design, architecture, urbanism… with a grain of salt

via Archipreneur: Snohetta - Boulders

Via.
Architectural Scholar

Click on the Book Store link in the top bar.

[Corbusier and Einstein]

We will feature a new book each month.

These are my links for June 11th through July 7th:

• Current Architecture - Design criticism.

[Ito in Brussels, via Current Architecture]

• PicLens | Immersive Views Across the Web - I haven’t worked this one out yet. But when I do it should be cool.

• BananAlbum - A flash based photo album. Very easy to use, and smooth. Human i-design.

• Pavers Elmich Drainage Turf Stabilization Stormwater tanks Deck & Paver Supports & Roof Gardens - A critical selection of materials for ensuring water stays where you want it when applying gardens to roofs.

• Truth?s Architectural Graffiti and Ornament as Crime : Life Without Buildings - Truth Graffiti - Homage to Loos

[Image via Life without Buildings, via Truth]

News from the desk…

1. I’ve been contacted by the editor of plataforma arquitectura thru cpluv. They have a sister site in English. Its bloody fantastic. Its been added to the blogroll.

2. I’m off to Indonesia, east of Bali, for two weeks. I’ll bring back reams of photos of all things this wonderful country has to offer.

These are my links for June 4th through June 5th:

• TREY TRAHAN: Defining Local - Via Archinect

• Node House - Slideshows - dwell.com - A lovely material Exploration

• Andrzej Dragan PHOTOGRAPHY - The picture of Hitler in his old age is truly chilling.

Click here to visit images of the CCTV tower in Beijing being used as an advertising mechanism. 

[Nike Beijing - CCTV. Image from Sartorialab]

Nike Beijing - CCTV. Image from Sartorialab]

This post is via Archinect

Had a fair response from people regarding the 5 questions. Please answer them if you have a minute.

Dan: Is design everything?

K8: No, but everything is better with good design.

We would like you to think of these 5 questions. Only briefly, and answer by adding your answers in the comment section. You can remain anonymous. 

[Picture of Corb, painting nude. Sourced from http://www.gravestmor.com]

q1. What do you do, and did you study to get there?

q2. Is it what you want to do?

q3. What “designed thing” is most important to you? Do you need this thing to do what you do?

q4. Do you think design process matters? Is knowing the process important?

q5. If you were to buy something, do you think of the process before you buy it?

[Cutaway of the mouse, Sourced from wikipedia]

Very vague questions we know. So answer them however you want. If you need meaning for the questions to be relevant, make the meaning up.

May 20^th Landscape of Clouds also got me thinking about the studio with a great title that I never took either.

This post is starting from “transient, vicious, ominous & beautiful” (urban) cloud.

Sometimes, in an urban context, the clouds are of the few elements of the natural landscape that remains for us to bring to a project. (It´s not often you can´t find a piece of sky out of the window).

Despite risk of reductionism, or missing the point about ´tacit architecture´ (as oulined in the Landscape of Clouds), this post presents a short story of a journey from one side of a window to the other via company analysis statistics, Shakespeare, to an Argentenian artist in MACBA, to staring out the window (I need more skylights too, Dan), and finally back to two clouds one abstract and static, one transient and moving: in fact - already disappeared from view.

The client was Neometrics, specialists in analytic intelligence. They are based in Madrid, and required a new office fitout in Barcelona (“Analyze to decide. Decide to Create Value” )

(1) Data analysis language: A diagram that explains social network analysis (2) Gego at MACBA, January 2007.

The architects were Calderon-Folch Arquitectes and the project is travesura 2. The fitout is finished and remaining is this big, long, blank wall… from the door to the window…

What could happen between the door and the window?

What is already happening on the other side of the window?

An idea began simply with some movement. An increase in density of lines, or form, or something on the wall as it reaches for the light from the window.

Arriving at the window it meets the landscape and chooses one element, to mirror, echoe, abstract and reinterpret. The window became the interface where reality became stylised form…

Enter Hamlet & Polonius, stage right:

The job progressed in a couple of quick sporadic jumps, between other things in the office.

Until a 1:1 test piece was produced: 1.5mm galvanized wire, heat straightened, soldered, and/or bent at the junctions, and then the production of a 10 metre long, silver lined cloud began.

Finally it´s a beautiful piece of sky on the inside of the window. And a nice way to learn that every cloud has a silver lining.

Images courtesy of Calderon-Folch Arquitectes

These are my links for May 29th through June 4th:

• Archinect : News : Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp chapel stirs passions online - Archinect : News : Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp chapel stirs passions onlineAn online war is pitting some of the biggest names in world architecture against each other in a bid to influence the French Minister of Culture over the future of Le Corbusier?s