The ability to observe the private lives of strangers from the windows of my home is one reason why I’ve chosen to reside within a dense urban fabric. I am not a voyeur: I do not receive sexual satisfaction from watching the daily lives of others. But I do like to imagine the many meaningful “relationships” I have created with people that I will never meet or even recognize on the street. — Places Journal
When architect Melissa Dittmer moved from New York City to Detroit, her reaction was a "year-long panic attack." Where, she wondered, were the people? "Where was the density, the sense of connection with strangers?" But then Dittmer and her family bought a townhouse in Lafayette Park, the... View full entry
A literal advertisement for reading: MVRDV completes Book Mountain and Library Quarter Spijkenisse. — mvrdv.nl
(Spijkenisse, October 4th, 2012): Today Spijkenisse Book Mountain and the adjacent residential neighbourhood will be opened by Prinses Laurentien of the Netherlands. Manifesting itself clearly as a mountain of books on the towns market square, it is both an advertisement and an invitation for... View full entry
1977 Contemporary Addition and Renovation was the first built work of Architect Eric Owen Moss. Zoned as Duplex, but divided into 3 Spaces, all with Kitchen Area, Guest Bath, W/D, and Fireplace. Top Space is light and bright multi-story Luxury Loft with 1.5 Baths, 4 Outdoor Decks, and Ocean Views Throughout. — socallistings.marketlinx.com
Moss' "Triplex Apartments" in Playa Del Rey (LA) have been listed at $1.925M View full entry
Scriptwriting also taught him something about architecture. "If you write a script, you try to stitch episodes together so that, at the end, you have a sort of suspense to a conclusion or a climax," he says.
"Architecture is very similar: You create a series of spatial moments and find a way to relate them to each other with the same purpose. An architect writes scripts also, but for people, not for actors."
— cnn.com
CNN's "Great Buildings" series asks famous architects about their favorite self-designed projects. Today they feature Rem. View full entry
It’s hard to say which is more startling. That a developer in Phoenix could threaten...to knock down a 1952 house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Or that the house has until now slipped under the radar, escaping the attention of most architectural historians...a spiral home for his son David. — New York Times
The new cottage will be decorated with sculptures, furniture, ceramics, and tapestries, all narrating her story: "a difficult childhood, young love, a truncated education, children, divorce and finally fulfilment in her career and love life," explained Perry.
"The idea behind the project relates to buildings put up as memorials to loved ones, to follies, to eccentric home-built structures, to shrines, lighthouses and fairytales," the artist explained.
— artinfo.com
The new building cost about $26 million to build—70 percent below the previous budget. But is less less? When the new plan was announced, Nicolai Ouroussoff, writing in the Times, thought so, calling it "a major step down in architectural ambition."
Ouroussoff was wrong. True, no one can know what the "cluster of pavilions" would have looked like. I can only report that the rectangular building is a triumph. The materials are gorgeous.
— archrecord.construction.com
Curves are to be banned in a new generation of no-frills school buildings, according to a government crackdown on what it believes is wasteful extravagance in educational architecture.
Design templates unveiled for 261 replacement school buildings also prohibit folding internal partitions to subdivide classrooms, roof terraces that can be used as play areas, glazed walls and translucent plastic roofs.
— guardian.co.uk
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture has just won another competition for a skyscraper in Asia: earlier today, the Chicago firm was announced as the winner of the international competition to design Qintai Center, a 248-meter (814-feet) tall, high-performance corporate headquarters tower and related podium structure in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. — bustler.net
Masdar City is a project in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Its core is a planned city, which is being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, a subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company, with the majority of seed capital provided by the government of Abu Dhabi. Designed by the British architectural firm Foster and Partners, the city will rely entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy sources, with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology.
Burden's Small Skyscraper (Quasi-Legal Skyscraper), was intended to be "a modern day log cabin" that "two guys with a donkey could put up, and when the neighbor calls the building inspector, the guys can take it down again," he told LA Weekly back in 2003.
Burden's loophole (it's now closed) eventually led to the design of an aluminum-framed structure built in 2003 with the help of Linda Taalman and Alan Koch of Taalman Koch Architecture.
— blogs.laweekly.com
The small city of Molde in Western Norway recently gained one more architectural attraction: the new cultural center, 'Plassen', designed by Danish 3XN. — bustler.net
David Mirvish and world-renowned architect Frank Gehry formally introduced their plans for a major overhaul of King Street West this morning at the Art Gallery of Ontario — an appropriate setting considering the 2008 AGO redesign exists as Gehry's other major Canadian project. — blogto.com
Big news out of Madrid: Team Rhône-Alpes’ Canopea House has won the 2012 Solar Decathlon Europe! At the forefront of the competition since winning the Architecture and Operations prizes, this compact home is topped with a 10,7 kW array of photovoltaic panels that produce enough energy for both floors and a mini EV. — Inhabitat
The results of the Taiwanese Keelung Harbor Service Building competition were announced a few days ago with Neil M. Denari Architects taking the First Prize [...]. Today we're very excited to also publish one of the five finalist entries, designed by LA-based Platform for Architecture + Research in collaboration with joint tenderer Sériès et Sériès. The design team's engineering partner is Buro Happold. — bustler.net