"An urban strip extending use over time"
Located in the South London suburb of Tulse Hill, Brixton, the school acts as a community hub both visually and physically. The original project brief called for a building of high quality to house a complex program of multiple educational needs.
The building employs sustainable design features including natural ventilation via wind chimneys, natural lighting, a green roof planted with sedum and an insulation material made from recycled newspaper.
The school was created with a total design approach pairing architects AHMM with Martin Richman (an artist known for his work with light manipulation), furniture designer Andrew Stafford, and graphic designer Morag Myerscough.
Link: Better Public Buildings
Link: School Works Lessons From Jubilee School (pdf)
Article: BBC - Lessons of a well-designed school
Photo Gallery: BBC In Pictures: Jubilee school
Architecture Firm: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM)
Furniture Design: Andrew Stafford
Artist: Martin Richman
Graphic Design: Studio Myerscough
Models made for the camera
Model making and photography have a symbiotic relationship. In model making the idea is to create something that resembles real life, but there's no doubting that it is a model when it is in front of you. But add a camera and some light, and that which is real becomes less obvious. Minimiam is a project that plays with our minds as much as it plays with its subject. The team of Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle have produced a series of unordinary and extraordinary photos from their unusual models that delight as much as they confuse. While there's no doubting the cupcake is in fact a cupcake, the camera allows us to entertain the possibility of a cupcake world and cupcake workers.
Link: Minimiam
Via: Design Sponge
A personal refuge
Mike from Mike and Maaike dropped us a line tonight to let us know about their Windowseat lounge chair. Billed as a "sub-architectural space", the lounge features a wrap-around design offering a bit of privacy.
"Along with this new sense of space comes the dynamic play between being inside vs. outside as well as new social or asocial behavior when the chair is introduced into public settings. When used in multiples, the Windowseat Lounge opens up a wide range of possibilities. By directing the chairs towards each other, people can engage in a semi-private conversation. By directing the chairs away from each other, strangers can create their own individual space, ideal for reading, relaxing, or people-watching."
Link: Mike and Maaike [Thanks, Mike!]
Martha Sturdy and the art of casting resin
Martha Sturdy is a Vancouver BC master of casting resin. People who have worked with resin say that it is a substance that you love to hate, and hate to love and that the unexpected is bound to happen, which is not always a good thing. But Sturdy, who graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design back in the early 80's, has spent years dedicating her professional career to the control and manipulation of resin, a dedication that has yielded polymeric magnificence at a very large scale.
Link: Martha Sturdy
Parc du Sausset and the art of patience
At the time of parc du Sausset's planning in 1979 the trend in France was still to create highly designed parks using exotics and built features. The competition brief for parc du Sausset was different in that it broke with tradition and specified conservation. Michel and Claire Corajoud took up the challenge, and proposed a naturalistic planting scheme that would be as much of a buffer to the growing industry and expanding communities, as it would echo the shapes of its industrial iconography and reflect an agrarian past.
Together with Jacques Coulon and a team consisting of Marc Rumelhart, Tristan Pauly, Claude Guinaudeau, Edith Gerard, Pierre Pascal Mourgue and Gerard Dufrense they took to creating a park that would challenge the instant garden mentality of the time. They planted whips instead of more mature trees, and proposed a marsh that would act as a refuge for wildlife, and treat the water infiltrating from the north through pytoremediation.
Link: parc du Sausset
Firm: Michel Corajoud
Prével brings the chalet to downtown Montreal
As Montreal enjoys a burst of activity in the housing market developers are looking for properties that can combine all of the elements that make Montreal unique like history, style, and cityscape. Prével's Le Loft does just that by taking a contemporary approach to the reinterpretation of the Lowney candy factory, home of the Cherry Blossom. The Lowney factory sits on the edge of Old Montreal, a stylish and trendy neighbourhood adjacent to the waterfront and downtown Montreal. While the layout and spa-like finishes are typical of most new condos today, what makes Le Loft stand out from the rest is the 4 season urban chalet situated on the roof. The chalet is a glass and steel structure that provides shelter from Montreal's harsh winter, and stunning views of the waterfront and city.
