This video captures a design project that I was involved in. It is a street furniture design collaboration between Pratt Institute’s Design Incubator, Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx), Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects and the community of Hunts Point, New York. One of the many things that inspired involvement in the project, was the emotionally charged talk by SSBx Founder, Majora Carter, on TED.com where she shows how minority neighborhoods suffer most from flawed urban policy.
Archive for the 'Architecture' Category
Design Jazz
forwarding dallas
Via Urban Re:Vision: Urban Re:Vision and the Central Dallas Community Development Corporation announced that “Forwarding Dallas” has been selected as the winning design from Re:Vision Dallas, an international design competition. The challenge, to transform a vacant inner-city block behind City Hall into a carbon-neutral community, drew hundreds of entries from top architecture firms and city planners in 14 countries worldwide. “Forwarding Dallas” is the product of a collaboration between Portuguese-based architectural firms Atelier Data and Moov, and will run “off the grid,” acting as a working model of sustainability for cities around the globe. Ground breaking is scheduled for early 2011.
I stumbled across this un-dated photo of Adelaide St and City Hall, and it makes me marvel at how cities change over time. This week, at a Brisbane Institute panel discussion on building successful cities, I watched as James Tuma from Urbis had to defend their new King George Square design to a rather unimpressed gentleman. Love it or hate it - I certainly do like that it is enticing some public debate about the quality, use and function of our public spaces. Even critics would have to agree it’s better than it’s former state as a car park.
Stormwater systems in cities are typically designed to get rid of rain water, but with increasingly violent rainstorms and aging infrastructure systems, low lying cities are more vulnerable to flooding. This has lead the Dutch office ‘DE URBANISTEN’ to came up with a new solution for this growing worldwide problem. Created for the City of Rotterdam, Waterpleinen (Watersquare) seeks to catch the rain and create playful public features while preserving the water quality in the canals. Continue reading ‘Waterpleinen’
London’s painfully cool suburb Shoreditch is littered with graffiti-clad walls, underground clubs, bagel joints, council flats, Turkish restaurants, Indian restaurants, market stalls, media companies and London’s most fashionable people. This suburb is fast-gathering momentum and an increasing number of higher-end establishments are making their way to the East End. One of these is Boundary Hotel, a new establishment located in a Victorian Warehouse in the middle of Shoreditch. Its lavish features include three restaurants and bars, 12 guest rooms, five suites, a bakery and a food store. The restaurant’s fare is based on traditional French and English cuisine; daily roasts, English game birds, charcuterie and escargot meld beautifully together. And each of the guest rooms is inspired by the imagination of a different legendary designer or a design movement, such as Charles and Ray Eames, Josef Hoffman, Scandinavian design and Bauhaus. Amidst all the chaos of Shoreditch and its grimy streets, Boundary Hotel is yet another establishment lured to Shoreditch’s creative charms, imaginative arts scene and bold personalities.
Romantic escapes usually conjure up images of intimate bungalows set on secluded beaches. In the heart of Cappadocia, Turkey, there is a different type of space for travellers looking for some privacy and it’s been inhabited for more than 5000 years. The Gamirasu cave hotel is located in a restored thousand-year-old Byzantine monastic retreat and offers modern conveniences without taking away from the spiritual feeling of the area. Each room is decorated fittingly with Turkish rugs and furniture that fit neatly into a real cave that has walkways and windows carved out of it. This Turkish hotel certainly brings another dimension to the idea of a romantic escape and boutique hotel accommodation.
park(ing) day 2009
This Friday, September 18, is PARK(ing) Day. It is an international day of action that was started in 2005 by the arts collective Rebar to raise awareness about the lack of parks and green spaces in San Francisco’s downtown. They transformed an on-street car park into a ‘people park’ by temporarily providing turf, seating and shade. It is based on the idea that paying for a parking meter is like ‘renting’ a public space, and that you don’t technically need to put a vehicle there. Since the original PARK, the idea has been creatively adapted by hundreds of people around the world and in over 50 major cities. In 2008, Brisbane was the 3rd largest city worldwide with over 40 PARKs and it’s back and bigger this year. Continue reading ‘park(ing) day 2009′
The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, Queens, has an annual competition that gives emerging architects the opportunity to build projects for P.S.1’s courtyard. This years winner is “afterparty” by the architectural firm MOS. It is a temporary urban shelter and passive cooling station with chimney-like shapes created by a lightweight aluminum frame that is clad in a layer of mesh and palm fibers. The architectural installation creates the setting for the “Warm Up” events which are super fun dance parties that occur throughout the summer. Together, the music, architecture and exhibition program provide a unique multi-sensory experience for music fans, artists, and families alike. The Young Architects Program has been creating exciting spaces since 1998, and one of my favourites is last year’s “P.F.1: Public Farm One” by WORK Architecture Company.
