Labor Day!

Have a great long weekend everyone! I hope you enjoy the last of summer: be it at the beach, bbq or just at home - relax!! To help you relax is some of my favorite happy music: Kylie Minogue!

Labor(-Free) Days

I'm taking time off over the holiday weekend to spend time with friends and family. Posts will resume Wednesday. If you're celebrating, have a happy Labor Day!

Gianni Ricci frescos

While flipping through World of Interiors from March 2004, I came across an article about a castle in Monferrato in Piedmont overlooked by the Alps with amazing frescos. The frescos were originally done by Vittorio Accornero (who was famous for his designs for Gucci and Hermes) in the 1930s and were later reworked by architect Gianni Ricci from nearby Turin in the 40s.
The owner 'strove for gaiety in her surroundings, a sophisticated yet informal atmosphere in which American eccentricity merged with European antiquity.'. I think this was achieved, don't you? Although I am not sure I've heard of American eccentricity, but rather British eccentricity; I guess in a British magazine though...........
In the dining room, seen in the picture above, the dumb-waitor is painted to look like a birdpage.
'the blue bedroom' - probably the most perfect shade of blue I've come across for a bedroom! Not too soft, not too bright - bold but not insane.
The master bedroom, above, has wallpaper by Zuber and not frescos. I love the yelow with the blue/gray.
This shows some of the frescos completed in the 40s by Ricci. The owner wanted to replicate painted baroque trompe-l'oeil details similar to other piedmontese palaces. The crumbling of the walls only adds to their charms; I never would have expected these to have been painted in the 20th century!

Airborne Environments

[Image: Airbus A380, photographed by Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse for Getty Images, via the New York Times].

Marc Newson's "retro-futurist" interior design for the new A380 super-jumbo airplane, to be run by Qantas, was the subject of an interesting article in the New York Times writes this morning.

Newson's "design language" for the airplane, we read, "is defined less by what the passengers see than by how they feel." One example of this is "the L.E.D.’s that illuminate the cabin":

They are programmed to wash the interior with colors that change subtly throughout the flight. Each shade is selected to create the ideal mood for a particular activity, like sleeping, waking or eating, regardless of time zone.
“Designing an aircraft is like creating a mini-world,” Mr. Newson said. “You’re putting people in a confined environment and controlling how they’ll feel with the oxygen, humidity and everything they touch and see. It all has an effect.”

Reading this instantly brought to mind a few things – including, somewhat obviously, the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, here transformed into a total environment sent aloft into the sky. Perhaps equally unsurprising, I was also reminded of Norman Foster's infamous choice of the Boeing 747 as his favorite building of the 20th century.

Are airplanes the future of architecture, after all?

Somewhat more obscurely, however, I thought of the dream academy of Konstantin Melnikov – Melnikov's so-called "Sonata of Sleep." As the Winter 2007/2008 issue of Cabinet magazine described Melnikov's bizarre architectural invention:

At either end of the long buildings were to be situated control booths, where technicians would command instruments to regulate the temperature, humidity, and air pressure, as well as to waft salubrious scents and "rarefied condensed air" through the halls. Nor would sound be left unorganized. Specialists working "according to scientific facts" would transmit from the control centre a range of sounds gauged to intensify the process of slumber. The rustle of leaves, the cooing of nightingales, or the soft murmur of waves would instantly relax the most overwrought veteran of the metropolis. Should these fail, the mechanized beds would then begin gently to rock until consciousness was lost.

In many ways, this Willy Wonka-like vision of synaesthetic architecture could be realized in the guise of international airplane travel, Newson inadvertently suggests. Lulled by strange colored lights and slowly changing sounds, passengers can be sent to sleep – or woken up – at the will of the pilot, who assumes a new, psychotropic role. It's an Esalen Institute in the sky.

[Images: Photos by Brett Boardman, for the New York Times].