Link: Le Loft
Multiple Personality Disorder
The Flip chair is a prototype chair from Shawn Bruce that offers different seating arrangements depending on the situation. In it's most conservative way, it is a simple 100 degree incline chair. Yet at night, flip it over and it lets its hair down, becoming a 110 degree lounge chair. Each seating position offers two arrangments so you're sure to be comfortable one way or another.
Building on the Flip is the Flip Storage (below). The Flip Storage is nearly identical to the Flip yet it adds a functional storage bay for your handbag, magazines, coat...anything you might need to conveniently stash.
Both the Flip and Flip Storage are made from injection molded polystyrene with rubber feet.
Link: Flip
World Class Architects Show How It's Done
There is a certain rush that comes from participating in the genesis of a great idea, and yet there is much to be learned from watching an idea unfold on the pages of Alejandro Bahamon's book Sketch Plan Build. In Sketch Plan Build, 30 architects let you in on the creative and technical processes that led to the final plan and construction of major works. Beautifully illustrated, this book provides rough sketches and digital renderings that allow you to understand the thoughts and influences of each featured architect creating a behind the scenes companion to the final product. Building after building is detailed over 500 pages that highlight the mastery and variety of approaches to drawing, model making and photography giving you a front row seat to the metamorphosis of a single simple idea into a project
of great complexity.
Author: Alejandro Bahamon
Link: Sketch Plan Build
Student project for the Salford Docks site in Manchester, U.K.
We first "met" Lorenza Casini, a student in the Materiality College at Manchester School of Architecture, when she contacted us last year regarding our post on MPreis supermarkets in the course of her research for this project. We are very pleased now to share the finished product now with you.
With an abandoned brownfield site chosen by the instructors, the studio presented an urban design and architectural design challenge: to propose a program for the site and to develop the architectural scheme.
Lorenza's proposal merges architecture, landscape, infrastructure, and food supply chains to develop an urban farmland and public space in the heart of Manchester.
Super Potato does block 7
A 'city within a city' is a phrase used in Japan to describe a cluster of buildings connected by industry type, restaurants, recreational facilities and occasionally residences. Shiodome Shiosite is one of Tokyo's newest complexes consisting of skyscrapers that house media giants like Nippon Television and Dentsu Inc., one of the largest advertising agencies in Japan.
The Caretta Shiodome is 51 floors of Dentsu inc. office space, restaurants and bars, museums and retail. However, stop at the 7th floor and find something different: an open concept project called My City designed by the interior design firm Super Potato Co. using 11 materials salvaged from the city to build walls and add texture and detail.
Link: Super Potato
This last week has been a busy one for us outside of Land+Living, not to mention the obvious distraction of hurricane Katrina and her catastrophic aftermath. Fortunately, none of us here at Land+Living has been directly affected by proximity to the disaster.
Also needless to say, there has been no shortage of news coverage of the disaster. Our good friends at Archinect have done a great job of aggregating information on the web related to the hurricane in addition to posting places for people in architecture related fields or studies to find opportunities. We highly recommend visiting their emergency information page to stay abreast of things.
Link: Archinect Emergency
Link: NY Times - Internet mapping
Link: NY Times - Impact maps
66.226.14.99
http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/mac/hack-attack-a-guide-for-switching-to-a-mac-224674.php
http://homepage.mac.com/bagelturf/aparticles/aparticles.html
http://www.virtual-cafe.com/~dhh/tools.d/exifprobe.d/exifprobe.html
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010771141033.aspx
http://www.studiolighting.net/portable-flash-exposure-basics/
http://stellarinfo.com/esupport/users/kb.php?id=10088&category_id=5&sid2=
http://www.activehowto.com.nyud.net:8090/how-to/4/11/414.htm
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1010
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/printing/CS2_printing.html
http://www.naturephotographers.net/mh0402-1.html
http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/color-management-changes-cs2.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/urlrewriting.asp
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b316/notion2k3/n44.jpg
http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/rootkitrevealer.html
http://www.80four.co.uk/tutorials/gelbutton.html
http://www.crunked-designs.com/tutorials.php?subaction=showfull&id=1100680516&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&
http://www.radialdesigns.co.uk/index.php?pstutorial6
http://www.pixel2life.com/tutorials/Adobe_Photoshop/All/?ss=button
http://www.kirupa.com/web/xml/index.htm
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/photo-travel.shtml
http://bennolan.com/behaviour/
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000COg
http://authors.aspalliance.com/paulwilson/articles/?id=12
http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/show/4688/
http://www.t-o-p-a.com/
http://simplythebest.net/fonts/typewriter_fonts.html
http://www.alsostudio.co.uk/
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jhalderm/cd3/
http://www.gardenart.net/portfolio.html
http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=14187
http://members.aol.com/fontner/smell.html
http://www.cpjfotografia.com/surf.htm
http://www.editorialphoto.com/find/
"At a site where the blast furnace heat was almost unbearable you can now cool down and relax"
Archinect points us to an article in Stars & Stripes about the Landschaftspark "country park" at Duisburg-Nord in central Germany. We have featured the work of Peter Latz before, as well as a few other post-industrial landscape regeneration projects. The Landschaftspark no doubt inspired projects such as Amsterdam's Westergasfabriek and North Sydney's BP Site Parkland, yet it retains and reuses even more of the industrial infrastructure than either of these more recent projects.
