Videos: The Latest Architecture and News

This Parisian ghost town in Tianducheng, China has become the archetype of China's architectural copycat culture. Brought to light by the folks at The Atlantic Cities, this short video by German filmmaker Caspar Stracke accounts for an average day in this faux-Parisian development where less than 10,000 residents call home.

Captured by JA+U, this short film takes you on a tour through a 2011, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates-designed office space in Shibaura, Tokyo. Open and transparent, the five double-height, split-level floors are designed to visually connect movement throughout the space, from the ground level public cafe to the generous outdoor terrace on the fifth floor.

The Jewish Museum is just as emotionally moving and utterly disorienting today as it was when it first opened. Taking a fresh reflective look, Spirit of Space has produced a short film capturing moments of this singular architectural experience. The soundscape is jarring. Shots linger with trepidation. Perceptions waver with marks of appearance and disappearance. And in cinematic form, the film attempts to express the uneasy sequential essence of Daniel Libeskind’s work.

At a lecture he delivered in April this year at the 4th Holcim Forum 2013 in Mumbai, Pritzker Jury member and Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena approached sustainability from an unconventional angle. The key to achieving the "Economy of Sustainable Construction" (the title of this year's Holcim Forum), Aravena claims, requires two things: "in this generation, more psychiatrists; in the next generations, more breasts."

Urban explorer The Unknown Cameraman takes us inside an abandoned Futuro House, one of the roughly hundred that were constructed in the 1960s/1970s. Shot around "various undisclosed locations in New Jersey" the video shows the futuristic saucer-shaped prefabricated dwelling made of fiberglass-reinforced polyester plastic. Matti Suuronen, the Finn who conceived of the hatched house, thought of it as the ideal ski cabin (that could be plopped down and easily removed, regardless of the roughness of a given terrain).

Juan Herreros is one of the most influential Spanish architects practicing today. Executing a delicate balance between his role defining the practice of architecture with work in the academy, he has not only overseen the construction of significant built projects, but also teaches at School of Architecture of Madrid and is a Full Professor at GSAPP Columbia University in New York. It was recently announced that his winning proposal for the Munch Museum/Deichman Library competition was given the green light. The museum will house the world’s largest collection of Edvard Munch artworks and is scheduled to open in 2018.

Herreros strives to highlight architecture’s multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary nature by revealing the complex relationships that lie behind individual projects—undergirded by what Herreros identifies as a “technical culture” (see the exhibition Dialogue Architecture that he curated at the last Venice Biennale).

Together with Iñaki Abalos he founded Abalos&Herreros in 1984. In 1992 they founded the International Multimedia League (LMI), an organization that contributes to the simplification and intensification of artistic practice. Since 2006 he practices with the firm Herreros Arquitectos a collaborative office that has won numerous competitions and commissions. His projects can be found around the world and range from schemes for public spaces to designs for houses.

“Something unique about [our] studio is that, given the difficulties of doing research in architecture today and the usefulness of the “research applied to architecture” concept, we maintain two open, integrated lines of work: one line maintains small projects, very quick, very immediate; and the other is related to the large projects, generally the result of international competitions around the world.”

Check out a full transcript of our interview with Herreros after the break…

Not long ago we sat down with Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano of LOT-EK—a New York City- and Naples-based architectural design studio. Known for their work with shipping containers, they discuss the learning curve they have endured by using objects that fall outside of the typical materials specified in manuals. LOT-EK also explains that they have been influenced by the freedom exercised in contemporary art. In their attempt to look at the world through “different eyes,” they find that networking is indispensable since it “makes what [they] do relevant” and opens them up to new opportunities.

Check out this Vimeo Staff Pick, filmed by dimid, that captures the towering city of Dubai.

More images after the break...

In this video. Cathleen McGuigan, editor-in-chief of Architectural Record, discusses gender within the professional setting, specifically within the world of architecture at the Harvard GSD.  As she begins, she addresses the question that most people have when such a topic is approached.  "Why are we still talking about this?"  McGuigan lays out the position of women in architecture and the rational that still supports inequality, however subconscious, within the profession.  Referencing Sheryl Sandberg's new book Lean In, McGuigan shows how this topic is still unresolved and still needs to be discussed in the public forum.

Videos

Inspiration is a funny thing: when you need it is nowhere to be seen, and just when you're not expecting it, it can blindside you in the least convenient of places. Here's ten inspirational TED talks for architects (in no particular order) from people with broad and unique views on architecture. Some might enlighten, educate or even enrage you - at the very least they should get those creative juices flowing a little better.

Take-in these ten TED talks after the break...

It’s a rarity that the architecture community is presented a chance to indulge in a Peter Zumthor lecture. Often referred to a architecture’s reclusive “man of mystery”, the Swiss legend has produced a handful of projects so eloquently designed that they have captured the attention of the world. In honor of his mastery, RIBA awarded Zumthor with the institute’s prestigious Royal Gold Medal in February. In this video, he gives the 2013 Royal Gold Medal Lecture at the RIBA, focused on the theme of Presence in Architecture.

When emigrating from Germany in 1938 to head Chicago’s Armour Institute, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was challenged with two tasks: first reform the schools curriculum to his “back-to-basics” approach and then develop plans for a newly expanded 120-acre campus for the creation of Illinois Institute of Technology, a product of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute merger. Mies was able to exceed both challenges and the outcomes have had a lasting influence on Chicago and modernism for the past 75 years. In celebration of this legacy and Mies’ 127th birthday, IIT was complied this comprehensive video that features Mies’ contribution to the modern landscape of their campus and city.