So, if you had to choose between a pencil, a knife, or a hammer as the only tool you could ever own, which would you choose and why? – John Maeda, the President of the Rhode Island School of Design, and this week’s guest moderator for the Glass House Conversations, asks us. These conversations have a rich history rooted in Johnson’s New Canaan creation. Not only did the Glass House offer an elegant example of Modern Architecture, the residence also played hostess to some of the greatest creative thinkers of the twentieth century. Described as “the longest running salon in America,” the Glass House witnessed dozens of intense conversations about art, architecture and society between Philip Johnson and David Whitney and their invited guests, including Andy Warhol, Frank Stella and Robert A.M. Stern. The conversations, not doubt, spurred debate, yet the meetings were the perfect opportunity to share ideas and philosophies that ultimately impacted our culture.

Check out this video from metacafe of an amazing piece of architecture….an ant hill! After pouring a ton of cement into the ground (actually – make that ten tons) to take to the shape of all the tunnels, a team removed about 40 tons of soil to reach the ant hill. The underground network is an intense system of main tunnels and branching side routes with short connections to decrease circulation time. The planning, as the video states, is so cohesive that it seems to have been designed by an architect. It is phenomenal that thousands of ants could design and construct this system that extends over 50 sqm and 8 meters down. It makes you wonder what other architectural masterpieces are hidden from view…

We just found exciting news from Bustler that the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta recently won the Times Square Reconstruction Project in New York City. Times Square is the epitome of a chaotic New York block, with signs, noise and tons of people and taxis. The area currently has a public space which was deemed traffic free, yet now the city is looking to make the space more permanent and Snohetta will be heading the project.

More about the project after the break.

Check out this 1200 sqf residence designed by Far East Design Lab, entitled the Shell House. Situated in Hiratsuka City, Japan, the trapezoidal and angular form creates dynamic interior spaces. The residence’s material selection adds a lot of texture and character to the small residence – we especially like the corrugated ceiling treatment that continues to fold down to the wall. Although the house is placed in a dense neighborhood, even with its small size, it is able to make a strong statement. Would you want to live here?

More images after the break.

A week from today, an intense 5 year long research project will finally be open at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. For the grand opening, there will be lots of screaming and yelling, probably even some pushing and shoving…after all, it is a playground. Yet, this is not just an “ordinary” playground. Corey Kilgannon’s article for the New York Times this morning shared some information about the new playground, which is part of the Imagination Playground project. Designed by architect David Rockwell, the first contemporary American architect to address this issue of play, the playground’s concept focuses on “encouraging child-directed, unstructured free play. With a focus on loose parts, Imagination Playground offers a changing array of elements that allows children to constantly reconfigure their environment and to design their own course of play,” explained the playground’s website.

Great videos and images, plus more information after the break. 

Check out this great video we spotted over at The Architect’s Newspaper Blog by Urban Omnibus. The video’s subject, Mitch McEwan, speaks about Superfront, a space for architectural experimentation located on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Throughout the video, McEwan emphasizes that the collaboration between the architect and interdisciplinaries is the way for architecture to break out of its isolated shell and affect the broader public. As McEwan points out, architecture cannot become a contained subject that is purely debated and discussed by architects. After all, in order to create places that suit the public, a vital relationship must be fostered between the designer and the community. McEwan also calls to attention the fact that if we want to expand the influence of the architect, we have to, basically, make our “architecture not just about architecture all the time”. We have to create something real and meaningful; our architecture must speak to the site, the local culture, and most importantly, those who will be occupying the space. What do you think of the video and McEwan’s ideas?

P+HS Architects’ yellow geometric commercial building was one of six designs short-listed for the international “36 The Calls” Design Competition. The competition, which is overseen by the Architects Journal with developer Citu, challenged participants to design “an inspirational landmark” building on the north bank of the River Aire in Leeds, England, in a narrow slot where a parking lot currently sits. Since this site is one of the very few waterfront properties left, it is imperative that the chosen design adhere to the competition’s requests for an iconic, creative and sustainable entity.

More about the short-listed design after the break.

Previously, we have covered the Ordos 100 project quite extensively, giving you an inside look at the Inner Mongolia development. Back when Cai Jiang proposed the initiative to build one hundred 1000sqm villas designed by 100 up-and-coming architects in a mere 100 days, most questioned if the project was a hoax while others felt the development’s free-for-all attitude would not yield a unifying strong result. Yet, even with these concerns, the 100 firms responded to Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Wei Wei’s invitation to design the villas and transform a barren land. However, this development took quite an unexpected twist.

Read more about the project after the break.

Growing up, LEGO were a staple of most children’s playtime activities to create anything from a house to an entire city for hours at a time. The blocks were so captivating that it seems that even as we outgrow our childhood years, we can never outgrow the toys. Previously, we’ve featured projects that have shown James May’s LEGO addiction…his actual house is built from LEGOs! Yet, May isn’t the only one to still show an interest in the children toys – architect Adam Reed Tucker has created 15 large scale buildings from around the world just using the blocks. The buildings are the focal point of the exhibition LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.

More about Tucker after the break.

New York’s heat wave gave us the perfect excuse to escape into the cool movie theater for a few hours to check out Christopher Nolan’s latest production, Inception  (don’t worry, we won’t spoil the movie for you, we just want to share some thoughts about this very architectural-ish movie).

The movie’s protagonist, Dom Cobb, assembles a skilled team to extract secrets or, in rare cases, to implant ideas deep within a person’s subconscious.  Arguably the most important member, the architect, Ariadne (Ellen Page), designs these dreams.  At the simplest level, she is designing a maze – a complex and compelling labyrinth where the buildings and their layouts are controlled by the architect, but how it is occupied and what the “projections” do (figures the subconscious envisions), is determined by the dreamer.  As you can imagine, her designing leads to some crazy ideas, such as a penrose staircase or even cities that literally fold on top of themselves.  Yet, her success lies not in grandiose, crazy designs, but rather in the ability to connect with the dreamer, allowing his subconscious to comfortably take to the design and let his mind fill it with his ideas.

In the middle of June, we shared Nicolas Dorval-Bory and Raphaël Bétillon’s Paysages en Exil, an experiential journey that was part of the Imaginez Maintenant in France. We just received word that the project is completed, and we have a new set of photos to share. By viewing the video, one can better understand how the dense mist that blankets visitors on their path from the greenhouse to the ending garden can alter their environment. The “cloud” brings a level of abstraction to those wandering on the path to the garden, almost containing people in this experience and separating them from the rest of the world for the duration of the walk.

Photographs of the project after the break.

A few days ago, we shared a sampling of projects from the Imagine the Mississippi initiative, where a group of undergraduate students from the University of Minnesota have tackled the challenge of re-inventing the character of the waterfront. While the proposals we previously featured include a new pool/aquarium combination and a spot to experience the waterfall up close and personal, today’s featured proposals offer four new visions for the Mississippi.

Check out five more proposals after the break.

Special thanks to our reader, Vivian Bratone, for sharing some insight to Steven Holl’s newest museum project with us. Situated in Pearl Spring near Nanjing, China, the museum is only a part of the Chinese International Practical Exhibition of Architecture (CIPEA) complex. The CIPEA project is a complete collaboration of architects from across the world, from Italy to Japan, and Mexico to Croatia. Upon completion, the complex will include more than a dozen buildings that will house exhibits for arts and culture.

The first phase of the Qingdao Water City development at Aoshan Bay, designed by the Los Angeles office of NBBJ, will include a new exposition center of 1,940,000 sf. As the ocean sits to one side of the site, and a wetland on the other, a strong emphasis has been placed on how the exposition is shaped by its interaction and proximity to the water.

More images and more about the exhibition hall after the break.

The statistics published by the UNAIDS/WHO depicted that during 2004 around 5,000,000 adults and children became infected with HIV and by the end of the year, an estimated 39,400,000 people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS. The year also saw more than 3,000,000 deaths from AIDS, despite the availability of HIV antiretroviral therapy which reduced the number of deaths in high income countries. With these staggering statistics, VeeV Design‘s AIDS memorial was designed to “experientially jolt and reveal the impact of these massively incomprehensible quantities.”

More about the AIDS Memorial after the break.

Historically, the Mississippi River was held in high esteem due to its influence on the economic and industrial fields, as well as its soothing spiritual qualities. As the water grew to become more polluted, residents lost their strong connection to the water and had little desire to occupy the waterfront. Upon recognizing the potential the land still has to offer, a group of undergraduate students from the University of Minnesota have designed 30 different ideas that will revitalize the waterfront and infuse it, once again, with life and energy.

Originally compiled in a book, the Imagine the Mississippi proposals are also on public display at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis and aim to “to spur social discourse surrounding what could be one of the most compelling and vibrant riverfronts in the world.”

More information about specific proposals and more images after the break.

Brent Vander Werf’s Compliant Shading Enclosure creates a movable mechanism within the air-gap of a glass enclosure to regulate the amount of sun, shade and shadow permitted in a space. Powered by the energy from the sun, the mechanism passively expands or closes to make the opening the correct size to meet the desired comfort level.

More about the shading system after the break.

When we received a copy of EPFL’s Rolex Learning Center, we could not wait to flip through the sleek white book. Similar to SANAA’s building, the book’s crisp design and elegant composition is a beautiful compilation outlining the entire process of creating the Center, from the competition through construction.