2009: A Year in Preview

It's funny reading the breakdowns of 2008, and the masses of predictions for 2009, (and a great one for 2010) specifically as the economy still reels due to wide-spread mismanagement, and there seems to be a non-stop (yet perhaps slower) parade of amazing, crazy, and just plain wrong projects - as witnessed in 2008. What will be the next big thing? It won't last, of course, but will be etched in our history - at least as a sidenote - with importance determined by font size, as in this diagram from "Modern Movements in Architecture” by Charles Jencks (1973).


:: image via In The Belly of an Architect

So, in lieu of predictions, I will offer a manifesto and guiding principles which will direct Landscape+Urbanism for the upcoming year, sort of. I'm still planning on more of the same, as I don't particularly care what others think of my blog, because I'm not writing it for anyone except me. Solipsism is good. This in mind, as always content is subject to the whims of culture, of course, and my personal schizophrenic nature when it comes to focus - but at least some form of predictions - which will of course, like new years resolutions - be forgotten by Groundhogs Day. So for now, here's some random musings, and an excuse to drop a bunch of links.

Veg.itecture will die of its own excesss and will be replaced with a world where every building image will be draped in shrubbery - with the exception of Modern architecture - which still views landscape as a blank field in which to drop the objet'd'art. This will mark the subsequent death of some other words in the lexicon - as evidenced by this 'dead-words' post from Lebbeus Woods. Designers will be able to design any building, and then apply the Vegitecture filter in Photoshop to make them look green.


:: image via Archispass

Metaphorical monumentality will be replaced with true monumentality - on a scale not seen since the construction of the pyramids, we wil mobilize, through economic-induced 'slave' labor - to construct monuments to our excess that are physical, rather than merely being paper - to show our true colors. See this post from Life Without Buildings for more.


:: The Colossus of Rhodes (Dali) - image via Life Without Buildings

Green will be replaced with blue as the color of choice for sustainability - due to climate change, air quality issues, water scarcity, and water quality issues. Green will be seen as a blight - and will be summarily eradicated from discussion, work, and our general pysche. It will be easier.


:: Waterflux - image via Arch Daily

Anyone using the words 'LEEDing the way' or its many variations will be killed... nuff said.

:: image via WebUrbanist

Relaxation will be the new 'work'. Think about it... how much time is spent working on crap, or crap we don't like, whereas a relaxed spirit and mind allows us to tap into our untapped creativity - making even crap somewhat lovely. And, if it's true our construction moratorium is good for sustainability, then non-building is good building. Let's all take a nap.

:: Oliver Bishop-Young’s SkipWaste project - image via Dezeen

Streets will be cool again: Forget Green Streets, as we've killed sustainability and the use of the word green - so these linear transportation networks will merely be known as streets... stormwater, pedestrian safety, multi-modes, sustainable, safe, and other benefits included - it's called green infrastructure. They will be transformed on a monumental scale. We will dance on the graves of old streets.

:: image via Treehugger

Infrastructure will be replaced with megastructure. Megastructure is based on bottom-up design that is flexible, adaptable, and self-organizing... like cities. See more here and here.

:: Archigram's Plug-In City, prototypical Megastructure - image via urb

We are reaching an apex of sorts. The trip down is going to be exciting, but the bottom is gonna be really, really bad. Or good, I'm feeling optimistic. Oh right, this isn't a bell curve, it's linear...

:: image via Treehugger

Umm - wow?

Yours for only $75k - thats a lot of crystal. I say, pay me ONLY 50k, give me a bag of rhinestones and a hot glue gun and I have myself a weekend project (and a REALLY ugly toilet!) Now thats CRAFTY!
Courtesy of Jemal Wright via DesignCrisis

Half Dose #55: Taipei Performing Arts Center

The following text and images are courtesy Vienna-based Architects.Collaborative, for their Taipei Performing Arts Center competition entry in Taipei, Taiwan.



The building possesses a unique appearance that derives from the urban context and the functional criteria merged into the design motif of a sound wave. The building's undulating roof is reminiscent of an endless sound wave that radiates from the Performing Arts Center into the city of Taipei like a sound instrument.

In functional terms the three theaters are individual structures that are joined at their base like a corresponding vessel, sharing repair shop and storage and moving goods, staff as well as a single security point for the back of house. The design tries to achieve a marriage between theatrical and architectural concepts.



