A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

My lapse in the as-promised series of posts on Herzog & de Meuron's 40 Bond has not gone unnoticed by yours truly. So to wrap this thing up (hopefully with something of substance), this is the first of two more posts to end the series. Here, I'll look at the "function of graffiti," and the last will try to sum up my thoughts on the Ian Schrager condo. When I say "function of graffiti," what I mean is the purpose of the curvy, cast-aluminum screens/gates that demarcate public from private, sidewalk from townhouse, us from them, the screens whose patterns were " derived from contemporary graffiti tags, hybridized by computer." These screens veer strongly from the simple curved-glass profiles that cover the concrete frame above. While the textured metal walls tucked behind these screens strive to balance these two architectural statements, the graffiti design is so strong in its own right to make that balance next to impossible. But why is su...

A few architectural news items for New York City. :: Work Architecture wins this year's PS1 Young Architects Program, with a public farm concept. (via Archinect ) [image of Work Architecture's entry from Archinect gallery ] :: New York City's Office of Emergency Management (OEM) announced ten winners and honorable mentions for its "What if New York City..." competition that I posted about back in October. These and other submissions can be viewed in the competition gallery . :: And this short video is more PR than news, but after falling glass and broken ceramic rods, the New York Times building needs all the help in can get!

The Time Herald Record Online reports , "A hilltop home that was featured in The New York Times was destroyed last night [February 5] by a roaring, smoky fire with blue and orange flames." The house, located in Bethel in upstate New York is the VilLA NM by Dutch architects UN Studio. The house was completed just last year. [Times Herald-Record/MICHELE HASKELL | image source ] A more recent report indicates that the cause of the fire, which firefighters battled for three hours, is still unknown. Nobody was hurt in the blaze, as the owner in New York City at the time. [photograph by Christian Richters | image source ] For more images of the completed building before its untimely fate, see the New York Times slide show of the project they dubbed Astrohome, Record Houses , and noticias arquitectura . (Many thanks to Gerard Damiani for tipping me off to this news.)

ISAr Hydro-Net 13 , originally uploaded by cs@sf . IWAMOTOSCOTT 's winning entry to the History Channel's City of the Future Competition . Many more images of their entry in cs@sf's Flickr set . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Architect Chris Bosse (now: Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA)) shares these photographs of the Watercube (aka National Swimming Center) in Beijing, China by PTW / CCDI / Arup , which recently made its official opening with " The Good Luck Beijing" Open . [Watercube in the foreground with Herzog & de Meuron's " Bird's Nest " beyond | photograph by Chris Bosse ] [Watercube right and Bird's Nest left | photograph by Chris Bosse ] [Watercube at night; compare with the project rendering of the same view | photograph by Chris Bosse ] [Closer view of the ETFE facade | photograph by Chris Bosse ] [Inside the "bubbles" | photograph by Chris Bosse ] [The bright interior | photograph by Chris Bosse ] More photos are available on Chris's Flickr set (with more on the rest of Flickr ). Many thanks to Chris for sharing!

"At the time [mid-1970s], I thought of residential design as the creation of a place where people can dwell as they themselves intend. If they feel cold, they can put on an additional layer of clothing. If they feel warm, they can discard extraneous clothing. What is important is the space be, not a device for environmental control, but something definite and responsive to human life. From the point of view of the inhabitant, it may have been an anachronism -- in some respects an act of arrogance on the part of the architect. However, I stuck to my beliefs despite some friction with the client. That is perhaps the shortcoming as well as the strength of a self-educated architect. After the existing rowhouse was demolished, the site was divided into three parts. The Rowhouse in Sumiyoshi [aka Azuma House ] was then built, with the middle third of the site made into an open courtyard. No matter how advanced society becomes, institutionally or technologically, a house in which nature...

Diane Lewis: Inside-Out. Architecture New York City by Diane Lewis, published by Charta, 2006. ( Amazon ) Diane Lewis is described by Richard Meier -- whose office Lewis worked in for a few years -- in the preface to this monograph on her work as "a sort of living embodiment" of The Cooper Union , the New York City institution she graduated from in the mid-70s and has taught at for the last 25+ years. A school known for its tuition-free status more than anything, graduates from the architecture program exhibit certain traits, including a solid grasp of tectonics, strong conceptual bases for projects, excellent delineation skills, and an embrace of the poetic and the influence ...