The Indicator: Wind Swept Dune
Architect Hagy Belzberg recently showed me around his latest creation, the new Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. He had kindly agreed to give me a personal tour since I was preparing to write up a review.
While I had fully intended to focus on the architecture, the site, the ideas behind the design, I was caught off-guard by something unexpected: people.
Prior to my visit I had been looking at some new photographs of the building taken by Iwan Baan. Architecture photographed for reviews is usually uncluttered by the messiness of life. The buildings are often empty vessels waiting to be activated. People appear as mere apparitions, like objects, often blurred. Thus, there is little evidence of other responses or adaptations to the architecture. If we overlook the gaze of the photographer, there is then only one gaze present: that of the singular “I”. And this “I” had expected an encounter with a building.
More after the break. (more…)
The Indicator: And the Award Goes to…
If you happen to find yourself in Los Angeles tonight be sure not to miss the AIA Design Awards Party at LACMA. As the email I recently received noted:
Join us for what will be a joyous celebration of architecture and design in the Los Angeles community.
These award bashes are always well-produced: nice venues, music, projection screens, hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, sumptuous buffet. Plus, who doesn’t like getting awards? Everyone being honored deserves the recognition, respect, and adulation of professional peers. The accomplishments of architects, firms and organizations like the Skid Row Housing Trust should be celebrated and honored. But what if they were honored more publicly?
More after the break. (more…)
A Doll’s House for Clementine / TDO Architecture
TDO was commissioned by Wallpaper* Magazine to re-approach the design of a doll’s house. They were asked to consider Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye as an inspirational starting point, and from there developed a concept that successfully responded with a functional doll’s house with a contemporary design.
The Indicator: A Critic’s Terror and Wonder
Blair Kamin is the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune. He is the author, most recently, of Terror and Wonder: Architecture in a Tumultuous Age. We recently engaged in an email discussion about architecture as a social art, the importance of enlightened leadership, and about the critic as a tie-wearing “street fighter.”
GH: Whenever sites like ground zero come up, or New Orleans, architecture takes center stage for a brief moment. Park51, the so-called “ground zero mosque,” is also a good example of catalyzing architectural concern through controversy or trauma. When this happens the symbolic or political aspects of architecture get emphasized over everything else. This contributes to the notion that architecture is removed from day-to-day issues, that it is special, exotic, not next door. Do you think such architectural controversies help create more awareness of architecture and its day-to-day importance or do they ultimately make the public wary of “architecture” and architects?
See the complete discussion after the break. (more…)
Silk Road Map Evolution / OFL Architecture
Roma-based OFL Architecture shared with us their winning proposal for the Silk Road Map International Competition. See more images and architect’s description after the break. (more…)
The Indicator: Still Learning from Las Vegas
There is much debate about competitions and their implications for design and the business of architecture. Regardless of where you fall on the pro-con spectrum, the fact remains that they have become institutionalized within the profession and the public expects architects to work this way.
Architectural practice is thus based as much on not getting projects as it is on getting them and getting paid. People in business would consider this a high level of risk. In some ways, given the chances of winning, an unacceptable level of risk and a business condition that merits critical reassessment. Plus, how do you do a strategic risk-assessment for something like design? Maybe not for design, but for the business of design this seems like something worth looking into.
More after the break. (more…)
The Indicator: Happy National Boss’s Day
As stupid as this sounds, it’s National Boss’s Day in the US and Canada. But, you may ask, isn’t every day your boss’s Day? Technically yes. But today is that one special day when you can express your gratitude openly…and maybe score some extra points. But, of course, it isn’t about that. If you don’t have this holiday in your country, you should lobby for it—maybe even make it a day off!
For architects, National Boss’s Day means celebrating the good work done by your principals, thanking them for their leadership excellence. After all, in this economy, principals are having a hard time and are under a lot of stress. You may have noticed them age, much like Obama has in the last two years.
The Indicator: State of the Industry at the A+D Museum: A Panel on the Economy
Loud music reverberated from speakers. The line at the sponsored free bar spilled out onto the sidewalk. The 2010 AIA/LA Design Award boards were perfectly leveled along the crisp white walls. With all the great design on display, the music, the mingling, the clinking of plastic glasses, one might think architecture was simply business as usual.
But this crowd had gathered to listen to a panel on where things stand with the economy as it relates to the architecture industry. The event was sponsored by Form Magazine and coincided with the release of their October Money Issue. One person I spoke with wondered if the panel would show their cards.
More after the break. (more…)
The Indicator: Go West…Now Keep Going
Together we will go our way, together we will leave some day.
Together your hand in my hand, together we will make the plans.
Together we will fly so high, together tell our friends goodbye.
Together we will start life new, together this is what we’ll do.
These days you have to be willing to go just about anywhere for a job. Here is a sampling of recently advertised locations: Rwanda, Liberia, South Korea, Qatar, Libya, India, Saudi Arabia, Austria, and Singapore. The rest were in China. What about North Korea?
More after the break. (more…)
The Indicator: Screams from the Westside: Selected Cover Letters 2009-2010
LOS ANGELES IN AMERICA (O!) and this is October 28th. and a fly keeps brushing bumbling bastarding past….
hello ______:
fine, I got your o.k. on the three poems, and while I have a theory that rejection is good for the soul, the theory seems to work best when it applies to others.
[…]
my neck hurts. I seem to be dying of something—maybe life or maybe no young ass, well. listen: bottom of paper here, slipping out of typer. going. hold and luck.
–Charles Bukowski
(From a letter to publisher Douglas Blazek in Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970. Ed. Seamus Cooney. 1993.)
More after the break. (more…)
The Indicator: There Must be a Better Way
Recently, two firms I know of laid off groups of employees. One victim was a veteran of over ten years. Another was a junior employee being mentored by one of the best people in the office. They were all valuable employees the firms had invested in and benefited from.
If you can believe it, when I was laid off I actually felt sorry for the leaders who had to drop the guillotine. There I was with my neck under the blade and I was saying things like, “I know this must be difficult for you” and “So sorry you have to pull the lever.” Even after the blade came down I kept saying this, a talking head without a body. And here I am, still a talking head!
Leadership is undoubtedly in a difficult situation. After chopping someone’s head off they probably go back to their desks, pull out their little metal flasks of whatever they prefer and take a swig. Think of the emotional damage this does. I wonder if this makes it difficult for management to carry on in their leadership roles to help their firms weather the storm. Can a captain who throws crew members overboard still function as a good captain? I suppose that is for the historians to determine. And what does the rest of the crew think?
The Indicator: Hysterical Realism (Or, Some Things I Thought of Doing since Being Laid Off Before Coming to My Senses)
Go back to grad school:
This thought was like a microscopic stroke. The M.Arch was the “go-back” and my PTSD symptoms get more acute whenever I get near institutions of higher learning.
Ride my bike across the country and write about it:
If I had a bike this might be a good one. The great escape. I had it all planned out. My wife and three year-old daughter would also come along. I could tow her in a little trailer. No need for training because we’d get in shape as we went—after all we are riding bikes. The things we’d see! Live off the grid! We could write a book about our adventures on the road, the crazy people we met, the kind citizens who would open their homes and kitchens to us. How our spirits were restored by the long journey. Then there would be the book tour. Film rights. Ewan McGregor would play me. Have to get steel-framed bikes so they could be welded at any roadside gas station. None of those fancy carbon fiber frames, light as they are, because I understand they can snap. The bikes would have to be very expensive and very cool—this is why I never go to bike shops with my credit cards. Maybe we could get a sponsorship deal, ride for some cause. See Architecture for Humanity entry, below.
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Parc Disponible / Stefan Gzyl
Stefan Gzyl shared with us his project “Parc Disponible”, one of the finalists on an international competition recently held in Paris on ways to incorporate nature into the urban environment in original ways. “Parc Disponible” is a glass box enclosing a mini-park for individual use within the city. See more images and architect’s description after the break. (more…)
The Big Hammock
Imagine napping in a big hammock on the Greenway during your lunch hour. Designed and led by Hansy Better Barraza AIA, a team has woven The Big Hammock, the world’s largest portable relaxation/napping/hangout device, at the Fort Point Channel Parks. Take a turn in the hammock and enjoy activities from noon to 8:00 pm daily through September 4.
To find out more about The Big Hammock, click here. See more images after the break. (more…)
The Indicator: What we do is secret, too
I recently paid a visit to the smallest office I have ever set foot in. It was actually a tiny one-bedroom apartment overlooking a pool. Its location, and the maneuvers I had to make to gain access, gave it the ambiance of secrecy. This must be what it feels like to visit a safe house, I thought.
