Archinect - News

"Architecture for your body:" the Half-Timbered T-Shirt designed by Sam Jacob Studio

2019-03-02T14:13:00-05:00

When we were considering what to carry at Archinect Outpost, our retail shop and event space in Downtown Los Angeles, the products designed by Sam Jacob Studio immediately sprang to mind. Though they were, without question, designed with architects with mind, they were designed to appeal to style-conscious consumers in general.

Medieval Half-Timbered Façade in England. Photographer Unknown.

One product in particular that borders the architecture/non-architecture line is the Half-Timbered T-Shirt. While its patterning and name indicate that its influence is the half timbered architecture common in Jacob's native England. Popularized between 1450 and 1650, half-timber façades were originally designed to strengthen the structural skeleton of 2-3 story buildings most notably in England (though the method did find its way to parts of China and Japan).

As half-timbering has been popularized in the modern era, its function as structural bracing has been eliminated, leaving only the aesthe...

Italy is giving away over 100 historic buildings to be restored into “slow tourism” spots

2017-05-23T15:12:00-04:00

Italy is giving away more than 100 historic buildings - including castles, houses, and towers - in a bid to boost 'slow tourism' and tempt visitors away from the overcrowded city centres. The only catch is that those who take up the offer will have to commit to restoring and transforming the sites into tourist facilities, such as hotels, restaurants, or spas. Successful applicants will get an initial nine-year period to work on their project...

Italy is “giving away” over 100 ancient castles, homes, and towers for free to be restored into new tourist spots, in hopes to lure travelers away from already-crowded city centers. Successful applicants are given an initial nine-year contract to work on their project, and can potentially renew the contract for another nine years. Entrepreneurs with the most concrete proposals might be able to acquire a 50-year lease, The Local reports.

This contemporary medieval-style castle is being built using only medieval tools

2017-05-23T13:13:00-04:00

Funded mainly by tourist dollars, the French site of Guedelon has been building a medieval-style castle for the last 17 years using only the technology and tools that would have been available circa 1245. The result, which has created a living lab of craftspeople visited by curious schoolchildren, is helping archaeologists to understand not only what it was like to live and work in the Middle Ages, but also is reviving physical crafting techniques that are increasingly archaic, if not forgotten, in a digital age. In addition to inducing a desire to visit wine country, this video explains how the castle design itself was conceived:

This slick staircase restores access to medieval Kalø Castle in Denmark

2017-01-26T19:01:00-05:00

Built in the 14th century on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark, the Kalø Castle ruins is one of the country's most iconic landmarks and tourist hotspots. But the medieval tower was largely inaccessible to the public, and lacked any internal structure for centuries. That all changed with a crafty intervention by Copenhagen-based MAP Architects and Mast-Studio, who successfully designed a zig-zagging staircase inside the monument.

Commissioned by the Danish Ministry of the Environment, the architects completed the project in 2016. The 38 m2 staircase lets visitors enter and climb through the tower, which is 3 stories high and 2 stories deep. People can walk further up the stairs to access facade openings and balconies, where they can take in views of the surrounding landscape.

“The desire to allow the visitor to ‘touch’ the archaeological layers of the tower, and simultaneously ‘leave’ the ruin and ‘levitate’ in the landscape was pivotal,” MAP Architects writes. “The building site was e...

Using lasers to decode Gothic architecture

2015-06-23T15:13:00-04:00

[Andrew] Tallon, 46, wasn't the first to realize that laser scanners could be used to deconstruct Gothic architecture. But he was the first to use the scans to get inside medieval builders' heads. "Every building moves," he says. "It heaves itself out of shape when foundations move, when the sun heats up on one side." How the building moves reveals its original design and the choices that the master builder had to make when construction didn't go as planned...