slow home

some good resources at slow home, a blog edited by John Brown advocating the slow home movement of good design and sustainability. videos, project articles, products, and links all after the jump.

one of my personal videos as of late is the TED talk by prophet of doom James Howard Kunstler on the Tragedy of Suburbia. James not only speaks with outrage about the fallacies of the "american dream", and reveals the destructive nature [sometimes hilariously] of the current planning and design principles on every scale. check:

dwell on denver [+adjaye]

Photo by Cameron Wittig for dwell magazine

just ran across this today--in the march 2007 issue of dwell, sarah rich contributed a short blurb about the last [mid] western city before the great divide. denver art museum's curator lewis sharp acts as the armchair tour guide, offering his own perception as well as some public assumptions of the transforming city.

one year later in the march 2008 issue, bldgblog author geoff manaugh contributes a conversation with mcart architect david adjaye, and speaks about doing more public buildings, and the relatively low impact LEED has had on the construction industry in the US:


"LEED certification is lower standard than what I would want to do in a building, to be honest. It is the way a building should already be. We're on track to get a Gold certification [mcart denver]-which is the first for a contemporary art museum in this country [sorry david, i think the GRAM beat you]. i find that hilarious, considering the amount of museums being built here [europe]...

...the problem is that there is no body or guild which seems to be educating the industry. it's a cost-driven, lowest common denominator culture-which gives you efficiency in terms of capitalism, but it doesn't give you evolution. And we have to evolve the notion of construction. Really, builders should be bringing these things to architects..."


on a side note-the new format for dwell magazine has been altered and the size has been slimmed down considerably. it reads more like a collection of short blog posts, which we suppose is a sign of the times, but is it as successful in print format?

the slimmer profile tends to mean fewer ads and more focus on stories, so it's a good thing right?

more "tv" with fewer commercials is always welcome.

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over the river

the artists christo and jean-claude will be discussing their latest proposed project for over the river, project for the arkansas river, colorado at a free reception on march 7th in downtown denver at republic plaza.

if you don't want to wait until march, then head down to colorado springs as christo and jeanne-claude will give the free lecture about their proposed art piece at 3:30 p.m. at packard hall on the colorado college campus.

scheduled for exhibition in the summer of 2012, the piece is essentially giant sheets of translucent fabric, suspended over the arkansas river:

Fabric panels suspended horizontally clear of and high above the water level will follow the configuration and width of the changing course of the river, during a period of two consecutive weeks to be selected between mid-July and mid-August of any given year in the future, in 2012 at the earliest.

Steel wire cables, anchored on the upper part of the riverbanks, will cross the river and serve as attachment for the fabric panels. The woven fabric panels, sewn in advance, with rows of grommets at the edges perpendicular to the river, will create shimmering waves of fabric, 8 to 25 feet (2.4 to 7.6 meters) above the water. The 5.9 mile (9,4 kilometer) long stream of successive fabric panels will be interrupted by bridges, rocks, trees, and bushes and for esthetic reasons, creating abundant flows of light.

Wide clearance between the banks and the edges of the fabric panels will create a play of contrast allowing sunlight to illuminate the river on both sides. When seen from underneath, standing on the rocks, at the edge of the river, at water level or by rafting, the luminous and translucent fabric will highlight the contours of the clouds, the mountains and the vegetation.

i couldn't resist posting these preliminary sketches done by the artist. whether one supports the efforts of the artists or not, the renderings exude an ethereal quality which captures the imagination of actually being there. plus--they seem like they would be some damn good eye candy to the architecture crowd! the wind that blows through the fabric panels not only distracts the viewer from the water [and the obstacles] ahead, but reveal the more invisible forces which are present in the canyon.

when contemplating the artists' body of work, at first it seems to be just a one trick pony--superficial "wrapping" of large objects [ie the pont neuf project or the wrapped reichstag], hiding detail and reducing a monument to a ghost of its previous self. within their more later works [re: the gates] the concept of revealing the invisible forces of each artworks' individual site becomes wondrous, rather than an inquisitive masquerade. from the website:

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's works are entire environments, whether they are urban or rural. The artists temporarily use one part of the environment. In doing so, we see and perceive the whole environment with new eyes and a new consciousness...

to me, this piece represents an ideal practice within architecture--the goal always being to reveal the nature of the landscape, while continuously fighting the urge to objectify the structure or fetish-ize its details. a building, like this piece, seeks to merge with the landscape, but while art only projects an image architecture must project a function.

the sheer scale of this thing enormous. some of the numbers include:

-2,029: number of pages in the submittal to the bureau of land management
-10: number of agencies [state and federal] the proposal must satisfy for permit
-962: total number of fabric panels
-50: number of miles the project will actually stretch
-4,375: [sf] area of the largest fabric panel
-5/8: diameter [in inches] of largest steel cable supporting the panels
-1,750: number [in feet] of longest panelized section
-14: number of days the installation will be open
-250,000: expected number of visitors in that same time period
-3: years of actual construction
-??? million: budget of the project, provided solely by the artists, partially funded by sales of drawings, renderings and lithographs of the proposal

then, there is always the opposition. rags over the arkansas river[http://www.roarcolorado.org/] make the case that there will be a "traffic nightmare" on highway 50, desecration to the wildlife population, safety hazards and difficulties for emergency personnel, increase in human litter, and negative impact on local recreational activities.

evidently christo and jean claude have been to colorado before in 1971, and the people there have not forgotten. rifle gap curtain.

so what happens when a project of this scale becomes reality? does the lustre of the image become overshadowed by real logistics and environmental impact?

in other words: art at what cost?

slow start

happy 2008 dear reader. our brain is still on holiday, so in the mean time here is my "to read" list for the upcoming year so far:

The Best of Cutler Anderson Architects

Outside the Pale: The Architecture of Fay Jones

Strange Details

Unprecedented Realism: The Architecture of Machado and Silvetti

The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses

Building: 3000 Years of Design, Engineering and Construction

posts that are of worth some inkling of substance should resume by january 12. 2008

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mls architects website gets a re-vamp

ghost 8 [2006] "the studio" with full metal jacket skin

sorry for the lack of posts lately--some turbulence in that steady airstream of life.


the best we can do for now is to bring attention to the handsome makeover of the website belonging to MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects. the best part is watching the new photos on the home page, as there are some of his most recent [and unpublished] projects there.

finished interior of ghost 8 [2006] "the studio"

all the application information on the ghost laboratory still resides there, but hopefully some additional content on past ghost labs and current projects will surface soon.

ghost 9 [2007]: "beulah" completed

drawing ghost 9 [2007] "beulah" inside ghost 8 [2006] "the studio"

brian mackay-lyons recently spoke at the state aia conference in vail. colorado with his always intriguing, educational and entertaining lecture about his "critical regionalist" approach to architecture. he is not afraid to use the description that his neighbors affectionatley refer to his modern houses as "shit-boxes". this is not only a fun poke at the minimal nature of a "functional aesthetic", but is almost a compliment to the "zero-ness" approach that brian hopes to achieve on all his projects, both in economy and aesthetic property.

l to r: gerardo salinas, brian mackay-lyons, john carney at aia colorado

the heart of the design philosophy can be found in his book, Plain Modern showcasing his earlier works. the greatest part about catching up with brian was the evolution of the design language in his most recent projects, which are mostly large scale public buildings [libraries, embassies, and cultural centers]. the design philosophy of his houses still permeates through the public buildings, but with greater leaps and more extreme treatments of the vernacular. a good example of how architects should always push the limits of the archetypal, and break paradigms but without losing sight of the locale.

new gallery on halifax waterfront

another prevalent topic was the discussion of "building green", as if this is a new idea discovered by the USGBC and marketed through LEED. the truth is that people have been building sustainably for thousands of years in all parts of the world, without technologically enhanced "machines for living". the most effective way to be green is to build with local materials, and design to reflect local culture [ie the vernacular]. also-the best thing about this approach is the harnessing of free resources, like the sun [passive solar], and wind [ventilation].

if you are an architect you've heard all of this before, but how many times are these guidlelines actually put into practice?

"from the barnyard to the courtyard, architecture is not about creating objects, but the micro-climates between structures."-brian mackay-lyons

murcutt's masterclass

similar to the ghost lab in nova scotia, glenn murcutt offers a two week course in australia in a kind of intensive master's program on sustainable regionalism:

"The Master Class is a two-week residential program and is limited to 30 places. The first week is held at ‘Riversdale’, the Arthur and Yvonne Boyd Education Centre on the Shoalhaven River south of Sydney, and participants live in what has been described as Glenn’s ‘Master Work’. The second week in 2008 will be held at the University of Sydney School of Architecture. Glenn personally leads the Master Class, stays at ‘Riversdale’ with the participants and tutors all groups.

Subject to confirmation, the program will include excursions with Glenn Murcutt to see houses such as the Fletcher-Page House or the Walsh House in Kangaroo Valley, the Simpson-Lee House at Mt.Wilson and a new house by Glenn and Wendy Lewin in the Blue Mountains. There will also be visits to see some very special houses by Richard Leplastrier and Peter Stutchbury. Details are yet to be finalised and are dependent on client consent to get access to these properties.

The intensive two-week design studio program involves a design project undertaken in groups and culminating, at the end of week two, with a design presentation by participants and a critique by Glenn Murcutt and the other tutors. The studio program, associated lectures and supporting events equate to 150 hours high-level study at Masters level. The spirit of the event is that participation is the focus and there is no formal assessment. A certificate of satisfactory completion will be issued to all participants completing the program. Universities internationally have, over the years since its inception, accepted this event as gaining credit towards their programs."

details:

*dates: july 08 through 22, 2008

*cost - $6,850 US excluding travel fare

*counts towards 150 hours of university credit

*includes tours of murcutt's projects

*scholarships granted to those residing in "developing countries" [GDP less than $6,000 US capita]

*30 spots available for 2008; selections based upon merit and credentials

* deadline: first selections made by january 1st 2008 [so get busy!]

link found at architechnophilia

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mcart denver opens to commoners

[ photo by mark leffingwell]

"black milk; leed gold; recycled monopan; no corridors; idea box; no front door?"-- all after the jump[s]


article at archrecord.com

also at daily camera

and at rocky mountain news 1 & 2

and ucd advocate

hasta luego

gone for a week...don't do anything I would do...

nerman museum

with not as much fanfare as what came with the nelson-atkins, but still a worthy update on mid west culture...

from the kc star, the nerman museum of contemporary art will soon open its doors to the public [Oct. 27th]. located on the jccc campus and designed by architect Kyu Sung Woo from cambridge, it is basically an austere limestone box [the material was harvested from a nearby bluff] which floats quietly above the landscape. see for yourself... [all images from nmoca website]

the architect proves you can create a "beacon" without it being overly iconic, and the museum proves how to get an extension built without having $1000 per ticket parties.

also take a virtual tour.

mcart denver opening

passing on from an email i received earlier this week:

Museum of Contemporary Art Denver -- Inaugural Gala and Exhibition. MCA’s exclusive Inaugural Gala of the new facility designed by David Adjaye, on Friday, October 26, will be the party of 2007! This gala includes a gourmet dinner, fantastic atmosphere and hip entertainment.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s inaugural exhibition opens to the public on October 28. It is entitled Star Power: Museum as Body Electric, and is curated by Cydney Payton, MCA Denver’s Executive Director and Chief Curator. It features seven emerging and established artists including: Carlos Amorales (Mexico), David Altmejd (Canada), Candice Breitz (South Africa), Rangi Kipa (New Zealand), Wangechi Mutu (Kenya), Chris Ofili (UK/Trinidad & Tobago) and Collier Schorr (United States).

