A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

helmut jahn @ charlottenburg , originally uploaded by d.teil . Ku'Damm #70 in Berlin, Germany by Murphy & Jahn , 1994. This project is notable as much for its slender footprint (2.5m deep site) as for the design by Zaha Hadid that predated Jahn's completed building by about eight years, two years before Jahn developed his design. Compare the completed building above with a crop of Hadid's early rendering below: [original image source ] A controversial aspect of the project is that Zaha Hadid won a competition for the building, only to have it built to a similar design by another, more seasoned, architect. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

In my previous Request for Buildings (RFB) for my Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture -- to be published by W. W. Norton next year -- I asked for help from readers to determine what projects should be included in the book. One project type that I was not going to consider was rooftops. Well, I've changed my mind and will be including some rooftops in the book, in particular ones that are visible from below. Examples would be residential constructions but also institutional and other types of buildings, like this rooftop enclosure for Public School 59 on the Upper East Side by Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects : So do you know of any interesting rooftop additions/renovations completed since 2000 that are visible from the street? Ones that are particularly interesting formally but also in how they interact with their "hosts" below? If you'd like to send me a rooftop project you think is guidebook worthy, please copy and paste the informatio...

sauerbruch + hutton @ dkv cologne 2 , originally uploaded by d.teil . Cologne Oval Offices in Cologne, Germany by Sauerbruch Hutton , 2010. For those in and around New York City this Friday (April 30), Louisa Hutton will be lecturing at Cooper Union . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Wrapping up the Lower Manhattan chapter for my NYC guidebook I came across the below video at the Poets House web page. Their new home is by Louise Braverman Architect and is inside Riverhouse by Polshek Partnership Architects . Those who know me are already aware I have a hard time passing up anything with Bill Murray.

Great Public Squares: An Architect's Selection by Robert F. Gatje, published by  W. W. Norton , 2010. Hardcover, 224 pages. ( Amazon ) At a time when architecture books tend to focus on buildings, the objects that inhabit cities, it's refreshing to see a book squarely focused on public space, pardon the pun. Robert F. Gatje, a former partner of both Marcel Breuer and Richard Meier, has assembled plans, photos, stats and descriptions on forty squares, most in Europe. Inspired by Camillo Sitte and other authors of books on urban spaces, the CAD-generated plans are rendered consistently (per the cover) and at the same scale, accompanied by dimensions, areas and other data in an effort to make the book a comparative study. Lest the book get bogged down in top-down views of city plans, the photos and descriptions go a long way towards giving readers a sense of what each space is like, while also providing historical information on the mostly old spaces (the most...

, originally uploaded by The Metropolitan Museum of Art . Tomorrow sees the opening of Doug and Mike Starn 's Big Bambú installation on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art . According to the museum's web page the installation is : "a growing and changing sculpture―a vast network of 5,000 interlocking 30- and 40-foot-long fresh-cut bamboo poles, lashed together with 50 miles of nylon rope. It will continue to be constructed throughout the duration of the exhibition. The first phase of the structure―measuring about 100 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 30 feet high―will be completed by opening day, April 27. Subsequently, the artists and rock climbers will build up the eastern portion of the sculpture to an elevation of 50 feet. By summer, the western portion of the sculpture will be about 40 feet high. An internal footpath artery system will grow along with the structure, facilitating its progress. The evolving state of the work will be documented by the artists in...

Re:Crafted: Interpretations of Craft in Contemporary Architecture and Interiors by Marc Kristal, published by  Monacelli Press , 2010. Hardcover, 208 pages. ( Amazon )   Transformer: Reuse, Renewal, and Renovation in Contemporary Architecture by Sandu Publishing, published by  Gingko Press , 2010. Hardcover, 272 pages. ( Amazon ) These two books featuring collections of contemporary buildings carve their own niches to present developments in the wide-ranging realm of architecture. One focuses on craft at a time when the notion appears to have been disappeared, and the other on transformations of existing buildings, a theme found in other recent books . The first, Re:Crafted by New York-based journalist Marc Kristal, presents 25 primarily residential projects that "feel 'crafted'" in the author's words. Notions ...

