Residences: The Latest Architecture and News

Michael Rotondi’s buildings—museums, civic centers, education facilities, monasteries, restaurants, and residences—evoke kinetic mechanisms that fold, hinge, twist, and split open. They express the architect’s feelings, thinking, and mood at the time they had been designed, and, on some occasions, during their assembly and construction. Rotondi was born in 1949 in Los Angeles.

He established his RoTo Architects, a research-based firm in his native city, in 1991 after co-heading Morphosis for 16 years with Thom Mayne. Parallel to his practicing career, the architect has been teaching and lecturing at SCI-Arc, Southern California Institute of Architecture, which he co-founded in 1972, led its graduate program from 1978-1987, and was the school’s second director for a decade from 1987 to 1997.

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BIG has partnered with experimental clothing brand Vollebak to create the vision for a self-sufficient off-grid island in Nova Scotia, Canada. The 11-acre Vollebak Island will receive several pavilions built of natural and innovative materials such as seaweed, hempcrete, and 3D-printed concrete, all powered by carbon-neutral energy. The island, located in Jeddore Harbor, one quarter off the Nova Scotia mainland, will be auctioned via Sotheby’s Concierge Auctions beginning June 8. Bidders will vie for the chance to own the island and to be granted exclusive rights to the design vision, including the planning permission for those designs.

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The regional expressions of a country’s culture are vital in helping us understand the relation between context and specific conditions of social manifestations. These nuances and singularities inside the realm of construction are translated into what can be called vernacular architecture. Although it has always existed, this universe of local exemplars of architecture with their particular materials, techniques and regional constructive solutions came to be well studied in the second half of the twentieth century in Brazil, in a project that traced national architecture history, headed by Lucio Costa.

Wood is one of the oldest building materials used in architecture. Versatile, it can be used in structural solutions, coatings, partitions, fittings and, very often, in furniture. Another quality of the material is its sustainability - if well managed during planting, cutting, and treatment processes, it can be considered renewable and low carbon, adding value to the completed building.

How can a small 420 square foot apartment transform into eight comfortable rooms?  It takes smart design solutions that incorporates modulation and interior planning that conforms to everyday needs in an increasingly competitive environment of living space.  Founder of Treehugger.com, Graham Hill takes the viewer on a tour of his "Life Edited" apartment that provides a sustainable living solution to compact apartments in urban environments like New York City.  This apartment provides all the amenities necessary with some additional effort of converting rooms to fit everyday needs.  Interested in seeing this apartment transform into a living room, bedroom, kitchen, dining room and guest room? Join us after the break to find out.