A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

On Wednesday evening I attended a party at Vitra celebrating the publication of a long overdue monograph on architect Jean Tschumi, written by Jacques Gubler and published by Skira . Jean Tschumi: Architecture at Full Scale documents the brief career of the Swiss architect who eschewed his Beaux Arts training in favor of "the polemical field of modernity and its technological expression." In the US, the name Tschumi is more well known prefaced by Bernard , rather than Jean, who died in 1962 at the age of 57, when his son was only 18 years old. His early death may have cut his architectural career short, but the quality of the architecture that he produced is evidenced in the pages of this monograph and in the Archizoom exhibition last year, curated also by Gubler. I'm especially taken by the image on the party invitation of the Aula de Cèdres , a conference center and auditorium at HEP Lausanne: On Wednesday Gubler spoke of Tschumi's architecture relative to color (...

Here are a couple recent buildings in London photographed by z.z . [10 Hills Place by by Amanda Levete Architects , 2009] [Reiss HQ by Squire and Partners , 2008] 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 was speaking with my publisher about the impact of digital technology on good-old-fashioned books, after which I saw the Sentient City exhibition. Needless to say I was feeling awash in the technology that is changing the way we absorb information, interact with each other, and encounter the city. So I felt a tinge of sentimentality when I came across The Hand of the Architect , a "limited edition Moleskine book filled with [378] drawings from 110 internationally renowned architects." Flipping through the pages, for a few moments the rush of the digital (if only in my head) gave way to a calm and slowness that hand drawings seem to embody.   [ The Hand of the Architect | image source ]   Of course hand sketches in their various media (graphite, ink, wash, crayon, marker, etc.) are good for much more than perspective in today's get-carried-away-with-technology world. They convey thoughts and ideas in particular ways that are much freer than any digital c...

IMG_0996 , originally uploaded by jim_malone . Guerrero Street Mixed-Use Development in San Francisco, California by Kennerly Architecture & Planning . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Since world-architects.com is the media partner for the Storefront for Art and Architecture and Pike Loop (featured previously ) I was able to get a sneak peek last night at the completed installation, snapping the photos below. Tonight at 7pm is the inauguration of Pike Loop , which will be in place at Pike Street between Division Street and East Broadway until the middle of January, 2010. The exhibition on the installation's architects, Gramazio & Kohler , is on display at the Storefront until November 14, 2009. [Pike Loop installation | photo by archidose] [Pike Loop installation | photo by archidose] [Pike Loop installation | photo by archidose] [Pike Loop installation | photo by archidose] [Pike Loop installation | photo by archidose] [Pike Loop installation | photo by archidose] [Pike Loop installation | photo by archidose]

Subnature: Architecture's Other Environments by David Gissen, published by  Princeton Architectural Press , 2009. Paperback, 224 pages. ( Amazon ) The incorporation of sustainable principles into architectural production in the last decade or two appears to bode well for not only the profession but the world at large. But a close look at what these principles are -- in most cases geared around LEED credits -- and what they say about our relationship to nature points to an incomplete, and therefore unsubstantial, picture. Mainly I'm referring to the view of nature as a resource for our use, be it the sun, the wind, the soil, and the deposits within the earth. Other viewpoints and attitudes are necessary to provide a more sol...

Grid House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Moto Designshop For the design of a townhouse on Pine Street in Philadelphia, Moto Designshop created an animated facade -- "deployable according to prevailing functional requirements" -- that hints at the innovation within. Behind the wood facades lies a composition of interior and exterior spaces that combine to bring daylight, air, and landscape to the inhabitants. That some of these spaces can be shifted is at the heart of the house's innovation. Behind the ground floor's wood facade is at some times a parking space, at other times a small garden. In the latter condition, a two-story space is created, and when the wood facade is slid to the side the house is primarily open, the antithesis of its masonry neighbors. What enables this openness is a 2-t...

Here are a number of prefab residential projects in Minnesota (unless noted otherwise) by Hive Modular . Check out their PDF catalog (10mb) for more information on the different lines. All photographs are by HiveModular . [B Line Medium 001 in Minneapolis | Flickr project set ] [B Line Medium 002 in St. Paul | Flickr project set ] [B Line Medium 003 in Minneapolis | Flickr project set ] [B-Line Small 002 in Minneapolis | Flickr project set ] [X-Line 001 in New Brighton | Flickr project set ] [X-Line 002 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin | Flickr project set ] [X-Line 002 in Vadnais Heights | Flickr project set ] To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Dear readers, Almost exactly three years ago I was having problems sending out update notices for my weekly page , related to my move to NYC and ISP incompatibility. The solution I went with, NotifyList, has turned out to be far from ideal, as now I'm hearing more and more from many of you that updates are not being received, even though I'm sending them. After repeatedly contacting NotifyList with the problem and getting nowhere, I've decided it's time to find another way to deliver my weekly subscriptions, though at the moment I'm not sure what that is. In the meantime I'm going to suspend new subscriptions via NotifyList, though I'll continue to send them out, hoping they still reach a few people. People interested in e-mail subscriptions to my daily and weekly pages can sign up via Feedburner on the sidebar at right. Hopefully I'll find a solution and migrate the current list of subscribers before the end of the year. Please bear with me as I figure...

Back in undergraduate architecture school, for a studio in which we were given liberty over the site of a US Embassy, I chose London and buried the building underground, linking it directly to the nearby subway. The excavated building was an extreme form of security, but it also acknowledged the importance and convenience of the London Underground. With that old project of mine in mind, I was pleasantly surprised to learn about Wasted, a project curated by Arts Co that was part of this year's London Design Festival and was located in the tunnel connecting the Underground to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). [photo courtesy Ian Douglas-Jones] Architect Ian Douglas-Jones and designer Ben Rousseau lined the tunnel with the foil-lined paper sacks that carry tea to Britain from other countries, such as Argentina. As the architect explains, "Wasted showcases the throw away by-product of our penchant for tea, recomposed along with other disposables to form an immersive an...

Just received word about the Institute for Urban Design 's upcoming symposium, Arrested Development: Do Megaprojects Have a Future? The free day-long event will be held at Cooper Union 's Great Hall on November 7, 2009, starting at 9:30am. Schedule is below. Saturday, November 7th, 2009 The Great Hall, The Cooper Union Free admission 9:30 am Welcome: Olympia Kazi , Executive Director, Institute for Urban Design Opening Remarks: Anthony Vidler , Dean, The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, The Cooper Union 10:00 am – 11:30 am MEGAPROJECTS IN SUBURBS Lawrence Levy , Executive Director, National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University David Manfredi , Principal, Elkus Manfredi Architects Myron Orfield , Professor of Law; Executive Director, Institute on Race & Poverty, University of Minnesota Tom Suozzi , Nassau County Executive (TBC) Moderator : June Williamson , Associate Professor, Spitzer School of Architecture, The City College of New York / CUNY 11:30 ...

Traveling for a few days, so posts will resume in the middle of the week.

Galeria Adriana Varejão / Inhotim, Brumadinho, MG , originally uploaded by pedro kok . The Galeria Adriana Varejão in Inhotim, Brumadinho, Brazil by Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez, Fernando Falcon and Eduardo Chalabi, 2008. Visit Dezeen for information on the building. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Like many architects, this year has been quite a doosey for me, up and down...and down. Thankfully things are up this autumn. After dozens of resumes sent in response to job ads went unanswered the first half of the year, I decided to see if my previously extra-curricular activities (my web pages ) could somehow lead to opportunities related to architecture but outside architectural production. This experiment of sorts yielded some freelance writing gigs, which continue to this day, but a couple recent developments are more exciting, announced in some detail below. Near the end of summer I started as the Representative for american-architects.com , part of the world-architects.com platform that features profiles of selected archtitects. The U.S. sites also include newyork-architects.com and california-architects.com , the two areas that predominate in the sum total of the American profiles of architects, landscape architects, engineers and photographers. As well, the agenda and job p...

Here are a handful of shots of the Simcoe Wavedeck , part of the "first phase of implementation of a strategic masterplan for the Toronto Central Waterfront prepared by West 8 + DTAH ." Photographs are by picturenarrative . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose