Archinect - Rice School of Architecture (Melissa)

SOM PRIZE RESEARCH AND TRAVEL FELLOWSHIP

2010-05-10T11:04:27-04:00

As promised in the last post, here is the link to the 'Solutions for a Small Planet' blog. Over the next few months Viktor Ramos, who won the SOM prize, will document his travel to the 10 most densely populated cities in the world. A lot of his design work, which is pretty epic, deals with thought provoking, megastructural solutions for dealing with growing, contemptuous urban conditions around the world.
São Paulo at night

SOM Prize

2010-04-28T15:28:30-04:00

Viktor Ramos, who was selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2009 SOM Prize, a $50,000 research and travel fellowship, is about to embark on an epic adventure to find 'Solutions for a Small Planet'. Starting tonight, he leaves from Houston to visit the eleven densest cities in the world, beginning in Mexico city and traveling counter clockwise around the globe. Here is the itinerary for his research.

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Viktor also won the Darden Award for Best Thesis project at Rice in 2009 with his awesome yet controversial project - The Continuous Enclave: Strategies in Bypass Urbanism. Some of his excellent design work is posted here on the SOM Foundation website.The Rice School of Architecture Darden award 2010 is being announced today.

You can read more about this thesis project on Bldgblog. The comments in particular are hilarious. If his project in this region can spark such a debate, I'm excited to see what he will do with the discoveries of an around the world research tr...

Ring Roads of the World

2009-07-14T18:49:57-04:00

When I moved to Houston for graduate school, the common response from the LA/NYC crowd was "Oh, well Austin's pretty cool." Too many people have been visibly shocked when I mention Houston is the 4th biggest city in the US. So, I love the extraordinary shift the poster "Ring Roads of the World" designed by Thumb, provides to thinking of major cities with extensive networks of motorways. The poster maps peripheral highways of 27 of the world’s largest cities. Layered on top of each other almost all the cities form a tight, bright rosette composition; except the quiet, dark figure in the background. The Houston 610 loop bleeds off the page, giving me some kind of satisfaction in knowing the complexity Houston's size brings to those of us practicing within that big, black blob.

Thumb, is a Brooklyn-based graphic design office, founded by Rice University Alumni Jessica Young and Luke Bulman who both received Master of Architecture degrees from Rice University, in Houston, Texas, in 2...