Videos: The Latest Architecture and News

Last week we presented you the current status of Salvador Dali’s Museum in St. Petersburg, FL.

A recent graduate from London’s Bartlett School of Architecture, Richard Hardy has produced a fascinating animation for Nic Clear’s Unit 15 that pushes futuristic architecture to a new level. Using David Foster Wallace’s ‘Infinite Jest’, a novel that questions certain aspects of Americans’ obsessive behavior – in terms of the intense fascination with entertainment, materialism, technology etc – the studio challenged students to analyze the implications of society’s “obsessive/addictive behavior…to develop tactics to cope with the difficulties of creating an architecture in uncertain times.”

More about the project after the break.

Check out this video from metacafe of an amazing piece of architecture….an ant hill! After pouring a ton of cement into the ground (actually – make that ten tons) to take to the shape of all the tunnels, a team removed about 40 tons of soil to reach the ant hill. The underground network is an intense system of main tunnels and branching side routes with short connections to decrease circulation time. The planning, as the video states, is so cohesive that it seems to have been designed by an architect. It is phenomenal that thousands of ants could design and construct this system that extends over 50 sqm and 8 meters down. It makes you wonder what other architectural masterpieces are hidden from view…

Check out this great video we spotted over at The Architect’s Newspaper Blog by Urban Omnibus. The video’s subject, Mitch McEwan, speaks about Superfront, a space for architectural experimentation located on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Throughout the video, McEwan emphasizes that the collaboration between the architect and interdisciplinaries is the way for architecture to break out of its isolated shell and affect the broader public. As McEwan points out, architecture cannot become a contained subject that is purely debated and discussed by architects. After all, in order to create places that suit the public, a vital relationship must be fostered between the designer and the community. McEwan also calls to attention the fact that if we want to expand the influence of the architect, we have to, basically, make our “architecture not just about architecture all the time”. We have to create something real and meaningful; our architecture must speak to the site, the local culture, and most importantly, those who will be occupying the space. What do you think of the video and McEwan’s ideas?

In the middle of June, we shared Nicolas Dorval-Bory and Raphaël Bétillon’s Paysages en Exil, an experiential journey that was part of the Imaginez Maintenant in France. We just received word that the project is completed, and we have a new set of photos to share. By viewing the video, one can better understand how the dense mist that blankets visitors on their path from the greenhouse to the ending garden can alter their environment. The “cloud” brings a level of abstraction to those wandering on the path to the garden, almost containing people in this experience and separating them from the rest of the world for the duration of the walk.

Photographs of the project after the break.

Stefan Krische shared with us his proposal for an information pavilion competition for the Universalmuseum Joanneum, which has it’s 200th anniversary soon. The main points said construction should be made out of wood, it shoul be transportable and it couldn’t cost more than 40.000€.

On the occasion of the Settimana milanese del Design 2010, during which the Japanese architect presented an impressive installation anticipating the new work of architecture, Kengo Kuma himself gave a video-interview on the meaning of the very “CCCWall” (photos here / video here), its conception and tangible character. The image and voice of the Japanese architect allow the viewers to approach the ceramic masterpiece which will be inaugurated in Casalgrande, Reggio Emilia.

3dCom have shared with us an animation of a new bridge that, if built, will become the UK’s tallest structure.

Here’s another great time lapse video from Seppe, this time walking us through the German Pavilion in Shanghai designed by Schmidhuber + Kaindl GmbH (more Shanghai coverage here). Entitled Balancity, the pavilion is designed by Lennart Wiechell and at 6,000 m2, it is the country’s largest structure at any exposition. The building’s geometric mass was conceived as a three dimensional sculpture and the form wraps certain spaces which showcase different aspects of Germany. As you can see in the video, the pavilion includes a central energy source, a factory-like section, an opera and cultural section, and even a park. The areas show Germany’s technological progressions and products meant to help solve urbanization problems, and visitors slowly glide past certain installations on moving walkways. Unlike other countries’ pavilions that seem to work off of one cohesive theme, the German pavilion seems much more “busy” – it is a conglomeration of many different ideas and products with lots to see at each turning corner. What do you think of Balancity?

Check out other videos Seppe has shared with us like his British Pavilion time lapse or his Denmark Pavilion video. Full list of credits after the break.

The Bartlett’s BSc degree programme aims to develop a creative, diverse and rigorous approach to architecture and design from the outset. Year 1 is centred on the design studio and is taught to the year as a whole. Students observe, draw, model and design, based in the School’s design studios and workshop from the first week onwards.

You can now see three videos of the Year 1 program, including a sketchfilm by Brook Lin, who sketched for 13 hours, transformed in a 10 minute film. For more information click here. See the other two videos after the break.

Yung Ho Chang, founder of Atelier FCJZ, China’s first private architectural practice and head of the Architecture department at the MIT, delivers the first BIArch Open Lecture of the Spring 2010 cycle: “China, Carb, City, China”.

The introduction of this lecture was given by Albert Ferré, director of Actar. You can see the video of the introduction after the break.

A while ago we told you about Rebuilding a Sustainable Haiti, a symposium on planning strategies that can lead to a more socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable future in Haiti, hosted by the Institute for Urban Design on June 4.

Check out this video we found by Yellow Line Pictures and the 2010 MoMA/MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program. We’ve been documenting SO-IL’s Pole Dance quite extensively and we feel that this video is a good addition to our coverage. We hope the film’s fun take on demonstrating how to use the project will make you even more excited to visit the PS1 schoolyard if you find yourself in the New York area. What do you think of the noise making poles? And, how about the fact that the project can be affected by an iPhone app ?

During the 2010 AIA Convention in Miami Beach we had the opportunity to sit down with George H Miller, AIA President.

George is also a partner at Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Given his position as a partner on one of the most recognized firms in the US and as the voice of the architects through the AIA, George has a very good idea on the current state and future of the profession. We did our usual set of questions, but also included two things that I find very important: The importance on pushing IPD and the role of the AIA during the financial crisis (and what lessons can be learned after it). We also recommend you to read our article on his position regarding small business taxes, part of his efforts to improve the way architects practice in the US.

We published each question as a separate video so you can easily watch them. On a side note, there is some audio noise due to a bad mic placement. My fault, won´t happen again.

Shot by architect turned filmmaker Jeffrey Durkin, this introspective piece on designer/architect/professor Miki Iwasaki explores how “the small objects in our life shape the big picture of how we live.” What began as a video aimed to capture the essence of Iwasaki’s furniture design quickly transformed into a short piece which addresses larger issues of society and the ramifications of design and consumerism.

More about the video after the break.

We have seen the Danish pavilion on its conceptual stage, during construction, completed and finally opened to the public.

Earlier this year we featured Herzog & de Meuron’s VitraHaus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Now, we share with you this amazing video by Pedro Kok, a brazilian architectural photographer whose incredible photos can be seen in our Flickr pool.

A month and a half ago we presented you Roadmap 2050, a proposal to set in motion an invisible revolution in the energy sector which would stabilize the Earths climate.