Sundance Channel

Green tech finds: Architects to the rescue!

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:22:14 +0000

Can good design save the world? Well, maybe the Great Lakes, anyway. That, plus community-based solar, clothing recycling, and more: your green tech finds for the week. The DIY bike seat: Ever wanted a second seat on your bicycle, without investing in a tandem? Or just carrying space without a trailer? Israeli designer Yael Livneh has you covered with his concept made from a used plastic milk crate. He's entered the concept in Designboom's Seoul Cycle Design competition. (via Unconsumption and @dothegreenthing) Occupy the sun: We generally think of solar power as something that individual home and building owners do, but Francesca Rheannon at CSRWire takes a look at community-based efforts to adopt solar technology.

Design Dish: Pantone for Visa & the biggest dining table ever

Blair Pfander — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:45:34 +0000

The Liyuan Library: I'm a sucker for unusual library spaces, and this new construction in Huairou, China hits all the sweet spots. Tucked away in a small mountain village, the long, narrow structure blends into its surroundings with a reed-like outer layer that still allows for sunlight to trickle inside.

Design Dish: Miami gets the rainbow effect & McLaren’s new yin-yang factory

Blair Pfander — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:00:05 +0000

Coming Up Rainbow s: After his first installation was removed in 2002 due to tightened 9/11 security measures, multimedia artist Christopher Janney is installing his colorful glass tiles in an overpass at Miami International Airport just in time for Art Basel...

Design Dish: Winemaking at home & chairs that flip

Blair Pfander — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:03:14 +0000

Flip Chairs: Each of Daisuke Motogi's candy-colored chairs can be flipped upside down or sideways to create new seating options. A high-backed chair becomes a low seat, or a lounger becomes a rocking chair. Come to think of it, it's about time the rocking chair had a design makeover...

Five ways to get green-washed (in a really good way)

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:30:04 +0000

All the flora that's fit to print: People are always talking about how print is dead, but things must be looking up for the ink and paper world (Style.com just launched a print version, and Vogue's sales continue to rise). That, or Wilder Quarterly, a new magazine "for people enthralled by the natural world," is just a ballsy move. But with photography and layouts as gorgeous as the ones in all the fancy cookbooks I can't afford, here's hoping this one's here to stay.

Design Dish: A city made of bubbles & a toxic underground village

Blair Pfander — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:05:07 +0000

Pritzker Prize to be Given in Beijing: With its explosive recent development, Beijing has become an appealing spot for the world's most influential architects and designers. It's no surprise then that the prestigious Pritzker Prize - sometimes referred to as the "Nobel Prize" of architecture - will be awarded in Beijing next year...

Design Dish: Performance architecture & design solutions for the 99%

Blair Pfander — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:15:02 +0000

Alex Schweder's "Performance" Architecture: Architect Alex Schweder is credited with the invention of "performance architecture," which broadly refers to small, occupied spaces that challenge our preconceived notions of shelter. Many of Schweder's works are built within existing spaces, appealing to my childhood obsession with forts. Among my favorites are the inflatable plastic creations, including "sac of rooms all day long," which looks like a big, warped playhouse.

Design with the Other 99%: C ities: Now on view at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, "Design with the Other 99%" showcases the most promising design and technological innovations coming out of the world's cities and over-crowded slums...

Best of Kickstarter, 10/24

Blair Pfander — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:00:02 +0000

We scoured the pages of Kickstarter to bring you this week’s best projects. Have a great Kickstarter project of your own or see one you think deserves some extra attention? Let us know about it the comments and we may just feature it in our weekly roundup. DESIGN Imagined Cities: Architecture collective Hither Yon is calling for images of intimate and inspiring spaces (be it the house where you grew up or the church your parents were married in), which they will then manipulate and re-attach to form a "hybrid" city. From these renderings, the collective plans to create a three-dimensional model of the unusual metropolis for display in a Berlin gallery...

Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center revived for three short hours

Blair Pfander — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:00:07 +0000

The swinging '60s wouldn't have been half as groovy without Eero Saarinen's spectacular TWA Flight Center at JFK airport. Completed in 1962, the terminal became an icon of modern architecture as well as the glamorous "jet set" experience. With its spaceship-like exterior and strangely curved staircases and walls, the terminal was meant to capture the drama and excitement of flight itself. Though he died shortly before it was opened to the public, the architect is said to have remarked, rather prophetically, "if anything happened, and they had to stop work right now and just leave it in this state, I think it would make a beautiful ruin, like the Baths of Caracalla." Saarinen's terminal was declared a landmark in 1994, but closed abruptly after 9/11 due to...

Green tech finds, 10/20/11

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:17:25 +0000

Underground skyscrapers, smart windows and more problems with natural gas drilling: Your green tech finds for the week. Charge your car with your phone: Well, not exactly, but a new app developed by IBM and Swiss utility EKZ allows for better management of when your electric vehicle is charged and what sources of energy are used to charge it. Find out more in the video above. (via @greeneconpost) The grain silo hotel: While not as green as it could be (because the structures used were built for the project), Silo Stay, a nine-unit New Zealand hotel built from grain silos...

The “Low-Line,” an underground park for NYC

Blair Pfander — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:42:24 +0000

Okay, I'll admit it. Whenever someone from out of town starts asking me about the Highline and whether or not it's really as cool as it looks, I feel very proud to live in New York. Because yes, it's exactly as cool as it looks (actually, it's cooler, because they sell gourmet popsicles now, and I love me some popsicles), and it's pretty neat to live in a place that would invest millions of dollars in a beautifully designed piece of urban revitalization. I mean, just look at it: it's a park suspended over New York City. The future is now!

Design Dish: Moleskine launches a logo competition, Frank Gehry’s latest for Louis Vuitton

Blair Pfander — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:14:00 +0000

Frank Gehry's LVMH Sail Boat: After a few legal setbacks and delays, Frank Gehry's design for the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation (a fancy name for the building that will house CEO Bernard Arnaut's giant personal art collection) is scheduled for completion next year. At 130,000 square feet, the structure is designed to look like a white sailing ship standing alone in a forest. To create the unique curvature of the massive white panels (or "sails"), Gehry and his team worked with Moulage Sous Vide technology, a new technique that allows the designer to create concrete molds from computer-generated 3D models...

Design Dish: See-thru airplanes, Archtober and Mexico’s inverted skyscraper

Blair Pfander — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:30:49 +0000

From the coolest new products to dramatic feats of engineering, here's what has us excited in the design world this week. The Boeing Dreamliner: Airplanes have looked more or less the same since the 1960s, but this week Airbus revealed plans for a super slick new generation of planes with a transparent "skeleton" structures, allowing for unobstructed views of the surrounding sky. Think of it as the flying version of those glass-bottom submarines at Disneyworld. The planes won't roll out until 2050, which means I'll have to stay all excited about this until I'm in a nursing home.

Abramovich’s art island to include outdoor hot tub

Blair Pfander — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:01:52 +0000

Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Russian businessman who owns (among lots of other things) the Chelsea Football Club, recently purchased an island off the coast of St.Petersburg - like ya do when you're the 11th richest man in the world. Last winter, Ambramovich announced he would dedicate $400 million to converting the island - previously used as a military base - into an enormous art center, complete with offices, hotels, restaurants and boutiques along with a new museum. A "Starchitect" search soon followed, with submissions from top architects all over the world. Just last month, New York-based firm, WORKac, was given the nod - probably because theirs was the only design to include a giant jacuzzi in the courtyard.

New transformable home is like LEGOs for grown-ups

Blair Pfander — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:54:43 +0000

Architect Michael Jantzen is known for creating "transformable" structures: buildings that an inhabitant can change or interact with on a physical level. Think of them as the high-art equivalent to a snail shell. After all, why keep your house in one place when you can hit the road and bring it with you? His latest project, the "M" series, features relocatable buildings that can be slapped together in infinite combinations to a matrix of modular support frames, creating totally customizable spaces. If you were a Lego freak as a child, you should probably stop reading and splash cold water on your face, 'cause yeah, this is totally big kid LEGOs.