A few brief questions:

1) What would an airplane designed by Jonathan Ive look like? Or if Mies van der Rohe had been hired to rethink the internal spaces of American Airlines? I feel like entire, speculative, university-level design courses could be organized around such lines of thought; they could be sponsored by Richard Branson. So does Newson's success – or, who knows, failure – in designing the Qantas A380 imply that our era needs a new Raymond Loewy? Or will climate change and high oil prices ultimately extinguish this temporary airborne niche in the field of architectural design?

2) Less relevantly, should airports look like the airplanes that depart from them? You walk from one tubular environment into another, and you sit in identical seats, served by similarly uniformed stewards – only the room you're now in suddenly accelerates, taking you up into the sky... Perhaps the interior design of airports and airplanes should be unified – made continuous – so, after too many drinks one night, waiting to depart from Dallas-Ft. Worth, you realize that you might be sitting in the airplane already... You demand to get off; hijinks ensue.

3) What were the test-environments for this airplane like? Did Newson have entire fake airplane hulls constructed somewhere, inside of which entire fake rooms and galleys could be installed – and what was it like to spend time inside that simulated airplane of the future?

4) Could you purchase one of Newson's perfectly molded bathrooms, receive it by delivery a week later, and then hook it up somewhere inside your own grounded house? I remember hearing once that the Spice Girls liked the mattresses that they slept on so much when they came through Philadelphia and stayed in the Four Seasons they that they simply bought the beds upon check-out. So could you fill out a form at the end of your trans-Pacific, San Francisco-Sydney flight, and say, sure, I'll buy two bathrooms and a couchette... deliver them to my house in Marin County? A whole subsidiary industry begins: you send experimental interiors into the skies of the world, aboard international business flights, hoping to sell a few rooms to your well-served, half-drunk passengers. What would happen if you could buy rooms from inside any building you've ever visited? Surely every interior could be given a price tag?

Today's archidose #238

Here's three buildings in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (the city of last week's dose), all photographed by z.z..


SGAE (General Society of Authors and Publishers) Central Office by Antón García Abril (Ensamble Studio).


Musical Studies Centre at the University of Santiago de Compostela, also by Antón García Abril (Ensamble Studio).


Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Santiago de Compostela by Álvaro Siza

Versailles details

My friend Henry (who's apartment I blogged about in March HERE) just got back from a trip to Italy and France. He sent me these photos of woodwork details from Versailles.I love these elegant blue-gray and white painted panels. The workmanship is exquisite!! However, as much as I like these elegant versions above-these polychrome panels below are TO DIE FOR. How crazy beautiful are these?
Just thought I'd share - thanks for the photos, Henry! Oh, did I mention he also went to Villa Rotunda that I blogged about last month?? I'm green with envy!

Half Dose #52: Ewha Womans University Campus Center

Earlier this year saw the opening of the Campus Center for Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. Designed by Dominique Perrault, the building is appropriately called "The Campus Valley."


[aerial photomontage | image source (PDF link)]

Comprising classrooms, library, event spaces, cinema, theater, shops, outdoor sports fields, administrative support, and parking for the 22,000 university students, the submerged project recalls the Velodrome & Pool he designed for Berlin, in which the presence of the two buildings barely rises above the surrounding landscape.


[view from main road | image source (PDF link)]

While the two buildings in Berlin are objects that nestle themselves into the ground plane, this building is the ground plane.


[view from the stair side of the valley | image source (PDF link)]

The valley, which ramps down from the south and returns up via stairs to the north, is but one "bar" element of four: the circulation that is the valley, the two bars of internal function on both sides of that space, and the outdoor sports fields that intersect the valley vector at its southern tip. This Google Maps view shows the last bar in relation to the first three, apparent even though the aerial view is in the early stages of construction.


[view from the ramp side of the valley | image source (PDF link)]

The design violates one of those "golden" rules from architecture school: Don't make people move down just to make them move back up (and vice-versa), but this project actually just inverts a more typical above-ground building, where people are brought above grade, they do what they need to do -- such as sit in class -- and then they descend to the sidewalk. When seen in isolation the valley doesn't make much sense, but when seen in context of the reaminder of the building it makes perfect sense. Ironically, the building creates a stronger sense of place than a more prominent above-grade building probably could.