Sunday, October 28, 10:00 am –10:00 pm, is the official, free admission, public opening of the MCA’s new facilities and includes a series of activity opportunities to engage and become part of cutting edge contemporary art! Visit http://www.mcartdenver.org/.

as well as the flyer on the mcart's website:

MCA’s exclusive Inaugural Gala will be the party of the year. Come join us on Friday, October 26, 2007 from 6-11pm as we celebrate the opening of our new David Adjaye designed building.

MCA's Inaugural Gala will include a gourmet sit-down dinner for 800 MCA members and friends. In addition to fantastic atmosphere and cuisine. The evening will include entertainment from hip musical acts including Brightblack Morning Light, a guest DJ and a celebrity host.

“MCA always has the best parties.” - Overheard.

Individual tickets are $1,000. Individual tables are $10,000 and corporate tables are $15,000.

peter gluck:..."i don't belong to the AIA..."

“I think they’re the problem, not the solution. It’s a group of people who get together to promote themselves; they’re not interested in really looking at the profession and trying to see where its problems are.”

pete just said what 90% of the profession was thinking...

metropolis magazine delivers another fine article on the practice of peter l. gluck & partners, based in nyc.

ajax housing; aspen, co [metropolis]

gluck has a section to rant about everything from archi-babble to young architects lack of building knowledge and the fallacies of academia. but the biggest chunk of the piece focuses on an affordable housing complex located in aspen. colorado dubbed the Little Ajax Affordable Housing. if you're thinking that these are spectacular for affordable housing, that's because they are. affordable housing in aspen is just barely under market price housing in downtown denver. [see previous post].

ajax housing; aspen, co [metropolis]

ajax housing; aspen, co [metropolis]

one of coolest parts of the building process was reducing the bid of the corrugated metal package by $60K, all with just a little ingenuity of creating a custom-made saw for cutting sharp angles. the project was opposed by almost all the neighbors, which caused the project to barely break even once completed after six years. other time and dollar saving factors became apparent when drawings were sent out for bid to subcontractors. only drawings relevant to each trade were distributed amongst the subs. small portions of the project, but eventually adding up to a more efficient process. this kind of lacking adapatability and exposure to real world problems seems to be gluck's major issue witht the architectural profession:

“One of the biggest problems is that architects spend so many years in such a refined, isolated world—one school environment after another,” he says. “They never really get out into the real world.”

and railing again on education:

"...The poor state of architectural education also explains why after paying more than $100,000 for a degree, graduates are forced to apprentice for three years while other people sign off on their work, and are finally charged another $2,000 to get a license that a professional degree should prepare them for in the first place. “That’s the kind of shit the AIA would do,” he says. “The profession is already built on the backs of young architects—if they were really concerned, the last thing they would do would be to punish young people coming into the field.”

gluck not only loves adding more social projects to his list, but still keeps an impressive roster of private projects on the resume. one in particular is a small library for his wife:

"scholar's library"; olive bridge, ny [metropolis]

and the "bar house"[clad entirely in certified IPE]:

bar house; aspen, co [metropolis]

keep on it pete. we luv ya.

link from architechnophilia

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two zumthor projects

from domus magazine online, the klaus bruder field chapel:

A Saint and an Architect

The votive chapel dedicated to Saint Niklaus von Flüe rises from the flat farmland of the Eifel region in western Germany. [from domus]

Two Swiss (a saint called Bruder Klaus and the architect Peter Zumthor) and a German farmer (the project’s commissioner) converge in the construction of a universal piece of architecture for meditation. Design by Peter Zumthor. Text by Stefano Casciani. Photos by Pietro Savorelli. Peter Zumthor is sitting at 550 metres above sea level in the quiet of his stube (the most beautiful one I’ve even seen) as rain pours down on Haldenstein towards the end of June. There is no truth to the legend of him living the life of a stylite on top of a Swiss peak as he emits sensual oracles of stone and cement that define the condition of architecture. Between his office and his home/office, he smiles, listens, plays music and receives friends. He is preparing for projects and buildings that are bigger (if not more important) than the concentrated, distilled pieces of textural architecture he has produced over the extended amounts of time it takes for work to become art.

A plan sketch by Zumthor [from domus]

Entrance [from domus]

The excuse for our meeting is the votive chapel dedicated to Saint Niklaus von Flüe (better known as Bruder Klaus) that he recently finished in Mechernich, Germany. The building is an ex-voto project commissioned by a farmer who is still alive many years after being diagnosed with heart disease. Marcel Duchamp said that plumbing is the only difference between sculpture and architecture, and in this tower/chapel plumbing is just about absent. The top of the tower is open, so it rains inside. After collecting on the floor a bit, the water slowly, naturally flows away – another reason to call it a sculpture. A very large sculpture that you can enter to pray or simply meditate on your existence, or on that of Bruder Klaus – aka Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of Switzerland. He was a peasant and a soldier who fought as an officer in the victorious wars of the Confederates against the counts of Habsburg around 600 years ago. He got married and had ten children, only to be persuaded by a priest named Heimo am Grund (which in German and Schwiizerduutsch refers to “home” and “ground”) to go into solitary retreat. After requesting and obtaining permission from his wife Dorotea, Bruder Klaus went off to live, and die, in a ravine, in a crevasse. The only Swiss crevasse I remember seeing is the Viamala Schlucht. Touristy perhaps, but in addition to its terrifying name it inspires fear for the fact that the bottom cannot be seen from above. It scares you to death, like the unknown, like what is to come but has not yet been revealed. Yet Zumthor did not think of these things in this project.



The 112 tree trunks that were used for the wigwam-like structure were taken from a wood belonging to the client. The trunks were then positioned in a cone shape, leaving an oculus at the top. Concrete was poured onto the wooden structure at the rate of one level per day, making 24 layers for a total height of 12 metres. At the end, the wood formwork was burnt out. [from domus]

Rain falls inside the Chapel through the opening in the roof and collects in a sunken basin. [from domus]

“After we built the Chapel, a few Swiss people came to me and said, ‘Of course this dark emptiness with only a few strips of light comes from the fact that Bruder Klaus’s life ended in a cell dug into the rock!’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not the reason.’ And they said, ‘Oh, well then it’s like a tower in reference to Bruder Klaus’s career as a soldier!’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not why, I wasn’t thinking of that.’ Rather I was thinking that it would be important for the Chapel to rise up vertically in order to stand out from afar against the open, level fields with their few undulations. It needed to mark out its territory.” “And what about this circular plan inside, and the cusp-shaped exterior? Doesn’t that have to do with the wheel of Saint Nicholas, the symbol he meditated upon daily?” “No, it’s not related to that”.

Ground floor plan [from domus]

Zumthor smiles. Of course it happens that an author writes, paints or builds things that he doesn’t know about, hasn’t seen or heard of, but that are still worth one, three or ten different interpretations. But not because he spent days and weeks studying symbols and symbolism. It makes it better, more interesting, unless you’re not prepared to believe in premonitions, visions, and the poet as a prophet. The only vision that Zumthor believes in is that of architecture. The only language his buildings speak is that of their construction and materials. The hours of the day and the sleepless nights of Bruder Klaus have nothing to do with the 24 visible layers of cement that were applied and compressed by hand on top of a structure made of branches and treetrunks that would later be burnt, leaving its dark mark and intense odour of charcoal inside forever. The layers of cement are 24 because that’s the number of days it took the commissioner and his helpers to make them.

Cross Section [from domus]

Long Section [from domus]

And then: what “expert” would not see Gaudí in this rugged vertical appearance, in the convergence of its walls way up high, in the small marks of light in its cement? Yet Zumthor is no mystic, he’s not like his Catalan colleague who some would like to see canonised, he’s not like Bruder Klaus. He laughs when I ask if it bothers him that people consider him to be a mystic. “Those are just things they’d like to write in the press.” Even so, he did not want to be paid for this project. Even so, his Kolumba Museum in Cologne is about to be inaugurated: a cement castle for contemporary art built on top of religious ruins. Even so, Norman Foster wants him to build the church for the Santa Giulia development outside Milan. Zumthor smiles. He, the layman saint of absolute architecture.

Also-a photo essay by Ellis Woodman at Building Design Online on Zumthor's Kolumba museum in Cologne, Germany:

... "A secret garden, stone ruins, a uniquely dense archaeological site: the ruins of the gothic church in the centre of rebuilt Cologne are the most impressive symbol of the city’s almost complete destruction during the Second World War. In 1949 the chapel of “Madonna in the Ruins” was created within the church ruins by the architect Gottfried Böhm as a near improvised shelter for a gothic Mary figure that had remained unscathed. »Kolumba« is intended to be a place for reflection. The occasion is the new building for the Cologne Diocese Museum, which was established in 1853 and which features an extraordinary collection spanning from early Christianity to contemporary art. A museum as a garden continually bringing a few alternately selected works of art to bloom. The guiding thread of the collection is the quest for overarching order, measure, proportion and beauty which connects all creative work. This quest is the precious material for an aesthetic laboratory which studies the anthropological connections lying beyond mere chronology. Kolumba allows visitors to immerse themselves in the presence of their memories and offers them their own experiences on their way.

“Fold, weld, bolt, screw: fuck you, it’s not that hard.”

phillip nobel writes about one of his favorite [and ours as well] nyc architecture firm:

SHoP architects

METROPOLIS magazine holds the link.

SHoP architects is five architects that graduated out of the tumultuous digital transition at columbia's. their first project to get notice was the "dunescape" at moma ps1 in the summer of 2000. built from individual stick frame construction, the a different sectional quality every 4 inches, the sweeping wave-like canopy and sitting platform [with pool!] elevates a practical approach to "blob-itecture":

with the design and build-it excitement aside, Pasquarelli relishes even more in the numbers game that increased visitors and revenue for the museum:

"...6,000 more visitors ...on a $50,000 budget with a $10,000 fee; he estimates that the popular design, with its secret rooms...brought in an additional $500,000 to $1 million for the institution that summer."

wow. these guys clearly know the other side of the profession as well, and are highly involved with the financing portion of some projects. laterin the article, the firm's penchant for development is revealed further detail...

the next project that thrusted SHoP into the limelight was the parasitic looking "porter house". a mixed-use condominium addition to an historic structure located in the meatpacking district of manhattan. the addition's faces are black modular zinc panels assembled in a semi-random pattern with intermittent flourescent tube lighting behind transluscent white panels. each panel was manufactured straight from the architects' drawings, allowing for a quick and easy construction. and as a punchy quip to all contractors, our favorite quote from the article says it all:

"[Gregg] Pasquarelli described the process: “Fold, weld, bolt, screw: fuck you, it’s not that hard.” The contractors reportedly loved it—no measuring, no cutting."

by the way, if you ever find yourself walking through the meatpacking district at 3am, and see this building, there's a tasty trendy [and slightly expensive] slider and shake joint in the retail space below it.

speaking of-hasn't someone written a thesis on the relationship between architecture and good cuisine yet?
special thanks to epicure of epicures for the heads up on the article.

jackson.wy

sorry for the lack of posts lately. life has been crazy, work has been busy, but all in all delicious. so here's some photos of jackson ['s hole], wyoming during our labor day travels.

[btw-this blog also seems to coincidentally suffer around college football season as well.]

crazybusydelicious projects by nio architecten.

austerity and beautiful emptiness by niizeki studio.

gloriously textural modern boxes by Tham & Videgård Hansson

also, a mouth watering blog links to keep you fat and happy:

architecture. myninjaplease [the inspirational link to the links can be found at the sidebar->]