Comments on: Casa en Culebra / RSVP Architects

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:21:12 +0000

Interesting design.

The renders are to artsy fartsy for my taste.

By: CATU

CATU — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:41:10 +0000

the paco’s student is Fuster???

By: el cowboy

el cowboy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:16:37 +0000

Ouch!

By: mig

mig — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:01:28 +0000

Nice for a comicdaily site, not for an arch… please save Culebra from this!

By: Jeison

Jeison — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:37:50 +0000

Can´t believe AD readers, mostly architects, students and architecture admirers, are criticizing renders…Come on…

By: bah

bah — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:01:59 +0000

the renders are from 2007…. give it a break

By: jeff

jeff — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:49:44 +0000

too much comment… i think this is not because of the architectural design but with the interesting presentation. I don’t understand the man leaning upsidedown on the wall. crazy?

By: johnson

johnson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:51:56 +0000

My mom has “good concepts” every other day, but that doesn’t make her into an architect. Actually, most 1st year architecture students have great concepts, but only a few go on to materialize those concepts into good architecture. Clients sometimes also have “good concepts”, and they go an architect to help them define said concept or translate it into architecture. Someone wrote “Concept: 10″, how so? A house partly made of steel on a poured-in-place, huge concrete base, to be built on a small Caribbean. Let’s see, is there a local concrete plant on the island, not to even consider that steel part, which I’m assuming would be some high grade stainless or titanium as to be able to resist the severe rusting tendency of anything metallic placed next to the water. Finally, why would anyone want to have any solid walls that block the prime view of the pool projecting over the sea? I’m mean, this is a beach house, right? It definitely looks like a bad Denari knockoff [not that Debari is much better anyway]. If this guy is the dean of the school, god have mercy on his poor students. What is he teaching you, how to poorly render crappy architecture? Listen, my old roommate in architecture school was Puerto Rican, and he was an awesome designer, so hopefully this guy is not misrepresenting anyone. Adios

By: PIÑOL

PIÑOL — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:37:43 +0000

mart:

Thank you for the information. It seems all of this, and my comments included, are the result of a big misunderstanding. The link in the Archdaily headline as you all can see takes you to the NY office, to which I extend my sincere apologies. After a more careful research everybody can see that this house belongs to another studio named just exactly, to which I also extend my apologies to some extent because the house and its representation, I think, still doesn’t resist a serious observation, hence the first ironic review.

Clearly, Archdaily messed up, which is OK, but, it has made me look like a fool. The least would be an erratum as well as an apology to whomever they think, not to mention a more careful handling of the info next time.

Juan del pueblo:

Gracias por su aclaración semántica, ha sido muy bien recibida. Razón tiene que al jugar con nacionalismos se pierde valor en el mensaje cualquiera que sea, pero cierto es que hay que tomarse las cosas más a la ligera, por ejemplo, nadie se cree en serio que cuando Los Simpson van a Brazil el país es así, sin embargo el gobierno de ese entonces demandó a la cadena Fox. Lo que quiero decir es que lejos de hacer precisiones, presenté mis observaciones dentro de un tono bromista, o impreciso si prefiere, con la verdad a medias pero jamás beligerante.

By: mart

mart — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:22:15 +0000

i’m a bit surprised by how this discussion has gone… the website listed is for the wrong firm. http://www.rsvp-architects.com/ is the puerto rican firm that designed this. looking through their portfolio you will see some decent renders and a few more in this debatable style. this is very old (2003), unpublished work by them, btw… maybe they had an intern who sucked back then? maybe they sucked at the computer then? dunno… some of their more recent work seems much better imo. though they are really obsessed with that wrapping concrete ribbon thing.

By: Jpo

Jpo — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:37:35 +0000

One of Culebra’s finest qualities is the amazing light. I really don’t see how they have made the best use of this extremely dominant element. Why so ‘dark’? Toro Ferrer, Henry Klumb what did you teach us? Anyway, it’s a great intellectual-academic exercise, but I doubt it will ever be built.

By: unemployed arch considering another profession

unemployed arch considering another profession — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:07:50 +0000

Attention Archdaily staff. There is a confusion regarding RSVP. Apparently, there are two different architectural firms with this name: RSVP. One of them is the San Juan based office, whose principal is indeed the dean of an architecture school. The other one is a Brooklyn based firm. The link “RSVP Architects” in this project is referenced to the wrong firm, the one in New York. Finally, you should revise the ThyssenKrupp Elevator Competition, by RSVP. I might be wrong, but it seems to me this project doesn’t belong to any of these firms. It might be yet another RSVP. I checked in both firms webpages and didn’t find the Krupp Elevator project.

By: rek

rek — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:59:41 +0000

i really like the house, and a think, they’ve done this renders ad purpose, they look really, not profesional, trendy, retro, anti-glam style, whatever you wanna call it, the point is, why you all only care about how architecture is show, and now about the architecture in deed.

very bad for the archdaily readers.

By: Francisco

Francisco — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:11:49 +0000

Projects like this, published here in ArchDaily before should be the ones talking about puertorican architecture and not this crap. I’m really pissed!

http://www.archdaily.com/17517/san-pablo-urbana/

http://www.archdaily.com/19994/private-library-ereras-arquitectos/

http://www.archdaily.com/11419/alhambra-house-urbana/

By: Francisco

Francisco — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:59:39 +0000

“The head architect of RSVP is also the Dean of a NAAB accredited Architecture School ……………….shame on you sir. If I would be a student at one of your jury I would laugh at YOU I would laugh SO HARD.”

I’m indeed one of the students in the Architecture School of the University of Puerto Rico and I feel really ashamed of this. All of us could do better than this, architecturally and graphically speaking…

Seriously, I feel disgusted that this kind of work is representing Puerto Rico in webpages as ArchDaily with so good work desgined and build here. But of course, RSVP is so obsessed with international recognition that they’re not really noting the constant humiliation that they’re receiving in their projects.

By: OZZY

OZZY — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:08:28 +0000

“The preliminary idea is more important that a good render.”

no doubt about that
but seriously, never saw that level of crappy renders in archdaily.

By: Bernie Madoff

Bernie Madoff — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:51:15 +0000

I don’t know if some architetcs get to wonder why they are getting constantly this type of public humiliation. Are their desires for recognition so wild, or ther egos so monumental, that they completely fail to distinguish between “ok architecture” and trully remarkable architecture. As an advise, this site shouldn’t agree to publish each of the latest antics or caprices of architects, irrespective of which part of the world they come from.

By: oh

oh — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:49:15 +0000

renders are cool and trendy, guys

By: Follow_Up

Follow_Up — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:19:52 +0000

Never suggest an insult to a Puerto Rican…….//:

By: Juan del Pueblo, el arquitecto

Juan del Pueblo, el arquitecto — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:03:25 +0000

Piñol, nice to hear from you… I agree with some of your criticism, both of the project and of the indirect equality implied by it being featured in ArchDaily alongside other truly ingenious architecture.
Nevertheless, as a Puerto Rican, and like it or not, as a fellow Latin American architect, this conversation gets devalued by your statement of us being “kind-of-Latin”. I don’t know which exclusive center of “Latin American-ness” you originally hail from, but the “Latin American” description is the demonym for anyone coming from any part of America (the continents), in which the native language is a Romance language, which, as you’d know, is covered by every part of North, Central and South America located to the south of the USA-Mexico border, including the Caribbean (with the exception of Jamaica, Bahamas, and the rest of the English and Dutch speaking islands). And from what I last recall, my first word this morning to my wife was in Spanish (the same language she used to reply back to me, while reading the Spanish newspaper, while sitting next to my kid who was scolding our dog; in Spanish, mind you!). This might be a crappy project, as there are plenty around, probably just like in your own home country, but regardless of our political situation vis-à-vis the USA, we are as Latin, or more precisely, as Hispanic, as anyone from any other place this side of the ocean, we just happen to hold a US-Citizenship from the day we’re born, with some of us knowing a little English, regardless of the good or bad architecture around us.