Swedish furniture company IKEA, has collaborated with Oregon architectural firm Ideabox, to launch its first line of prefabricated houses in the U.S., named the “Aktiv.” The IKEA-themed dwelling is a one-bedroom home centered around space-saving furniture and products. The hip and modern house was outfitted taking into consideration the demands from Pacific-Northwest homeowners, and is designed to be eco-friendly. — psfk.com
The Aktiv, Swedish for active, is expected to be priced at US$79,500. View full entry
“Euthanasia Coaster” is a hypothetic euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely – with elegance and euphoria – take the life of a human being. Riding the coaster’s track, the rider is subjected to a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness, and, eventually, death. — julijonasurbonas.lt
As if Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s giant inflatable balloon set to rise (sometime) from its roof, Up-style, weren’t a sufficiently kinetic addition to the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the institution announced in a press release yesterday that artist Doug Aitken will turn the building’s circular facade into an enormous 360-degreen screen for nearly two months this spring. — blogs.artinfo.com
Some aspects of biomimicry have been played around with for a long time for example mimicking the structure of termite mounds. There have been a lot of architects who have toyed with biomimicry, but have been quite dependent on seductive imagery such as spiders' webs, but often the designs haven't been seen through in a particularly thorough way. Sometimes the examples from nature are just used as a departure point for developing original and whacky forms. — Michael Pawlyn, via wired.co.uk
Foreclosed, a new exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, shows ways of radically rethinking suburbia, homeownership and housing. But are such drastic measures what the suburbs really need? — Next American City
Also, see on Archinect: The CRIT: Thoughts on MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream View full entry
the exhibition at the Carnegie is not about the Vietnam memorial or other moving memorials she has done since. Instead, this is a straightforward presentation that wants to lead us to meditate about rivers, seas, lakes, land forms and other elements in the natural environment. What we see here are her persistent efforts to find sculptural forms that will get us to care more about the world around us. All of her recent work, in fact, seems to be an outpouring of her concerns for the environment. — pittsburghlive.com
The Buckminster Fuller Institute has published 103 entries to this year's Buckminster Fuller Challenge in the IDEA INDEX— BFI's ever growing repository of whole systems solutions to the world's most pressing problems. Entries were submitted from all parts of the world— the US, the UK, India, China, the Sahel, the Arctic, South Africa, Rwanda, Barbados, Haiti, and Afghanistan, among others. — bustler.net
Reacting to the Beach & Howe Tower proposal in Vancouver by Bjarke Ingels Group holz.box argued "still beats 90% of what's out there. i'd love to see this built."
x architekten’s OASIS, Pastoral Care Voestalpine project, a polygonal, built landscape is featured in the latest ShowCase. With her latest edition of CONTOURS titled Urbanism, Housing, and the Economy, Sherin Wing examined the significance of the fact that housing and... View full entry
"There is a backlash," says Gehry, now aged 82, "against me and everyone who has done buildings that have movement and feeling", that is "self-righteous" and "annoying… The notion is that it is counterproductive to social responsibility and sustainability. Therefore, curving the wall or doing something so-called wilful is wrong and so there is a tendency back to bland." — guardian.co.uk
Also make sure to check out the heated debate going on in Driehaus and Krier do battle against Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial design View full entry
Mr. Soleri, however, will discuss his marvelous, flawed creation with disarming frankness. Has Arcosanti, for instance, lived up to its potential? “No. Don’t be silly,” he said, and then laughed. — NYT
Michael Tortorello recently visited Arcosanti to check in on the status of the famed, Utopian urban laboratory. He finds it in transition as last fall, Mr. Soleri finally retired (at age 92) as the president of the Cosanti Foundation. Jeff Stein, 60, formerly dean of the... View full entry
... one the most gifted architects of my time has been reduced to wrapping such conventional programs of use in merely expressionistic forms, without letting a single ray of her genius illuminate the human condition. Am I being pretentious and overly demanding? Of course. But that’s the way disappointed lovers behave. Exaggerated emotions. Absurd demands. Anger that transgresses all reason. She has let me down, and what makes it worse is that she apparently couldn’t care less. — Lebbeus Woods
VMSD Magazine names Dusan Motolik of Avila Design as one of the Inaugural Designer Dozen Winners Yesterday, Dusan Motolik was named one of the Designer Dozen who will be receiving his award on March 1st at the Designer Dozen Awards Ceremony in Las Vegas. In addition, the winners will be... View full entry
The marriage of light and geometry does indeed find its consummation in architecture, but for me it did not come about so easily. At age eighteen I entered a fine school of engineering, then transferred to a fine school of architecture, finishing there when I was twenty-four. After ten or so years of working in corporate offices, learning what it meant to build—and leading a rather turbulent life—I went out on my own. — lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com
Lebbeus Woods shares part 2 of his personal story describing why he became an architect. View full entry
Working with Suzan Wines, co-founder of I-Beam Design, Marks dreamed up the concept based on both Archie’s love for the bricks and her own affection for geometric, abstract design and Lego-like colors, which carries through the rest of the apartment. To install the wall, they enlisted Sean Kenney, one of only five people in the country licensed by the Lego company to undertake projects as ambitious as, say, a four-foot, 13,000-piece replica of the Empire State Building. — nymag.com
The design shows Eisenhower as a youth gazing out at images of his adult accomplishments against a backdrop of the Kansas plains. But the Eisenhower family objects to the design and is attempting to delay approval of the project in a dispute that has pitted a leading American family against one of the country’s most recognized architects. The family says Mr. Gehry should portray Eisenhower as a man in the fullness of his achievements, not as a callow rustic who made good. — nytimes.com