Link: Landschaftspark
Firm: Latz und Partner
Article: Stars & Stripes - Urban decay now a family climbing getaway in Germany
Reference: Latz + Partner (L+L)
Reference: "From Ruin and Artifice, Landscapes Reborn" (L+L)
Reference: Manufactured Sites (L+L)
Transcendent freeway infrastructure - a modern gateway to Melbourne
It is the rare example where infrastructure and design meet to produce an outstanding result, especially when it comes to a freeway. Here the design for noise attenuation blurs the boundaries between what are functional noise walls, sculptural features and gateways.
The project is 5 kilometers in length, passing between two distinct conditions: the Craigieburn grasslands and the expanding urban fringe. The design is a result of expressing the relationship between the freeway and these two distinct conditions.
Link: Architecture Australia - Craigieburn Bypass
Link: VicRoads - Craigieburn Bypass
Firm: Taylor Cullity Lethlean
Firm: Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects
Artist: Robert Owen
Via: Archinect
Via: Arquitectearte
Bold moves, bold colours, bold design.
The new Pop Series guitars from RKS take guitar lust to a whole new level. These brightly coloured electric beauties carry the names Rockwork Orange, Pink Lipstick and Fine Lime are hand-crafted from maple and alder, and have CNC machine aircraft aluminum alloy ribs with chrome hardware finishes.
Founded by industrial designer Ravi Sawhney and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Dave Mason this young company takes design, quality and sustainability seriously. In a recent move driven by the concern surrounding the use of non-renewable materials for their guitars, RKS tried to reduce the total amount of tone wood typically used in guitar production, and then sought domestic woods instead of opting for the more traditional rain forest varieties. The result is as good for the environment, as it is music to the ears.
Link: RKS Guitars
Via: BusinessWeek Online
Coffee roasted for friends
As a biodiesel user and advocate, I try to keep up with the latest advancements in the rapidly growing movement. Something unheard of just jumped on my radar and I'm completely intrigued: a coffee roaster that runs on biodiesel! The Vermont Coffee Company in Bristol, VT, has just invested $100,000 in the development and manufacturing of a smokeless coffee roaster that runs entirely on biodiesel and utilizes its exhaust emissions as additional fuel. Both efficiency and environmental-friendliness have exponentially increased for the company, which already sells exclusively organic, fair-trade beans.
Link: The Addison Independent
"For one's health it is necessary to work in the garden and see the flowers growing."
Last week we Clipped an article in the Washington Post about healing gardens, and a kind reader wrote in to tell us about the Therapeutic Landscapes Resource Center.
This not-for-profit organization is dedicated to providing information to the public about restorative landscapes, healing gardens, wellness gardens, and other research-based healthcare design. Their website features a wealth of reference materials, garden locations, and links regarding landscapes for healing.
Link: Therapeutic Landscapes Resource Center [Thanks, Lara!]
Reference: In gardens, patients find a calm place for healing (L+L)
Historic Register recognizes Ludwig Mies van der Rohe campus plan
Earlier this week we featured a Clipping regarding the reopening of IIT’s Crown Hall set for this weekend. With the most recent news of the campus's historic designation, we'll take a larger look at the IIT campus.
The National Park Service has announced that the academic campus of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. Designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in close association with landscape architect Alfred Caldwell, the design concept of pavilions within a park setting is one of the most important examples of modern planning in the United States.
"The addition of our campus to the National Register is a reflection of the historical, cultural and architectural importance of IIT within Chicago and throughout the world," said IIT President Lew Collens.
In addition to the modernist structures by Mies and other modern architects, the school has launched a recent building campaign with new buildings by Rem Koolhaas and Helmut Jahn. Eextensive landscape restoration and extension of Caldwell's original landscape of native prarie terrain has been undertaken by Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architects.
Many links to articles and photo galleries for you to enjoy along with our own brief image montage.
Link: IIT
Link: Mies van der Rohe Society
Article: Chicago Sun Times - All of IIT named to historic register
Via: Archinect
Update 10/4/05:
Link: Coudal's Crown Hall page - film & photos
Adriean Koleric's website goes live
Adriean Koleric, the Canadian designer who brought us the Sugar Lounger and the Edith Mailbox dropped us a note to let us know that his website has launched.
In addition to the above, he's added a few new items including the Bento, a single drawer storage unit, Framecicles (featured at right), which are popcicle stick shaped picture frames, and the Factory coffee table.
Also, he's included some concept work along with a few hidden buttons on the site that reveal hidden surprises. Be sure to check it out.
Link: item
Change its form according to your mood
When it comes to comfort, it appears that the Feel Seating System has all the bases pretty much covered. Sleepy? Lay it out flat and take a nap. A little chilly? Fold half of it over and cover yourself with it. Want to relax with a book? Roll it up into a ball and you've got yourself a cozy little nest.
The Feel, from Animi Causa, is created from 120 soft balls that are covered with an elastic fabric and held together with a flexible internal frame. The design is inspired by a molecular structure and can assume various shapes allowing numerous positions.
Link: Animi Causa [Thanks, Amit!]
Also: Pop Gadget
Creating Sculptures from the Ornamental Systems of Sullivan
This exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, Illinois, runs August 28 - October 8, 2005.
A new series of works that manipulate the decorative patterns found in the Chicago area landmarks by the architect Louis Sullivan. An updated version of Sullivan’s mantra "form follows function", Williams insists that "form functions as structure'. Williams injects these sculptures with shapes excavated from our city’s landscape and freed from their facades provoking the viewer to reconsider the decorative features that surround us.
Link: Hyde Park Art Center - Bernard Williams
Winning entry in the "Cradle to Cradle" International Design Competition
We've talked about Cradle-to-Cradle quite a bit here at L+L, but have never featured the winning professional entry in the C2C Home Competition. Designed by Matthew Coates and Tim Meldrum with Brendan Connolly, Rich Franko, Kristine Kenney, Julie Petersen and Ron van der Veen, the concpet embraces environmental responsibility, social responsibility and community interdependence as a complete manifestation of the guiding principles and design issues laid out in the competition brief.
The design is thoroughly modern in appearance and function while embracing the neighborhood and natural context of Roanoke, Virginia. The large "front lawn" of native vegetation wraps up to become a vegetated roof system which collects and filters storm water for use in the house. The horizontal plan is pierced by the vertical "core" which acts as a stack ventilation tower as well as the energy collection armature. The core is clad with a spinach-protein based photosynthetic plasma cell skin that is able to generate enough power to share with the neighborhood.
Link: Cradle To Cradle Home
Via: Future Feeder
More: Archidose
Reference: C2C Home Competition Winners (L+L)
Reference:
Designing the Future (L+L)
Young French Designer, Gilles Roudot
We received a note from French Designer Gilles Roudot alerting us to his creations. Unfortunately, I do not speak French and running the text through Babelfish seemed sketchy at best so I'll just leave you with some eye candy from Gilles. The objects on his site appear to be mostly renderings so I'm not sure if any of his designs have come to fruition but there are several pieces that stand out. Of particular note is the Diner (below), which takes a futuristic approach to a 50's style diner counter, complete with barstools and swingout trays.
