After Corbu

Light posting of late, as I’m working on a different online project that I’m quite excited about. When it’s of at least beta quality you’ll hear me chattering about it endlessly, but until then…your moment of zen phallacy:

La Live by Gensler
It’s not often you see a building get larger as it goes up. […]

[Read more →]

Reminiscent of a Norman Foster building broken and twisted by a kinetic event and then frozen in place, Phare Tower:

I’ve had my share of vitriol for Thom Mayne in the past over the hostility and anxiety that his buildings exude, so I was excited to see that he had taken my criticism to heart for […]

[Read more →]

Detroit’s beautiful/desolate architecture makes me want to buy an old Kahn building and turn it into an urban commune. In honor of the coming Detroit resurrection, Sufjan Stevens playing Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWen_lkrM1k

[Read more →]

The impressive facade stylings of Thom Faulders:

Airspace Tokyo
I like looking at architecture models, but check out the designers’ website above for the as-built version. This skin was developed for a new building, but what’s most exciting is its potential uses on existing structures. In LA, we love us some low-rise stucco box apartments, […]

[Read more →]

Even though I was told recently that real engineers design buildings not bridges (the view a side effect of the long standing structures vs. civil schism) — and I have a strong disdain for Dubai’s nouveau riche gaudiness — it would be a fun to work on one of these super-bridges.  Long-span structures make it […]

[Read more →]

This sums up how the various building trades feel about each other:
But in my experience, the drafters get thrown under the bus the most, since they never find out that you were disparaging.

[Read more →]

Life w/out Buildings:
…the idea of Nissan building an enormous underground chamber for the explicit purpose of holding two giant robot arms completely amazes me and fills me with hope. I’ve had enough of commercial storefronts and residential remodels; its time to design some Nissan testing facilities or Gundam prototype bunkers, dammit.
If and when you form […]

[Read more →]

I’m not convinced that boxy is the winner. I’m more of a fan of “Pomo KFC,” though I feel it’s more mo than po. But the greatest KFC has to be LA’s version (ugly building contest not withstanding):

The Ultimate KFC by Jeffrey Daniels
It’s even in this Elliott Smith video (1:12 mark) and has […]

[Read more →]

WTF:
What if the White House, the ultimate architectural symbol of political power, were to be designed today? On occasion of the election of the 44th President of the United States of America, Storefront for Art and Architecture, in association with Control Group, challenge you to design a new residence for the world’s most powerful individual. […]

[Read more →]

This post at n+1 appears to about Le Corbusier and the Fibonacci sequence, so I’m totally there; reading it; fascinated, except: I’m useless in languages other than English.  So I had to treat the post as abstract art and invent my own meaning:
It’s a measuring tape for artists, celebrity endorsed (Corbu), and uses a recursive […]

[Read more →]

Vani at Shape of Now makes a convincing argument for rehabilitation of existing structures rather than constant new construction, an excerpt:
Modern construction methods are incredibly wasteful of resources. Up to 25 percent of the total waste generated in the United States, India, and other countries is directly attributed to building, construction, and demolition activities. These […]

[Read more →]

I’m a big fan of scalable architecture — go ahead and throw ladders, spiral stairs, fireman poles, terraces, monkey bars, ropes, balconies, slides, whatever up your buildings (like La Meme!). It ‘tames’ steep vertical rises making them comprehensible to users and passer-bys….and it’s just fun for getting inside to involve Rube Goldberg like complexity.
Apparently, […]

[Read more →]

I’m unhibernating this blog to defend modernism against all comers. So watch out.
From the Right: “…essentially chilly and faintly inhuman” you say? Not true Sir!
The first clue that this critique is daft is that it’s also made by the Lethal Weapon franchise. (And as a structural engineer, let me take this […]

[Read more →]

Photo from monkeycycle. Thanks!
TXTris: People text in messages, which then drop down onto the Toronto skyline, which fragments the words as letters fall to different depths, stacking tetris-style. I’m sure this can be a metaphor for many things, but lets set textual analysis aside and just agree that this is really cool.

[Read more →]

Photo from Docent X. Thanks!
i-eclectica brings news of the RMF radio station in Poland, which, though terrestrial, perfectly represents the space colony archtype: modular construction, domes, shiny steel, glass, and concrete, airlock-like entrances, exposed mechanical systems, etc. It makes the Trekkie in me squeal. However, I’m thankful they built it on Earth […]

[Read more →]

is what I originally wanted to call this blog, as I’m a fan of Lucien Kroll, who used the term to describe his work.

Shown above is La Meme, a medical student dormitory in Brussels that is pretty amazing.

Internal partitions are movable so that spaces can be rearranged to match residents’ taste and allow for large […]

[Read more →]