The Principals, a Brooklyn-based practice that work on industrial design and interactive environments, are posing a question to the design community: What would it be like if the environment we inhabit responded to our present in an active way? What if we shift the scale of the way in which our devices operate to the way our buildings function? The questions posed by The Principals are the considerations of a project called Cosmic Quilt that is planned to be exhibited on Design Week 2012 on May 19-21. In order to create a mock-up of this type of space, the group is enlisting the help of 20 students from the Art Institute of New York and the help of financial backer’s through Kickstarter.
MVRDV‘s proposal for an urban development in Almere Oosterworld, the Netherlands, is a template for a D.I.Y. project that puts power into the hands of neighborhoods and communities. This development strategy is bottom-up, inclusive and very intuitive to the needs of individuals and their communities. It allows the design to develop organically and over a stretch of time as needs change and neighborhoods grow. MVRDV writes that the proposal “is a revolution in Dutch urban planning as it steps away from governmental dictate and invites organic urban growth in which initiatives are stimulated and inhabitants can create their own neighbourhoods including public green, urban agriculture and roads”.
Richard Neutra‘s Embassy Building in Karachi, Pakistan is a relic of the Cold War – an effort by the United States to express its authority and wealth in other countries. The building is in the modernist style, designed in 1959, by an architect whose work is still admired today. Until 2011, the Embassy was occupied by the U.S. General Consulate and was a symbol of modernity in Karachi. The Neutra Institute for Survival through Design has begun a petition to help save this building from demolition. It proclaims that this modernist icon is “the only surviving Neutra Structure in the region”.
As Larry Levine and Ben Chou discuss in their NRDC blog post ”New York and Pennsylvania: Among the Best at Planning for the Inconvenient Truths of Climate Change”, we have already seen what the progress of climate change has done to the most recent weather patterns and the harm it has caused to our infrastructure. Rising temperature throws off climate balances making some areas wetter and others drier, complicating water supplies, farmland and infrastructure. In the post, they point out the specific affects on densely populated urban areas and outdated infrastructure that cannot support heavy rains and increased runoff, which inevitably ends up in our waterways: New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. While many parts of the country lack a comprehensive strategy to respond to these mounting threats, nine states have created detailed reactionary and preventative measures to deal with climate change (see the NRDC report).
However, public policies, regulations and reports are not always in sync with what people choose to construct or what actually gets built. New York’s 2012 Green Infrastructure Grant Program is promising in that respect; it is a step towards bridging that gap that exists between building purely for utility versus building to keep cities livable, functional and safe. The program focuses on storm water management, giving private enterprises the incentive to make responsible decisions that will alleviate the burden on the NYC sewer system. The grant has set aside $4 million for green infrastructure projects, which include green roofs, blue roofs, combined roofs, bioswales, permeable pavers and perforated piping. This money is open only for use on private properties and businesses, or along streets that abut privately owned properties and are located on sites that drain into a combined sewer. The full report is outlined here.
Patrick Dougherty is best known for his sculptures that break down over time. You may have seen one of his temporary works without realizing it. Built primarily from tree saplings woven together, each sculptures is approximately a three-week construction project where Dougherty and his group of volunteers carefully create the habitat or environment of this a tangled web of all natural materials. Because the sculptures are made of organic matter they disintegrate, break down and fall apart, becoming part of the landscape once again. Most people see habitats and shelters in his work – which is what many of them are meant to be – but “castles, lairs, nests and coccoons” isn’t what usually comes to mind. In an interview with Dougherty for the New York Times, Penelope Green discusses his only permanent work and the origin of his interest in what is referred to as Stickwork, now available through Princeton Architecture Press.
Patrick Dougherty has made over 200 sculptures in the 25 years that he has been creating Stickwork. But his construction work began when he was 28, working for the Air Force in the health and hospital administration. He decided to buy property in North Carolina and build his own house from the materials on the site. Collecting fallen branches, rocks and old timber, Dougherty was able to construct his home, in which he still lives with his wife and son, with a few additions. By 36, Dougherty decided to return to school for sculpture and attended the art program at the University of North Carolina. His interest in what nature had to offer led him to develop his tangled sculptures. Each sculpture is different and depends greatly on the site. Each project is different and depends on the volunteers that participate and the public that never fails to stop and watch the sculptures being woven together.
This residential project in Ahmedabad, India by Vatsu Shilpa Consultantsfollows the metamorphosis of an old vacant rowhouse into a renovated townhouse into a final fusion with the adjoining building. The project began in 2004 and went through several modifications and additions. By 2010, the adjoining house was purchased and 56+55 Sumeru was created.
Breaking Ground: Chinese American Architects in Los Angeles (1945-1980) at the Chinese American Museum (CAM) is an exhibition that focuses on four Chinese American architects that have transformed parts of Los Angeles with iconic buildings and distinct design styles. The work will be on display until June 3rd 2012 and feature architects such as Eugene Choy,Gilbert Leong, Helen Liu Fong andGin Wong.
Breaking Ground is part of Pacific Standard Time, a collaboration created by Getty in which sixty cultural institutions will tell the story of the birth of LA art scene over the course of six months beginning October 2011. Breaking Ground at CAM LA tells the story of the skyline and the changing built environment through the perspective the four prominent Chinese American Architects.
Pedro E. Guerrero: Photographs of Modern Life at Woodbury University Hollywood Gallery (WUHO) is on view through April 25. The show is the first extensive exhibition on the West Coast of Guerrero’s career as an architectural photographer. Curated by Anthony Fontenot and Emily Bills, JSI director, Pedro E. Guerrero: Photographs of Modern Life will highlight the diversity of Guerrero’s subjects taken over seven decades. During that time, he captured the architecture of Marcel Breuer, Philip Johnson, Edward Durell Stone and Eero Saarinen. His wide ranging work included portraits of architects as well as commercial work for House & Garden, Vogue, the New York Times Magazine and Architectural Record. He is perhaps best known for his close relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright. The exhibition will feature Guerrero’s illuminating portraits of Wright, including twelve photographs of the architect’s hands demonstrating the difference between organic and conventional architecture at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Continue reading for more.
BrightFarms CEO, Paul Lightfoot is obsessed with efficiency. Spending most of his career improving market supply chains he has now turned his attention to the market supply chains of America’s produce. BrightFarms is an innovative and straight forward program whose goal is to eliminate the wasted energy expended on travel times between the farm and the shelf, to provide more nutritious and safer produce that is grown for the table and not for the endurance of days and weeks of transport, and to create a local market where consumers know their farmers and where the food is coming from and who is responsible for growing it. Littlefoot describes the blatant problems with the food industry today – efficiently factory farming and preserving produce that moves from one and end of the country to the other and inefficiently providing nutritious and tasty produce.
The challenge is to create a model that ensures quality while keeping costs down and BrightFarms appears to have found a strategy that works: hydroponic rooftop gardening near supermarket distribution centers or local markets. The newly renamed Federal Plaza #2, soon to be known as Liberty View Industrial Plaza to be developed by Salmar Properties, in Brooklyn, NY is set to be the world’s largest rooftop garden which will reportedly grow “1 million pounds of local produce per year, including tomatoes, lettuces and herbs”. Find out how it works after the break!
For architecture students, the Modern Movement is typically the most recent and most defined architectural style movement that history classes focus on. We appreciate the architects and artists of that time and respond to their buildings and ideas with reverence. Despite our appreciation for the buildings that came out of this era, conservation methods are meeting new challenges in conserving these buildings that have not aged well as they have reached their 50-year heritage protection eligibility. This is where the Conserving Modern Architecture Initiative (CMAI) comes in. A “comprehensive, long-term, and international program” that is part of the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI). CMAI aims to enhance conservation methods that in response to these aging buildings and create a knowledge data base of training programs and publications that reflect the advancement of these strategies.
More on the GCI and its initiative after the break.
