A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Here's a couple of buildings in Phnom Penh, Cambodia by Vann Molyvann . Photographs are by jiattison . See also New Khmer Architecture . [ Institute of Foreign Languages at the Royal University of Phnom Penh] [ Phnom Penh National Olympic Stadium ] To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

This Harvard GSD conference in a little over a month is timely and packed with a strong list of speakers, most GSD faculty, naturally. Ecological Urbanism: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future The conference will bring together design practitioners and theorists, economists, engineers, environmental scientists, politicians and public health specialists, with the goal of reaching a more robust understanding of ecological urbanism and what it might be in the future. April 3-5, 2009 Piper Auditorium, Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts Limited space—Register Now Early Bird Registration (before March 10, 2009): $100 Standard Registration (after March 10, 2009): $125 Students: $20 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Rem Koolhaas Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design, Harvard University GSD Homi Bhabha Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University (via Dexigner )

Louis Sullivan, Wainright Building, construction , originally uploaded by Remiss63 . Construction of the Wainright Building in St. Louis, Missouri by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, 1890-1891. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Alice Tully Hall , originally uploaded by archidose . Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City by Diller Scofidio + Renfro , 2009. Check out the flickr set for 25 more photos of the exterior and lobby. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

GSD 08 Platform: A Year of Research Through Studio Work, Theses, Exhibitions, and Conferences at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design , edited by Lluís Ortega and Michael Kubo, published by  Actar , 2008. Hardcover, 241 pages. ( Amazon ) In terms of books, the output of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is more prolific than just about any school of architecture. In addition to Rem Koolhaas's Project on the City output and the CASE series , books stemming from studio work are numerous. On my weekly page I've reviewed Function of Ornament , Project Zagreb -- both beginning life as studios at GSD -- and a couple readers from the school's excellent Harvard Design Magazine . Their books are marked by a depth of research that is equaled by the quality of the graphic output, be it diagrams, architectural drawings or renderings. Where other schools would not even think of aiming for a book before a class starts, in many cases that is the go...

The Public Chance: New Urban Landscapes by Aurora Fernandez Per and Javier Arpa, published by  a+t , 2008. Hardcover, 420 pages. ( Amazon ) After four issues of a+t's In Common Series , which focused on urban public space, the Spanish publisher follows with a large-format book analyzing 30 "urban landscapes of opportunity." Grouped into four sections (Industrial, Peripheral, Infrastructure, Waterfront), the projects exhibit this characteristic of taking advantage of the given conditions, be it from the use of a roof over a library for public space or linking once separated urban areas. The variety of the projects presented (most in Europe, but reaching from North America to Asia and Australia) is structured within a+t's usual consistent, comparative graphics. It's an image-rich collection that goes beyond design to enable the reader to think about the urban conditions of the 21st century. After illustrating the grouping of ...

Marsupial Bridge, Urban Plaza, and Bus Shelter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by La Dallman Architects Driving over the Milwaukee River on the Holton Viaduct, one might not realize the something special that sits underneath the all-too-typical road surface. Suspended from and woven within the viaduct's structure is the Marsupial Pedestrian Bridge , connecting the Brady Street and Beer Line B neighborhoods to the east and west, respectively. Designed by Milwaukee's own La Dallman Architects , area improvements also include an Urban Plaza beneath the viaduct and the Brady Street Bus Shelter by the same architects. As urban design the pedestrian bridge comes across as the most important of the three elements, as it connects neighborhoods to the west of the river with the downtown and the lakefront. People can walk or bike across the bridge, with those on foot catching a bus to continue their excursion to Summerfest, for example. In this sense, the bus shelter also plays an impor...

The New Museum exhibition Urban China: Informal Cities is "a physical manifestation of the magazine Urban China which will explore notions of the informal (or vernacular) as they apply to the current urban situation in China and the United States." Located in the "fishtank" gallery at the rear of the museum's ground floor, the show is visible from the street, a reaching that is reinforced by the words that are duplicated on the glass in gray from the yellow words on the back wall. The show is in effect a layering of two-dimensional content, from the words and images on the back walls to the words on the glass; in between are issues of Urban China and PCs with a wealth of images from the magazines. Even the three-dimensional objects that sit in the gallery spaces, such as a water bucket made from a basketball, are displayed in silhouette on the wall, as if the content of the object is flattened to the display of information in one less dimension. The exhibit,...

Here's some photos of a few buildings under construction in the West Village and Meatpacking District, taken while strolling around last week. 166 Perry Street by Asymptote Architecture 166 Perry Street by Asymptote Architecture The Standard New York by Polshek Partnership Architects The Standard New York by Polshek Partnership Architects (Note the High Line in the lower left corner.) One Jackson Square by KPF ( Previously )

Click the animation below for a video at Wallpaper* of dRMM Architects ' Sliding House in Suffolk, England.

New Documents House , originally uploaded by *Croz . The Documentation and Information Center of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial in Lohheide, Germany by KSP Engel and Zimmermann , 2007. For more information on the building see iconeye . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Browsing the web to find some south of the equator projects to make up for the admittedly north-centric buildings featured on this and my weekly page, I came across Forestal, an installation at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile by Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects . [installation diagram | image source ] I could find very little information beyond the imagery, but I did discover (via eldivan) that 27,5000 sheets of office paper and 120,000 steel staples were used in the construction of the piece. [installation diagram | image source ] At first I am reminded of Tadao Ando's Gallery at the Art Institute of Chicago, a small room he designed for the display of Japanese screens. The architect inserted partial-height square columns in the middle of the space, leaving the screens to be viewed behind glass at the perimeter. The columns imply the changing aspects of moving about the screens, as one is not permitted to see the latter in such a way. [installation photo | ...

On this page I've featured imagery of installations by Arne Quinze a couple times . Here's one more. Click the image below for a 360-degree panorama of the plaza at Oberpollinger Shopping Center in Munich, where Arne Quinze's piece "The Traveller" was displayed for the opening of a new Louis Vuitton store. (Thans to Eladio for the heads up!)

The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles edited by Kazys Varnelis, published by  Actar , 2008. Hardcover, 240 pages. ( Amazon ) The outcome of four years research on the changing conditions of infrastructure in Los Angeles, this book is a fascinating excavation of the unique workings of the largest city on the West Coast, but one that illuminates conditions found elsewhere, regardless of the title's specificity. A product of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design and the Network Architecture Lab at Columbia University (where editor Kazys Varnelis was president from 2004-2006 and what he now directs, respectively), the collection of essays comes ...

Addition and Refurbishment to a House in Glenageary, Co. Dublin, Ireland by CAST Architecture The following text and images are courtesy CAST Architecture ; photographs are by Paul Tierney . The clients lived in the house for many years and intend to do so for many more. The existing house had a poor relationship to the rear garden. It did not make the most of the sunshine and light available at the rear of the house and the internal organization of the rooms did not support the day-to-day living and working life of the family. The brief also called for a home office and a ground floor sleeping room with its own fully accessible shower room. The strategy was to remove the rear wall of the house and add a new volume containing a large open-plan kitchen and family toom, the new bedroom and shower room, and a terrace above. We wished to respect the strong A-profile of the roof of the existing house and to wrap this form to the side and rear with the new rooms. The new addition wou...

SLQ, Level 4 , originally uploaded by Mnlth . The State Library of Queensland (SLQ) in Brisbane, Australia by Donovan Hill / Peddle Thorp , 2006. See also cityofsound's post on the library, plus notes on libraries in general. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

The following text and images are courtesy of New York's Office for Design & Architecture (ODA) for their adaptive reuse of a gas station into the Long Island City Bakery, a project "situated at the crossroads of the older commercial Long Island City and the newer residential Long Island City with housing developments near the East River." [photograph of existing gas station courtesy of ODA | click image for larger view] [rendering of Long Island City Bakery courtesy of ODA | click image for larger view] "The design approach is twofold. The first process involves the conversion of a gas station mechanics garage into a warm, inviting and sustainable environment. The second challenge is to evoke the idea of bakery into an architectural expression that responded to the owner’s tight budget." [rendering detail courtesy of ODA | click image for larger view] "Introducing steel channels and wooden dough rollers into the skin of the building, the exterior i...

Here's a few photos of 102 Dwellings in Carabanchel for EMV in Madrid, Spain by Dosmasuno Arquitectos . Photographs are by z.z . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose