Archinect - NOW Studio: The New Academy

Genius Loci

2014-02-13T14:56:00-05:00

This week we are already pushing to finish our bronze-cast models of Nolli's map of Helsinki. This process becomes a mind-bending method of how to extract the most detail out of the model while keeping to a scale in the range of between 1:1000 and 1:2500. None of the projects will be bigger than a few centimeters in each direction - and lucky me, I drew the Velodrome by Hilding Eklund. Because of the double-curve form as well as the rotating loft through the sections of the track I sought help through CNC and 3D printing, with some handiwork at the end to smooth out any mistakes.

Our big event in the last week was, however, another intimate symposium lecture by architect and theorist Keller Easterling from Manhattan as part of the ongoing "1000 Islands" talks. Keller was invited to speak to students at Aalto University's School of Architecture, and then later came to NOW Office for a smaller discussion with the Aalto-Carleton Joint Studies students and a scattering of local design t...

Re-drawing Nolli's Map of Rome

2014-02-04T13:54:42-05:00

It’s always surprising the change that can come in a year. Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes right?

I can remember applying to Carleton’s M.Arch program with the primary intent of participating in the Directed Study Abroad semester in Helsinki and expressing in my letter of intent: “Finland in particular, and Scandinavia in general, can offer unique cultural opportunities as the nation in many ways seems to be continually influenced by both eastern and western countries and ideologies, given the proximity to both the European Union as well as Russia and the remnants of the eastern bloc. This is an experience that cannot be replicated in a DSA to a Western European nation.”

Yet it’s always the things you never would have expected to be the biggest shocks to your system. Like when you buy shredded cheese and realize halfway through your meal that this is, in fact, definitely NOT cheese (and I’m willfully avoiding finding out what t...

Kulttuurisauna / Sauna Culture

2014-01-29T06:24:00-05:00

Well that didn't take too long for me to miss a blog entry. Fret not though - I intend to make up for it with a double-post this week. Round #1:

As new residents of Finland we have been introduced to the culture of attending sauna (pronounced "sow-na"). These are not the typical ones you would find in North American public swimming pools, but instead tend to have a much more intense heat, hold the moisture with profound density (especially around the head), are attended much more frequently as well as for longer periods of time, and involve significantly more nudity than what little sauna's we would attend back home.

It is estimated that there are roughly 2,000,000 sauna's in Finland, compared with 5,000,000 people - or essentially one per family. They are found literally everywhere: private homes, apartment complexes, physical activity complexes, workplaces, schools. Even the Aalto Architecture School has it's own sauna on the first floor!

As we have become more accustomed to attendi...

Pushing North

2014-01-15T15:43:00-05:00

Moika Archinect!

I am very happy to kick off a new school blog to add to the site's archives - while I don't think I can be quite as detailed or frequent as, say, Lian's GSD blog, I can certainly give it the ol' college try.

A brief background:
13 students from Carleton University's M.Arch program in Ottawa, Canada have travelled to Helsinki, Finland to study under Tuomas Toivonen and Nene Tsuboi of NOW Office and in conjunction with Aalto University. NOW Office is a promising new studio located in Helsinki, who have recently finished the Kulttuurisauna in the city centre.

As a graduate from the Dalhousie B.E.D.S. program I've held a long-standing appreciation for the sensitivity of vernacular design and how it can speak to the history of a people - Brian MacKay-Lyons' approach to a 'plain modern' architecture. This study-abroad trip was a rare opportunity to discover a new way of thinking about Critical Regionalism in an environment that is in many ways similar to Canada's east coast, ...