Photographs are by Milosz Jaksik and Medusa Group. In Transformer , two projects by Medusa Group that reuse existing buildings are featured: the Bolko Loft in Bytom (2002) and the Granary House in Gliwice (2009). The latter is a large multi-family residential building in a five-story granary that was also previously used as a warehouse for a nearby military hospital. The impressive brick structure is listed as a monument, so any design changes required approval. Outside only two new stair/elevator towers dramatically alter the building's appearance; the architects opted for Cor-ten steel cladding over the concrete frame for a complementary appearance with the red brick. These vertical pieces signal the building's reuse and also put on display the vertical movement through large expanses of channel glass. The existing openings bring abundant light to apartments that are characterized by exposed brickwork and wood beams, as well as the occasional artifact from the bu...

Beyond no.2 - Values and Symptoms edited by Pedro Gadanho, published by SUN Architecture, 2009. Paperback, 160 pages. ( Amazon ) The second issue of Beyond , a twice-yearly "bookazine dedicated to new, experimental forms of architectural and urban writing ... in which an extended network of young and upcoming European architectural writers are given the freedom to survey the outline of themes and things to come," is built around the theme Values and Symptoms. Editor Pedro Gadanho asks, "in the face of permanent crisis, what are the symptoms and values that are leading the reshaping of cities and everyday life?" In the slim volume are fifteen responses to the theme, one of which is an excerpt from Douglas Coupland's upcoming Generation A . Its inclusion is perhaps an attempt at a wider readership but more likely an example of where these experimental forms of writing should find influence: fiction. Architecture fiction is a tiny subset of writing around ...

This is a reminder that I will be participating in a panel discussion on the "design press" tomorrow (Monday) evening. Details are below. If any readers attend please say hi! The Changing State of the Design Press: Now What? When: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM MONDAY, APRIL 26 Where: At The Center There’s no question that the platforms for architectural dialogue are in flux. While some design publications are shrinking or even disappearing, other media outlets are using technology to broaden their reach. Design critics and journalists can use web sites, blogs, e-newsletters, and other forms of communication to talk about anything, from practice to technology. The mainstream press is even increasing its design-related reportage, supported by growing interest in such topics as sustainability, innovation, and urban planning. How do we navigate our current media landscape? To prepare for what’s now and what’s next, Oculus editor Kristen Richards will moderate a...

Here are some photos of the Car Park and Terminus Hoenheim North in Strasbourg, France by Zaha Hadid , 2001. Photographs are by Numstead who shot these on a trip after getting married last summer. Belated congratulations to Nathan Umstead and his wife! To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Last night I attended a panel discussion at the Museum of the City of New York about stormwater management, held around the exhibition of winners in the Minds in the Gutter competition I posted about in January . Now I'll admit that the management of stormwater -- the runoff from roofs, backyards and streets -- is not the most exciting topic, but the panelists* did a bang-up job of putting the issue front and center in the debate about how to make New York City greener. (Hence the timing with Earth Day.) I've never been a big fan of lecture and discussion write-ups, so I'll just highlight a few key points that were made. Most of New York City's stormwater is diverted into combined sewers (combined with the water from indoor plumbing) contributing to the once-a-week CSO (combined sewer overflow) events where the water the system cannot handle is dumped into harbors. This fact alone hinders competition organizer S.W.I.M.'s goal of being able to swim in NYC's wat...

Warm Front , originally uploaded by Mr sAg . The Hive in Manchester, England by HKR Architects , 2010. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Putting together some agenda items for american-architects.com earlier, I came across the redesigned web page for AIA / Los Angeles . The layered interface is impressive for keeping a map (a terrain one, from Google Maps) of Los Angeles in the background. But it is not just for show, the map highlights relevant events geographically and by type (lecture, exhibition, conference, etc.), jumping around to highlight certain events and make the visitor aware of the map's interactivity; a click on an event stabilizes the map. Some screen shots: According to the designers, Use All Five : "We focused the new design on creating a navigation for the different types of AIA users (members, students, and people who want general information), and also put a large emphasis on the Los Angeles Architecture culture ... by building the site around mapping software, specifically the Google Map API ... [the] custom content management system ... allows the AIA Los Angeles committee to post events,...

Here are some photos of the La Grande Cour in Amsterdam, Netherlands by Meyer en Van Schooten Architecten , Heren 5 Architecten , and De Architekten Cie , 2007. Photographs are by pedro kok . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

The Function of Form by Farshid Moussavi with Daniel Lopez, Garrick Ambrose, Ben Fortunato, Ryan Ludwig and Ahmadreza Schricker, published by  Actar , 2009. Paperback, 520 pages. ( Amazon ) One of my favorite books of 2007 was The Function of Ornament by Farshid Moussavi and Michael Kubo, the result of a Harvard GSD studio. In its wonderful drawings of building facades I hope for future editions or volumes "that expand on this very promising beginning." The Function of Form can be seen as such a sequel, but where the first book focused on the affects of contemporary exterior walls this book explores structural form throughout history, in terms of tessellation, or repetition and differentiation. About three times the size of Ornament , this book is not as visually impressive, perhaps owing to the fact that most of the illustrations are abstract exercises, variations on themes. One example, at left, starts from a Miesian horizonta...

Apprentice Formation Center in Saint Maur des Fossés, France by AIR Photographs are copyright David Boureau. For the extension to the Apprentice Formation Center -- the complex of the Chambre des Métiers et de l’Artisanat du (Chamber of Trades and Crafts of) Val de Marne outside Paris -- French architects AIR (Cyrille Olivier and Hanappe Leclercq) created "an open-air sunny room, a generous public space linking the old and the new. This space is the heart of the project, brightly rendered in concrete tinted yellow. The building program consists of a new three story building with a double-height hall and plumber's workshop, classrooms, and meeting room, and the rehabilitation of the existing building's classrooms and offices, with a new cafeteria in the same. The new building is located to create the open space defined by the yellow concrete wall. Turning the corner towards the street, the yellow wrapper gives way to a zinc facade punctuated by diamond windows...

Anish Kapoor, Ascension (Red), 2009 , originally uploaded by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum . Yesterday the Guggenheim launched an online competition, Re: Contemplating the Void , to celebrate the exhibition Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum . The competition uses a flickr pool to receive submissions, meaning people will be able to see other people's designs before the May 14 deadline, a rarity in the world of art/architecture competitions. Participants are invited to be "truly creative...your dream interventions designed to capture the full potential of the Guggenheim's rotunda...need [not] be limited by any sense of reality." See my previous coverage of the Guggenheim exhibition.

vitrahaus , originally uploaded by ReallyLucky . The VitraHaus in Weil Am Rhein, Germany by Herzog & de Meuron, Germany, 2010. According to Vitra's page on the architecture of VitraHaus, " The concept of the VitraHaus connects two themes that appear repeatedly in the oeuvre of Herzog & de Meuron: the theme of the archetypal house and the theme of stacked volumes." Take a virtual architecture tour of the furniture maker's campus, which also features buildings by Tadao Ando, Nicholas Grimshaw, Zaha Hadid, and Alvaro Siza, as well as a SANAA-designed factory building under construction. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Over the weekend I picked up an iPad for work, to be used for presentations and other uses. Of course it's been hard not to play around with it, to see how it works, what it can and cannot do. It's a fun machine with a number of immediate drawbacks (limited file saving, apps instead of software, incompatibility of some web pages, to name only a few) that point to its use as a device to amend or extend traditional PCs or Macs, not as a replacement of them. For example, since I'm composing this post entirely on the iPad, I could not post the below image directly from the iPad; it was uploaded to Flickr earlier via my desktop PC. The most immediate advantages the device offer are three: remote browsing on a decent-sized screen, reading e-books, and taking advantage of the wide, wide world of apps. I'm most intrigued by the first two, as they have the greatest potential in completely changing two things I do: blogging and reading. Before the iPad I didn't take the slow ...

Here are some photos of the Webb Bridge in Melbourne, Australia by Denton Corker Marshall with artist Robert Owen, 2004. Photographs are by Wojtek Gurak . These photos make a good addendum to my recent architectural element post on structural decoration. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose