Browsing: Publications

Observation, organization, and transformation of urban settings.

“Although we will never fully comprehend the entire complexity of a city in one moment, we can understand the urban construct through the interaction of its parts”

The people from Lars Muller Publishers always keep in surprising us with their creations. In this case we are talking about a kind of book… which is not really a book but a series of transparent sheets which allow us to perceive the urban phenomena by isolating and superimposing individual components in order to have a personal interpretation of what the city is (that’s the reason of the title).

The publication offers an original approach to the study and comprehension of the complex urban systems, networks and connections. In words of the publisher it is “a mapping tool that creates a framework for understanding the continually changing configuration of the city. With transparent slides, the tool allows one to superimpose various realities like layers and build new urban connections. It invites readers in short to immerse themselves in the complexity of our cities”.

The author of this remarkable publication is Petra Kempf, a New York based Architect and Urban Designer.

read more »

MONU – magazine on urbanism is a unique bi-annual international forum for artists, writers and designers that are working on topics of urban culture, development and politics.

Each issue collects essays, projects and photographs from contributors from all over the world to a given topic. Thus MONU examines topics that are important to the future of our cities and urban regions from a variety of perspectives.

They have just released their latest issue on the topic of “Clean Urbanism”. You can see more about the articles on their official website. Also, you can browse the entire issue #11 on YouTube (video after the break). read more »

Another issue of Mark Magazine arrived a few days ago to our mailbox. Another white stylish cover, this time with a golden finish that matches a seal as the winner of the Golden Cube Art Director´s Club New York 2009. So I´d like to congratulate Fee, Nils, Arthur and David from Mark, a well deserved award.

As usual, the Notice Board introduces us to recently awarded projects and other projects in the boards, such as the Planetarium  by Saucier + Perrote Architectes, the Museo Tamayo by Michel Rojkind + BIG, the Cuajimalpa Tower by Meir Lobaton + Kristjan Donaldson, or The Tolerant City Masterplan by ADEPT + Schonherr landscape. Practices also included on this section: ECDM, Kythreotis Architects, KLNB, Allard Architecture, 51N4E, COBE, Transform, Avery Associates, DLA, X-TU, Taller Veinticuatro, MXG, MAPT, Dark Architects, Manuelle Gautrand, Antonini + Darmon, PAD, Stephane Bigoni, Antoine Mortemard, Joan Anguita, Agence R, AISTUDIO, Renato Perotti, TEN Arquitectos, Cardbondale, Zaha Hadid, UN Studio and Kaputt!. I particularly like the projects shown on the page above, interesting structures.

read more »

UPDATE: As announced, at 11:59AM the form was closed for submissions. Stay tuned for the results.

Mark Magazine is in my opinion one of the best architecture magazines these days: It has a fresh selection of recent projects, a more in depth analysis of certain works that require it, interviews with young practices, and… did I mention that it has fresh content? You can read all about it on my previous reviews.

And what is best, is that Mark Magazine also likes ArchDaily! We’ve been working together in the past in editorial content, maybe you´ve read my articles on some issues. This time we decided to extend our relation further to give our readers a chance to win not 1, but 2 subscriptions to this wonderful magazine.

We take this opportunity to invite you to join both Mark Magazine and ArchDaily Facebook pages, as news and other surprises will be announced exclusively through these channels in the future.

Please help us tell every architect about this giveaway: Post it on Twitter, post it to your Facebook profile, post it on your blog, email your friends… this giveaway is open to everyone, everywhere.

So, want to win a subscription? Just fill this form and read the small print after the break.

read more »

In times of crisis, hope is what we need. And hope is what the latest issue of Volume magazine explores under the title “Architecture of Hope”.

Once again, Arjen Oosterman writes a short yet provocative editorial, starting by why they choose to only use black&white images on this issue.  He brings back the subject of the welfare society during post-War, and compares the european and american models of sprawl/density which are key aspects of current crisis.

And since hope is the word of the day, “Yes we can” is also mentioned on the editorial and other articles related to Obama.

More about this issue after the break.

read more »

A few days ago I received the latest issue of Mark Magazine (nº20, jun-jul). Once again  it´s a white cover issue, featuring this time a house in Argentina by LA-based Johnston & Mark Lee, and the quote “All these French philosophers just send me to sleep” by Yung Ho Chang.

This issue includes a very good set of interviews with Keiichiro Sako and Pezo von Ellrichshausen, but lets start by the begining:

As usual, Mark Magazine starts with Notice Board, a fresh selection of 30 unbuilt projects.  The list includes  the ORDOS 100 Vila by Rocker-Lange Architects, the Yorkshire Diamond by our friends Various Architects,  the Korkeasaari Zoo by Beckmann-N’Thépé,  the Aquatic Complex for the Panamerican Games by Paisajes Emergentes and the Taipei Performing Arts Center by NL Architects, among other projects by Frohlocke, KLNB, Langdon Reis Zahn, 4B, Gullik Gulliksen, NORD, Poly.m.ur, MAPT, Alliance, MAD, MILA, 3Deluxe, Cobe and Sleth, Modernisn, PopularArchitecture, BNB, BO6, Studio 505, Piercy Conner, Q-Lab, Sascha Glasland, Tjeerd J. Haccou, Wiel Arets, Schmidt Hammer, Lassen, Marek Wozniczka, Odile Decq Benoit, Corenette, Amanda Levete and Steven Holl.

read more »

When David Basulto and David Assael from ArchDaily went to NY and interviewed Work AC, they got the chance to see this book before being published. Now, it has been published as the catalog of the 49 Cities exhibition we featured a couple of weeks ago, currently taking place at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

49 Cities sets out to crunch the numbers of several centuries of unrealized urbanism, all the way from the ideal Roman city to the great utopian projects of the 20th century. Through plans, sections, charts and scale drawings, 49 cities are observed statistically and presented in an unprecedented comparative study, the result of a research project conducted over several years. Despite the fact that these cities never actually existed in their intended form, this overview of utopian urbanism provides a remarkable insight into our understanding of the contemporary metropolis.

How many inhabitants would Buckminster Fuller’s Tetrahedron City house? What would the density of Rem Koolhaas’ Exodus plan for London, or Superstudio’s Continuous Monument, have been had they ever been realized? How would they compare in scale to Kenzo Tange’s Tokyo Bay project, or to Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse?

You can buy the book here ($25.00), and there’s also a free 20-page sample PDF for you to download.

Just got in the mail the latest issue (nº19, april-may) of Mark Magazine in the mail.  I have always praised the exquisite covers and graphic design of this magazine, but i´ve forgotten to tell you how nice is the packaging (see below).

The white cover comes with an amazing photo of the Ningbo Historic Museum, photographed by Iwan Baan with a phrase in bold gold letters  “The only true rival of architecture is the natural world” (Taira Nishizawa).

As usual, the section Notice Board showcases interesting fresh unbuilt projects from around the world: Zira Island by BIG, the Taipei Performing Arts Center by OMA, Villa Long (ORDOS 100) by RSVP and the Crematorium by Plan 01. Also projects by Zaha Hadid, Manuelle Gautrand, Piercy Conner, Architekten Cie, Baksvanwengerden, Ryuchi Ashizawa, Alberto Dueño X-TU, Fantastic, a cool beach house by Andreas Angelidakis, MAPT, Tasou, KLNB, Daniel Simmons, Steven Holl, Plaren, Ugis Senbergs, UN Studio, Dick van Gameren, Megan Panzano, Modo Studio, CCDP, Sofia Cattinario and Brenac Gonzalez.

read more »

MONU – Magazine on Urbanism, is looking for interesting contributions for their coming issue MONU#11 on the topic of “Clear Urbanism”.

When it comes to Clean Urbanism – i.e. an urbanism that is dedicated to minimizing both the required inputs for a city of energy, water, and food as well as its waste output of heat, air pollution as CO2, methan, and water pollution – a lot of proposals have been made recently for the building of so-called “eco-cities” that produce their own energy from the wind, the sun, bio-fuel, or recycled waste. But it has often been denied that such sources of energy, being integrated directly into cities, are highly inefficient, very expensive, and in the case of wind energy, very noisy. Nevertheless, wind turbines in an urban realm, for example, nowadays feature in almost every urban competition entry that requires sustainable energy concepts. Solar panels on rooftops have become state of the art on innumerable new building designs, however inefficient and expensive they are.

The question is: how might we achieve a Clean Urbanism that is socially, economically, and politically, but also environmentally correct? In the final analysis, what kind of soap or detergent do we need to achieve true Clean Urbanism? This question, and many others will be featured in the next issue.

Ideas and abstracts should be sent to info@monu-magazine.com by the end of May 2009. MONU#11 will be published in the summer of 2009.

For more information, go to MONU official site, here.

When we interviewed Jeffrey Inaba at the C-LAB, we had a great conversation as they were working on this issue, “Content Management”, something we are very into at ArchDaily – so we had the chance to discuss the implications of new media, globalization and architecture.

But back to this edition. It follows the tradition of Volume with a great editorial, this time by Inaba himself:

“At the close of this era of expansion and surplus C-Lab speculates on one of the period´s emblematic inventions: Content Management, or the collecting, organizing and sharing of digital information. Our retrospective appraisal of recent developments in the managing of information offers insight into the ability of Content Management to serve the current realities of digital abundance and material shortage, and to protect both vast and extremely limited quantities.

Like Content Management systems, Architecture arranges information and objects into a navigable environment using technology to configure the environment´s spaces and circulation routes. It embodies the values of the presentedd content, setting the tone for the visitor´s experience through the design of the public interface. Architecture is a structure of experiences involving interaction with numerous forms of content, introducing choice, connections, updates, human encounter and surprise, and in this respect is the precursor and operating blueprint of Content Management [...] As you will see, some of the essays and interviews describe how architecture continues to inform the thinking behind Content Management, for better and worse“.

It presents an interesting reflection on the current state of globalization, on which we have infinite amounts of information available at the tip of our fingers, while facing massive shortfalls (energy, natural resources).

At some point it compares the created necessity of Content Management as a result of the amounts of information we publish, with the early architects of Koolhaas´Manhattan who legitimized the necessity of their profession by causing the irreversible  state of congestion which they then took as their mission to solve.

On this issue:

read more »

I was very eager waiting for the mail man on this one, because as i stated before, Mark Magazine is one of my favourite publications when it comes to new projects.

The October/November issue has a very nice texture on the cover, featuring Sou Fujimoto´s Log House. This issue´s central theme is “House Rules”, with 7 amazing houses on the inside.

But lets start by the beginning, with the section Notice Board.

read more »

Mark Magazine is by far one of my favourite architecture magazines. Their motto “Another architecture” tells us what we´ll find inside: fresh architecture – the main reason we love this magazine so much.

This bimonthly magazine is structured in 5 sections: Noticeboard (a collage of new projects), Cross Section (short articles on new buildings and architectural subjects), Viewpoint (interviews with architects on the rise), Long Section (in depth articles on buildings) and Service Area (new building materials).

On the August/September issue (October one on the mail, more about that soon) we find an amazing house by spanish studio Ensamble, shown on a collage with embossed textures, something that has become a signature on Mark Magazine covers.

read more »

A few weeks ago we received the latest issue of Volume Magazine, a joint effort between Archis, AMO and the C-LAB. Continuing with their tradition of thematic issues with suggestive names, number 16 is called Engineering Society.

It relates somehow to Volume #14 (Unsolicited Architecture), on which the editorial analyzes the lost of relevance of modern architects because of their failure to adapt to a market driven society, urging them (us) to answer current society questions from the field of architecture.

On this issue, Arjen Oosterman starts with -yet another- incredible editorial, Planning Paradise, that analyzes how architects tried to impose their utopias in the past, without a direct relation with the end user of these projects. But now, we can certainly tell that society can´t no longer be made, and it´s actually being driven and shaped by the users as a consequence of democracy, and free market economy and politics. And this opens a new opportunity for architects, to be the ones that present new futures to this users, an opportunity lost long time ago in “our consumer society of commodity logic“.

read more »