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Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Sam Jacob

2021-08-20T12:42:00-04:00

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus concludes today with our conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's final episode is a conversation with Sam Jacob .

Sam Jacob Studio is a London-based practice that works at a variety of scales from urban planning to architecture, design objects, art, and curatorial work. Sam Jacob also currently works as a Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and as a columnist for Art Review. Sam's installation for Exhibit Columbus is located on Washington Street. He treats the six city blocks as a design object in his project titled "Alternative Instruments," telling a story of Utopia from the perspective of both history and fiction, referencing a 16th century novel by Thomas More through symbolism, mapping, and the typography of the Utopian alphabet.

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Exhibit Columbus names Dream the Combine, ecosistema urbano, Future Firm, Olalekan Jeyifous, and Sam Jacob Studio as Miller Prize recipients

2020-08-12T13:38:00-04:00

Exhibit Columbus has announced that the organization's forthcoming 2020-2021 exhibition cycle, curated by Iker Gil and Mimi Zeiger, will focus on the theme of New Middles:From Main Street To Megalopolis, What Is The Future of The Middle City?

In addition to announcing the new theme, the organization has also named the winners of this year's J. Irwin and Xenia Miller Prize winners. The winners are: Dream the Combine of Minneapolis, ecosistema urbano of Miami and Madrid, Future Firm of Chicago, Olalekan Jeyifous of Brooklyn, and Sam Jacob Studio of London.

Previously on Archinect: Archinect Sessions Site Visit: Exhibit Columbus.

Describing the theme of the symposium and exhibition, the former of which will be presented virtually in 2020 with in-person installations taking shape in 2021, the organizers write that "Midwest, mid-sized, or middle American, the notion of “middle" goes beyond geography and does not mean average or neutral. Middle is its own condition, especially in relation ...

"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...

Where do Instagram and architecture meet?

2018-11-27T10:34:00-05:00

Let's face it, what wouldn't people do a like? The 800 million user and counting social media platform, Instagram, has taken "photographic moments" to a whole new level. "Insta-fame" doesn't only affect people, but places as well. Deemed an influential force, Instagram is not only changing the way we view architecture but how we understand. Our environments are being shaped by the photos and coveted "likes" made by hundreds of people.

In Oliver Wainwright's piece, Snapping point: how the world’s leading architects fell under the Instagram spell, he explains "For a place to be shared on Instagram is no longer a chance by-product of a photogenic design, but a primary concern that drives the ambitions of clients and designers. The idea of “doing it for the ’gram” has moved from the preserve of Like-hungry teens to board meeting discussions and multimillion-pound budgets."

La Muralla Roja Image © Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura

For example, Thomas Heatherwick's Vessel, which is des...

Sam Jacob Studio to design the Cartoon Museum's new London home

2018-07-06T14:40:00-04:00

Sam Jacob Studio has been commissioned to design the new home of Britain’s Cartoon Museum. Known for their avant-garde approach to design, the studio will help the museum expand its programming and bring a "real sense of fun and vibrancy to the visitor experience," says museum chair, Oliver Preston.

Founded in 2006 by a dedicated cadre of cartoonists, comic artists and collectors, the Museum has been operating out of an old London dairy. But, wanting a new permanent home that will help it develop to its full potential, the museum has accepted a 25-year lease at 55 Wells Street, located near Oxford Circus.

Their archive holds over 5,000 books, 4,000 comics and 1,700 original strips, graphic novels, animation and caricatures, ranging from the 18th century to the present day. Scheduled to open early 2019, the new space will create permanent and temporary exhibition spaces to give the Museum greater flexibility in displaying its...

Sam Jacob explores the "Age of Post-Digital Drawing" for Metropolis

2017-03-22T23:35:00-04:00

Instead of striving for pseudo-photo-realism, this new cult of the drawing explores and exploits its artificiality, making us as viewers aware that we are looking at space as a fictional form of representation. This is in strict opposition to the digital rendering’s desire to make the fiction seem “real.”

Sam Jacob brings a current and analytical view to an essentially important and generative architectural tongue, the drawing. He writes about its anachronistic existence in the transitionally digital threshold years and how it is re-emerging and manifesting itself via the post-digital fictionalism. The article alludes to the demise of the money shot type of hyper-realism as well as the return of the fictional and sensorial collage, at this time via google, illustrator and the photoshop.

Sam Jacob to redevelop former pub in Shoreditch

2016-04-19T17:20:00-04:00

Sam Jacob Studio’s mixed-use development in the Hoxton Street conservation area retains the façade of the Victorian pub originally on the site while creating ground-floor community facilities with an apartment above. The four-storey scheme will restore the last remaining piece of what was once a terraced street razed to the ground by bombing during the Second World War. The new block is expressed as a curved wall punctured by diamond-shaped window openings.

For more on Sam Jacob, or his former practice FAT, check out these links: