AE13: Inflatable Enclosures

Inflatable environments are undergoing something of a renaissance today. Not since the 1960's embrace of bubbles in their numerous connotations (lightness, transparency, embrace, equality, difference) have so many projects used air as a medium for shaping enclosures, although they are still on the outskirts of architectural production. Technological and other advances have aided, if not outright negated the disadvantages of "bubbletecture," namely durability and wastefulness.


[historical bubbletecture, top to bottom: 1960's inflatable by Jersey Devil (source); L: The Environment Bubble, 1965 by Reyner Banham & Francois Dallegret (source) R: Pneumakosm, a pneumatic dwelling unit, 1967 by HAUS-RUCKER-CO (source); Clean Air Pod,1970 by Ant Farm (source); page from Ant Farm's Inflatocookbook (PDF source)]

Of those exploring inflatable architecture in the sixties and seventies, Ant Farm was the most prolific, gearing a number of projects around air and plastic, and even creating an Inflatocookbook (PDF link). Fellow Americans Jersey Devil also explored what they called Inflatables in the early seventies, likewise created as "happenings" that stood out in their urban contexts, like alien crafts landed amongst the stone, glass and grass. In Austria upstarts like Coop Himmelb(l)au and HAUS-RUCKER-CO explored the possibilities of pneumatic dwelling units, yet without clients or sites they failed to get beyond the prototype stage. Even critic Reyner Banham got in on the act, combining the ideas of Bucky Fuller and Marshall McLuhan in a transparent igloo he designed with Francois Dallegret.


[Michael Rakowitz's paraSITE | image source]

The inflatable trend faded as fast as it started, finding use primarily for temporary stagings and art installations. Michael Rakowitz's paraSITE (1998-ongoing) can be considered part of the latter, though it engages the social, economical and political directly in the use of inflatable structures to house homeless individuals. By hooking the deflated plastic to a building's HVAC vent, a small enclosure is created, with the expelled air inflating the double wall. Importantly, in terms of my exploration of this architectural element here, the air used to shape and heat the space does not come into contact with the inhabitant; it is not part of the space itself, like the Ant Farm and Jersey Devil examples above. The design of the paraSITE's plastic shell is therefore much more complex, with many more seams, and even windows in the one on the left.


[Alexis Rochas's Aeromads | image source]

SCI-Arc's Alexis Rochas created Aeromads, installations from 2006 that questioned the domestic realm and harked back to ideas from 40 years ago, though Rochas's designs utilize the computer to create more complex forms. He "considers the idea that one’s home is a malleable, movable environment that can be deflated and fit into a suitcase, then travel to a new location with its owner. [source]" Again, air inflates what creates the enclosure.


[OMA's Serpentine Pavilion, 2006 | image source]

OMA and Cecil Balmond's 2006 Serpentine Pavilion in London can be taken as a purely symbolic attempt at reintroducing inflatables into architectural discourse. The inflatable enclosure sits above the main space, inaccessible and indirectly visible from below. But from afar the enclosure stands out, visible from a distance. The possibilities of using inflatable walls for architectural enclusre is not explored here, but like a moored hot-air balloon, the pavilion marks a space and place with minimal means, one of the advantages of air as a medium for architecture.


[Raumlabor's Spacebuster under the BQE | image source]

Raumlabor's Spacebuster has been in the news a lot lately, when it made its way around New York City on a ten-day tour. Spacebuster is part of the German architects' ongoing investigation of unused urban spaces, which started with inflatables in 2006 with the Kitchen Monument and includes last year's Glow Lounge.


[Raumlabor's Spacebuster under the BQE | image source]

Their truck-towed events in New York included film screenings, performances and community meetings, the last under the BQE in Brooklyn the day before Spacebuster left town. Situated in a typically unused space, the community meeting used the opportunity to investigate other ways of doing the same. The possibilities of guerilla engagement with urban sites is certainly clear in Raumlabor's latest undertaking; one need only drive the truck to a parking lot, underpass or some other un/underused site and take advantage of the bubble until the cops arrive. The fact that the air and inhabitants occupy the same space, a la Ant Farm's and Jersey Devil's inflatables, makes this design suitable for these temporary happenings, but not necessarily a good precedent for further architectural investigation beyond the engagement of urban sites.