Green tech finds, 9/15/11

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:03:46 +0000

Pig poop, coconuts, and seaweed: all the stuff of good green tech finds this week. An affordable, fast and tip-proof electric motorcycle: Lit Motors CEO Daniel Kim claims all of those qualities come together in the C-1 concept, which could be available as early as 2013. Check it out in the video above. (via GreenTech Pastures)

HWKN designs the cleanest, tastiest gelato in the city at Il Laboratorio del Gelato

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:00:08 +0000

As an ardent newbie to the ice creaming making game, I appreciate and commend Il Laboratorio del Gelato's obvious dedication to their craft. It must be the German in me that particularly responds to the space's precision, cleanliness and austerity. Appropriately dubbed The Cooler, the lab's LES storefront/kitchen was designed by New York-based architects HWKN (Hollwich Kushner). The design allows for total transparency; Passersby can peep through the large windows and observe the entire production process, from the delivery of the ingredients to the point of sale - all performed in white lab coats, of course.

The vertical ecovillage: Vincent Callebaut’s Dragonfly

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:00:04 +0000

When you think of the concept of urban agriculture, you likely picture a small, reclaimed plot of land tended by neighbors or a non-profit organization. While this vision of food production in cities has captured the imagination of many urbanites, the ability to scale it is often limited. The notion of vertical farming, however, recognizes (as did the developers of the original skyscrapers) that building upward may offer more potential for inner city farming than land reclamation. Combined with indoor farming methods such as hydroponics, proponents of the vertical farm believe this concept could offer hyperlocal food production in the middle of even the most bustling urban center.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s gas station in Minnesota

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:08:20 +0000

I have a feeling that many residents in the small city of Cloquet, Minnesota routinely drive by the R.W. Lindholm gas station, which opened in 1958, without having any idea that it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It wasn't just any old gas station, but a one-of-a-kind structure that the great American architect envisioned would be central to his vision of the hypothetical Broadacre City, "a decentralized urban landscape that many have interpreted as a sort of super-suburbia," with the gas station expanding beyond its traditional utility and taking on a larger social role in the city. While this vision thankfully never came to pass, certain elements of the design were adopted: "...it helped popularize the now ubiquitous overhang, and other elements (including an angled plan that afforded sight lines, and generous, slanted windows) were appropriated for Phillips 66 stations across the country." Okay, class is over, but before you go someone needs to update Cloquet's Wikipedia page to highlight this piece of architectural and design history. It's worth bragging and boasting about!

Matthias Heiderich’s Berlin

Bradford Shellhammer — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:32:16 +0000

I am obsessed with Matthias Heiderich’s cropped square photos of Berlin’s buildings. Using color and composition, the photographer creates patterns and abstract images that may not obviously be architecture and the city’s skylines. Having just returned from Berlin last week it’s quite remarkable just how perfectly he captures the modern feel and cool, geometric shapes of [...]

Green tech finds (7/7/11)

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:34:32 +0000

Skiing down a Danish incinerator, seaweed for biofuels, and a solar unit that can save the lives of mothers in the developing world… your green tech finds for the week. The solar suitcase: Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic takes a look at the WE CARE Solar Suitcase, a compact solar power unit designed specifically for [...]

Scaffolding without the building

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:24:01 +0000

Living in a city where at times it seems half the buildings are hidden under gross scaffolding, I appreciate the alternative perspective presented by Vienna-based artist Liddy Scheffknecht in this photo series where “all architectural elements except the scaffolding were removed from the photograph of a building under renovation.”

World’s most beautiful gas stations

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:33:02 +0000

Since I'll be in Los Angeles for most of this week, I figured this gallery of "The World’s Most Beautiful Gas Stations" over at Flavorpill is apropos to my visit to the City of Angels.

Step inside the latest in sustainable home design

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 02 May 2011 07:00:18 +0000

Architect Michelle Kaufmann, whose brilliant work I've lauded before, recently updated "Smart Home: Green + Wired," her exhibition at the Museum of Science of Industry in Chicago (MSI). The exhibit features mkSolaire, a three-story loft-style house suitable for urban environments. It meets Kaufmann's criteria for modular housing, an idea she developed when she and her husband were searching for their own green home. Using off-site, modular technology, Kaufmann is able to simplify the construction process and make sustainable, affordable and well-designed houses accessible to more people.

ARCHITECTURE: looking back at Kevin Roche

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:55:59 +0000

Kevin Roche, a man and his skyscraper

You might not think that any architect dubbed the darling of corporate America in the 1960s and 70s would also be well-respected by his colleagues and the greater architectural community, but Kevin Roche's most notable designs had the unique ability to bring technological know-how, innovative design and the corporate workforce together in harmony. Roche won the Pritzker Prize in 1982 for his unflinching commitment to improve upon humdrum corporate architecture through modernity. In his mostly large-scale projects (he called it "the scale of the future") he sought to create "more understandable environments" and happy, more productive workers by encouraging their interactions with nature in large, open, communal spaces.

Peter Zumthor will design the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:30:48 +0000

For the last decade the Serpentine Gallery in London has commissioned a different architect each year to design an outdoor event space for their annual summer pavilion, a three month-long symposium on architecture. The practice of designing, building and removing the pavilion - all of which happens within the space of six months - is an architectural experiment in itself and is always greatly anticipated. This year the Serpentine Gallery has enlisted the services of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor who designed a walled-in garden, currently under construction in Kensington Gardens.

Welcome to the Treehouse

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:24:02 +0000

The idea for the Treehotel was born when Kent Lindvall, the owner, and three friends went on a fishing trip in Russia. One night, as they drank vodka around a campfire, Kent brought up the idea to his friends, who all happened to be architects. They embraced the idea immediately. Soon after, the group was walking through the woods in Harads, a small village in Northern Sweden. As they scouted for possible locations, it was important to find places where they wouldn't need to cut down any trees to make room. "We made small paths that fit in perfectly with the forest without taking anything out, so when you come up here it's absolutely untouched nature," Kent explains.

Alice Studio, Architects of Space

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:17:50 +0000

ALICE, the French acronym for Atelier de la Conception de L'Espace (don't ask me how, you just have to take their word for it), is a group of architecture students from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausaunne whose primary focus is creating environments that provide unique spatial experiences. You could say that about all architecture in general, too, but you won't find ALICE designing museums, homes or offices. Rather, they build site-specific structures in distinct locations, like "Evolver," which sits on the edge of Lake Stelli in Zermatt, Switzerland.

Making space for food

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 21:43:55 +0000

Shitake logs on racks in the Mittagong mushroom tunnel. Photos by Nicola Twilley.

Last week GOOD Magazine began "Food for Thinkers," a mini online festival/multi-site conversation about the way we think about food today. "Put another way, I want to know what happens when a music blogger thinks about food. What does a space archaeologist or an architect want to read and say about food? What kinds of things interest a science writer in food, and why?"

Coolest home offices

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:41:13 +0000

I know your guest room-slash-office is pretty sweet, but compare it against these cool home offices highlighted by Inc, such as the one pictured above which is on a freakin’ tree! [Via]

Diller Scofidio + Renfro talk about their latest projects

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:24:59 +0000

Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio (above) and the new Lincoln Center (below).

Right after the successful completion of the High Line and the redesign of Lincoln Center in NY, the architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro is back on the horse with two new and equally ambitious projects on the other side of the country, the Berkley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and Eli Broad's new contemporary art museum in downtown LA. The Architect's Newspaper was able to pin down Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio long enough to talk about both these projects as well as the experience of working with Broad and what it means to be a 'starchitect' (spoiler alert: they don't like that word).

Closer to God

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 21:30:09 +0000

It almost makes too much sense that some of the most awe-inspiring architecture around the world today just so happens to be religious spaces. Whether that means a church, a synagogue or meditation center, the structures in Gestalten's latest release, Closer to God, are anything but traditional. Gone are the high, vaulted ceilings and ornately embellished altars and alcoves that staunch Roman Catholics hold so dear. These spaces are clean and modern, with hardly a stained-glass window in sight.

Sou Fujimoto’s Tokyo House

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:55:41 +0000

Iwan Baan snapped these photos of this apartment complex in Tokyo. It was designed by Sou Fujimoto and it consists of five housing units with each having two or three rooms shaped like a traditional house. In theory it looks cool how the rooms are connected by external stairs, but in practice getting from one [...]

New York’s first passive house

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:19:56 +0000

For the last two years architect Dennis Wedlick has been redesigning the cave. A cave, Wedlick explains, is the perfect metaphor for building a passive house: "One continuous material provides super insulation with only one energy-leaking opening." Just over a month ago, Wedlick raised the frame of his cave-inspired design, a 3-bedroom house on the Hudson, which, when completed, will be New York's very first passive house. That's kind of a startling figure, but “there are only about 10 certified passive projects in the entire country,” Wedlick says, “but something like 10,000 in Germany. That really tells you how far behind we are on sustainability.”

A glimpse of the World Trade Center train station

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:21:50 +0000

Santiago Calatrava has been talking about his plans for the World Trade Center Transportation Hub for some a while now, dropping hints about the splendor of the station being akin to "the grandeur and sense of occasion offered by the great room of Grand Central, with its celestial roof and shafts of sunlight." Although it'll be at least another 4 years before his scaled-back, over-budget PATH station is completed, a new video rendering from The Wall Street Journal gives us an idea of what a $3.2 billion train station looks like.

Coolest residential swimming pool ever

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:52:54 +0000

Andres Remy Architects designed this stunning residential for a family in Devoto, Argentina that leaves me green with envy at the kids and breathless at the pool’s inspired design. …the impact of the sun path was carefully studied, especially to place the swimming pool. One more time, water takes a big role in the creation [...]

52 architecture VIPs vote on the most important buildings and structures

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:59:17 +0000

Vanity Fair sent 52 of the “world’s leading architects, critics, and deans of architecture schools” a two part survey asking them first, their list of “the five most important buildings, bridges, or monuments constructed since 1980,” and second, what they considered to be “the greatest work of architecture thus far in the 21st century.” Among [...]

Another hub for affordable green homes: Corning, Iowa

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:07:09 +0000

If cost is no object, you probably look to the coasts for the latest in green building design. But when affordability is figured into the equation, the Midwest seems to be leading the pack: from Greensburg, Kansas to Reynolds, Indiana, the region's turning into a laboratory of green building experimentation designed for the rest of us.

Brian McKee and the 2014 Olympics in Russia

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:03:59 +0000

15 new works by photographer Brian McKee open at the Vogt Bernal gallery in New York today. Called "The Power Suites," these photographs track the progress of the building in Sochi, Russia for the upcoming 2014 Olympics, with a focus on the impact on the natural environment. Currently one of the largest construction projects in the world, the Sochi countryside is being leveled in order to create an entire city and infrastructure to support the Olympics and the tourism it will bring to the small, coastal city.

Album covers and architecture

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:32:38 +0000

Inspired by a TED talk by Talking Heads singer and RISD alumnus David Byrne on the role and relationship between architecture and music, Architizer has an interesting short read on album covers that highlight this connection. It includes one of my favorite albums, Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot cover art which features Bertrand Goldberg’s “corn cob” [...]

I.M. Pei’s Terminal 6 set for demolition

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:59:41 +0000

The first thing you notice when you enter Terminal 6 at JFK is the sheer amount of space and a freedom of movement not typically associated with crowded airports. But I. M Pei's design was carefully constructed to give a hectic space a light and airy feel. To do this he used huge expanses of glass uninterrupted from floor to ceiling by the use of glass mullions, or glass frames, instead of metal ones - an unprecedented innovation. He and his team also developed a new kind of drainage system that feeds in through the building's exterior concrete columns instead of the typical indoor method that would have marred the otherwise glorious view of his glass walls. Still more important is the way Pei's design managed congestion, which was becoming an issue as consumer travel increased in the late 60s. Up until the construction of Terminal 6 all airports grouped the space for arriving and departing travelers together, creating traffic jams and confusion. It seems absurdly simple now, but by separating the two Pei's terminal was vastly quieter, calmer and more organized - and all airports built since then have adopted it.

Do houses dream?

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:05:58 +0000

Inspired by the thought “How it would be, if a house was dreaming,” this video projection installation at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg by Daniel Rossa is absolutely mind blowing. Watch as it conveys the illusion of a building facade that is infinitely transmogrifying. 555 KUBIK | facade projection | from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

Australia goes 3D at the Venice Biennale

Perrin Drumm — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:17:52 +0000

With 93% of its citizens living in cities, Australia is among the most urbanized continents in the world, and its entry in the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale, "NOW + WHEN" reflects the growing need for a retooling of its biggest cities. The NOW part highlights 6 of Australia's "most interesting" urban and rural areas, but the WHEN part is clearly the focus, with 17 proposals that anticipate or fantasize (you be the judge) about the state of Australia's cities in 2050, many of which are presented in 3D stereoscopic for extra wow factor.

Square root table

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 26 May 2010 21:31:49 +0000

In a venn diagram of the modern architecture and design magazine Dwell and Mathematica Journal, this coffee table shaped like a square root symbol would sit in that diagram’s overlap area. The designer Josh Tuminella explains: It was inspired by the mid-century bent ply tables. One of its key features – the magazine rack – [...]

The new Pompidou: big hit or big flop?

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:06:49 +0000

Image courtesy Jean de Gastines Architects

The new branch of the Centre Pompidou that opened earlier this month in Metz has little in common with its Parisian counterpart aside from the name and the art collection, of course. In terms of appearance, however, it owes nothing to Renzo Piano and Richard Roger's famous 'exposed' exterior that generated quite a bit of debate before it was deemed genius. I'm not sure if I can predict the same fate for the Metz structure, designed by Shigeru Ban, Jean de Gastines and Philip Gumuchdjian.

Richard Meier’s Model Museum

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:08:58 +0000

Multi-award-winning American architect Richard Meier is best known for his mostly white, supremely modern buildings like the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, the Indiana Athaneum and most famously, the Getty Center in Los Angeles. It is not so well known that he is one of very few architects working today who still uses physical models and not the more popular 3D models generated by a computer. But not only does Meier use models during his design process, he uses multiple, intricately rendered models of varying scale made mostly of wood.

Architect creates 24 rooms in a 344 square foot apartment

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:42:55 +0000

Hong Kong based architect Gary Chang designed a stunning and inspiring multi-purpose home that maximizes every inch of space available in his 344 square foot apartment. What he calls his “domestic transformer,” his apartment can be reconfigured into 24 different rooms and uses, including a screening room with a hammock. This is accomplished by creatively [...]

The Rise of Wall Street

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:48:21 +0000

Vertical Wall Street: every building from Broadway to Pearl over the course of 5 eras.

Guess how Wall Street got its name? Yeah, that's right. Before it was a street it was a wall, built to mark the edge of town in colonial times. Over time original row-houses were replaced by banks and then by financial buildings that only got higher and higher. In fact, many of the buildings on Wall Street today are vertical expansions of sites first erected as many as 150 years ago. In an optimistic turn of phrase, The Skyscraper Museum (don't worry, I'd never heard of it either) will open "The Rise of Wall Street," an exhibition with a focus on the good ol' days of American business, namely the 1850s, when architects set their sites as high as their clients' financial speculations.

Tampa’s skyline gets modern

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:06:53 +0000

The museum at night, lit by a wall of color-changing LEDs. When the Tampa Museum of Art realized its growing collection of classic and contemporary art was outgrowing the museum itself they called in architect Rafael Vinoly, but his $76 million proposal was passed over in favor of the $26 million plan designed by the [...]

Vincent Olinet

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:52:10 +0000

The Times Style Magazine recently posted an item on their website on “Vincent Olinet’s mixed-media sculptures” which is currently exhibiting at Galerie Laurent Godin in Paris through May 15. Their accompany photo of the artist’s (intriguing) lipstick piece caught my eye and loosely reminded me of the Lipstick Building. For those of you who don’t [...]