[the glass side walls of the valley | image source (PDF link)]

The lengthy glass walls facing the valley utilize deep fins that give the walls a solidity when viewed obliquely, yet keeping views across highly transparent. It's a bit cold in comparison to the landscaping sits above the spaces behind the walls. The decision to make the valley a limited palette of stone and glass is surely intentional, but one that raises questions as to the character of the space and perhaps its future evolution. Will planters and trees appear? Or will the 22,000 students of Ewha Womans University enliven the space enough it doesn't require any changes? Only time, as they say, will tell.


[internal circulation paralleling the valley | image source (PDF link)]

Links:

:: Ewha Womans University
:: Dominique Perrault Architecture

(Many thanks to Yoonhie for the head's up on this project!)

The Comparative Literature of Massive Construction Sites

[Image: An etching by Daniel Stojkovich called Tower of Babel 2, exhibited as part of Top Arts 2007 at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia].

I was clicking around on a local university's engineering school homepage yesterday morning when I misunderstood the way the page had been organized. For a second I thought that Comparative Literature had been re-classified as a sub-field, or specialty research group, within the university's engineering school – and so I had to wonder what exactly those students might be reading.
Aside from technical manuals, what might be the comparative literature of engineering?
Before I realized that I'd simply misread the list of links, I thought that perhaps there should be a comparative literature of construction sites: famous monuments, tombs, bridges, houses, and cities throughout history, together with the thoughts of the people who built them.
You collect the oral histories of construction workers all over the world, only identifying what building they were working on in the footnotes; what emerges is a kind of architectural hivework with no clear purpose or outline taking shape all over the planet, with towers and stadiums and whole urban neighborhoods assembled in a fog of exhaustion and low-grade injury.
You then go back through all of literature, from the Bible to the Upanishads to The Odyssey to The New York Times, culling long quotations about construction sites. The private houses of emperors; the pyramids; recollections of the construction of jungle temples; mountain lookouts in a time of war; Victorian train lines; Dubai.
In fact, I'm reminded of the excellent book Dart by Alice Oswald in which conversations with people living along the river Dart have been combined into a single, long-running commentary about the riverine landscape; only here it would be a kind of Dart of architecture: thousands and thousands of construction workers and site engineers and geotechnicians and consultant elevator repair servicepersons all speaking about the act of putting architecture together in space.
Epic poems of building assembly.
I do wonder, meanwhile, if the temporary micro-culture of the construction site has been adequately documented by architectural historians. Industrial yards have certainly had their day, from documentaries about WWII dockworkers to historical surveys of Solidarity; and construction sites have obviously long been a focus for painters and photographers.
But have literature and history given the attention due to sites of architectural assembly?
Do we need a Construction Site Reader – the comparative literature of massive construction sites?

Union Church of Pocantico Hills

Monday I mentioned I went to a chapel that had windows funded by the Rockefellers with windows by Marc Chagall and one rose window by Henri Matisse (his last work he ever completed!). The Union Church of Pocantico Hills is just a few short blocks from their mansion, Kykuit and the family attended services there when they were at their summer house. Marc Chagall was first comissioned to do one large window and later returned to finish off the sanctuary. All 9 windows tell a different story from the bible. the first and largest window 'the good samaritan' in honor of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1960 -seen in the picture above at the gable end. The round window in the photo above is by Matisse

If Chagall wasn't already my favorite artist, he would be after visiting this church. The interior is awash in beautiful colors for an almost religous experience;the windows, like all of Chagall's work, speak to the soul. I like that the images here tell a story and aren't just pretty windows; respecting the tradition of stained glass in churches. I was unable to find a picture of the whole sanctuary unfortunately for the overall effect of all 9 windows-but I've attached a few pictures of individual windows. 'Joel' ''Jeremiah' 'Daniel'You can read more about the church and the windows online at
http://www.hudsonvalley.org/content/view/80/145/

Veg.itecture #37

About time to purge the bursting folders of Vegetated Architecture projects that have been zooming through the blogosphere lately. As well a few resources, include this [cringe] DIY Guide to Green and Living Roofs as well as good overview post on the 'Arbortectural' via Design Under Sky. Overall, a wide range of types and scales - along with an interesting article via World Landscape Architect - and China Daily - on the goal in Shanghai of adding 100,000 sq/m of green roof annually (and recently hitting 95k sq. m recently)... that's a lot for those of you keeping track at home (over 1 million square feet).