[mmw's kiss the frog | image source]

mmw architect of norway's 2005 kiss the frog was a temporary art pavilion linking four institutions in Oslo. The aptly-titled design is structured in parts like a tire, with powerful fans pushing fresh air into the spaces. The pressure difference between inside and outside air means the former pushes out on the PVC skin, giving the pavilion its shape. In designs like this, which require a constant supply of air and the energy to do so, necessitates a well-sealed skin and hatch-like access points to keep as much air inside as possible.


[Kengo Kuma's Tea House | image source]

The Tea House Kengo Kuma designed for the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt (yes, that one) a couple years ago is a double-wall membrane embedded with LEDs for nighttime use. Rooted in similar design investigations in his home country at the same time as Americans and Austrians were doing the same, most notably in the Fuji Pavilion at Expo 1970 in Osaka, the small yet complex project is documented in a book. This product that might be as or more influential than what is once again another temporary inflatable enclosure. The refinement of Kuma's design, filled like a 3d air mattress, points to an elevated level of sophistication possible with air as supporting structure. The double-wall enables openings to have free access, without worry and energy expended on keeping the air inside, and the high-tech skin provides for longer durability.

The above projects continue the temporary nature of inflatable architecture, but they point to their continued use in the coming years. Perhaps we'll see their longevity increase, as techniques of using air as a structural medium and membrane technologies improve.

Today's archidose #308

'Pod', Hotel & Shops, Nottingham., originally uploaded by Iqbal Aalam.

The Pod, a hotel and retail development (Bildurn) in Nottingham, England by Benson & Forsyth Architects, 2007. For more photos see New Nottingham.

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CCTV in Balsa

Like many episodes of The Simpsons in the last few years, last night's was just okay. As continued evidence that the writers are running out of ideas (in one way this is a good thing, meaning they have mined all the good ideas already), Homer becomes a "helicopter parent," hovering over Bart and Lisa to make the former less of a loser and the latter popular. The first concerns us here. Spoilers follow for those who haven't seen it, but FOX is nice enough to provide the full episode online.



For class Bart must create a scale model of a building out of balsa wood. (I recall doing the same thing, albeit in high school, with the Globe Theatre.) His first choice of Washington Monument is nixed by Homer, who realizes that choice is too easy. They undertake Westminster Abbey, with Homer taking over the balsa and blue glue reigns. As expected the model looks like crap.

What I really like is the choice of the other models revealed in the contest, including the CCTV Building in Beijing, China by OMA,



the Brazilian National Congress by Oscar Niemeyer,



and the Temples at Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal.



As might be expected Bart wins the contest, because his model looks like he didn't have help from his father. As Bart has said in the past, "the ironing is delicious."

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Chen House in Sanjhih, Taiwan by C-Laboratory.

This week's book review is Tiny Houses by Mimi Zeiger.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

ArchiThings
"Daily blog on Architecture, Construction, Real Estate and Home Improvement." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

The Craft of Architecture
A blog with "lessons learned about material selection, detailing, and construction administration." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

What We Do Is Secret
A blog "about architecture, design and occasionally about scent" by an artist living in Brooklyn, New York." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

Chicago Architecture in the Loop
"An Architect's Blog. Observation, and Comment from the Heart of Chicago." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

2030 Forecaster
A free tool to "help project teams set energy mix goals for the 2030 Challenge."

bldgsim
"Tools for Better and more Sustainable Building Design." (added to sidebar under blogs::sustainability)

The Future Beneath Us

On the subway yesterday I saw an ad for The Future Beneath Us, an exhibit at the New York Transit Museum and The New York Public Library. The joint exhibition is billed as "an illuminating look at the vast mega-projects that will bring New York City's underground infrastructure into the 21st Century and beyond." For those unable to visit the two venues -- The Science, Industry and Business Library’s Healy Hall, at 188 Madison Avenue, and the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store at Grand Central Terminal -- the online coverage is exemplary.


[8-project map | image source]

The eight projects are: 1) East Side Access 2) Second Avenue Subway 3) Fulton Street Transit Center 4) 7 Line Extension 5) Croton Water Filtration Plant 6) City Water Tunnel #3 7) Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel 8) World Trade Center.



Photos and text trace the history and provide a glimpse of the future via renderings of stations, for example. The most well known is surely City Water Tunnel #3, "the largest and longest running capital project in New York City’s history and among the largest engineering projects in the world," running for a total of 60 miles (96km) at a depth of 800 feet (244m), though the Second Avenue subway is probably a close second. All of the projects illustrate the importance of underground infrastructure in serving the people and buildings above ground, but they also show that infrastructure is always an incomplete project, dependent upon technology, the evolution of the city and financial constraints.

Today's archidose #307

spacebuster "Examined Life"08, originally uploaded by a tanz.

Spacebuster, a "a mobile inflatable structure - a portable, expandable pavilion - that is designed to transform public spaces of all kinds into points for community gathering," by Berlin's Raumlabor. See their Kitchen Monument for similar installations in Europe in 2006. The pavilion is in town (until tomorrow evening) for ten consecutive days of events in New York City curated by Storefront for Art and Architecture. Here it is used in a parking lot on Norfolk Street in the Lower East Side for a screening of Examined Life, a film by Astra Taylor.

See a tanz's Flickr set for many more photos of Raumlabor during its brief sojourn in New York.

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Craigslist Ad of the Week

With so few job postings for architects nowadays, Craigslist looks like it has become one of the best sources for finding job leads, at least in New York City with its relative multitude of listings. But alongside the few reputable ads are numerous gotta-be-a-headhunter ads (maybe not a bad idea these days), hire-me ads (ditto) and other questionable listings. I'll be posting some of the last, with some commentary, once a week until the economy improves or the idea runs its course, whichever comes first.

Title: HIP ARCHITECTURAL FIRM IN SOHO SEEKS A RECEPTIONIST/ OFFICE MANAGER
When: 2009-04-24
Who: ???
Description:

I am the current office manager for an architectural studio in SoHo. Sadly, I am moving & need to give up my position in this creative environment. We are on the hunt for a reliable, organized, detail oriented Receptionist/Office Manager. Must be professional with great communication skills. You have big shoes to fill!! No, seriously…they’re like a size 10.

Are you interested in being more than just a receptionist? Maybe Marketing or Human Resources interests you? Are you a self starter with consistent follow-through? Do you have working knowledge of MS Office and Adobe programs? Do you like friendly people that are fun to work with? How about working in an amazing neighborhood full of great food, shopping & culture? Then this might be the job for you!!

Comments: Granted that most out-of-work architects probably don't want to give up just yet and take a receptionist gig, I couldn't help feature this ad posted in the engineering category, where architecture listings reside. You can probably see why. This firm is so hip that: 1) They won't say who they are, lest they be inundated with thousands upon thousands of e-mails. 2) They make the office manager write the ad for the position she's leaving, since they can't take time away from making hip architecture. Let's hope they paid her (I'm guessing she's a woman, given the shoe size joke) for writing the ad.

Book Review: Fuel

Fuel edited by John Knechtel
MIT Press, 2008
Hardcover, 320 pages



Alphabet City "is a series of annual hardcover anthologies originating from Toronto, Canada. Each volume in the series addresses a one-word topic of global concern and draws on the diverse perspectives of writers and artists from many cultures and disciplines." Previous books focused on Food and Trash, with Water forthcoming. These monickers point towards substances and processes that are threatened by humanity, or problems created by the same. One could argue that Fuel, namely oil in this case, while naturally available, is primarily a problem (in the name of climage change, pollutions, habitat destruction, etc.) created by humanity via its exploitation of the substance in sometimes questionable ways. (Do we really need to drive ourselves two hours back and forth to work every day?) This book, small in stature (just over 4x6") but large in ambition, proposes energy pluralism, the reworking of infrastructure and the rethinking of Fuel towards opening up unforseen possibilities.

The contributions fall into two broad categories: descriptions and analyses of existing conditions and proposals for future scenarios. Photography comprises much of the former, such as Edward Burtynsky's well-known documentation of scarring created by excess and George Osodi's disheartening images of the oil-rich (not people-rich) Niger Delta. Essays, like Mason White's analysis of the Barents Sea and Dubai, yield greater understanding of areas relatively unknown and hyped beyond belief.

The proposals range from small to XXL, from a parasitic residential unit (A.I.R. by Lateral Architecture and Sarah Graham) to a long-term plan for occupying the Caspian Sea by Maya Przybylski. These indirectly touch on the paradox of addressing environmental and other problems, namely if solutions should be small- or large-scale. The answer most likely is both, but the resources required by the latter may preclude many ideas from being implemented, like RVTR's design for pumping up the bandwidth of highways, in which elevated trains and median wind farms would make the highway itself pale in scope and expense, a trait shared by Chris Hardwicke's elevated Velo-City bike lanes. The proposals are carefully crafted, and a number of them have every intention of being realized to some extent, but more than likely the designs will provoke and inspire rather than find themselves in production.

Most unsettling is the disconnect between the photographs of Burtynsky and Osodi and these proposals. Will the latter improve the conditions of the former, or will exploitation reign over those not fortunate enough to find themselves cycling in an elevated bike lane in Toronto? The relationship is not addressed, except for Kelly Doran's proposal for bringing North Alberta's Tar Sands back from a point of no return. Not surprisingly, here the focus is on native soil. Even though it is clear from the photographs and essays of the first category that local decisions affect remote places, it's a difficult fact to address. Yet is one that might find a voice in future books in the series.

or

Today's archidose #306

Here's some photos taken by ken mccown of the Antioch Baptist Church in Perry County, Alabamy by Rural Studio, 2002.

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25 Years of Growth

Here are some sobering satellite photos of Las Vegas, in five year intervals from 1984 to a few months ago, taken by NASA's Landsat 5. For orientation, the strip runs north-south and with a NNE kink just right of center, with the airport parallel to this at bottom. Interstate 215 can be found in the bottom left corner, taking shape in 1999.

Click the animation for larger images.


[25 years in six seconds | images from here]

"These images of the western portion of the Las Vegas metropolitan area show the city’s steady spread into the adjacent desert landscape. Undeveloped land appears along the left edges of the top two images. Here, the land on the city’s outskirts appears in shades of beige and tan, with just a hint of the street grid to come. By 1989, however, development filled the upper left corner—a residential area, complete with curving roads and semicircle streets. In subsequent images, development spreads southward, and by 2004, the entire image shows cityscape, including Interstate 215 passing through southwestern portion of the city."

(via Coudal)

Earth Day Videos

Here's a few (hopefully) inspiring videos on this Earth Day 2009.

Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the Council on Environmental Quality gives us the Obama administration's first Earth Day message, "Green Jobs for a Green Future", from the White House Blog.


This one might bring back memories for some, the Earth Day Special, a celebrity- and Muppet-loaded TV special from 1990. Below is part 1 of 11. Click here to see the rest.


And what's more green than moving and reusing a historical structure? Anova Architects in Placerville, California (between Sacramento and Eldorado National Forest) did just that, making it onto the local news.

Today's archidose #305

cc, originally uploaded by !architect4!.

HSI Productions in Culver City, California by Nakao::Farrage Architects, 2001. For a view of the sculpture in the foreground, click here.

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Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Espacio Goya in Zaragoza, Spain by Herzog & de Meuron.

This week's book review is Expo Architecture 2008: Zaragoza, an urban project by Freddy Massad, Alicia Guerrero-Yeste & Jaime Salazar.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Mister Buckminster
"London-based blog hosted by Cedric Buckminster and devoted to the history of architecture." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

Klaustoon's Blog
"Cartooning the GSD and other issues." (added to sidebar under blogs::art)

Lost City
"A running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York as they are steamrolled under or threatened by the currently ruthless real estate market and the City Fathers' disregard for Gotham's historical and cultural fabric." (added to sidebar under architectural links::new york city)

NYC Grid
"A photo blog dedicated to exploring and discovering The City of New York block by block and corner by corner. Updated every weekday, each post covers a new block with a focus on the mundane and ephemeral." (added to sidebar under architectural links::new york city)

New York Notes

Here's a few New York things of note: an exhibition, a museum, a proposal, and a look at the city in 250 years.

Work AC: 49 Cities
An exhibition on display at the Storefront for Art and Architecture until May 30.

"49 Cities sets out to crunch the numbers of several centuries of unrealized urbanism, all the way from the Roman city to the great utopian projects of the 20th century. Through plans, sections, diagrams, charts and scale drawings,
49 cities are observed statistically and presented in an unprecedented comparative study, the result of a research project conducted over several years. Despite the fact that they never actually existed, this history of utopian urbanism provides a remarkable insight into our understanding of the contemporary metropolis."

[Click the image above for a 20-page PDF sample (9+ mb) of the catalog for Work AC: 49 Cities.]

