architecture

Friday, September 30, 2011

Entrancing mushrooms

I spent the day in Easton, Maryland yesterday on the Chesapeake Bay for a new project and while walking around outside, was astonished by the number of unusual mushrooms I saw growing everywhere.

The structure of these little plants always intrique me; the ribbing, the spots and the cupping -they're so amazing and rather architectural, don't you think?

I know nothing about mushrooms so would never even think of trying to taste or touch any of them for fear of poisoning, but always appreciate them. I had never seen any this yellow green color before.

This monster mushroom had numerous heads and was probably 12" in diameter! I suppose there was one good thing to come from this wet, humid weather we've been having: mushrooms!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Salter Directions

This is just a note to let people know that over at The Archi-Tourist I have added directions to a couple Peter Salter buildings in Japan, both of which have been featured on my weekly page. Over the years I've received a bunch of requests on how to find especially the Mountain Pavilion near Kamiichi, in Toyama Prefecture, so I gathered my materials and responses and made a couple entries:

Mountain Pavilion:
Critters

Inami Woodcarving Museum:
Carvings

On with the show ...



You are cordially invited to the exhibition of the work of our new MA graduates at RIBAhub Manchester. The exhibition features the work of

Robert Aspray MA
Carrie Bayley MA with Distinction
Neven Buric MA
Luke Butcher MA with Distinction
Stephen Gingell MA
Christina Gregoriou MA
Rongxiao Han MA
Angad Kasliwal MA
Anastassia Kolpokova MA
Jonas Komka MA
Meliz Kusadali MA
Natalie Macbride MA
Laleh Mohammad Zadeh Faida Pour MA
Jack O'Reilly MA with Distinction
Supriya Pundlik MA
Ketkibharat Tendolkar MA
Kathryn Timmins MA with Distinction
Preeya Vadgama MA with Distinction
Chen Xu MA


and runs between 29 September and 14 October. There will be an open evening on Tuesday 4 October at RIBAhub and the exhibition is a part of the MMU Faculty of Art and Design MA Show 2011

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

NYC Guide Sneak Peek

While it's not hitting store/online shelves until December 5th, a couple days ago I picked up an advance copy of my book -- Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture -- from the publisher, W. W. Norton. Excited doesn't even begin to describe how I feel! Below is a sneak peek of the book. Soon I'll have a contest/giveaway for free copies of the book, so be sure to check back here for that.

nyc-guidebook1.jpg
[The Austrian Cultural Forum New York graces the cover.]

nyc-guidebook2.jpg
[An overall map keys the 22 chapters across all five boroughs.]

nyc-guidebook3.jpg
[Each borough is introduced with a full-page photo and is further broken down into neighborhoods that feature dictionary-like numbering for easy browsing.]

nyc-guidebook4.jpg
[Each neighborhood chapter starts with a full-page map and a description of the neighborhood.]

nyc-guidebook5.jpg
[The main entries range from a half-page to two pages, most being one page; they all include photo(s), description, subway directions, and of course the name of the building and architect(s).]

nyc-guidebook6.jpg
[A number of sidebars feature additional projects geared around various typologies or themes; this spread is focused on learning spaces, with a library, public school, private school, day care, and school library.]

nyc-guidebook7.jpg
[The last chapter presents projects that will shape New York City this second decade of the 21st century, from the World Trade Center site to Fresh Kills Park and many more.]

Update: I should probably give a shout out to the folks at Modern Good for the great design and layout of the book. A lot of what you see above is the result of their creativity and hard work.

Tar Creek Supergrid

For his thesis project at the University of Toronto, Clint Langevin, in collaboration with Amy Norris, proposed "repurposing abandoned mines as renewable energy infrastructure in the U.S."

[Image: Inside the Picher, Oklahoma, supergrid, by Clint Langevin and Amy Norris].

The specific site for their project is the Tar Creek Lead and Zinc Mine in Picher, Oklahoma, which long-term BLDGBLOG readers might remember as the town at risk from cave-ins. As the Washington Post reported in 2007, "Trucks traveling along the highway are diverted around Picher for fear that the hollowed-out mines under the town would cause the streets to collapse under the weight of big rigs." The unlucky town was then gutted by a tornado in 2008.

Langevin's and Norris's work highlights the area's surreal, almost Cappadocian landscape: "Dozens of waste rock piles, some up to 13-storeys high," they write, "and contaminated ground and surface water are the legacy of mining operations in the area, which produced a significant portion of the lead used in the World Wars."

[Images: Photos of waste rock piles in Picher; (top) Jason Stair, (bottom) Moonlight Cocktail Photography. Photos via the architects].

The architects specifically propose "a structure that raises the solar energy infrastructure off the ground [and] creates the opportunity to host other activities on the site, as well as to remediate the polluted ground and waterways. The concrete structure, pre-fabricated using waste rock material from the site, is assembled in a modular fashion from a kit of parts that accommodates a variety of programs."

[Image: The "kit of parts"].

"Importantly," the architects add, "the hollow structure also acts as a conduit to carry water, energy, waste—all the infrastructure for human habitation—to all inhabited areas of the site."
The result is a three-tiered plan: the topmost layer is devoted to solar energy development and production: testing the latest solar technology and producing a surplus of energy for the site and its surroundings. This layer is also the starting point for water management on the site. Rainwater is collected as needed and transported through the structure to one of several treatment plants around the radial plan. The middle layer is the place of dwelling and exploration of the site. As the need for space grows, beams are added to create this inhabited layer: the beams act as a pedestrian and cycling circulation system, but also the infrastructure for dwelling and automated transit. Finally, the ground layer becomes a laboratory for bioremediation of the ground and water systems. Passive treatment of both the waste water from the site and of the acid mine drainage is coupled with a connected system of boardwalks to allow inhabitants and visitors to experience both the industrial inheritance of the site and the renewed hope for its future.
It's a bit of a Swiss Army knife—in the sense that it tries to solve everything and have a solution for every possible challenge—with the effect that the architects seem to under-emphasize the titanic supergrid that clearly defines the overall proposal. It's as if the proposal is so large—more landform building than architectural undertaking—that even the architects lose sight of it, focusing instead on individual systems in their description.

[Images: A wanderer above the sea of white cubes gazes at the Picher supergrid].

But inside this continuous and monumental space frame, whole communities could live—the "infrastructure for dwelling" and "pedestrian and cycling circulation system"—surrounded by a toxic geography for which the grid itself serves as both sublime filter and possible remedy.

[Images: More views inside the supergrid; second image is simply a detail from the first (view larger)].

The model for the project is pretty great, and I would love to see it in person: a cavernous grid envelopes the site's artificial topography, wrapping tailings piles and hills of waste rock, whilst treading lightly on ground too thin to hold the weight of architecture.

[Images: The model, by Clint Langevin and Amy Norris].

You can see more—including aerial maps and structural details, such as the placement of solar panels—at Langevin's and Norris's site.

Today's archidose #527

Here are a few photos of Habitacle #2 in Meudon, France by André Bloc, 1964. Photographs are by Sipane.

Habitacle 2 - Meudon

Habitacle 2 - Meudon

Habitacle 2 - Meudon

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:
:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

Sea Caverns of Singapore

[Image: Singapore expands beneath the Pacific Ocean; via the BBC].

Singapore has embarked upon the excavation of an underground oil reserve, expanding the city's industrial port beneath the floor of the Pacific Ocean. It is "no ordinary construction site," the BBC tells us, but an elaborate project of engineering and infrastructure currently underway "several hundred feet underground, below the seabed in Singapore."

There, workers are "laboring around the clock to carve out an enormous network of caverns that will eventually store vast amounts of oil."

[Images: Singapore expands beneath the Pacific Ocean; via the BBC].

More specifically, "Five oil storage caverns are being dug out under the seabed of Banyan Basin, off Jurong island, a series of mostly-reclaimed islands that house most of Singapore's petrochemical industry."

Artificial caverns built offshore from manmade islands?

The terrestrial mechanics of Singapore's existence are increasingly interesting, if ecologically problematic. As Pruned's recent look at the city's sand-importation economy shows, the island-nation exists through a near-ceaseless act of geological accumulation, piecing itself together and expanding from the inside out using deposits of earth taken from neighboring countries.