The High Line in New York is a project that is transforming an old elevated rail structure and making it into a beautiful 2km park. Stage 1 opened in June and I just had the wonderful pleasure to live out a dream and see it in real life. I ran up the Gansevoort St stairs like an excited child, knowing there was going to be a magical treasure up there. When I reached the top, and strolled several blocks of the unique and themes spaces, I found out magic was indeed real.
From the people who brought you Pecha Kucha, comes a Japanese bath-house of a different kind – one where you don’t have to feel self conscious about exposing your nether regions to the world. The Klein Dytham Architecture virtual sento creates a whole new experience when it comes to online information exchange.
Working in an office, or more precisely an office cubicle, has been likened to being a rat in a cage, but by the looks of Oslo’s skyline, those days are numbered! Danish architects C.F Moller and Norwegian practice Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter have taken out first place in a competition to redesign and advance the modern office space. The designs are aptly titled ‘Crystal Clear’ and provide a window into what an office might look like in the not-too-distant future. Their “prismatic cubes with clear jagged edges that emerge from the ground” are not only aesthetically pleasing but would most certainly eliminate any Monday blues.
Designed by the Dutch firm West 8, the Simcoe St Wave Deck just recently opened at the Toronto Habourfront. This wooden deck mimics the graceful curves of water, and the shape naturally entices people to run, climb, sit and slide. It adds a fun flair to what otherwise could have been a normal footpath. Continue reading ‘wave deck’
I had a lovely day outside the city, and it included a stop to the creative and inventive home of artist, designer, pilot and film-maker, William Lishman. He’s the guy that the movie Fly Away Home is based on, which is the story of how he trained geese to migrate with his plane. His underground house is a series of concrete domes covered in a hill and overlooking a stunning Ontario landscape. It’s an artistic and engineering feat that you can casually stroll on to the landscaped roof from the ground. It is quite an inspiring experience. There is a swing and part of a rock climbing wall IN the living room, and he said simply that “living rooms should be made for living”. All houses should feel like this.
are you doing it?
“…and the ones who are, aren’t doing it very well ” (That is the end of the anonymous quote that’s missing from the photo). This is part of the “What Has Architecture Done For You Lately?” exhibition currently at the Toronto Design Exchange. The exhibition explores architecture through perceptions of success, equality, emotion, health, and the environment.
everland
Hotel Everland is a project by the artist-duo L/B (Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann). It is a hotel with only one room including a bathroom, a king-size bed and a lounge. It represents the subjective dream of a hotel: the architecture, the playful details, as well as the request to steal the golden embroidered bath towels. All facets are important constituents of the artistic idea: The room can be booked for one night only, the mini-bar is fully stocked and included in the price, breakfast is delivered to the door and a record collection stands at ones disposal. It was built in 2002 and has moved to various locations since then. It is currently in Paris, on the rooftop of Palais de Tokyo and will be there until May 2009 before closing. Bookings for the last nights are for auction on ebay.
be radical.
Pacific Environments Architects describe it as “the treehouse we all dreamed of as children but could only do as an adult fantasy”. This unique restaurant located in a private forest north of Auckland actually started as a ‘reality TV’ advert for Yellow Pages. They posted an ad for an everyday person to run the project and the person could only source workers and materials from the Yellow Pages directory. Although the restaurant was only open for bookings between 9 January to 9 February 2009, they are now making plans to re-open the venue for functions.
Five years in the making, the completion of the tallest tower in the world is drawing closer. With construction beginning in 2004, Burj Dubai has emerged from the sands of Dubai to break more than a handful of records. Despite completion being scheduled for September 2009, Burj Dubai has already been crowned the tallest freestanding structure, building with the most floors and highest vertical concrete pumping. Currently standing at 818 m with 160 floors, the design of Burj Dubai displays the work of award winning architect Adrian Smith. Drawing recognition away from the trade focus in the United Arab Emirates and more towards a service and tourism economy, the Burj Dubai will be sure to settle for nothing less than expectations.
how do you see the street?
Cities are a truly complex combination of many people, and we all see and want different things in the places in which we live. From the Mayor to an architect, from a lawyer to a musician, from a parent to a child - every point of view is valuable and listening to these views are critical to the formation of great urban places. The Institute without Boundaries exhibit at the Interior Design Show, Toronto (5th-9th February) celebrates this by highlighting diverse perspectives on how different people see streets and neighbourhoods. Views range from the perceptive “I notice how no one seems to know each other on my street,” to the funny “I see no hotdog vendors!”
one thousand cranes
In Japan, the crane is a symbol of happiness and longevity – the bird has the fabled lifespan of one thousand years. In Japanese folklore, it is said that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will receive one wish from the crane. Hanging the cranes in one’s home is a powerful symbol of good luck. Dutch design company Tas-ka have create a beautiful lamp, constructed from a mass of origami paper cranes. The Birdshade is available in multi-colour, black and white, and casts a gentle light wherever it is placed in the home. While it may not quite contain one thousand cranes, it remains a gentle symbol of happiness and hope.
