A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Getting aquainted with the architecture/arts building on campus today before my first class, I saw a poster for a competition by the Metal Construction Association for an Ampitheatre/Beach House at Montrose Harbor in Chicago. So even though I'm now in New York, I can't completely escape Chicago ... not that I'd want to, though. Anyways, the 2006 Student Design Competition 's deadline is November 6, 2006 and has cash prizes totalling $7,800, as well as publication in Metalmag and the MCA Newsletter . Below is the "design challenge", though for much more information check out the competition web page . This metal-in-construction competition challenges entrants to address architectural, structural, functional cultural and environmental issues in the design of a beach house and amphitheatre. These facilities should utilize sheet metal and other metal materials as well as metal structural members. This proposed facility will be located adjacent to one of Chicago...

The Fellowship: The Untold Story of Frank Lloyd Wright & The Taliesin Fellowship by Robert Friedland and Harold Zellman. ( Amazon ) Although the authors, in their exhaustive, ten-years-in-the-making account of Taliesin, take Wright's Fellowship as its subject, their overarching goal seems to be to deflate the myths of whom many consider the greatest architect of the 20th century, if not all time. The myths are many, stemming from Wright's arrogance, his many public relationships, his reckless spending, his words, and his architecture. One of the most often-told stories is about Fallingwater, where Wright supposedly created the basic design in less than two hours, in the time from the client's p...

Been packing the truck and getting ready to drive it to NYC. Don't know when posts will resume, but I'm guessing not for about a week, depending on the DSL hook-up in our new apartment. Until then, check out all the great pages linked in the sidebar to the right. Image found here

The last couple days I was in New York registering for classes for the upcoming semester. With some time to spare I found myself in the East Village/NoHo area and walked along Bond Street to check on the progress of Herzog & de Meuron's development for Ian Schrager, 40 Bond Street . From a distance, the concrete-framed building looks very warehouse-like with a repetitive grid across the whole stepping facade. Getting a bit closer, I could see small pieces of the curved glass pieces that will cover the horizontal and vertical spans of concrete (visible just above the raised white box). For those not familiar with the construction process, these two pieces are mock-ups in place for approval by the architect and client before fabrication of the skin by the manufacturer, a fairly typical procedure on jobs of this size. But to me these pieces seem too small to base a "yea" or "nay" judgment upon, especially in relation to the design intent . Regardless, it looks ...

CCCB + AC hotel, BCN by MADianito Centro de Convenciones Internacional de Barcelona by Josep Lluis Mateo . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Earlier today I went to the hardware store to buy a padlock, a heavy duty one that can resist bolt cutters, saws, bullets, anything. I opted for a lock made from laminated steel , where steel plates are literally stacked to create the lock's solid body, as opposed to steel walls making a relatively hollow body. There's something about the laminated body that exudes strength and stability, telling me this lock will be working as long as I will. This same thinking towards the physical make-up of a lock extends to a house in Leerdam, Netherlands by Kruunenberg Van der Erve Architecten, where the walls are built from thousands of layers of glass laminated together into solid walls. Appropriately called the Laminata House, the design was the product of a design competition by a local housing agency in 1995. Given that the architects rethought the role of glass -- as a heavy, structural material rather than as a thin and brittle skin -- the construction required numerous tests to de...

City Form and Natural Process: Towards a New Urban Vernacular by Michael Hough, published by Routledge , 1989. ( Amazon ) Michael Hough aims to change not only the physical character of the city but, more importantly, the aesthetic and cultural attitudes that shape it in the first place. These values respectively create an abundance of high maintenance lawns and formal landscaping and treat open spaces in terms of civic and recreational uses first and foremost over educational and ecological ones. Basically, Hough argues, by denying their greater role in the natural world, cities are unsustainable and require an alternative approach for open space, landscape and urban design. After explaining the basis for eco...

Shoebury Garrison in Shoeburyness, Essex, England by Hawkins/Brown Text and images are courtesy Claire Curtice for Hawkins/Brown's design of Shoebury Garrison in Shoeburyness, Essex, England. Shoeburyness was an army town until the 1980s and the ex-garrison land is now part of a major regeneration programme being implemented by Southend-on-Sea Council. Hawkins\Brown were appointed by GladeDale Homes to develop a signature piece of architecture for phase 3 of the program, a prestigious location which abuts the shore, giving spectacular views of the coastline. The shoreline location and coastal views were a determining factor in the design of the scheme, along with the consideration to provide sunlight ...

untitled by Matt Niebuhr Art Building West by Steven Holl at University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, 2006. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Design and Construction of a pavilion in the area of Edenton, North Carolina. The pavilion was designed by Jedidiah Gant and Jessica Wren and is a part of a cotton mill rehabilitation into condos. The pavilion is located in state protected wetlands and is a stop over on a boardwalk that leads from the housing out to the boat docks. Photos and renderings also available at unitedinnerstate's Flickr page . (Thanks to Jedidiah for the head's up.)

