Creative Strategist of ArchDaily and Co-director of the Building of the Year Awards
We recently received the latest issue of Mark Magazine , one of our favorites. This issue’s main theme is "Fifteen years of architectural freedom in Indonesia". In this edition you can find previously featured projects by AD, such us The Tower House by GLUCK+, Elasticospa's Slow Horse Hotel, the amazing Giraffe Childcare Center by Hondelatte Laporte, Herzog & de Meuron's Messe Basel New Hall and many more. Full info after the break.
From the Publisher. Passive is the new green. Passive Houses, well insulated, virtually airtight buildings, can decrease home heating consumption by an astounding ninety percent, making them not only an attractive choice for current and prospective homeowners, but also the right choice for a sustainable future. The Greenest Home showcases eighteen of the world s most attractive Passive Houses by forward-thinking architects such as Bernheimer Architecture, Olson Kundig Architects, and Onion Flats, among many others. Each case study consists of a detailed project description, plans, and photographs. Including a mix of new construction and retrofit projects built in a variety of site conditions, The Greenest Home is an inspiring sourcebook for architects and prospective homeowners, as well as a useful tool for students, and builders alike.
From the Publisher. Valerio Olgiati asked architects to send him important images that show the basis of their work. Images that are in their head when they think. Images that show the origin of their architecture.
The list comprises the 44 most unique architects living today: David Adjaye, Francisco Aires Mateus, Manuel Aires Mateus, Alejandro Aravena, Ben van Berkel, Mario Botta, Alberto Campo Baeza, Adam Caruso, Peter St John, David Chipperfield, Preston Scott Cohen, Hermann Czech, Roger Diener, Peter Eisenman, Sou Fujimoto, Antón Garcia-Abril, Go Hasegawa, Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Steven Holl, Anne Holtrop, Junya Ishigami, Arata Isozaki, Toyo Ito, Bijoy Jain (Studio Mumbai), Momoyo Kaijima, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (Atelier Bow-Wow), Christian Kerez, Hans Kollhoff, Winy Maas (MVRDV), Peter Märkli, Jürgen Mayer H., Richard Meier, Glenn Murcutt, Ryue Nishizawa, Valerio Olgiati, John Pawson, Cecilia Puga, Smiljan Radic, Richard Rogers, Kazuyo Sejima, Jonathan Sergison, Stephen Bates, Miroslav Šik, Alvaro Siza Vieira, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Peter Wilson (Bolles + Wilson), Peter Zumthor.
From the Publisher. One of the foremost architects working today, Jeanne Gang is widely recognized for her innovative and independent practice. Studio Gang Architects confronts pressing contemporary issues and seeks to answer questions that exist locally but resound globally. The firm’s work is exemplified by recent projects such as the Aqua Tower in Chicago, an 82-story high-rise, which critic Paul Goldberger described as “reclaim[ing] the notion that thrilling and beautiful form can still emerge out of the realm of the practical.”
The United States has a special relationship with houses. The ideal of owning one's own home is often considered a proxy for the American Dream, and this connection with the country's "national ethos" has given the house an unusual level of importance in the American psyche. As a result, the United States is home to some of the world's most iconic houses. To mark the 4th of July, we've rounded up five of the most recognizable houses in the US. Which one is your favorite?
From the Publisher. Inspiration: Contemporary Design Methods in Architecture is a comprehensive compilation of work samples and ideas on design and gestalt, illustrations and graphic configurations, textures and structures, as well as form and spatial development. This book features more than 800 examples of abstract compositions that relate to architectural design methods and principles. These methodologies find their ground in the work of contemporary architectural design practice, while still being highly applicable to other related creative fields. Inspiration showcases hundreds of examples, models, sketches, and renderings of abstract architectural design applications. In addition to this substantial body of visual work, the book also documents and details the generative process and production of these design creations.
From the Publisher. Bracket 2 examines physical and virtual soft systems, as they pertain to infrastructure, ecologies, landscapes, environments, and networks. In an era of declared crises—economic, ecological and climatic, amongst others—the notion of soft systems has gained increasing traction as a counterpoint to permanent, static and hard systems. Acknowledging fluid and indeterminate situations with complex feedback loops that allow for reaction and adaption, the possibility of soft systems has re-entered the domain of design. Bracket 2 critically positions and defines soft systems through 27 projects and 12 articles. From soft politics, soft power and soft spaces to fluid territories, software and soft programming, Bracket 2 unpacks the use and role of responsive, indeterminate, flexible, and immaterial systems in design.
It’s time for a new Flickr Round Up! Remember you can submit your own photo here, and don’t forget to follow us through Twitter and our Facebook Fan Page to find many more features.
The main photo belongs to the amazing CCTV by OMA and was taken by Scott Norsworthy.
Xenoculture is a term coined by Iranian writer and philosopher Reza Negarestani that describes the need for embracing and exploring the unexpected, the alien. In this issue we borrow the idea and explore the realm of Architecture Xenoculture -- the work of architects and designers who detach from everything that architecture is supposed to be and look like, including preconceived forms and aesthetics, to look into new architectural and design possibilities. An architectural form that emerges from mathematical processes and new material explorations and proposes something never before seen -- an aesthetic yet to be determined.
While mathematics in architecture has historically referenced notions of order, proportion, and ideal form, the discipline of mathematics itself has shifted to encompass uncertainty, incompleteness, relativity, and chaos towards a situation in which truth itself is elusive. This move stems in part from an engagement with real phenomena, in which natural systems were shown to behave non-linearly and unpredictably. In architecture, while computational developments enabling dynamic and variable modeling have been subsumed into our culture of design and production, a new kind of idealism has emerged.
Fifth project of the Living Architectures series, Inside Piano is composed of three films on three symbolic buildings of Renzo Piano's career. A visit throughout the prototype-building of the Centre Pompidou. An immersion in the soundproof world of a submarine floating in the depths of the Parisian underground. A journey aboard a luminous magic carpet of a highly sophisticated architectural machine. A humorous, caustic and quirky point of view.
Fourth project of the Living Architectures series, Gehry's Vertigo offers to the spectator a rare and vertiginous trip on the top roofs of the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao. Through the portrait of the climbing team in charge of the glass cleaning, their ascensions, their techniques and difficulties, this film observes the complexity and virtuosity of Frank Gehry's architecture.
Third project of the Living Architectures series, Xmas Meier takes us, during the Christmas season, in the heart of a working-class neighbourhood in the suburbs of Rome, which had been lifted from anonymity to international renown thanks to the church built by Richard Meier for the Jubilee. Controversy, caustic irony and free speech opposed to the faithful's devotion. Welcome to Rome!
Second project of the Living Architectures series, Pomerol, Herzog & de Meuron takes us to the party atmosphere of mealtime among the grape-pickers in the dining hall designed by Herzog & de Meuron in Pomerol for one of the most prestigious vineyards in the world.
First project of the Living Architectures series, Koolhaas Houselife portrays one of the masterpieces of contemporary architecture. The film lets the viewer enter into the house's daily intimacy through the stories and daily chores of Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper, and the other people who look after the building. Pungent, funny and touching.
Architect Hugh Hardy is the quintessential New Yorker. His irrepressible love of the city animates all of his work, and can be found in many of the city's most beloved institutions. Theatre of Architecture gathers twenty of Hardy's projects, both within New York City and beyond its borders, to frame a candid discussion about the collaborations, challenges, and strategies that gave rise to each project's design. It illuminates the combination of all factors that create memorable architecture.
This book selects more than 50 excellent projects of renovated buildings worldwide. The architects adjust measures to local conditions and ingeniously carry out reposition and design for the buildings’ exterior, interior and landscape environment, thus creating some resurrection for them. Each project inside this book has its peculiar characteristics. Some focus on ecological and sustainable parts, such as rebuilding a factory neighboring to residential communities into a library, which decreases pollution, while at the same time produces some cultural atmosphere.
Presented here are twenty recent projects by an equal number of young Belgian architectural firms, published in conjunction with the exhibition ‘XX Models: Young Belgian Architecture’, at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels. The exhibition showed one architectural model every two months beginning September 2008. Most projects include a public or collective dimension, public rather than private commissions were privileged, and a balance was sought between Flemish and Francophone firms. Each projected is examined in depth; selected offices include JDS Architects, Matador, URA, A229, Dierendonckblancke Architecten, B612 Associates and noA, among others.