Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

This week's dose features Hill Hut in Stockholm, Sweden by visiondivision:


The featured past dose is House for a Musician in Scharans, Switzerland by Valerio Olgiati:


This week's book review is Architecture of Change 2: Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment edited by Kristin Feireiss and Lukas Feireiss:


Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Architectour.net
"International contemporary architecture database." (added to sidebar under architectural links::guides)

Chicago Architecture: A Critical Guide by Edward Keegan
"THE iPhone App for better understanding and visiting the buildings of the America's First City for Architecture." (Available at iTunes.)

Drawing Ideas in Perspective
An essay by Alexander Severin on "the absence of spatial representation in architectural discourse."

:output award
An "international student award for young talents in design and architecture." Deadline is February 15.

Unhappy Hipsters

Commentary on photography in Dwell Magazine, subtitled, "It's lonely in the modern world." (Thanks HB!)

Some Lettuce Grows in Manhattan

Decades from now 2009 may be seen as the year that vertical farming started to take hold. Time magazine named vertical farming one of last year's 50 best inventions. Proposals seemed to arrive almost weekly. And whole blogs -- or parts thereof -- are devoting themselves to the subject.

The push for more sustainable and less land-devouring, transportation-heavy, soil-depleting, ground-water-polluting practices of agriculture ranges from systems that fit inside buildings to skyscrapers devoted in their entirety to food production. The former is more immediate and realistic, while the latter's proposals are still in the realm of ideas and fantasy, at least on the large scale many envision them. Spurred by a recent Scientific American article -- penned by a Dickson Despommier, a vocal proponent of vertical farming and the president of the Vertical Farm Project -- I explored to see what forms these hypothetical vertical farms may take, and how they integrate with other functions to create a true urban agriculture, not just monocultural functionalism akin to agribusiness supplanted to the city.


[Kenn Brown Mondolithic Studios | image source]

The Scientific American article uses the above illustration -- a vertical farming campus of sorts -- to optimistically portray the possibilities, in terms of form and its relationship to the city it serves. The rendering shows not only the crops behind glass walls but also the vast amounts of infrastructure required for the functioning of such buildings, particularly power generation and water supply/reuse. Architecturally, considerations of massing, placement and solar orientation are more important than the design of the exterior envelope. The importance of sunlight even in urban vertical farming points to controls for retaining solar exposure in regards to nearby developments. This points to brownfield locations and others outside the city center as well as segregated zoning.


[WORKac for New York Magazine | image source]

A pre-2009 hypothetical proposal by Work Architecture Company for a site in SoHo terraced crops and other green uses in front of migrant housing, all above a farmer's market. Commissioned by New York Magazine, this sketch thoughtfully combines two important aspects of agricultural production while also acknowledging the surrounding neighborhood with a golf course, market and large-scale sculpture on the plaza. Hardly serious in execution but very much so in its programmatic details.


[Agro Housing by Knafo Klimor Architects | image source | via Veg.itecture]

Knafo Klimor Architects' winning entry for the Living Steel Competition also combines vertical farming with housing, the latter wrapped in a C-shape around the former. Designed for a location in China, the design resembles a community garden extruded twelve stories. I like this idea because it treats food production as a commons for personal consumption, though I doubt it could sustain all people living in the building; additional food (even ignoring meats, dairy, and other types of foods not able to be "grown" vertically) will need to be obtained from elsewhere to supplement what's grown locally.


[Designs for vertical farming | image source]

Inhabitat collects some of the more far-fetched proposals for dealing with an anticipated 3 billion more inhabitants on earth by 2050. The Inhabitat post discusses an op-ed New York Times piece by Mr. Despommier, who seems to be directing much of the discussion around large-scale vertical farming. I think proposals aligned with his thinking are many years off and small-scale urban farming should be nurtured as much, if not more than larger projects. Rooftops, windows, community gardens and other urban "sites" are ripe for exploitation for growing food, or at least for experimenting to determine the best ways to grow in such a setting, and as a way to shape future zoning laws and building codes towards embracing urban farming. Of course small-scale food production is already being done, but not as widely as it should be. The large-scale fantasies above might just have the benefit of increasing the implementation of small-scale urban farming as large-scale alternatives are designed and debated.

pavilion.net

[Image: Pole Dance, P.S. 1 competition-winning design by SO-IL].

I have to admit to being less than overwhelmed by the annual P.S. 1 competition—aka the Young Architects Program—as well as by the annual Serpentine Pavilion in London, but this year's P.S. 1 winner, by Brooklyn-based SO-IL, looks pretty amazing.


