Is your life lacking in dragons? Do you long for the excitement and danger of a constant, treacherous struggle for governing power? If you find yourself simply biding your time waiting for new seasons of Game of Thrones to air (or for George R.R. Martin to finally write another book) one option is to spend some time traveling to the real-life locations used in the filming of the show! From Iceland to Morocco, the show’s creators have traveled all over the world to bring the mythical world Martin describes in his novels to life on screen. While much of the filming is done in a studio, and of course there’s plenty of CGI involved, many of the landscapes and buildings seen throughout the show’s 6 seasons are real places open to the public. We can’t promise you dragons or control of the Iron Throne, but what you will get are some spectacular sights that might just make you feel like a real Westerosi.
In honor of the show’s seventh season beginning later today, here’s a list of 7 Game of Thrones filming locations you can visit! (This list is mostly spoiler-free, but you may want to read with caution if you’re not caught up!)
It can't be denied that architects love brick. The material is popular both for its warmth and for the diversity of expressions that can be achieved by applying it in a creative way—depending on the arrangement of individual bricks or the combination of bonds, it’s possible to arrive at a result that is both original and attractive. That ingenuity is what photographers like Hiroyuki Oki, Gustavo Sosa Pinilla, and François Brix, among others, have attempted to capture in their photographs. In these images, light is a key element of good composition, allowing the photographers to control the intensity of color and the contrast of masses and voids, as well as enhancing the incredible textures of the brick we love so much.
Ah, Invisible Cities. For many of us, Italo Calvino’s 1972 novel reserves a dear place in our libraries, architectural or otherwise, for its vivid recollections of cities and their curiosities, courtesy of a certain Marco Polo as he narrates to Kublai Khan. And while the book doesn’t specifically fit the bill in terms of conventional architectural writing, it resists an overall categorisation at all, instead superseding the distillation of the cities it contains into distinct boundaries and purposes.
For though there is a certain kind of sensory appeal that is captured in the details of places, the real beauty of Invisible Cities lies in the masking of underlying notions of time, identity and language within these details – a feat that is skillfully accomplished by both Marco and Calvino. With this in mind, here are three of many such principles, as revealed by the layered narrative of Invisible Cities.
https://www.archdaily.com/875409/three-principles-of-architecture-as-revealed-by-italo-calvinos-invisible-citiesOsman Bari
Saint-Gobain’s new corporate headquarters campus in Malvern, PA—the North American home to the world’s largest building materials company—is not a typical corporate campus. As the company approached its 350th anniversary, they set out to build a headquarters that would offer a dynamic showcase for its products.
The company assembled a team of designers from two firms—Bernardon and Jacobs—to transform a long-dormant site consisting of two office buildings into an integrated, world-class headquarters located in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
https://www.archdaily.com/875785/how-the-worlds-largest-building-materials-manufacturer-used-its-own-products-to-create-a-world-class-headquarters-for-its-employeesSponsored Post
Theorist, architect, and educator Moshe Safdie (born July 14, 1938), made his first mark on architecture with his master's thesis, where the idea for Habitat 67 originated. Catapulted to attention, Safdie has used his ground-breaking first project to develop a reputation as a prolific creator of cultural buildings, translating his radicalism into a dramatic yet sensitive style that has become popular across the world. Increasingly working in Asia and the Middle East, Safdie puts an emphasis on integrating green and public spaces into his modernist designs.
Apple is planting a forest in Cupertino, California. When the company’s new headquarters is completed later this year, 8,000 trees, transplanted from nurseries around the state of California, will surround the donut-shaped building by Foster + Partners. The trees are meant to beautify Apple’s 176 acres (dubbed Apple Park). But they will also absorb atmospheric carbon.
That’s a good thing. Carbon, in greenhouse gases, is a major cause of global warming. Almost everything humans do, including breathing, releases carbon into the atmosphere. Plants, on the other hand, absorb carbon, turning it into foliage, branches, and roots—a process known as sequestration.
In all but the most optimistic architect's career, there will be moments you come across doubts and insecurities about our profession. It is in these moments where the wisdom of the greats who have come before us can help provoke the inspiration needed to face the challenges proposed by architecture and urbanism.
Interior design by REAL Foundation for Common Stock: Sharing as Luxury, the fourth tower in the Derivative Architecture series. Image Courtesy of Real Foundation
The Chicago Architecture Biennial is the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America, and the blog invites designers and other contributors to express their perspectives in a range of formats. The 2017 exhibition, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 6, 2018.
Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB): We want to start by noting that REAL foundation, which stands for "Real Estate Architecture Laboratory," is not a typical design practice. You design spaces, but you also make books, exhibitions, a magazine, and tools for advocacy. Why?
Jack Self (JS): The REAL foundation is an unusual model for an architectural firm. We're a normal architectural practice, but we are governed by a very strict set of conditions that allow us to pursue certain political and economic ideologies. We see the social role of the architect, as well as the structure of the architectural firm, as a subject for design as much as buildings.