On to the projects, starting at Arch Daily, Joanopolis House by Una Arquitetos offers some very thick building planes which hold a variety of vegetation, as seen in the images below:




:: images via Arch Daily

I especially like this retained earth/infinity pool detail along one side:


:: image via Arch Daily

Via Dwell, a lovely green roof in Vista Hermosa, the new urban park in LA:


:: image via Dwell

Back to the Olympics and Beijing a little, via Inhabitat some respite from the Bird's Nest - the (coincidence?) LEED Gold Olympic Village with a variety of green rooftops... strange no one talked about the 'green-ness' of the village... in all of the coverage (or at least the 20 hours or so I watched) or even a damn street tree anywhere in Beijing for that matter. This is cool, it would've been nice to actually see it...


:: image via Inhabitat

Not quite the rave reviews for the Chelsea Barracks... maybe it's the color of the rendering?


:: image via BDonline

A smaller scale project in Costa Rica by B-Green, with a modest green roof (the little tufted gables are a nice touch):


:: image via WAN

A less green (for now) modern version atop a new Seattle house (via Jetson Green), Alley House by developer Cascade Built... that makes me, sigh, wonder why that much money and attention on a house doesn't warrant an extra couple hundred dollars worth of sedum...


:: image via Jetson Green

And a little tuft of greenery atop a less- modest structure, Doon Street Tower by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands.

:: image via WAN

And for those of you eagerly awaiting like myself, I did get my hot little hands on the new Patrick Blanc book - 'The Vertical Garden' coming out soon from WW Norton (who were nice enough to send me a review copy). Look for a review sooner, (depending on my desire to haul it around on vacation- it's large) or not... But trust me, you will NOT be disappointed. If you have an inkling of desire to learn about this concept, you will want to own this book - so pre-order it now.

Missing Something?

A post via anArchitecture... made me think a bit about our fair profession and it's place in the grand scheme of the world. Via the site and post 'The Architectural Practice, Part I' - this graphic:


:: image via anArchitecture

And the text: "Architectural practices are a project based businesses: Changing teams create unique, tailor-made products or services (e.g. a building). A project is characterized by a network of different groups or companies (sometimes referred as 'stakeholders') like clients, designers, model makers, engineers, etc - temporary working together. Although people change from project to project their collaboration is based on trust. ... Consequently, architectural practice's success is based on past achievement: their project portfolio and their (business) network."

Obviously you see where my rant is going... missing a stakeholder at this particular table? Yes, landscape architecture can still be marginalized... but an interesting discussion - and some parsing (i.e. splitting hairs between stakeholders and participants).... check out round two of this on anArchitecture as well in 'The Architectural Practice, Part II'... which has a laundry list of participants... oh, but landscape architect has been switched with landscape designer... ah, so close... rant continues...

A good parallel discussion on Land8Lounge revisits the perennial topic of 'Who are we?' and more aptly 'Why can't we be called something other than Landscape Architect(ure)?'... is worth checking out as well. Lively discussion all around :)

Today's archidose #237

Balastera 6, originally uploaded by Srgio2000.

Football Stadium in Palencia, Spain by Francisco Mangado. See more stadium photos by Srgio2000.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

Sky Vegetables

Have you noticed sometimes how you have to spend a good amount of time squeezing the smallest bits of information out of some sites...? I'm not sure how this is. One example of this is the site for Sky Vegetables, and the companion blog site which seems nigh impossible to extract even the slightest bit of useful info... due to it's new-ness and flashness... although some gleanings that made it worth the trip...


:: image via Sky Vegetables

There is one nice flash overview showing some components of integrated rooftop strategies, such as wind turbines, rainwater harvesting, composting, greenhouses, and solar panels, with some brief description of each.