Some articles, blog posts, essays, and other stuff that I've noticed recently: Visions for New York City StreetsBlog gives a sneak preview of the "Garvin Report", a sweeping, new urban planning vision for New York City. Close Encounters with Buildings A PDF version of an article in Urban Design International by Danish architect Jan Gehl. Found at Rebuilding Place . Make Magazine and A+U's Wooden Architecture Dan Hill at City of Sound looks at two magazines on the newsstands now. Green Building 101 A summer series at Inhabitat, covering everything from siting to lighting . 100-Word Manifesto Metamechanic says, "give me your best architectural manifesto in 100 words I will send you a Benjamin, I'm serious." Toshiko Mori Interview Javier Arbona interviews the New York-based architect for Etorno 03. The 2006 PGA Championship If I weren't packing this weekend, I'd probably make it to both the Air & Water Show and the PGA Championship at Medinah...

A-bw-0554-022 by amanda.byrne Traditional Fijian Bure, Caqalai Island, Fiji. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Digitally distributed environments posts a QuickTime panorama (3.4mb) of the Chicago skyline from Grant Park, east of Columbus and Millennium Park. Needless to say, the QTVR technology creates some interesting effects. This is just one of many Chicago panoramas created by the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London.

Today saw the reopening of the first two stations in the CTA's Countdown to a New Brown expansion project. Rockwell and Kedzie are two of the grade-crossing stations near the end of the Brown Line. For those unfamiliar with the project, it is in response to the growing number of riders along the line, which right now can only accommodate trains with six cars. The plan will allow eight car trains, meaning the platforms need to be longer. As well, all the stations will be accessible. In this case, it means ramping up to the platform from the street; other stations will require elevators and ADA-compliant stairs. Here are some photos of the Rockwell station I took earlier today. While the design probably won't win any awards, it's a definite improvement over its previous incarnation . The station now has a stronger presence along Rockwell Avenue, a small retail/business area with an almost small town feel. The grade crossing adds to the small town feel. The interior is much m...

Railway Exchange by The Irish Samurai The Railway Exchange Building in Chicago, by Daniel Burnham. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Geoff at BLDGBLOG has another excellent interview, this time with Kazys Varnelis , Director of the Network Architecture Lab at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Quartzsite, Arizona by Kazys Varnelis In The Logistics of Distance , the two discuss "the future of sprawl, digital cartography, the history of the computer interface, Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Media Lab, Kowloon Walled City ,... RFIDs," and Quartzsite , Arizona, a "town of 5,000 in the summer that swells to up to 1.5 million in the winter due to an influx of snowbirds." Like a lot of Geoff's posts, it's lengthy but well worth the time and effort.

Archinect points to a New York Times article on an exhibition of "Giant Depression-Era Pools That Cool New York" at Central Park's Arsenal. These pools are the product of Robert Moses' urban planning concepts, as well as his background as a competition swimmer. Of the eleven Olympic-size pools featured in the exhibition, supposedly Astoria Pool was his favorite, as " It has been said that Moses intended it to be the grandest of the new pools because it had the best view of the Triborough Bridge, which was completed in the same year." Astoria Pool in 1936, with Hell Gate Bridge The slide show accompanying the Times article shows the above view of Astoria Pool, as well as other vintage and contemporary images from it and other pools. The biggest change between the then and now conditions is the growth of the landscape, somewhat helping to temper the enormous size of the pools, built in keeping with the enormous size and grand thinking of the bridges and ot...

Concrete and Water Building in Cerro Blanco, Chile by Philippe Blanc C. Text and images are courtesy architect Philippe Blanc for his design of the Concrete and Water Building in Planta Cerro Blanco, Chile. Click on images at left for larger views. The program consists of a building for the bathrooms (showers, lockers and toilets) for the workers of Polpaico at the extraction plant at Cerro Blanco. The project is to be a place of water and vapor, which leaves the body in a fragile state, a physical fragility (as compared to the clothing-armour which they don there, such as helmet, security shoes, goggles, ear protection, etc.) a thermal fragility (a narrow comfort zone due to nakedness) and a spatial fragility (solitary places- showers, toilets- and community places-lockers and wash basins). ...