Link: Kidino [Thanks, Gilles]
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Jean Prouvé's "Three Nomadic Structures" @ MOCA PDC in Los Angeles
Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Nicholas Grimshaw and, especially, Santiago Calatrava are famous for their high-tech, glass and steel design approach that celebrates the structural elements and exposes the beauty of physics. Jean Prouvé is widely considered to be the famous godfather of the bunch, the "Don Corleone" of the "archingineer," so to say.MOCA is presently housing a small exhibit that originated at Columbia's graduate school of architecture. It focuses on Mr. Prouvé's efforts to create modular structures, furniture and structural systems through three of his principal areas of interest at the time: "schools, the tropics, and the use of aluminum." The main element of the exhibit is one of the so-called "Tropical Houses." This particular specimen was fabricated in Maxéville, France, assembled in Brazzaville, Congo, in 1951, then disassembled in the midst of civil war and shipped back to Paris in 2001. The simple structure is a beautiful example of how modular systems and pre-fab construction can be turned into a beautiful artifact at the hands of a great and thoughtful designer. Unfortunately the actual Tropical House did not make it to Los Angeles, but the exhibit is well worth a visit nonetheless (and it's free too...). Don't forget to watch the video about the re-assembly of the structure.
Finally follow through on the French-speaking theme by maybe sampling some of the baked goods at "Le Pain Quotidien" next door while out on Melrose... YUMM!
Link: MOCA
Link: Design Within Reach
Source: LA Weekly
Publish your work in Pamphlet Architecture 28!
Founded in 1977 as an alternative to mainstream architectural publishing, Pamphlet Architecture encourages architects and writers to put forth their ideas, theories, and designs in modest, affordable booklets. Its success is legendary: Pamphlet Architecture has helped launch the careers of architects from Steven Holl and Lebbeus Woods to Zaha Hadid, and has had influence far exceeding the ad-hoc nature of these humble books.
Could your work spark the next generation of architectural discourse?
Pamplet Architecture is seeking practicing or aspiring architects, urbanists, and landscape architects with visually provocative and intellectually compelling ideas for the future of the designed and built world.
Link: Pamphlet Architecture
Deadline: October 10, 2005
Midcentury St. Louis architect
St. Louis, Missouri based architect Andrew Raimist's blog features many images and anecdotes about modern architect Harris Armstrong as part of his research for a book he is writing about Armstrong.
Raimist's Flickr galleries are chock full of great images of Armstrong's works including photos from the Magic Chef Headquarters which features a ceiling designed by Isamu Noguchi (shown right).
Link: Architectural Ruminations
Photos: Flickr - Harris Armstrong
Engineering simplicity in faucet design
When designing a kitchen every decision can be agonizing and time consuming, so why complicate things? Sometimes simplicity rules, and in this regard Newform faucets stand out. Newform pares down the faucet to its most basic form, and then exploits the angles with details that are conspicuously constructivist. Handles that operate left to right instead of back to front, and spouts that jut out at 90 degrees are just some of the differences between Newform and the competition.
Keep in mind that this is not your hardware store variety faucet, but then again the price-point isn't either and may be a little difficult to track down in some areas. Newform is a manufacturer that does not rely on embellishment to sell their products, but rather focuses on the engineering, a process that produces simple and elegant designs.
Link: Newform
Moshe Safdie showcases Bentonville Arkansas ravine
Moshe Safdie is an architect whose designs exude harmony. This is especially true of the new Crystal Bridges museum and cultural centre designed for Bentonville Arkansas.
The location chosen for the centre is a ravine fed by Crystal Springs, a sylvan setting with mature trees and steep slopes. The sides of the centre will be carved into these slopes, and galleries, libraries and cultural activity spaces will straddle the ravine itself. Two of the galleries will act as bridges that not only allow visitors to easily access the perimeter of the ravine, but have a more utilitarian function as dams that will make a set of ponds out of the interior.
Link: Crystal Bridges
Firm: Moshe Safdie and Associates
Rooftop Architectural Parasites
We've run across a couple of "rooftop parasite" items this week; at Archinect regarding an article regarding rooftop additions in Manhattan, and at Life Without Buildings where they posted a book called The Green House which features a project called P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. (shown right) designed by Dutch architects Korteknie Stuhlmacher.
The idea of parasitic additions and rooftop interventions holds a certain appeal; from habitable appendages to planted roofs to watertanks, etc. And it got us thinking about some projects we have seen before, a few of which we have listed. Tell us about others.
Link: Archinect
Link: Life Without Buildings
Article: Newsday