The three theaters are connected by the Common Lobby at the center of the site, a semi-indoor space that is open 24 hours a day and requires no ticket, with control points at the theater's entrance. Its environment will be comfortable and energy-saving by providing sun and rain protection and at the same time natural ventilation and a generous feeling of openness.

The building design springs not only from its urban and functional context, but also from a need to create a building capable of adapting and reacting to the sub-tropical environment. The roof of the individual theaters is covered like sun hats providing natural and efficient cooling for the building. The semi-enclosed Common Lobby is a partially shaded glass canopy open to the street that does not need to be heated or cooled.



At the heart of the complex is the Common Lobby which is an elevated platform from which the three theaters are accessed. People can visit the venues or the restaurant or just to walk through this urban passage. This multifunctional space can be used as a gathering space, for events or as an open air theater. The human experience is that of openness and connectivity to the outside and an attraction and drawing in toward the building when experienced from outside. The positive and negative space of the complex creates dramatic and fluid inside-outside spaces interacting with the city and the center.



The center consists of a solitary volume that is broken up into four blocks similar to shifting continents. The structure is further differentiated by the southern block (Restaurant) that is articulated as a bridge or gate and the northern block (Grand Theater) which is rotated in plan to open the center towards the Shilin Night Market. Through these manipulations the structure becomes porous and responsive to its urban context serving as a mediator and friendly neighbor to its diverse surrounding. The center is readily seen as a landmark from different main roadways and the TRST train and is a clearly delineated building volume.



To the south the restaurant consists of a bridge to creating stage-like entry from Jian Tan Road into the Common Lobby for the three theaters. From the TRTS´s Jiantan Station the theaters can be directly accessed by a underground pedestrian passage that also includes the ticket office and a theater shop and is connected to the Common Lobby, Underground Parking and the sidewalk along Wen Lin Road.

Cars and motorcycles leave and enter the site at the north-west corner of the site. Service Trucks enter the building at a single security point at the north-west corner and leave at the north-east corner. The three theaters are accessed by a central covered loading courtyard that allows multiple 40-ft-containers to be loaded and unloaded simultaneously and has three entry points to the Theaters and one for the shared repair shops.

Shades of Gray

I'm sure everyone has seen this already, but in the January 2009 issue of House Beautiful is a showhouse apartment in NYC by McAlpine Booth & Ferrier Interiors that I really loved. I know, I've been posting too many magazine articles lately and not enough NEW stuff - it's on my NY resolution list! This is MY take on the article. Since there was no client, Susan Ferrier (head of the project) chose this painting above in the living room as inspiration for the color palette of the space. I think this is the PERFECT color palette for a city pied-a-terre. Actually -this is exactly the palette in my own apartment so maybe i'm biased! Even in a new building like this, the hushed gray tones help to soften the hard edges and create a soft environment. It's just pretty!

The living room has this cozy screen surrounding the couch, making a little nesting pod. I love this unusual industrial coffee table that was found in France.

These old fashioned blinds cast the best light in my opinion. I love the antique fragments used as lamps throughout the space.

I do love a modern kitchen. This Poggenpohl system blends seamlessly with the rest of the apartment. I love the topiary in the window too!

The really great updated retro-looking stove is by Gaggenau. The photographer (Thomas Loof) had a genius stylist; So many beautiful vignettes in this article!

The 2nd bedroom was treated as a den; the bed made into a cozy couch. Everyone prefers to lounge in a bed while watching tv anyway, admit it! The darker colors are very cozy for an evening spent with a movie and book.

The designer chose to use a lot of open console tables in front of the windows. I think this helps the space feel more closed in and cozy -otherwise your eyes would go out past the glass, making you feel exposed. So many modern floor to ceiling window apartments are not very comfortable.

This entryway is really charming - I LOVE the antiqued mirror treatment. Honestly though, how often would a candle get lit in the entry way? Thats a bit hokey, don't you think?

The dining table, in the corner of the living room, is adjustable so during a party this can become another seating area with coffee table. So smart in a small space!

How pretty is this vignette in the dining room? The stylist is a genius.

The bedroom is very beautiful, I love the bone covered sidetable. The antique anchors on the wall are an interesting touch.

Yet another console alongside the windows. I know a lot of people hate them, but I will always love these vintage looking shades. The thick tape adds so much personality and stability to the blinds. Those antique fragment lamps are so beautiful - I always love dark shades.This goes to prove that you can make even the smallest, most boring 'modern' bathroom interesting. The sculpture in the window and the benches under the sink help to humanize the space. I hope House Beautiful keeps up with these wonderful articles!!