Meier Model Museum Reopens to the Public
Metropolis Magazine reports,

"In two weeks, Richard Meier will once again begin welcoming visitors to his Long Island City model warehouse, a 3,600-square-foot studio filled with more than a hundred architectural mock-ups...Visitation is by appointment on alternate Fridays beginning May 1; to schedule an appointment, call Richard Meier & Partners Architects at 212-967-6060."

Realize Hudson Rise
This proposal for Lower Manhattan compiles,

"prominent neighborhood residents including Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, James Gandolfini, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, John Slattery, Talia Balsam, Michael Stipe, Casey Affleck, Kirsten Dunst and others who have voiced their support for saving our Lower Manhattan neighborhood and working together to create Hudson Rise at St. John’s Park. The initiative reinvisions the city’s proposal to build a gigantic, two acre sanitation mega-facility at Spring & Canal Streets."

[The design team is Zakrzewski Hyde Architects and Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architets and Planners.]

NYC2259
Procedural uses various computer software to envision New York City in 250 years, inspired by The Fifth Element.

Today's archidose #304

Agave Library, originally uploaded by !architect4!.

The Agave Library in Phoenix, Arizona by Will Bruder + Partners, 2009 -- set to open this summer.

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KRAZY!

On display at the Japan Society in Manhattan is KRAZY! The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games, with an exhibition design by Atelier Bow-Wow. The Japanese architects have been featured here a number of times, a perennial favorite for their great books, sense of humor, architectural skills, and thorough drawings.



The Japan Society generously provides a PDF of architectural drawings for the exhibition, such as a rendering, plan and details of the atrium signage, excerpted above and below. According to the web page, Atelier Bow-Wow's design unfolds "within an intriguing sequence of spaces that evoke Tokyo’s clamorous cityscape." I plan to visit and see just how well the drawings translate to built form, and I'll report back with photos.



Update 04.19: Photography is not permitted in the galleries, so all I could shoot were a few views of the entrance, the signage above.

Today's archidose #303

Ecole Nationale de Musique et de Danse - Claude le Goas, originally uploaded by JP2H.

L'Ecole nationale de musique et de danse (The National School of Music and Dance) in Montreuil, France by Claude le Goas, 1976.

For images of the building, go here and here.

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Take Me Out To the Billboards

Both New York City baseball teams started home games this week in brand new stadiums. The New Yankee Stadium is basically the spitting image of the old one, but with more seats, better sight lines, more restrooms, and other improvements. The New Shea Stadium -- I mean Citi Field -- for the Mets, on the other hand, distances itself from the old stadium. It is "inspired by tradition...clad in brick, limestone, granite and cast stone, with the brick closely resembling the masonry used at [the Brooklyn Dodgers'] Ebbets Field, both in color and texture."

Not surprisingly, each field is crammed with ad space -- as these two views testify -- but where Yankee Stadium gives a regal face towards its neighbors, Citi Field takes advantage of the expressway to the north, thereby doubling its ad space. Driving by for the first time a few days ago I was shocked, appalled and yet fascinated by this face of the new stadium. Admittedly this is the stadium's "rear," but it is a view where the architecture takes a backseat to advertising; in effect the architecture is there to prop up the billboards.



The above view seamlessly blends the billboards and painted party walls along the expressway with the Citi Field advertising, though I'm guessing this isn't what the Mets had in mind when they were "inspired by tradition."

Today's archidose #302

In honor of Peter Zumthor's 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize, here's a few of his buildings, photographed by jkap.



[Two views of the Protective Housing for Roman Excavations in Chur, Graubünden, Switzerland, 1986]


[Saint Benedict Chapel in Sumvitg, Graubünden, Switzerland, 1988]



[Two views of the Homes for Senior Citizens in Chur, Masans, Graubünden, Switzerland, 1993]


[Kunsthaus Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesgalerie Museum and Administration Buildings in Bregenz, Austria, 1997]

For more photos of these buildings, be sure to check out jkap's Flickr set on Peter Zumthor.

To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose

E-mail Subscriptions

Just a quick tech note: This blog now supports e-mail subscriptions, delivered by FeedBurner. Before now, one needed a newsreader like Bloglines to receive updates for this page. Now just enter an e-mail address in the form in the sidebar at right and follow the instructions in the pop-up window to receive (almost) daily e-mails. It's that easy!

AE12: Hairy Facades

Thatching is traditionally used as a roofing material, where reeds, straw or some other vegetable material is used for the outer roof covering, usually held in place with stones, ropes or poles, and interspersed with layers of mud. One thinks of both the British Isles and tropical regions, a testament to the versatility of the technique and the abundance of the materials in various contexts. Today the use of thatching is departing from its traditional form, being used as roofs but also walls, what I'm calling hairy facades.


[Reed thatch | image source]

One example that retains the roof-only aspect of traditional thatching, but scales it up so it blurs the typical distinction between roof and wall, is a new building at Plaswijckpark in Rotterdam by Drost + van Veen architecten. The oversized roof appears to float above the glass box below, unlike traditional applications in northern climes where the roof and (usually stucco) walls or more closely integrated.


[Plaswijckpark by Drost + van Veen architecten | image source]

Another project by the same architects, housing in Blaricum, also in the Netherlands, takes this blurring of roof and wall via thatching even further. Here the thatch covers all but the ground floor, like a cap of dried vegetation is placed atop the building and openings are cut for windows. Here the technique and material are used for sculptural effect, a bit strange but appealing.


[Blaricummermeent by Drost + van Veen architecten | image source]

A built example of a hairy facade is the Laren House in the Dutch town of the same name, by Monk Architecten. Actually compared to a hare in the recent book Inspired by Nature: Animals, the design utilizes thatch on the walls and standing seam metal for the roof, though the two surfaces are seamlessly integrated in an asymmetrical vaulting from one side to another.


[Laren House by Monk Architecten | image source]

Here one can touch the hairy facade, the thatching that is traditionally found overhead. The foreground of the photograph below illustrates the aesthetic potential of using thatch on walls, though one must ask, can another material achieve such effects?


[Laren House by Monk Architecten | image source]

My first response would be straw bale, which is finding a renewed interest with sustainable architecture today. But with poor performance as an exterior material (usually it is covered by lath and stucco), straw bale is found behind polycarbonate panels, in designs like Felix Jerusalem's Stroh Haus.


[Somis Hay Barn by SPF:architects | image source]

One project that is able to exploit the potential of straw bale as an exterior, hairy facade is SPF:architects' Somis Hay Barn in Somis, California. Here the straw bale is stored on the exterior until it is used as feed, therefore it is able to be left exposed. Color variations throughout the year, as well as the tetris-like stacking, allows for an ever-changing appearance.

The above examples illustrate what I'm calling hairy facades, an architectural element of sorts that finds traditional materials in atypical applications. More materials may be found achieving similar ends in the future, where a more sensual and rustic appearance trumps over the now prevalent slick and polished.

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle, Washington by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects.

This week's book review is USA: Modern Architectures in History by Gwendolyn Wright.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Cityscapes
"WNYC is taking [the opportunity] to look around and examine how much the city has changed, and where it's heading next." (added to sidebar under architectural links::audio/video; via Archinect)

Javierest
Javier Arbona, former Chief Editor at Archinect and now a PhD candidate in geography, blogs about "ideologies of urban land use, spatial practices, design and visual culture, experimental landscape study, social movements, mappings, social theory, and last but not least, the ephemera that reveals latent stories about a place or context." (added to sidebar under blogs::urban)

Blogging the Green
"Sustainable design with a healthy dose of reality." (added to sidebar under blogs::sustainability)

architecturalfiction.com
"A library of novels written by an architect about the frustrations and challenges of being an architect. Two of the novels are satirical and humorous and one is serious and dramatic."

Pritzker Architecture Prize 2009: Peter Zumthor

The 2009 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize is Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, announced today. For many this will be unsurprising, given Zumthor's exceptional body of work, and for even more it will be a long overdue award.

Notable projects by Zumthor include the Thermal Baths Vals in Switzerland, Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, Saint Benedict Chapel in Switzerland, and Swiss Sound Box for Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany. The recent completions of both the Kolumba Museum in Cologne and the Brother Klaus Field Chapel in Wachendorf, Eifel, both in Germany, most likely helped greatly in securing the award for Zumthor.


[photo of Peter Zumthor by Gary Ebner | image source]

For this year's prize, I was honored to take part in the nomination process, solicited by the Executive Director to submit names for award. At the top of my list was Peter Zumthor. Needless to say, I'm happy to see the award go to him. As well, I'm looking forward to the ensuing discussion in print and online in the coming weeks. I'll try to post more on Zumthor and the Prize in that time.

Update 04.13: Today's ArchNewsNow has a bevy of links on the Pritzker Prize.