Late last month the AIA announced that it is in support of the International Green Construction Code (lgCC) which will be a guide and model that helps architects and builders design buildings that conserve energy and move to a sustainable design strategy. The AIA is part of a long list of supporters which include ASHRAE, the US Green Building Council and the Illuminating Engineering Society. For architecture and engineering, this is a step in the right direction. This provides designers with a tool that makes responsible design less cryptic by offering solutions for energy saving strategies.
15:15 Raincatcher by YS Groundwork is the result of a competition entry for the contemporary design of one of Hong Kong’s oldest urban traditions: the Hawker Stall – Dai Pai Dong. A Hawker Stall is a kitchen, a dining room and a living room – a space for passersby to enjoy public space, interact with strangers, and grab a bite to eat on their way to their next destination. Initially exhibited at the 2009 Hong Kong Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture, YSGroundwork has won the opportunity to realize their design and prove that their twist on tradition will add vitality and innovation to the Hong Kong’s streetlife.
Arizona’s Phoenix Children’s Hospital, designed and renovated by HKS Architects, is an 11-story tower facility that is one of the largest pediatric campuses in the country. The building is part of a larger campus and a part of Phoenix’s community, which was a factor in determining the aesthetics of the new architecture. The design team was challenged to enhance the campus, improving upon its existing planning and flexibility, and staying true to the facility’s vision of providing children’s care in a comfortable atmosphere.
Dr. Margot Krasojevic is known for using digital parameters to explore the psychological effects of architecture – materials and spatiality – on its inhabitants. The Hanging Hotel / Suspended Campsite is one such project that was completed in October 2011 for Holden Manz Wine Estate Cape Town in Massif de L’ Esterel, (Gorges Du Vedron) South of France. The project is an investigation in the choreography of perceptions of the environment around us. In this particular project, catering to rock climbers, Dr. Krasojevic uses compound glass and a prism louver system to alter how the climbers see their environment and stimulates different psychological experiences based on these subtle shifts in vision.
Koen Olthuis’s Dutch practice, Waterstudio, has been preparing for the environmental impacts on architecture for ten years now – building a practice on the assumption that a new solution for inhabitation is on the water. Having lived in Amsterdam, Olthuis has intimate experience with the battle against water that people have posed for themselves. In an interview with Jill Fehrenbacher for Inhabitat, Olthuis describes how Amsterdam was settled, what it means to have a city built upon water and the maintenance required. Olthuis’ desire to colonize the oceans is not new, but his techniques, which he touches upon in this TEDx Talk in Warwick, focus on a refined and innovative way of approaching this strategy that is progressive in that it requires far less maintenance.
Dimit Architectshave developed twenty-seven Townhouses in Cleveland, Ohio within Little Italy in a reclaimed inner-city area, providing buyers with homes that are composed of sustainable and locally-produced materials, private outdoor space and beautiful vistas of the surrounding neighborhood. The design strategy of the homes will give the owners the power to customize their spaces with complimentary interior design consultations from a selection of leading firms, including Dimit Architects.
Anne Lindberg’s recent work essentially redefines space using thread. Bordering the definintion of architecture and sculpture, Lindberg allows color and light to manipulate the hundreds of millimeter-thick strands to create a web – a three-dimensional volume affixed to the architecture. Each of her pieces is specific to the place in which it is situated, no two identical based on the architecture, its lighting conditions and the space’s use. The pieces are architectural in so far as they are “contextual and integral to the space”, she says. The exhibition of drawn pink (watch the video after the break) ends today at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nevada, while andante green will be on exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art until July 15th.
ArchDaily asked Anne Lindberg a few questions about her work. Read the responses and find out more about her installations after the break.
Last June we announced the zHome community designed by David Vandervort Architects, a target zero-energy community in Washington that is one of many springing up across the country, changing the way communities are planned and developed. Since World War II spawned the era of suburban living, the Levittown model has been the trajectory along which so many communities across the country have gone. Now with sustainability and ecologically conscious design being at the forefront of many architects’ practices, it makes perfect sense for whole communities to take the leap as well. But what does that mean for the lifestyles of its residents? And does this make an exclusive neighborhood where only some are willing or able to comply. Follow us after the break for more.
