A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

The Endless City (2008) edited by Richard Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, published by  Phaidon . Hardcover, 512 pages. ( Amazon ) The stats on the cover of Phaidon's recent tome to expanding global urbanism paint a picture of what many people know but what many people don't want to believe: the world is primarily urban and it's becoming more so every day, from 10% in 1900 to 50% last year. The next 40 years will supposedly see this situation grow to 3/4 of humans living in cities. Buried within these statistics are the environmental, social, and economic problems that are increasingly defining life for many in the 21st century: destruction, isolation, and inequality, respectively (to name but a few). While this book does not have the answers to these and other difficult challenges, it does a great job of describing various cities around the world as we enter the time of the majority of humans being urban dwellers. The book arose from a series of Urban Age conferences -- ...

Claude Watson School for the Performing Arts , originally uploaded by Scott Norsworthy . Claude Watson School for the Arts in Toronto, Ontario by Kohn Shnier Architects . The school was featured previously on my weekly page. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Back in 2000, then New York Gov. George E. Pataki " proposed building one of the first museums in the country to be devoted to women's history." The following year's competition for the Battery Park City site was won by Smith-Miller Hawkinson , but what interests me here is Weiss/Manfredi 's runner-up design. [Museum of Women's History | scan source ] Coming across the design in an issue of future devoted to New York City competitions, I was immediately reminded of this week's dose , Weiss/Manfredi's competition-winning design for the Barnard College Nexus now under construction. [Barnard College Nexus | image source ] Note each design's section, which incorporates what the architects call (in the Nexus) a slipped atria. What interests me, as a practicing architect, is not so much the design of the slipped atria (which I do like) but the way the architects found a way to utilize the concept in a later project, after it failed to come to fruition ...

_MG_1383-Edit , originally uploaded by Peter Guthrie . Cremorne Riverside Centre in London, England by Sarah Wigglesworth Architects (2007). To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Baha'i Lotus Temple, Delhi , originally uploaded by fabian-f . The Bahá'í House of Worship (aka the Lotus Temple) in Dehli, India by Fariborz Sahba (1986). To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Surface/Subsurface by Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, published by  Princeton Architectural Press , 2008. ( Amazon ) New York-based architects Weiss/Manfredi are defined by the Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism description, one that could be said to be embraced by many architects today, by many who see these other realms as part of the architect's purview. It's a tricky notion, where one hopes that the apparent incorporation of landscape goes beyond green roofs, and that urbanism is more than just bigness. Each of these are not only separate disciplines with practitioners, professors and unique viewpoints and working relationships, but they are complex concepts that imply natural and social processes, respectively. That be...

Barnard College Nexus in Manhattan, New York by Weiss/Manfredi Barnard College , "The Liberal Arts College for Women in New York City" is located in Manhattan's Morningside Heights neighborhood, directly across Broadway from Columbia University's much larger campus. While part of the University's system of four undergraduate schools, by virtues of its inner-workings and having its own campus, the College has its own unique identity, surely to be strengthened by the Nexus , a 110,000-sf (10,200-sm) mixed-use building that "will serve as both a center of student life and activity and a home to several of the College’s showcase programs, including art, architecture, and performance." Designed by New York-based Weiss/Manfredi...

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution  by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, published by Back Bay Books, 2000. Paperback, 416 pages. ( Amazon ) Ten Shades of Green: Architecture and the Natural World  by Peter Buchanan, published by  W. W. Norton , 2005. Paperback, 128 pages. ( Amazon ) One look at magazines, newspaper or television, or a listen to the radio and it's clear that sustainability has taken hold of most aspects of life, from architecture and automobiles to light bulbs and other consumer choices. After Al Gore's film on climate change, the growing acknowledgment of the phenomenon, and rising oil and gas prices, the acceptance of sustainability as a potential means of reversing the negative impacts of widespread modernization has made it the buzz word all over the country, if not beyond its borders. Given that sustainability is being used predominantly by companies to sell more products (not less or none, as ...

Here's some inspiration culled from radio and television, for your Memorial Day Weekend enjoyment. This weekend's Studio 360 includes a piece on architect Danny Sagan, who was inspired to become an architect after attending a Mission of Burma concert in the late 70's. Last week's CBS Sunday Morning was its yearly "On Design" episode. Broadcast from Berlin, it featured a number of that city's recent buildings and monuments, such as Potsdamer Platz, The Reichstag, and the Holocaust Memorial. Much of the episode focused on technological advancements ("smart" houses, LEDs, swimsuits), but the traditional (umbrellas, ant colonies) was also represented. Most relevant to this web page was a piece on David Hertz , an architect in Santa Monica, California with celebrity clients helping him to advance the so-called "eco-luxury" movement. While unfortunately I can't find any media clips of this story, his design for the 747 Wing House is a ...

National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2008 11 Most Endangered Places -- aimed at increasing exposure to particular areas and preservation in general -- includes the usual variety of buildings, "natural" features, and neighborhoods. Of the last, one each are in my current and previous homes, New York and Chicago. The Lower East Side is characterized as New York City's "first home for waves of immigrants since the 18th century...[as] new hotels and condominium towers are being erected across the area, looming large over the original tenement streetscape." Most notably among these are Blue and THOR . But as can be seen in the snippet below (top image), less effort is being put into the design of buildings that continue to puncture the five-story "ceiling" of the area bound by Houston, the Bowery, and the East River. The Trust's description naturally focuses on demolition and the architectural character of the place. While they do briefl...

Medieval and Modern , originally uploaded by richardr . View of Selfridges in Birmingham, England by Future Systems (2003), with St. Martin's in the distance. Reminds me of a book cover... To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Today's archidose has gone pink. Installation as part of " Richard Rogers + Architects - From the House to the City" exhibition at the Design Museum in London. Photo by Iqbal Aalam . An installation by Claude Cormier Architectes Paysagistes in the north lobby of the Palais des Congrès in Montreal. Photo by Scott Norsworthy . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Biblioteca Parque Espana in Medellín, Colombia by Giancarlo Mazzanti Photographs are by Sergio Gomez. Sitting on a highly prominent location overlooking the city of Medellín, Columbia in the Santo Domingo neighborhood is the Biblioteca Parque Espana, designed by Giancarlo Mazzanti. The unique, rock-like form of the building -- split into three volumes but connected below-grade -- runs counter to one's notion of iconographic architecture today: in its formation it tries to look natural, instead of standing opposed to nature. The faceted volumes are clad in a dark stone whose subtle gradation and apparently dry stacking give the simulation of monolithic landforms. Of course the reality could not be further from this distant evocation. The small diagonal grids of windows -- especially when reflecting sunlight -- hint at the spaces behind what is actually a thin skin. Once inside, one realizes that these windows relate little to the different spaces (auditorium in one volume, s...

Last summer I passed along a cover story in AM New York about a "McMansion under construction in the historic Broadway-Flushing/Murray Hill neighborhood of Queens [that] pitted neighbors versus John Hsu," who was building a house in a style at odds with his neighbors. An article in this week's New York Magazine recounts how "the local homeowners’ association picketed his site [and] The Department of Buildings audited his plans twice, delaying construction eight months." Last summer all we could see was a concrete frame. Now we see that Hsu, with architects Grzywinski+Pons built just what he wanted: a tasteful Modern house that responds to its context but doesn't imitate it. [Article in New York Magazine | Click image for larger view] Now that the house is done, neighborhood reaction is mixed, as is to be expected in matters of taste. Hsu draws the line for and against in terms of age, the former being younger than the latter. Certainly an oversim...

"Verb > You argue in your essay [on Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, in this issue of Verb ] that architects have had little to say about Fresh Kills. Why do you think this has been the case? May > ...little of substance to say, likely because the more you unpack a place like Fresh Kills, the more difficult it becomes to later repackage it in glossy optimism. No matter how sexy and natural it may appear in the various digital renderings, or how compelling its supposed rebirth may sound in the official statements , it is an absolutely horrible place, and it reveals horrible realities about our Modern American Lifestyles -- realities that are only growing more pronounced. The fact of the matter is that these realities are not easily overlooked. It takes effort to ignore them. Unfortunately, all too often architects play a central role in this effort. Why do you think architectural competitions are held? Glance beneath nearly every major architectural competition and y...

The idea of a "folding facade" is not entirely new. Shuttered exteriors have traditionally been used in various locales for protection from the elements, from New Orleans to New England in the United States, and in most other parts of the globe. What separates the newfound use of a folding perimeter to the traditional use is extent and purpose. [Carabanchel Housing | photo by Francisco Andeyro Garcia and Alejandro Garcia Gonzalez] The Carabanchel Housing in Madrid, Spain by Foreign Office Architects strongly illustrates how the 20th-century shift to frame structures has made folding screens encompass the whole facade, as opposed to covering punched openings in load-bearing walls. This enables the character of the facade to be seen as ever-changing, as each occupant modifies their space to suit. [Carabanchel Housing | photo by Francisco Andeyro Garcia and Alejandro Garcia Gonzalez] In this design the folding facade is created from small bamboo rods in a metal frame. T...

PartiWall 250 , originally uploaded by ehoweler . Eric Howeler , a member of the Young Architect's Boston Group, has posted photos of the installation of the "Parti Wall, Hanging Green," featured previously on this page.

After (top, 2008) and before (bottom, 1966) photographs, taken by Iqbal Aalam , of St. Catherine's College, Oxford by Arne Jacobsen (1962). To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose