A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Eastbourne - Towner , originally uploaded by Dubris . Towner in Eastbourne, England by Rick Mathers Architects , 2008. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

"On Roosevelt Island —- located in the East River between Manhattan and Queens —- there are no garbage bags on the sidewalks and no garbage trucks. Instead, garbage is collected from its 14,000 inhabitants via a retro-futuristic system of underground tubes. A computer empties the trash chutes several times a day, whisking away the waste of the Island’s residential towers, and zooming it through underground pipes to a transfer station at one end of the island. There it is compacted, sealed into containers, and loaded on a truck to join the rest of New York City’s waste." Who knew? I didn't until a friend of mine who lives on Roosevelt Island recently told me about the system. Soon many more people will learn about the island's trash system -- and what can be learned from it towards "alternative futures for New York City's infrastructure" -- when the exhibition FAST TRASH: Roosevelt Island's Pneumatic Tubes and the Future of Cities opens at Gallery RI...

Here are some photos of the Genetic Stair by Caliper Studio , 2009. Photos are posted to flickr by Caliper Studio and are copyright Ty Cole , 2009. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose

Ten Walks/Two Talks by Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch, published by Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010. Paperback, 86 pages. ( Amazon ) Research for my guide to contemporary architecture in New York City includes the fairly obvious reading of other architecture guides, be it NYC or some other city. But of course these sort of guides offer an incomplete view of the city, so my research extends to other takes on the city in print form. Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch's short book focused on Manhattan is as far removed from architecture guides as can be, but it helps instill what is too frequently missing from books on buildings: the experience of the city. The book, as is immediately apparent, takes the form of ten walks and two talks, "updates [on] the meandering and meditative form of Bashō 's travel diaries ... a descriptive/dialogic fugue." Fitch pens the ten walks and the two authors' interaction becomes the two talks. For me the ten walks stood out for their stream-of-con...

SOM: Architecture of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (five volumes) The Monacelli Press , 2009 Hardcover, 224-288 pages   1950-1962 , Introduction by Henry Russell-Hitchcock; 1963-1973 , Introduction by Arthur Drexler; 1973-1983 , Introduction by Albert Bush-Brown; 1984-1996 , Introduction by Detlef Martins; 1997-2008 , Introduction by Kenneth Frampton. If any architecture firm deserves the simultaneous publication of five monographs it is Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). Founded in 1936, SOM is the ultimate corporate architecture office, known for its emphasis on organization which enables the huge multi-city firm to achieve projects that only other firms can imagine. These monographs (the first three were previously published) tackle the firm's large oeuvre, presenting a fraction of their b...

These three projects accompany my review of SOM: Architecture of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill , published by Monacelli Press. Photographs of St. Alban's School are by Robert Polidori. The 100-year-old St. Alban's School in Washington, D.C. hired SOM to add 25,000 sf (2,300 sm) and renovate an additional 30,000 sf (2,800 sm) of its scenic campus on the grounds of the National Cathedral, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. The architects were inspired by Olmsted's framing of D.C. landmarks and network of garden walkways ("pilgrim paths") and envisioned the building as a series of interior and exterior passages linking the low campus with the main entrance, a difference of 60 feet (18m). Marriott Hall, as the new three-story building is known, is inserted between four buildings, linking itself with each. The primarily glass building is also clad in a blue stone that reiterates the older structures on campus. Like other SOM schools in the northeast,...

ISAR PS House - 29 DSC_0143s2 , originally uploaded by cs@sf . PS House in San Francisco, California by IwamotoScott Architecture , 2010. To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos archidose