December 9th, 2007

Fender Katsalidis
Young in Architecture
Yesterday, 10:19 PM
Katsalidis tower is one of my design directors favourite. Some more interesting work from Katsalidis. to find out

casa ti, david day and green modern kits
Justin in materialicious
casa ti is a partnership between Green Modern Kits and Architect David Day. An affordable, green structure is cost effective by stripping it to the bare bones for consumers to customize according to their taste and budget, and offers 1,100 sq. ft./3 bedrooms of living space that can incorporate a green roof, photovoltaic panels, and rainwater collection. The structure is framed in high-recycled-content steel, in SIP form. You can buy casa ti in kit form or buy the plans to build it from scratch. Prices for the kit start at $38,000. The casa ti prototype is being built in Virginia and a larger model, the R1 Residential, is being built in California.

Flotsam, Jetsam and the Three Gorges Dam
Regine Debatty in WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future
The Three Gorges Dam is the largest project in China since the Great Wall and the Grand Canal. The hydroelectric river dam, probably the biggest concrete construction in the world, spans the Yangtze River. The total electric generating capacity of the dam will reach 22,500 MW, at which point it will also claim the title of the largest hydro-electric power station in the world by capacity. The dam is not expected to become fully operational until about 2011.

williams cabin, stephen atkinson
Justin in materialicious
Williams Cabin, Durango, Colorado. Another great minimalist project from the boards of Stephen Atkinson. I love seeing cabins that are so different from the stereotypical ones you see in magazines like, say, Backwoods Home Magazine (which I do enjoy). Not that there’s anything wrong with those, I just prefer Modern!

The Option of Urbanism
Alex Steffen in WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future
Yesterday, 3:08 PM
I'm in Barcelona, where I delivered a talk on sustainability and the future for the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona's remarkable NOW series, and where Erica and I have stayed on for a working vacation. Barcelona, people here will tell you, is not only the most vital and stylish city in Spain, but the densest city in Europe. Though I've heard this factoid disputed by people who aren't from here, the fact remains that Barcelona is extremely dense: to wander through much of Barcelona is to walk through mile after mile of narrow streets embraced by beautiful old buildings, fronted by small shops.

Zambian Architecture
Ugo Okafor in African Architecture and Design
The Zambian Architecture website writes about traditonal design types as well construction methods in Vernaluar Zambian Architecture.The use of sutainable building materials in vernaular Zambian Architecture is very prominent and I beleive could influence some of the western building concept being adopted in the continent.

December 7th, 2007

Greater Than the Great Pyramid 
mediabistro.com: UnBeige
Does it seem like civilization is about to end or something. Seems to us, when you start building crazy big stuff for no real reason (we're looking at you, Dubai), that usual signals the end of things. So while occassionally glancing over our shoulders on the look out for marauding invaders, we report, by way of Archinect, on The Great Pyramid, a project looking to build a pyramid ten times the size of the ones they've got over there in Egypt.

Beyond the Bowtie: Blumenauer on Architecture
Brian Libby in Portland Architecture
In case you didn't happen to pick up a copy at the newsstand, this month's AIArchitectmagazine includes a fairly extensive interview with Congressman Earl Blumenauer, whose district is comprised largely of east Portland and Multnomah County. "A staunch advocate of the architecture profession and built environment, the congressman is committed to promoting livable communities at the federal level," the intro goes.


Certified Mission District remodel goes green to the gills
Anh-Minh Le, Special to The Chronicle
Anyone who has ever tackled a remodel probably has a story to share about delays and missed deadlines. But when the story plays out in public, it can become fodder for the real-estate blog rumor mill.
And so there has been much talk about the problems plaguing the Sunset Idea House, which officially opened its doors last weekend - nearly four months behind schedule. Several blogs reported that the entire two-unit property would be on the market for around $4 million, and that Sunset magazine and the house's owner, Robin Wilson, have parted ways.

The Olympic Stadium Onslaught, In Full
mediabistro.com: UnBeige
Remember a little while back when we said that the 2012 London Olympics couldn't catch a break, with the newest complaints stemming from the unveiled plans of the new, Peter Cook-designed Olympic Stadium. Well, we're not hear to say that that's gone away. Instead, we point you to a collection of bad reviews that Architectural Record has put together in a single piece, thus making it one larger, smoother blade to stick into the side of the poor Olympic authority


Casey Brown
Young in Architecture
Fasinating stuff from Caroline Casey & Robert Brown.
"A studio devoted to creating contemporary architecture through an organic understanding of building in direct response to climate, topography and lifestyle. Sensibility of place derives from years of working on historical buildings, learning the crafts, understanding the tectonics of biulding and how our time relates to history. This perspective creates a preference for lasting architecture ofunpretentious functionalism, using materials and expressed structure.This non prescriptive approach takes each client, site and brief as something one off and special. "

Architect Disconnect
Brendan in Where
While I do try very hard to keep things positive in Where posts, occasionally something comes along that's so gratuitously heinous that I just can't help but rail against it. That is the case with College Squeeze's recent post on the "20 Ugliest Colleges in the USA." "It does have a nice quad and trees, but seriously. Who cares about trees?" No one. No one at all. "Sure, it’s full of smart people, but it’s just a brick campus." Hilarious. "For once, I’d just like to see a building that was intentionally designed trying to be beautiful, but just failed badly." Because most buildings are designed to be ugly, you see. "I haven’t actually been to Carnegie Mellon, just heard horrible things about it and Pittsburgh." Brilliant technique! Masterful analysis!

Waro Kishi + K associates
Young in Architecture
"This is located in a highly fashionable district in the middle of Tokyo. The five-story building is occupied by a jewelry store on the first four floors and a salon for public relations and customer services on the top floor. Each floor in plan consists of just a single space and a stairway. The tiny site is 6.3 meters wide, 4.6 meters deep, and less than 30 square meters in area. My two basic design ideas were to adopt a structural system without columns in order to make effective use of the limited area and to make the overall structure as lightweight as possible in order to simplify the foundation. A reinforced-concrete wall structure is used on the lower three floors. Panels fabricated from steel sheets in a factory were assembled on the site for the fourth and fifth floors. As a result, construction work was much like assembling a model of the building." More interesting work from Waro Kishi + K associates. to find out more...