Air Born

The new year begins with a look at sovereign geography as applied to movement through the atmosphere: a Ugandan baby girl was born aboard an airplane en route from Amsterdam to the United States – and so was given Canadian citizenship, because the plane was flying over eastern Canada at the time.

[Image: Three photos by greentheory./Sarah Palmer].

Of course, one wonders what citizenship this baby would have been given if the parents had been flying over the middle of the ocean, for instance, or across the tangled borders of an enclave or exclave. A complicated mathematics of trajectory, speed, and height is unleashed by terrestrial scholars below in order to find the exact location of the plane at the moment of childbirth.
Like something out of Borges, imperial trigonometricians are called in for consultation. Their calculations take days and arguments break out.
Perhaps the child goes on to be famous – a political leader, a poet, a revolutionary, the next pope – and his or her exact aerial origin becomes increasingly important to determine. Weather data and wind speed, the weight of fellow passengers, tiny aerodynamic imperfections in the wings, and even gravitational anomalies in the earth's crust are brought to bear: how fast was the airplane traveling?
Like the origins of the Sunni/Shia split in Islam, rival factions form: their battle lines are drawn, like wisps of cloud in a springtime sky.
Perhaps, in a virtuoso application of air rights laws delivered to a stunned General Assembly of the UN, a property entrepreneur actually purchases the exact section of sky where he believes the baby was born. Rethinking the deal later, he buys the entire historic flight path. Soon, he owns vast corridors of air.
I'm reminded of Allen Ginsberg, who once wrote of a "Subliminal Billionaire" who "owns vast Spheres of Air" – only, here, those carefully surveyed envelopes of atmospheric real estate are more like UNESCO Heritage Sites, international sky parks hovering somewhere over a border near you.

(Note: The obituary of the man who invented air rights – please, oh please, someone commission me to write a longer article about this man! – was originally spotted last summer via Marcus Trimble's Super Colossal).

2009 Is Here

Many of you have probably seen Archinect's 20 Predictions for '09, which asked "a group of architects, bloggers, academics, Archinect editors, and other members of our community to provide some of their own personal insight to help visualize what we're in for in the coming year." Graciously I was asked to contribute a prediction, but I was too busy around the holidays to find the time to think about the question, much less put it down in words. Regardless I figured I'd post what my prediction would have been (now a week later and with the hindsight of digesting some of the 20 contributions), in the form of the below image:



Some explanation, of course. This is an expansion of a popular retirement community in Central Florida, a view shot from a street that is bordered on the opposite side by houses and palm trees and strolling retirees in a fairly typical composition of winding streets and cul-de-sacs. This view is expected to become the same. But given photography's ability of capturing time, stopping progress in its tracks, this shot makes me wonder if that future will happen? Will "business as usual" -- in The Villages in particular, suburbia in general -- continue, or will it stop in its tracks due to the recession? Will the winding roads, lampposts, street signs, and underground infrastructure lie in wait for the houses much longer than anticipated, perhaps indefinitely? In this locale, it will probably happen as planned, since enough Baby Boomers have stowed away the requisite funds to make the move and bump up the population of these and other retirement communities in the Sun Belt. But for other versions of suburbia it's not as certain. Other scenarios might come to the fore (infill, brownfields, TOD's), shifting business as usual to something else entirely.

Of course this is more an idealistic hope than a carefully considered speculation on the actual unfolding of events over the next 365 days. As someone who values cities -- and still sees a strong distincton between cities and suburbia -- I'd like to see the center of gravity between the two realms shift towards the urban, the more sustainable situation. If government spending, particularly as the Obama administration takes over, does reward this type of shift remains to be seen. The cynic in me is giving the idealist of the other half a tough fight, as rewarding business as usual seems just as likely, given the extent to which unsustainable development practices (especially government subsidies for speculative developments and the excessive car use they engender) are so deeply rooted in the economic and political realms. Nevertheless I'm hoping that a reevaluation of banking practices (a HUGE part of what makes evertyhing above happen) also involves a reevaluation of land use, zoning, transportation and other policies that stand in the way of a more sustainable urbanism.

Happy New Year!

I had a small supper for a few friends before a party tonight: It's not New Years Eve in my book without sauerkraut and kielbasa! I kept the centerpiece simple -just a bunch of candles on an antique mirror. A celebration of light!

I used an assortment of mismatched crystal, my grandmothers silver, my coalport harebell china and some white napkins. Nothing special but I thought it was pretty - and simple! I hope everyone has a Happy New Year!!