[Image: Pole Dance, P.S. 1 competition-winning design by SO-IL].

Although it will be nothing but a sea of bungee-anchored soccer nets and wobbly fiber-glass poles—with some colored balls thrown overhead as mobile ornaments—the structure has the feel of being the framework for an emerging game, an obscure sport whose spatial rules are yet to be determined.

As the architects themselves explain in their initial proposal, "On discovery of its elasticity, visitors engage with the structure, to envision games, test its limits or just watch it gently dance."



[Images: Pole Dance by SO-IL].

Put another way, if Yona Friedman were to become president of FIFA, perhaps this would be the weird new playing field he might develop.


[Image: Pole Dance by SO-IL].

The view from the street, of tall poles gently swaying amidst nets, will also be interesting to see.

While you're on SO-IL's website, check out their proposal Party Wall, as well as their well-weathered documentation of a garden shed in Belgium.

Reforesting Cities

A great post on Urban Omnibus investigates the potential of implementation of urban reforestation blended into existing buildings in our urban areas. From author Vanessa Keith, author of the article: "Retrofitting our urban building stock to address climate change need not be limited exclusively to increasing their energy efficiency. If “one of the primary causes of global environmental change is tropical deforestation” (Geist & Lambin, 143), then we should approach the adaptation of our buildings as an exercise in reforestation."


:: image via Urban Omnibus

While the ideas of terrestrial re-forestation have been discussed often in urban areas, the proposals attempt to incorporated this into existing building stock is a unique way of augmenting this. The post goes through a range of typologies of interventions including white roofs, greenscreens, green roofs, windbelts, and a range of blue-roof strategies (see Veg.itecture for more exploration of this).


:: image via Urban Omnibus

So, pulling it all together, starts to looks like a eco-district scale project typology, with a range of building and terrestrial opportunities exploited: "Large scale urban farming which takes place indoors and on large expanses of roof, greenscreens to let plants to climb the vertical surfaces of the city, trees which are now able to grow on the city roofscape. Roof ponds and artificial waterfalls for cooling and electrical generation. Solar and wind devices which form sculptural elements in the city, performing a function as well as having an aesthetic. Ports for plug-in electric vehicles which gather energy from photovoltaics. Solar panels incorporated into street poles, and vertical wind turbines which form a rhythm in the streetscape. Bicycle lanes, room for walking and the incorporation of still more trees."


:: image via Urban Omnibus

The concept of building retrofit has gained much attention, both as a economic necessity as building slows down, but also as shown in the article, the usable surface area of the city isn't just composed of the left-over terrestrial parcels, but a network of building faces, as cited in: " A recent New York Times article quantifies the amount of available roofspace in the city alone as 944 million square feet, 11.5% of the total building area the city holds."

Ignoring this resource will miss a significant opportunity to incorporate more area in our attempts to reforest cities, and also expand our toolkit beyond street tree canopy and dense planting in open spaces.

Bibliophilic Mecca

As a book lover, purchasing new reading materials is always one of those things that I both relish and anguish over, as it tends to put a sizable dent in the wallet. While fiction is one thing, the the high cost of many arch and landscape related volumes is sometimes laughable when deciding which $80 book to pick up. While an occasional free review copy is a welcome addition, the low-volume / high-price of design literature is cost-prohibitive to fully obtain the plethora of great titles. The library is an option, but I'm more of a owner than renter in this case (specifically in the non-fictional) - mostly as these aren't short-term relationships but long-term engagements that get visited and re-visited over the years. The other local mecca Powells and other used book stores is always a benefit - shaving a few dollars off, but more often than not the price tag is large.



So I was excited to visit local Title Wave Books here in Portland today... the word 'bookstore' here is somewhat applicable, as it's more a repository for Multnomah County Library to unload books that are taken out of circulation in the regional library system and sell them at a significantly reduced price. Today was a local special (an additional 55% off books in Architecture and Design), so I was salivating over the possible additions to the library. I wasn't disappointed.

