A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

P.S.1 Urban Beach in Long Island City, New York by Emergent LA, 2003   Since 1998, P.S.1 Museum in Queens, New York, has hosted an architectural/music collaboration in its "V"-shaped courtyard, and this year Tom Wiscombe of Emergent LA is the winner of the Young Architects Program that opened July 29. With a budget of only $60,000, the design creates an "urban beach" that will be a venue for the summer music program, Warm Up, as well as a space for socializing and relaxing. The design features two key elements: the MicroMultiple Roof and the Leisure Landscape (as coined by the architect), both of which enable the program's different uses. With the recent, temporary relocation of The Museum of M...

The Skyscraper Bioclimatically Considered by Ken Yeang, published by  Wiley , 1996. Paperback, 269 pages. ( Amazon ) Billed as a design primer, Yeang touches on each step in the process to design a skyscraper with an emphasis on the bioclimatic aspects of this building type. Each of the ten chapters focuses on a different component of a skyscraper, from vertical circulation to mechanical and electrical services and everything in-between. Graphically the vertically-oriented book uses a tripartite structure across each page to loosely break up the main text from additional information, such as charts, graphs, sketches, and case studies from the author's practice in Malaysia. Layering of images, text and color helps to liven the overall tone of the bo...

Chicago Prize in Chicago, Illinois by Dan Rappel, 2003   Last week's dose featured a project that responded to the City of Chicago's Central Area Plan (CAP) by providing parkland over the Kennedy Expressway. This week's feature is the first-prize winning scheme for a competition, also responding to the CAP and sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Club , to design a parking garage adjacent to the Kennedy. The following text and images (click for larger and expanded views) are by the winner Dan Rappel, with Kevin Shellenbach and Isabela Gould. Grounded upon sustainable strategies in both form and program, this entry alleviates traffic as it symbolically addresses Chicago's urgent need for new, creative solutions to congestion in the Central Area Plan. The movement of parking to the periphery of the central area represents a...

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware, published by Random House, 2003. Paperback, 380 pages. ( Amazon ) In a graphic novel originally published in 2000 and started seven years previous, author Ware tells the story of four generations of Corrigan men, focusing on the title character in the present day and his grandfather - also Jimmy - at the time of the World's Fair in Chicago circa 1893. The intertwining narratives trace similarities between the two melancholy figures, primarily through their relationships with their fathers, of which the modern-day Jimmy meets his own for the first time at the age of 36. Corrigan's journey to meet his father also takes us into his mind, a place ...

Kennedy Expressway Green Corridor in Chicago, Illinois by Perkins + Will, 2003 Ralph Johnson, of the Chicago-based firm Perkins & Will was commissioned by the Chicago Architecture Foundation to participate in their exhibit Invisible City , where Johnson and two other Chicago architects (Brad Lynch of Brininstool + Lynch and Joe Valerio of Valerio Dewalt Train ) created designs in response to three different city master plans. Johnson chose the Central Area Plan and responded with the Kennedy Expressway Green Corridor. Although submerged west of the Loop, the Kennedy Expressway is a physical barrier between the east and west, the former primarily office space and the latter mostly residential. Bridges link the two sides physically, but the neighborhoods lack th...

Olympic Stadium in Beijing, China by Herzog & de Meuron   Herzog & de Meuron recently were named the winner of an international competition to design the new National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The Swiss firm proposed a seemingly random, lattice-like network of concrete strips forming the stadium's bowl shape, resembling a "bird's nest", in the architect's words. Gaps between the concrete structure would be filled with "inflatable cushions", another phrase the architects used to describe their innovative design. While the basics of stadium design have changed very little since the Colosseum of ancient Rome - concentric corridor under seats with spectator distribution inwards to the different ...

Kandalama Hotel in Sigiriya, Sri Lanka by Geoffrey Bawa, 1991 Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa passed away last Tuesday, the 27th of May, at the age of 83. Paralyzed and unable to speak after a stroke in 1998, Bawa remained active with his design practice until his final days. Spanning five decades, his career was marked by a sensitive approach to the environment and a unique balance between the modern and the vernacular. Recipient of the Chairman's Award from the Aga Kahn Award for Architecture (the highest achievement from a group honoring architecture in countries with a strong Muslim presence), Bawa was widely recognized in his home country, as well as surrounding countries, but very little in the western hemisphere. A recent monograph, published by Thames & Hudson, finally brought some belated attention ...