Modern House Ideas Competition 05/09/2011
 Recently the Denver Architectural League hosted a competition to design a Modern House in the Stapleton neighborhood of Denver. The Competition brief posed the question of what is modern today and more specifically to formulate an architectural response to the idea that the idea of modern is more of a moving target than a singular solution. The Competition required that designers submit a 1/4" = 1'-0" model and a series of 5"x5" cards which depicted the concept and design. The models were the on display at Roth + Sheppard; which was amazing to see, effectively a whole neighborhood of models of modern homes. Of the 80 some entries there were many innovative designs, many subtly elegant designs, and many many more sustainable design super houses with all the bells and whistles of sustainable design that the designer could tack on. In the end it was actually a fantastic collection of modern homes; all of which trying to create a tangible definition of what is modern today. For more on this competition: http://sites.google.com/site/modernhousecompetition/ Add Comment over the river _ by Christo + Jeanne-Claude 08/26/2010
 over the river _ Christo - collage 2010 Over the River is a temporary work of art by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The project is composed of approximately 6 miles of luminous fabric panels that would be suspended above the Arkansas River for a two-week time period. The 6 miles of fabric would be suspended in eight distinct areas of the river, selected for technical viability and aesthetic appeal, along a 40 mile stretch between Salida and Canon City – CO. The artists will fund 100 percent of the costs associated with this project; including permitting, manufacturing, installation and removal, and any additional costs associated with the work being in place, such as trash removal and law enforcement. Over the River is currently going through a permitting process with the US Department of the Interior – Bureau of Land Management. BLM will issue a final Environmental Impact Statement by February 2011, and the artist hopes to install the work for two weeks in the summer of 2013. However, there has been much debate about the economic and ecological impacts that Over the River will have on the state. Critics argue that the installation could ruin local wildlife habitat and negatively affect local tourism, fishing, and traffic on US 50 which parallels the Arkansas River. One such opposing group, R.O.A.R ( Rags Over the Arkansas River), states that the project will cause “permanent defacement of the riverbanks,” and “bighorn sheep, elk, deer and other wildlife will be kept from accessing the river for water.” They also argue that it will be difficult, even impossible, to fish the waters, and that the area will see a “negative economic impact on commercial and recreation industries that travel the canyon daily.” But, there have also been positive reactions to the proposed project. Denver Mayor, John Hickenlooper voiced that “this project will do much to enhance Colorado’s reputation as a place of artistic and cultural excellence.” Another positive reaction was noted in a joint letter from Colorado’s Congressional Delegation, stating that “given Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s track record of sensitivity to environmental and public concerns, we believe that the project’s challenges can be addressed and that Over the River can become a reality.” As a Coloradoan who enjoys participating in outdoor activities and promotes stewardship of our environment, I can see the points made by those opposing the project. There is no argument that the installation will draw thousands of visitors, who will cause a huge influx of traffic along the 2 lane stretch of US 50. And having the installation suspended over the river will alter where animals access the water and where fisherman cast in their lines. However, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have shown a proven sensitivity to their surroundings, and the duration and implementation of their project will be completed in a thoughtful manner. Regardless of some opposing parties worries of increased traffic and decreased fishing waters, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Over the River project will undoubtedly enhance Colorado’s prominence as a growing member of the art world, and will be an amazing display of a tensile canopy floating above the Arkansas River. A few quick notes about the artists_ Christo and Jeanne-Claude are internationally acclaimed artists who have “changed the concept of ‘public art’ by creating temporary works that are truly transitory by design.” The married couple have spent 40 years creating works of art around the world, funding all of their temporary works through sales of Christo’s original works of art. Their goal has always been to create works of art, for people to enjoy and experience for free, and maintain total artistic freedom with out having constraints placed on them by financiers. Jeanne-Claude passed away in November 2009. www.christojeanneclaude.net www.overtheriverinfo.com www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/rgfo/planning/otr.html www.roarcolorado.org atlas obscura _ places around oregon 07/16/2010
Atlas Obscura is an online collection of the world most interesting places. They feature a place of the day, but you can also search by region / city or by category. Either way you search, there seems to be dozens of places to see within a days drive of wherever you happen to be. Architecture Project Boards 06/30/2010
Recently BLDG blog posted project boards from a Bartlett School of Architecture student, Anthony Lau. The topic of his project was very interesting, but aside from that I found his project boards to be very evocative. His use of a physical model for 2D representation is very effective and brings a dynamic quality to the set of boards. After seeing this set of project boards I continued to search for other project board sets - something that surprisingly you do not come across very often, as websites typically only post individual renderings and if you are lucky a floor plan. However, I did find Catalogue des Concours Canadiens, a website that lists recent competitions for Montreal, Canada, complete with boards for each competition entry. perception of landscape _ Thomas Wrede 05/20/2010
Thomas Wrede's work explores our relation to nature. His photography seeks to show that artificial nature and real landscapes are received in the same way. A German photographer, his work parallels the ideas of philosophers like Hegel and Kant and their studies of dialectic relations to nature. The set above contains work from Wrede's "Landscape / Landschaften" series and his "real landscapes" series, which are manipulations of landscape - adding artificial components to natural landscape in a staged scene. UVA _ speed of light 05/16/2010
"United Visual Artists have been commissioned to create an immersive light installation on London's South Bank to mark the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK. 'Speed of Light' is a series of installations that explore the themes of communication and modernity. Stripped back to its materials, fibre optic is a thin strand of glass, with nothing more than a flickering beam of light. UVA have used this beam as the starting point for their work. The installations dramatize the experience of using fibre-optic communication, re-imagining it as an immersive environment. The story begins with an input from the audience, which is transferred into a pathway of light, leading through the atmospheric environment of the Bargehouse. The continuous line of light evolves through each installation in turn shifting in intensity and form. Speed of Light uses over 148 lasers across four floors and six rooms of the Bargehouse, a raw and industrial warehouse on the South Bank." http://vminstore.com/speedoflight/index.html photographic fiction 05/12/2010
"Refuge," a exhibition by photographer Bas Princen, opened yesterday at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Storefront describes the show as a "photographic fiction": Although it is the result of extensive travels and research in five cities of the Middle East and Turkey - Istanbul, Beirut, Amman, Cairo and Dubai - it could just as easily pass as the pictorial record of a drive through a single, imaginary city: a city without a center, populated by extraordinary and at times implausible architectural artifacts; an urban laboratory whose physical traits are defined by migratory flows, spatial transformation and geopolitical flux on a continental scale. "My main objective with this project was to create a series of photographs in which Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Dubai and Istanbul disappear as individual cities and as specific places, dissolving instead into a new kind of city, an imaginary urban entity in formation. This premise directed me to specific places in the periphery where pieces of the city are forming, almost like island, and this accounts for my interest in the refugee camps and gated communities." _ Bas Princen "Imagine Learning from Las Vegas as illustrated by Chris Ware, and you’ll get a sense of François Blanciak’s marvelously inventive new book, Siteless: 1001 building forms." Infographics _ neighborhoods 05/09/2010
I was looking at www.good.is/ recently and found some interesting infographics for their upcoming magazine issue that is all about neighborhoods. GOOD is a collaboration of individuals and business that puts on events and a quarterly magazine, seeking to explore what good is and what it can be. "Issue 19 of GOOD Magazine is all about neighborhoods. Subscribers should be receiving it in the second week of April, and we'll be posting several pieces from the issue each day for the next couple weeks. Here's an introduction: Who we are is defined, maybe more than we care to admit, by where we live. The emotional attachments we feel to our neighborhoods are understandable: Where a person chooses to put down roots should say a lot about them. But in the past few generations, that has become less true. For all its benefits, globalization has a cost: a uniformity that is antithetical to what makes our neighborhoods great. If every place looks the same, there isn’t much point in choosing one over another. It seems that while we were becoming citizens of the world, we forgot to be citizens of where we live. But that need not be the case. The following stories show that we can fight homogeneity and think of creative ways to preserve or recapture our unique communities. If you find the material in this issue enlightening, consider handing it off to the person on the other side of the street, fence, or hallway. After all, good neighborhoods start with good neighbors." from: http://www.good.is/post/hey-neighbor1/ Printed Building Prototype 05/04/2010
3D printing for building / product models is fairly prevalent in todays leading schools and innovative design firms. But until now prints have been fairly limited in dimension. Enrico Dini has fabricated a large scale print armature that is capable of printing life-sized components or even buildings. The machine prints using layers of sand and an inorganic binding ink - essentially speeding up the "millennia-long process of laying down sedimentary rock," into a single day. By essentially utilizing existing technologies, and removing their size limitations, Dini has developed a machine that could theoretically print complete structures on site; making the digital real through these stone prefabrications. |