The full list of books I acquired:

:: Building Inside Nature's Envelope - Wasowski
:: Earth Sheltered Houses - Roy
:: Theory and Design in the Second Machine Age - Pawley
:: Emilio Ambasz: The Poetics of the Pragmatic
:: The Making of a Town: Potsdam-Kirchsteigfeld - Krier & Kohl
:: AD: Sci-Fi Architecture
:: AD: The Architecture of Ecology
:: Architects: The Noted and the Ignored - Prak
:: Tight Spaces: Hard Architecture and How to Humanize It - Sommer
:: Understanding Architecture - Conway
:: The Architecture of Happiness - de Botton
:: Nature Near: Late Essays of Richard Neutra
:: The Language of Space - Lawson
:: Architecture and the Phenomenon of Transition - Gideon
:: What is Architecture? - Shepheard
:: After the City - Lerup

Total price-tag: $36

While admittedly, I may not have chosen all of these had they sold for full price, but even a chapter's worth of knowledge is worth a dollar or two sometimes, and some were just chosen for some good imagery or an interesting historical viewpoint. Many were hardcover, and a good bit where standouts, which will inevitably be mentioned in upcoming reviews or posts, so stay tuned - and check out your local library for a sale or a store... you won't be sorry.

Petit Trianon: billiard and guard's rooms.

In my second in-depth look at the Petit Trianon, we'll continue to explore the ground floor.

The billiard's room is adjacent to the grand stairhall and in the time when the trianon was first built, was intended for the male guests of Madame de Pompadour. King Louis XV himself supplied an ornate billiards table for the use of his guests: You see the room on the floorplan below in blue.

However, when Marie Antoinette was given the PT for her own private use, she had Louis XV's pool table moved up to the main level (1784). She then gave the billiards room over to the officers of the guard (who were stationed across the stairhall) with a more ordinary billiards table, probably similiar to the one found there now. A kind gesture on her part in my opinion, as it gave additional space to her guards that also occupied a prime corner room with views of the garden.

The room has a bust of Marie Antoinette on the mantel, beautiful herringbone floors and 'high' painted paneling. The jib door connects to the warming room, a sort of butler's pantry, where some of Marie Antoinette's personal china is displayed today.

This detail shot of a door shows how beautiful the gilded bronze hardware is. I especially love this shade of green paint.

Across the stairhall from the billiards room is the guards room, seen on the floor plan above in the darker green shade. It was inexpensively finished with plaster walls fauxed to look like stone and wood cabinets with fauxed-marble tops. The window and door in this room look out into the main entry court. The room would have been filled with cots, tables and chairs for the guards as they would spend most of their time here; I can only imagine how boring that would be!

On the opposite side of the guards room from the grand stairhall (seen in the light green on the floorplan) is an unfinished stone passageway. This sits under the main terrace off the dining room on the floor above. It provided passage from the service courtyard, servants lodgings and carriage house with the kitchens behind the grand stair.

Through this roughly finished space, servants could pass un-detected from the kitchens to their own dwellings without disturbing Marie Antoinette and her guests in the gardens. The guards would also use this space and could patrol who was coming in and out of the kitchens.

I love these hewn limestone walls and exposed timber beams. This unfinished roughness was the complete opposite look of the very finished spaces found elsewhere in the Petit Trianon, but one that is very popular and copied today. Join me next week when we explore the main level occupied by Marie Antoinette.

Today's archidose #390

Here are a couple views, outside and inside, of the Madinat Al Zahara Museum and Foundation Offices in Córdoba, Spain by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos. Photographs are by pajaritos13.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

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

Urban Cartography

There are some interesting links I've stumbled upon recently (a round-up of which is forthcoming), one worth some exploration is a site entitled Urban Cartography. The posts simply show collected imagery of a variety of informatics and other interesting mashups of data from around the globe. Not mapping in the traditional sense, these densely woven graphics provide some great inspiration for representation in ways that would make Edward Tufte proud (or sometimes cringe).








:: images via Urban Cartography

While many are specific and data-specific, including plans and architectural graphics, others delve into mapping the more whimsical. My favorite to day is the 'Mega Shark' which in our age of gigantism will soon pose imminent threats in such mundane activities as air travel.


:: images via Urban Cartography

Lunar Archaeology

[Image: Humans creating a future archaeological site on the moon].

In a meeting today in Sacramento, commissioners might vote to register items left behind on the moon by Apollo astronauts "as an official State Historical Resource," the L.A. Times reports.

After all, "California law allows listing historical resources beyond the state's borders—even if it's more than 238,000 miles away."

Some of the 5,000 pounds of stuff Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin abandoned at Tranquility Base was purposeful: a seismic detector to record moonquakes and meteorite impacts; a laser-reflection device to make precise distance measurements between Earth and the moon; a U.S. flag and commemorative plaque. Some was unavoidable: Apollo 11's lunar module descent stage wasn't designed to be carted back home, for instance.