Significant things are going on here. You may learn of them soon enough so, excepting one thing, I will not break the mystery. On one wall, in the very center of the wall, there hangs a small oil painting. The subject: a shipwreck in turbulent seas. It was done in blues with a very purposeful, skilled hand. It is not famous but could have been had it gotten into the right hands. It reminded me of Fitz Henry Lane’s “A Smart Blow (Rough Sea, Schooners),” 1856.
I asked the architect if he had done this. No, he said. He then told me the story of how this painting was the first beautiful thing that had ever transfixed him. When he was five or six, he used to sit and stare at it endlessly. This reminded me of how I used to stare out at the thunderstorms from my grandmother’s window, feeling like I was in the midst of them. As a child, he must have felt transported by this painting the way I was by that surrounding sky.
AD Round Up: Miscellaneous Part II
Every now and then we feature an article that doesn’t quite fit any of our most common categories. Like houses made exclusively for dogs, or a tower made of 850 bricks of sugar. Check our second selection of miscellaneous architecture after the break.
Houses for Dogs
They are supposed to be man’s best friend, so why not give them a house? With pet industry growing every year, could this be a new field for architects? With four designs (including a Bauhaus based one), your dog may now have all they ever wanted: a mansion. Based in Germany, a company named Best Friend’s HOME are providing this four types of mansions and even allow you to design your own (read more…) (more…)
We want your opinion, we want your feedback
We recently interviewed George H. Miller, the president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), to ask him about the importance of the Internet in our profession:
“The Internet allows a daily exchange of particular topics of interest. So, you can kind of put out a question regarding a topic of interest and you will have many people respond to assist in that discussion.”
It is always interesting to hear what others have to say, especially as our opinions can vary regarding different topics.
For us at ArchDaily, we highly value your opinion, as your contributions to our articles spur debates about architecture, design and society. Your continual feedback helps others look at things from a new angle and critic the success of a project.
So, we’d like to know your take on how we can make ArchDaily better suit your interests. We are constantly publishing the latest architectural news focusing on an array of topics from building technology and materials, to events and competitions, to interviews and even magazine reviews.
We want your opinion on which of the following topics you would like to see featured more often on ArchDaily.
Tour Sans Faim (Tower Without Hunger) / Jean Bocabeille
Tour Sans Faim (Tower Without Hunger) is a special project connecting architecture with pastry. Designed by Jean Bocabeille (collective PLAN01) and the chef Gielles Stassart, the project will enter the Guiness Book of Records by becoming the highest cake in the world.
The work started July 1 and will last until this Sunday, when the finished project will be 10 meters high, made of 850 bricks of sugar and sponge cake, using 628 kg of flour, 508 kg of sugar, 350 eggs and 18 kg of butter. You can see more images after the break (and we hope to have some more on Thursday with the finished project). (more…)
Architecture weekend fun: LEGO Sears Tower
Over the weekend I took some time to assemble my LEGO Sears Tower
This LEGO set was designed by Adam Reed Tucker, who has also put out more complex sets such as the Guggenheim Museum
This one looks great on my desk, and will shortly join the
Empire State Building
More photos after the break:
DOGone House / archimania
Architects: archimania
Location: Memphis, TN, USA
Building area: 11.25 sf
Total cost: $1,554
Completion date: October 2009
Photography: Chad Mellon Photography (more…)
Favela Painting
Jeroen Koolhas and Dre Urhahn are two artist from Netherlands who started working together in 2005. In 2006, they started developing the idea of creating community-driven art interventions in Brazil. Their efforts yielded two murals which were painted in Vila Cruzeiro, Rio’s most notorious slum, in collaboration with local youth. After both murals were finished, they started their third stage of their project, ‘O Morro’.
The initial idea of the Favela Painting project was always to paint an entire hillside favela in the center of Rio, visible to all inhabitants and visitors. As the portuguese translation for ‘the hill’; ‘o morro’ is also used as a synonym for slum or favela, the artists chose to use this name for the third stage of the Favela Painting project. ‘O Morro’ started early in 2010 and was recently finished.
You can find more on the projects in their official website and their Facebook Page. See more images of ‘O Morro’ after the break. (more…)
