention, it also makes you wonder of the un-explored potential of this sustainable material.
(to find out more..)





images & passage from:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/11/08/japan-society-new-bamboo-contemporary-japanese-masters/

posted by midori mizu

Crawling all over Liverpool

Try to mentally picture those amazing drawings by Lebbeus Woods, which show those parasitic, mechanic creatures that appear to be crawling up along the side of a "normal" building. Those drawings look bizarrely futuristic. And even though years have passed between the first time he draw one of those parasitic robo-creatures (if I may call them that, for lacking a more becoming name), they still had a look like they were something out of the future...

...Until just now, I must say. Actually, since somewhere in September 2008, but I didn't know until today. The vision that seemed to redeem in the drawings of Lebbeus Woods became alive: The French company La Machine made a gigantic mechanical spider for the celebration for Liverpool as the European Capital of Culture. The mechanical spider, weighing in at 37 tons, could have been seen crawling up a side of a pretty non-descript tower building with the speed of two miles per hour.

image & passage from:
http://archipelagoes.blogspot.com/2008/11/crawling-all-over-liverpool.html

posted by midori mizu

Schwimmhausboot

Flo Florián and Sascha Akkermann of confused-direction are building this sweet little floating home, Schwimmhausboot, in Oldenberg, Germany. At 14 meters long, 4 meters high and 3 meters wide, it will have a spacious living room with kitchenette and a bathroom on the lower level, a sleeping loft and a 'veranda'. What's special about this 'hausboot' is it's eco-friendliness: zero-emissions, a green roof, and materials such as 250 year old larch wood salvaged from an old farmer's shed.





by the way these images is just a model...

images & passage from:
http://www.materialicious.com/2008/10/schwimmhausboot.html

posted by midori mizu

The Watercube Wins Australia’s Highest Architecture Award

The Chinese National Aquatic Center, better known as the Watercube, recently won the most prestigious architecture award from the Australian Institute of Architecture! Although not officially a cube, the incredible aquatics facility is the 2008 winner of the Jorn Utzon Award for International Architecture. The design and construction of the memorable facility was a collaboration between Australian firm PTW Architects, Chinese practices CSCEC and CCDI, and international firm Arup.
(to find out more..)

image & passage from:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/11/06/the-watercube-wins-australias-highest-architecture-award/

posted by midori mizu

World Building of the Year

Luigi Bocconi University, Milan, named World Building of the Year
Judges praise the “magical subterranean realm” created by Irish practice Grafton Architects.

The WAF Awards are biggest architectural awards programme in the world, designed to celebrate the work, concerns and aspirations of the international architectural community.
Super-jury selected the project from a total of 17 finalists, whittled down from a shortlist of 224 projects that were presented during World Architecture Festival between the 22nd and 24th October.(to find out more..)

images and passages from:
http://www.dezeen.com/2008/10/27/universita-luigi-bocconi-by-grafton-architects/

posted by midori mizu