"They were told to jettison things that weren't important," anthropologist Beth O'Leary, "a leader in the emerging field of space heritage and archaeology," tells the newspaper. "They were essentially told, 'Here's eight minutes, create an archaeology site.'""

If the Apollo site does become, incredibly, a California state landmark, this decision will open a legal path for the location to be recognized as an official UNESCO World Heritage Site. This, in turn, will help protect it from vandalism during "unmanned trips to the moon by private groups, and even someday by tourists." While the implied vision of Indiana Jones, Astronaut, is an exciting one, the idea that the State of California could someday have historical jurisdiction—or something like it—over a fragment of the moon's surface seems genuinely astonishing to me. Perhaps we could even have it declared part of Los Angeles County—the first offworld municipal exclave.

Texas and New Mexico also have plans to "place the items on historic registries" later this year, we read.

Our Lady of the Rocks

[Image: Via montenegro.com].

Somehow this morning I ended up reading about an artificial island and devotional chapel constructed in Montenegro's Bay of Kotor.

"In 1452," we read at montenegro.com, "two sailors from Perast happened by a small rock jutting out of the bay after a long day at sea and discovered a picture of the Virgin Mary perched upon the stone." Thus began a process of dumping more stones into the bay in order to expand this lonely, seemingly blessed rock—as well as loading the hulls of old fishing boats with stones in order to sink them beneath the waves, adding to the island's growing landmass.

Eventually, in 1630, a small chapel was constructed atop this strange half-geological, half-shipbuilt assemblage.


[Image: Via Skyscraper City].

Throwing stones into the bay and, in the process, incrementally expanding the island's surface area, has apparently become a local religious tradition: "The custom of throwing rocks into the sea is alive even nowadays. Every year on the sunset of July 22, an event called fašinada, when local residents take their boats and throw rocks into the sea, widening the surface of the island, takes place."

The idea that devotional rock-throwing has become an art of creating new terrain, generation after generation, rock after rock, pebble after pebble, is stunning to me. Perhaps in a thousand years, a whole archipelago of churches will exist there, standing atop a waterlogged maze of old pleasure boats and fishing ships, the mainland hills and valleys nearby denuded of loose stones altogether. Inadvertently, then, this is as much a museum of local geology—a catalog of rocks—as it is a churchyard.

In fact, it doesn't seem inaccurate to view this as a vernacular version of Vicente Guallart's interest in architecturally constructing new hills and coastlines based on a logical study of the geometry of rocks.

Here, the slow creation of new inhabitable terrain simply takes place in the guise of an annual religious festival—pilgrims assembling islands with every arm's throw.

Literary Dose #42

"Architects have more to offer their clients and society than they realize. Integrating design morphology, material science, and environmental sustainability will undoubtedly inform everyone what is possible or achievable in the built environment, in a manner not previously seen. A focus on architectural science (distinct from building science) must equal our overwhelming obsession with form. It must become the foundation by which to certify a new architectural expertise -- comparable in breadth and scope to medical research. The National Science Foundation should be the logical choice to fund such research but -- incredibly -- it does not recognize architecture as a science! We must demand that our representative organizations, such as the AIA, lobby to change this.

Today's broad societal concerns -- global warming, greenhouse gases, resource depletion -- will focus greater public attention than ever before toward architects for answers and innovative solutions. Should they fail, such attention will quickly be redirected elsewhere. The US Green Building Council, Architecture 2030, and Architecture for Humanity all raised broad public awareness on these issues well before any of the professional organizations did. This is not a coincidence but a wake-up call. Talking about green design can only go so far. Metrics derived from controlled testing -- automobile fuel mileage or appliance energy ratings, for example -- enable those with ideas to speak above the fray. Those who now seek government-funded building programs but fail to address the opportunity for digital design process change will have missed the point."

- "The Digital Design Ecosystem: Towards a Pre-Rational Architecture" by Paul Selestsky (senior manager of digital design in SOM's New York office) in Provisional: Emerging Modes of Architectural Practice USA, edited by Elite Kedan, F. Jonathan Dreyfous, Craig Mutter (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009, pp. 44-45)

Space Wanted

ArchNewsNow links to an article at the Center for an Urban Future at the Center for an Urban Future, which leads me to their sister organization City Limits magazine, where I find in their classifieds that design-guru Edward Tufte is in need of some gallery space in Manhattan.

Type of Ad:	Space Wanted
Seeking:	temporary art exhibition space
Organization	Edward Tufte
Description	Looking for short-term lease to rent 1500-4000 square foot storefront space for temporary art gallery/exhibition 3-4 months in Manhattan. High ceilings, windows onto street. Street level. Prefer art-friendly location. Contact Janet at etsculpture [at] gmail [dot] com

I'm wont to not only wonder about what fits his description (a Chelsea gallery, a vacant retail storefront) but also what doesn't fit. Why Manhattan? Why not Long Island City, South Bronx or Williamsburg? This could open up some interesting possibilities, though I'm guessing Tufte wants Manhattan because of it's proximity to other cultural venues and its high amount of foot traffic compared to other boroughs.

The ad was posted last week, so it's probably not too late. Any ideas? Contact Janet via the ad.

On Weather

Via InfranetLab, a fascinating book that looks interesting is entitled '-arium: Weather + Architecture' spawned from a research investigation at the University of Toronto. With a cursory glance, it looks to be something of the same genus (at least in overall ideology) to that of Gissen's recent book Subnature - which provides a focus more on process and environmental ephemera than architectural product.


:: image via InfraNet Lab

A bit of background that sets the hook: "The dynamic, turbulent and unpredictable forces that comprise the weather are shared by economic cycles of production and consumption. We are at the cusp of an intriguing moment wherein the cycles of economics and weather have collided to instigate a new green economy. The consumptive aspects of ‘green’ have granted architecture a moment to explore its nemesis – instability and disorder – the key characteristics of weather... Composed of three sections – The Weather Report, The Weather Forecast, and The Weather Outlook – that respectively, research, design and theorize on weather and architecture, -arium offers a guide for both architectural designer and critics.

As we embrace a new fluid methodologies that incorporates chance and flexibility - uncertainty and process over time - weather seems a challenging and necessary topic to incorporate into our work, and a focus on the connections between weather and architecture makes perfect sense. Pick up a copy online here.

Petit Trianon: the grand stairhall

I'm about to start a comprehensive series of posts on the Petit Trianon utilizing drawings and my photographs; not all at once, mind you! What better place to start than the stairhall where any tour begins. Like many grand houses, the Petit Trianon is designed on a Piano Nobile layout. The ground floor is relegated to servants quarters (with the exception of the stairhall, guards room and a billiards room which all flank the courtyard to the bottom of the drawing). Above you see the ground floor plan.

The stair wraps the grand 2 story space and brings you up to the main floor above, which contains the entertaining areas as well as the primary bedroom and boudior.

This section shows the relationship a little better in blue. The main kitchen is the area on the ground floor with the large fireplace and the salon is above. The top floor were guest and servant bedrooms. I think the building is best understood here in section as it contains numerous floor and ceiling levels: not handicapped accessible!

The view above from the guards room, through the stairhall and into the billiards room shows the beautiful marble floors in the hall as well as the enfilade. The light was amazing in this space reflecting off the limestone walls, as it was within the whole house.

Stepping into the stairhall (along with the other tour members, it was crowded!) you notice the beautiful limestone staircase with gilded iron handrail. The symbols in the center portion are the monogram of Marie Antoinette. The low doorway (see the gentleman ducking) steps down into the kitchen.

The lantern crowns the space: I would love to see the room in the evening lit by it!

The doors and shutters are painted a light blue which adds some color to the neutral space.

I loved the juliet balconies and windows into the space, much like a courtyard. This one straight ahead opens into the private dressing room of the master bedroom.

A closeup of the railing where you can see the gilded monogram of Marie Antoinette.

A detail of one of the limestone brackets which decorate the room.

I'll end this first tour with some elevations, you should recognize them after the photos!

Next up, the billiards room!

Terrain Vague

Via Death by Architecture, a recent call for papers for Terrain Vague: The Interstitial as Site, Concept, Intervention features an opportunity for work to be included in: "This collection of essays will focus on terrain vague—marginal, semi-abandoned space in or along the edge of the city—as abstract concept, specific locale, and subject of literary, architectural, or otherwise artistic intervention."


:: Detroit Urban Void - image via Planetizen

Definitely a topical subject as we investigate shrinking cities and reinvention of urban uses - so a chance to provide some context, whatever you call them: urban voids, landscapes of transgression, strange places, ruined, abandoned, potentials, or terrain vague...

The deadline for abstracts is 1 June 2010.
Completed essays will be due on 1 February 2011.