:: screen shots via Sky Vegetables

A nice element on the blog side, was some photos of Eli Zabar's rooftop greenhouses in NYC, which are renowned for being one of the best productive roofs in the country. From Sky Rooftop: "...Eli Zabar deserves the revenues and the bragging rights; he provides organic produce that is fresher and more local than perhaps any grocery store in New York. I was surprised to find out that Zabar’s actually operates two rooftop greenhouses. In addition to the rooftop of his grocery store, The Vinegar Factory, he has a rooftop greenhouse on his warehouse across the street. The greenhouses grow a variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs. This includes raspberries, strawberries, a variety of greens and herbs, tomatoes, peppers and even dates. A big kudos to Eli for his vision and progressive thinking, proving fresh produce from the roof can be sold commercially and for a profit."

:: images via Sky Rooftop

Another interesting side trip led me to Dr. Job Ebenezer, who is the innovator behind the 'wading pool' garden - featured on local project here in Portland at the Rocket. Ebenezer experimented with Wading pools atop the Evangelical Lutheran Church in downtown Chicago as a model for urban agriculture. And this was 15 years ago... so this stuff ain't new. Ebenezer also discusses gardening with feed sacks, and used tires... you name it. This rooftop pioneer doesn't show up on any of the latest articles on urban rooftop ag...

:: image via Container Gardens

From Container Gardens: "Dr. Ebenezer set about to prove the feasibility of growing vegetables in plastic wading pools. The demonstration garden has proved to be highly successful. In 1997, gardeners harvested 984 pounds of vegetables from 38 pools in an area measuring 1,625 square feet. One pool alone yielded an average of 22.5 pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, zucchini and a variety of greens. This is equivalent to about 26,800 pounds. per acre, which far exceeds that of commercial yields in the state of Wisconsin and even the national 1996 average yields."

:: image via Sky Rooftop

Another pic showing Ebenezer in situ, who focuses this work on technology transfer for feeding the poor through a non-profit group... All this, somehow makes the Rocket, just a little bit less cool... :)

:: image via Technology for the Poor

Kykuit

One of my favorite houses I've ever visited is probably Kykuit. Owned by 4 generations of Rockefellers, the home is now a museum with an extensive collection of modern art from Nelson Rockefeller. Designed by Aldrich & Delano and finished in 1913, the house is 6 stories tall but surprisingly cozy and a family home inside. No architectural formalities here. Interesting also that while the family was one of the richest in the world, no fancy fine furniture here -good quality reproductions. Like I said -a family home!closeup of sculpture on front of houselight over the front doorone of a pair of lampposts at the entrancethe elaborate entrance canopy
view of front entrance court from front door the dining room
the center hall which doubles as the music room

The first and 2nd floor of the house are open for tours but the top few floors remain guest suites (I wonder how you get to be lucky enough to stay there!). The basement was turned into an extenstive art gallery and is one of the main tours through the house. The grounds are home to as much art as the interior; besides the usual garden follies there is an extensive collection of modern sculpture in the extensive gardens(which are VERY well maintained). A side view of the house from the pool area (now lawns) view of the Hudson River from the back terracea japanese lantern in the garden view of an artificial stream in the japanese garden one of the fake grottos which hide fountain pumpsa column once owned by fabled architect 'Stanford White' behind the teahousetrellis along the rose gardenview of the house from the rearview of the house from the rose gardenviews from the back gardens of the extensive estate

I loved these garden chairs -they are from Paris from around 1900

2 views of the temple

And now I save the best for last. My favorite part of the estate was the teahouse. This little jewelbox was right beside the house and seperated the former pool areas from the italian gardens (where stanford white's sculpture was). the front and back of the teahouse. The front of the teahouse fronted the pool and had this CHARMING fountain: green striped marble with little gilded creatures. The inside was very small -maybe 10' wide by 15' long and had an old-fashioned soda fountain and the most chic furniture on the estate! The urn behind the chaise is by Picasso. The ceilings are painted Pompeiian style.

This was a long post -you can see how much I loved the place! Definitely worth visiting. All of the pictures were my own except the 2 interior shots of the house which I took from the architect's website.