I spent four glorious days in Copenhagen recently and left with an acute case of urban envy. (I kept thinking: It’s like... an American Portland—except better.) Why can’t we do cities like this in the US? That’s the question an urban nerd like me asks while strolling the famously pedestrian-friendly streets, as hordes of impossibly blond and fit Danes bicycle briskly past.
Copenhagen is one of the most civilized cities on the planet. The world’s “most livable,” it’s often called, with some justification. (Although a Danish relative did caution me, “Spend a few weeks here in January before you make that pronouncement.”) But the seemingly effortless civility, Copenhagen’s amazing level of grace, is not an accident of place or happenstance. It’s the product of a shared belief that transcends urban design, even though the city is a veritable laboratory for pretty much all of the best practices in the field.
A view of Sean Gallagher's work as seen in Morpholio's Trace App. Image Courtesy of Morpholio
If you visit an architecture office today, you may sense a slight change. The days of bulky desktops, ergonomic mouse pads and tower-high stacks of drawing sets are slowly giving way to digital pencils, tablets, and tons of architects’ hand-drawings—both physical and digital. Architects across the globe are clearing their desks, literally, and utilizing emerging touchscreen tools and software for designing, sharing and collaborating. It seems possible that, for the first time in years, the architecture profession could revisit Bernard Tschumi’s “paperless” studio which formed a key part of his tenure as dean of Columbia University’s GSAPP in the mid-1990s. However, this time, “paperless” starts with a pencil, instead of a click.
How many lives does a great work of architecture have? The first begins when it is built and inhabited, judged based on the quality of life it provides for its residents. The second comes generations later when it becomes historically significant and perhaps its original function no longer suits the demands of society. The value of such buildings is that they inform us about the past and for that reason their conservation is necessary.
However, in Latin America, there are countless cases of buildings of great architectural value that are in tragic states of neglect and deterioration. Seven such examples are:
Considered as one of best buildings for opera in the world, the Colón Theatre in Buenos Aires is internationally renowned for its acoustics and its heritage value, showcasing the Italian and French influence on cultural architecture in Argentina. It is situated in a privileged location of the city´s downtown, between the streets Cerrito, Viamonte, Tucumán, and Libertad.
Inaugurated on the 25th of May in 1908, it had a significant impact and is considered one of the most emblematic historical monuments of the country.
This article was originally published on Brandon Hubbard's blog, The Architect's Guide.
According to a new study released by TheLadders, recruiters spend only six seconds on average looking at your resume. This proves the importance of having a concise, well-formatted resume that emphasizes your greatest skills and experience.
I have the "benefit" of reading hundreds, if not thousands, of architecture resumes throughout the year. This gives me a unique opportunity to see a range of good and bad examples. Often the weaker samples come from younger candidates who haven't been in the job market for very long. If you are just starting out in your career the task of creating a resume can be daunting.
Una pieza de la exposición. Image Cortesía de Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo
In a somewhat poetic proposal, Jill Magid, the American artist, offered Federica Zano, owner and archivist of the Barragan Foundation in Switzerland, a two-carat diamond ring made from ashes from Barragan’s cremation, in exchange for returning Barragan’s professional archive to Mexico.
This gesture was the pinnacle of an art project that “posed fundamental questions about the consequences and implications of converting cultural legacy into private corporate property.” Magid’s work, titled “A Letter Always Arrives at its Destination,” held an exhibition at the University Museum of Contemporary Art at the UNAM.
#donotsettle is an online video project created by Wahyu Pratomo and Kris Provoost about architecture and the way it is perceived by its users. Having published a number of videos on ArchDaily over the past two years, Pratomo and Provoost are now launching an exclusive column, “#donotsettle extra,” which will accompany some of their #donotsettle videos with in-depth textual analysis of the buildings they visit.
In the tropics, the sunlight falls generously. The leaked elements draw the shadow on floors and walls, an effect that transforms the entire environment for those who see it from the outside and inside. With the changing seasons and throughout the course of the day, natural light comes in different ways as it adds new components to architecture. In the course of the night, the artificial light passes through the small openings from the inside to the outside, making a sort of urban lamp that interacts with the shadows of its users and furniture.
In addition to its function, the cobogó brings a certain poetic feel to any architectural project. Here, we have highlighted this Brazilian creation, to briefly shed light on its history and to present a selection of projects that adopt this element.
As final juries draw to a close, graduating architecture students are left with a crucial decision to make. While some might take a plunge into the scary real world looking to gain professional experience, others might choose to further reinforce their architecture education and skill set. Of the latter, most enroll in an MArch program, or take well-trodden paths into urban design and planning, landscape architecture, historic preservation, or theory and criticism. But in an increasingly complex world faced with myriad problems, what about those graduate architects looking to bolster their education in other related disciplines that will give them a more unique perspective on design problems? Here, we shortlist seven alternative, interdisciplinary graduate programs offered by architecture schools worldwide.