Singapore, Pruned writes, "has been reclaiming land from the sea since the mid-1960s, expanding its total land area by nearly 25% as a result. And it's still growing. With no hinterlands to supply it with natural resources, however, it has to import sand, the primary landfill material. But exactly where, the Singaporean government does not disclose. Its supply lines are not public information."

Earlier this year, we looked at the idea of forensic geology, whereby even a single piece of sand can be tracked back to its terrestrial origins. As that link explains, the source of electronics-grade silicon is often deliberately occluded from public documents, treated as an industrial trade secret. Here, though, it is not microchips but internationally recognized political territory that is being mined, traded, and assembled—a black economy without audit or receipts.

Singapore's off-the-books experiment in sovereign expansion—not through military conquest but through intelligent geotextiles, Herculean dredging projects, and, of course, new undersea caverns—is perhaps a kind of limit-case in how nation-states not only utilize natural resources but literally build themselves from the ground up (and down) as political acts of landscape architecture.

(Earlier on BLDGBLOG: Artificial Caverns Expanding Beneath Chicago).

McGorlick Park


While in Brooklyn a few weeks ago, I came across a small city park that I had never heard of in Greenpoint, which was surprising considering its' loveliness, Monsignor McGorlick Park.Opened in 1891, the park gained beautiful structures and monuments throughout its' history which attracted my eye. Designed in 1910 by the architectural firm Helmle, Huberty and Hudswell who built many impressive structures in Brooklyn, the main building housed M and W bathrooms seperated by a covered curved colonnade.The beautiful neo-classical detailing of the structure isn't surprising as Helmle received his training at the well known architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White. The yellow brick and limestone facade also features a beautiful segmented beadboard ceiling with trimwork picked out with yellow paint.I just think this is such a lovely building, don't you? I wonder what the original light fixtures were (the junction boxes are still in the ceiling)Located inside the crescent shaped building is a WWI memorial created by noted sculptor Carl Augustus Herber in 1923.In her left hand Winged Victory holds a laurel for victory and a palm frond for peace in the other.While I was drawn in by the architecture, I believe the locals simply appreciate the open space and lush green!








McGorlick Park is located between Driggs and Nassau Avenues & Russell and Monitor streets in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

NY in miniature

While in NY this past weekend, I had to run an errand with friends at a Toys R Us and had a pleasant surprise; famous NY buildings in minature built of my favorite childhood toy, legos! The scale of the buildings was dead on and it was amazing how no detail was overlooked with the little bricks.

I loved the context of the buildings next to one another, the Statue of Liberty next to the Empire State Building.


The beloved Chrysler Building was also included.Even King Kong wasn't forgotten on the top of the Empire State Building!It was interesting to see Phillip Johnson's Lipstick Building at such a small scale but maybe a smooth curved building facade isn't the best out of clunky legos?



If you're in NY and find yourself near Times Square (AKA tourist h*ll), stop in Toys R Us at 1514 Broadway to see the sites (or at least stop by candyland for some treats!)

Monday, September 26, 2011

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

This week's dose features Grover Residence in Austin, Texas by Universal Joint:
this       week's  dose

The featured past dose is Theehuis Pavilion in Arnhem, Netherlands by Bjarne Mastenbroek:
featured      past dose

This week's book review is Living In the Endless City edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic:
this week's book review

american-architects.com Building of the Week:

Covington Farmers Market in Covington, Virginia by design/buildLAB at Virginia Tech:
this week's Building of the Week

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:
ARCHI/MAPS
"An eclectorama of architecture + maps." (Via Design Observer; added to sidebar under Blogs » Architecture.)

Archive of Affinities
A tumblr blog. (Via Design Observer; added to sidebar under Blogs » Architecture.)

formpig
"A resource aggregator for the pre-rationalization and post-rationalization of architectural scale form." (Added to sidebar under Blogs » Architecture.)

Projetar Casa Magazine
House Project Magazine. (Added to sidebar under Architectural Links » Publications.)

Visual Complexity
"A unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks." (Added to sidebar under Blogs » Design.)