A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Lots of lectures, exhibitions and other presentations happening in New York City during the second month of 2009. Below is a list of some of those. Click the titles for prices, learning units and other information. Tuesday, February 3 Step by Step: Building Schools in Africa , lecture by Diebedo Francis Kere 6:30-8:30pm @ Columbia University , Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall Wednesday, February 4 Eco-Cities: Building Green on a City Scale , Eric Sanders will lead a discussion with Hillary Brown, Kate Orff and Ashok Raiji 6:30pm @ Museum of the City of New York , 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd St. Conflicts , lecture by Thomas Leeser 6:30-8:30pm @ Columbia University , Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall Monday, February 9 Advancing Architectural Research , debate with GSAPP Professors/ Lab Directors: David Benjamin, Living Architecture Lab; Jeffrey Inaba, C-Lab; Jeffrey Johnson, China Lab; Laura Kurgan, Spatial Information Lab; Scott Marble, Fabrication Lab; Moderated by Kazys Varnelis, Network Archit...

On the heels of 2007's opening of the administrative/visitor center at Queens Botanical Garden , the borough I call home has a string of high-profile public projects in the works, many under construction. Below are some details. [Museum of the Moving Image by Thomas Leeser | image source ] One of the borough's cultural gems is the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. An expansion designed by Leeser Architecture will double the museum's facilities, create a new entrance and courtyard, and fuse the architecture " seamlessly with the moving image. " The three-story addition at the building's rear will be clad in pale blue aluminum panels. [Museum of the Moving Image by Thomas Leeser | image source ] Work on the foundations and subsequent steel work began late last year. Neither the architect nor the client's web page indicate an opening date, though I'd guess sometime in 2010. [Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School by Polshek Part...

One of the finalists in this year's PS1 Young Architects Program (won by MOS in an announcement earlier today) is Brooklyn's Bade Stageberg Cox ( BSC Architecture) and their Summer Blow Up entry. [image by BSC Architecture | image source ] The architects "call for a renewed excitement about the joys of lightness, precision and efficiency," echoing Bucky Fuller's sentiment with "an absolute economy of physical material." Seven interconnected, inflatable torus shapes overhead make up the design, with wading pools below echoing the circular shapes. Overlapping and set at varying heights, the "clouds" allow for the requisite shade asked for by PS1. [image by BSC Architecture | image source ] One of the interesting aspects of BSC's design is how the "entire weight of Blow Up is less than 2,000lbs and can fit in the back of a pickup truck." The idea of lightness extends to the transportation of building materials, something typ...

Last year the courtyard at PS1 in Long Island City was transformed into a Public Farm . This summer, per an announcement today, it will become an amalgam of Cones, Domes and Huts. The winner's of this year's PS1 Young Architects Program is MOS , with a design titled "Afterparty." [image by MOS | image source ] Hilary Sample and Michael Merideth addressed the requirements of shade, seating and water in their design by "air cooled by the courtyard’s existing shaded concrete walls and concrete water troughs [that] will be drawn up through the chimneys by induction...creating a breeze." The architects description points to primitive architecture executed with contemporary technologies. [image by MOS | image source ] Evoking the smokestacks of the area, the design and its visibility beyond PS1's walls is very appealing. Like previous winners, the small budget ($70,000) will surely impact construction and have a big impact on the success of the final produ...

Bond - Early Design , originally uploaded by kelviin . The Bond Centre in Hong Kong by Paul Rudolph , first proposal presented to the client in March 1985. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

One of the projects nominated for a Detail Prize 2009, in the Special Prize Architecture Export category, is this Prayer and Meditation Pavilion in Soba, Sudan by Venice, Italy's Studio Tamassociati. [photo by Marcello Bonfanti | image source ] [photo by Marcello Bonfanti | image source ] While not selected as winner (FAR's popular Wall House nabbed that distinction), it's clear to see why the project was nominated in the first place, from the siting and its platonic exterior to the dramatic interior spaces. [photo by Marcello Bonfanti | image source ] The plan corroborates the images above, that the pavilion is basically two cubes, tangent to each other on one face and shifted from each other about the distance of the half of one side. Slots and a peeling away of the outer walls create access points to each cube from opposite sides, across a shallow pool. [plan and sections | image source ] Each space is topped by what look like bamboo canopies (but the award description ...

Deborah Berke by Tracy Myers, published by  Yale University Press , 2008. ( Amazon ) In Deborah Berke's first book, edited with fellow Yale professor Steven Harris in 1997, the New York-based architect explored the Architecture of the Everyday , buildings and ideas rooted in the commonplace and counter to stylish, iconic architecture that grabs headlines both then and now. In the preface to the first monograph on her practice, Berke admits that she has moved from an architecture of the everyday to an architecture of local knowledge, of the here and now. This owes less to a change in her interests than a change in the everyday, the way it has been transformed at a time marked by self-awareness, imitation and globalization. For Berke the everyday is a condition to deal with, but not a direct influence on her work. To frame these somewhat more vague notions of local...

Marianne Boesky Gallery in Manhattan, New York by Deborah Berke & Partners Architects Text and images are courtesy Deborah Berke & Partners Architects for their design of the Marianne Boesky Gallery in Manhattan; photography by Archphoto/Eduard Hueber . Located in West Chelsea, the new 10,000 square foot building for the Marianne Boesky Gallery features two floors of gallery space, art preparation, administration spaces, as well as a caretaker's apartment. The building's adjacency to the High Line, an abandoned elevated railroad that will soon become the city’s newest public greenway, mandates a setback at the second floor of the building along the shared property line. The result is the building's uniquely asymmetrical facade on the street. The exterior's glazed white brick is supplemented by materials that are at home among the old warehouses, garages, and the elevated railroad that lend the neighborhood its industrial character. However the new bui...

Here's a couple new buildings at the University of Toronto Mississauga . Photographs are by Scott Norsworthy . Communication, Culture and Technology Building by Saucier + Perrotte Architects Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Center and Library by Shore Tilbe Irwin and Partners To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Flipping through a special edition of the German magazine A&W on the 50 best single-family houses in Germany at a newsstand yesterday, this design by w67 architekten bda schulz + stoll stood out from the rest. [exterior view | image source ] What looks like a straightforward glass box is elevated well above one's head and the neighboring buildings. The lift is housed in a stone-clad volume at the front of the house; a slender column is all that otherwise supports the house at its front. [exterior view | image source ] Like a contemporary interpretation of Le Corbusier's five points , the design both lifts itself above the ground and recovers this space on the roof, where a generous terrace provides a dramatic outdoor living area. [terrace view | image source ] Situated on a steep slope in south Stuttgart, the house takes advantage of city views afforded by the site by providing additional outdoor space. [terrace view | image source ] The interior photographs illustrate that...

Metropolis Down , originally uploaded by [Zakkaliciousness] . The Metropolis apartment building in Copenhagen, Denmark by Future Systems , 2008. Last week Jan Kaplický, a founder of Future Systems, died at the age of 71. From the Future Systems web page : Jan Kaplický 1937-2009 Jan Kaplický founder and partner of our practice died on 14 January 2009 in Prague, the town where he was born in 1937. Jan was through Future Systems the founder and driving force of a new architecture that stimulated, amazed and inspired. He brought together people who shared his ideals and who were never content to remain with the status quo. In Amanda Levete he found a partner with whom he was able to realize his visionary concepts, often against prevailing attitudes, and their partnership was supported by many talented architects and designers over the years. We are stunned and deeply saddened by the loss of Jan who was a mentor, co-conspirator, critic and inspiration to all who worked with him. H...

Here's a few shots I snapped today walking past Cooper Union's New Academic Building by Morphosis under construction. The building is located between 6th and 7th Streets, catty-corner from the school's main building. The above and below shots are looking northeast across Third Avenue, the street between the old and new buildings. The below shot is the 7th Street corner, looking southeast. This is obviously the less-reserved of the building's two main corners. And finally here's a detail of the screen facade, what appears to be a perforated metal with an applique of apparently random, painted rectangles. The renderings indicate that this last is as intended, though I'm not sure if it's helping or hindering the design. One can see from the first two photos that this metal screen will continue across the Third Avenue facade (minus the scaffolded area), mounted to the cantilevered horizontal frame in the spandrel area. So basically the screen is a sculptural ...

Here's two views of the Trinity River Audubon Center in Dallas, Texas by Antoine Predock Architect and Brown Reynolds Watford Architects . Photographs are by hellothomas . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Mark No. 17 December 2008 - January 2009 Issue 17 of Mark -- a Dutch magazine subtitled "Another Architecture" -- is the first in its newly designed incarnation. Looking at an old issue of the magazine, I found the following changes: The magazine is smaller. The paper size is reduced (about 1" or 2.5cm vertically and half that horizontally) and it is slimmer, even though there are only 15 fewer pages in the newer issue. These translate to a lower cover price, which makes Mark still relatively expensive but not so expensive that one feels they could be buying a book instead. Of course part of the appeal of Mark is its graphic design, consistent and thorough enough to make one consider both old and new issues as more book than magazine...if one can ignore the ads, of course. But the page layout and graphics of issue 17 should be commended for balancing itself ...