A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Ethical Society by Remiss63 . The Ethical Society of St. Louis by Harris Armstrong. Much more information on Harris Armstrong can be found at Remiss63's own Architectural Ruminations . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

One of this year's P/A Awards (now administered by the twice-removed-from-Progressive-Architecture Architect Magazine ) is Aziza Chaouni 's Hybrid Urban Sutures : Filling in the Gaps in the Medina of Fez, Morocco. Started as a graduate thesis and furthered via independent study, the project that "analyzes the urban, architectural, and social issues affecting Middle Eastern historic districts" is an amazing piece of urban design. The project's main component is her proposal to return Al-Qarawiyin University to the medina from its current suburban location, adding public space and cultural facilities to the dense area. Chaouni picked three sites as University research centers, each acting as an anchor along the Fez River, the medina's urban spine. The analysis and proposed interventions are helped by the clarity of the graphics, here showing the three anchors, their relationships to the existing context, and their functions. One intervention is a theology...

Architecture of the Air: The Sound and Light Environments of Christopher Janney by Beth Dunlop. ( Amazon ) Christopher Janney is a man of many titles: architect, artist, musician. His creations seem to fuse these three realms into environments that reward playful participation, or, as the book says, "turns spectators into participants." This may occur via panels on a parking garage that light up part of the facade when pushed, via sounds triggered by waving a hand in front of a sensor on a subway platform, or by running around a grouping of columns to release steam. These and other public projects make up the first part of this monograph-cum-(auto)biography on Janney. The remainder of the book pres...

Tietgen Residence Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark by Lundgaard & Tranberg Photographs are by Mikael Colville-Andersen . Located directly south of Copenhagen's city center is Ørestad , a 770-acre neighborhood-in-the-making, now in the midst of rampant development. Spurred by the bridge to Sweden, an existing commuter train line, and Ørestad's geographical location at the center of the Øresund region, 20,000 residents, 20,000 students, and 80,000 people working in the area are expected within 20 years. The most developed portion is Ørestad Nord, home to two universities and the Tietgen Residence Hall by Lundgaard & Tranberg . In this northern portion of Ørestad, water is the unifying element. Two canals, one winding and one straight, hold the Tietgen in its locati...

At The Yale Center for British Art by thbonamici . The Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, CT by Louis I. Kahn. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

A comment by shannon in my last post provided a link to Graffitecture , a book and exhibition with a release party/opening today in Chicago at Hejfina . Forty Chicago-based Graffiti artists were asked to "draw directly on photographic prints of architectural spaces." The online, Flash version of the show is a well-done virtual book that gives a taste of some of the artists' responses, like this modification of the Pfanner House by Zoka Zola.

Reddish Brown Canal by Quod Libertarius [Zakka] . Tietgenkollegiet (student housing) in Ørestad , Denmark, a suburb of Copenhagen, by Lundgaard & Tranberg . More information here . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose Update 02.25: This project is also featured on my weekly page .

So far this year Archinect has posted nine features on its page, a staggering number when one also realizes that only two were posted last year by this time. Of course quantity doesn't mean much if quality is lacking, something the editors don't have to worry about, with a wide-range of what are mostly very thoughtful interviews with upstarts and lesser-known individuals, as well as one catching the Second Life bandwagon. Naturally, for a voracious reader like me the two-part feature Reading the CNY (Chinese New Year) is the best of the bunch. As much as I'd love to put together my own list here, my schedule just won't allow that sort of free time, so below I've extracted my favorite reads and ones I'd love to read, with quotes from the editor that chose it, a link to their list, and a brief comment of my own; I tried to grab one book from each editor's list but that might not have worked in all cases. In no particular order: Bow-wow from Post Bubble C...

In my inbox today landed a link to a page called The World as Flatland , with the brief description that it is the "first project of the multi-part series 'Visualizing Feedback' on the design and interpretation of statistics." Upon visiting the page it appears to show a snapshot of those viewing the page at that moment. Each time I visited there were very few visitors, as can be seen in the latest view below, a far cry from the e-mail image above. So I'm sharing the page here to spread the word and aid the flatlanders in their project. Additionally, a pull-down menu on the flatland page illustrates some statistics, such as longevity, Nobel Prize winners, and happiness. Update 02.25: Less than a week since this post, it looks like the world is filling out:

Scheepvaart Workshop in Schoten, Belgium by Loos Architects and HUB The following text and images are courtesy Loos Architects for their design (with HUB ) of a Workshop Building for Dienst Scheepvaart. The workshop building is located in a context of sculptural industrial buildings along the Albertkanaal, a canal connecting the cities of Antwerp and Luik. Our task was to design an inexpensive building that houses an extraordinary multitude of functions: a concierge apartment, an office space, a meeting room, a cafeteria, changing rooms, a wood workshop and a metal workshop, a garage and an outside storage space. In order to keep the plot free of clutter, we decided to integrate the storage zone into the volume, literally increasing the substance of the workshop building. The required fence around the plot "shrinks to fit": Instead of encircling the whole plot, it becomes a protective skin for the buildin...

Villa La Roche-Jeanneret by Le Corbusier by fotofacade . Villas La Roche-Jeanneret (1925) in Paris by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, now housing the Foundation Le Corbusier . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

About a year and a half ago I posted about a horseshoe-shaped, glass-bottom walkway that would jut into the Grand Canyon, sitting nearly a mile above the Colorado River. It was optimistically planned to open on the first day of 2006, but that obviously did not happen. An LA Times article , though, indicates that construction is underway on the Grand Canyon Skywalk , and it is set to open soon. Photo by Mark Boster / LAT The article also indicates that the Skywalk "will be the catalyst for a 9,000-acre development [on the Hualapai Indian Reservation], known as Grand Canyon West, that will open up a long-inaccessible 100-mile stretch of countryside along the canyon's South Rim. [The development] may eventually include hotels, restaurants and a golf course." The Hualapai are using the Skywalk and future developments as a means to address social problems within the group, including poverty and alcoholism. People outside the tribe are arguing that the plans will deface the G...

Bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong by loan Sameli . "Bamboo scaffolding around skyscrapers in construction in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong." To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Caplutta Sogn Benedetg by photograph er? . A chapel in Sumvitg, Switzerland by Peter Zumthor, completed in 1988. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

I've never been a fan of the Friedensreich Hundertwasser 's buildings . They're a bit too goofy and definitely the product of a painter rather than an architect (which in itself isn't a problem, but the surface treatment of the exteriors I think stems from this). His most well-known building is easily the eponymous apartment complex in Vienna he "completed" in 1986; I put quotes around completed because his buildings are never really finished. They evolve over time not only via the growth of trees and other vegetation integral with his buildings but by the occupants as well, who are allowed to paint the wall outside their unit in the Hundertwasser Haus , for example. This "strident philosophy of ecology and personal freedom," said about the late artist in a New York Times article yesterday on a posthumous winery opening in California, is something I definitely appreciate, though the execution still troubles me. Image by Alexander Deppert In a slide ...

Savages by Joe Kane. ( Amazon ) On a recent class trip to Ecuador's Oriente, we were able to visit a Huaorani settlement in the Yasuni National Park . Any ideas of seeing indigenous peoples "on their own turf" were immediately scuttled by the pervasive presence of oil production, from roads to fenced-off compounds. Across the street (a completely foreign phrase for the Huaorani before oil was discovered and drilled on their land) from the settlement, acres of rain forest was felled for even more drilling. Our meeting with the group consisted of an exchange of songs (they did war songs, we did a Christmas song and a Beatles tune) in one of their traditional, thatch-covered structures. But ...

Hotel Seeburg in Lucerne, Switzerland by Scheitlin_Syfrig + Partner The long history of Hotel Seeburg in Lucerne, Switzerland is immediately apparent: a three-story, 19th-century building and a six-story, 20th-century building sit astride the recent structure by Scheitlin_Syfrig + Partner . The Jesuit courtyard and gardens date back to the 18th century, when the estate was used as a summer retreat. In addition to the hotel's function, Lake Lucerne and the Alps unite these historical pieces, as each addresses this landscape in some way. The 2003 addition contains the hotel lobby and front desk as well as a restaurant, lounge, and meeting room. The restaurant juts towards the water's edge with a large window overlooking the lake and the mountain scenery beyond, recalling many luxury hotels that take advantag...