A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Leftover Rightunder: Finding Architectural Potential in Found Materials by Wes Janz, published by Half Letter Press, 2013. Paperback, 96 pages. ( Amazon ) I've often written that small things don't necessarily equate with small impacts, be it buildings or other projects. It's the ideas embedded within a design that are important, not necessarily their physical size or visibility. The work of Wes Janz certainly fits within this statement, given his predilection for small projects (heck, his studio is even called onesmallproject ), as well as the fact Leftover Rightunder is a compact expression of his various studies, installations and buildings that are focused on "finding architectural potential in found materials." [Green Springs | Photo: Wes Janz] Flipping through the book is like rummaging through the mind of Janz, a professor at Ball State University in Indiana. The book starts with the "leftover lexicon," a collection of terms (some of th...

Built By Women New York City The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation received grants from the New York Building Foundation and the New York Council for the Humanities to identify 100 outstanding structures and built environments, either contemporary or historic, designed and/or constructed by women in New York City. You are invited to nominate a woman or yourself using the following criteria: The structure or built environment must have a woman who was directly responsible for leading the design (architecture, engineering, or landscape) or who led the construction, either from the development or construction management team. Nominations are open until October 2014. Breaking New Ground Breaking New Ground is an international design and ideas competition addressing the urgent affordable housing needs of farmworker and service worker families in the Coachella Valley. Efforts to improve living conditions suffer from a lack of funding and coordination. The competition seeks t...

Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities edited by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, Urban-Think Tank Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, ETH Zürich; photographs by Iwan Baan; published by  Lars Müller Publishers , 2013. Hardcover, 416 pages. ( Amazon ) Think of "informal housing" and most likely the slums of cities like Mumbai, Lagos, Rio and Caracas come to mind. Built from corrugated metal, CMUs, plastic and other readily available materials, these informal settlements share a condensed, horizontal orientation, following the land they are built upon. But think of vertical versions of the same and only two places come to mind, at least to me: Kowloon Walled City and Torre David in Hong Kong and Caracas, respectively. Each construction arose from particular conditions of place and time: KWC evolved over about a century by its occupants, thanks to it being located in an in-between zone separate from Chinese and Hong Kong rule; and the unfinished Torre Dav...

Here are a couple projects in Poland photographed by Maciek Lulko . Brama Poznania ICHOT ("Poznan Gate" Interactive center of Cathedral Island, 2014) in Poznań by Ad Artis Architects : Zespół Szkolno-Przedszkolny nr 12 (School and kindergarden nr 12, 2009) in Wroclaw by Biuro Projektów R2 Rubik Lesław: To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

Here are some photos of the Market Hall and Central Squares (2012) in Ghent, Belgium, by Robbrecht & Daem , photographed by Maurice Tjon a Tham . Previously the building was featured as Today's archidose #664 . To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just: :: Join and add photos to the  archidose pool , and/or :: Tag your photos  archidose

There's the Midwestern "Windy City," "City of Big Shoulders," "Second City," etc.: [Photo by John Hill] And then there's the "Mideastern" Chicago, an urban warfare training site for the IDF in the Negev desert: [ Chicago #2 , Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, 2005 | Photo source ] The Midwestern Chicago's name is "derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa , translated as 'wild onion' or 'wild garlic'," according to Wikipedia . In the 17th century the area that would become Chicago was referred to as "Checagou" and "Chicagoua," but by the 1833 incorporation of the city it took on its familiar spelling. The Middle East Chicago, on the other hand, "[invokes] the bullet-ridden myth of the American city," according to Eyal Weizman in his fascinating, must-read book Hollow City: Israel's Architecture of Occupation (Verso, 2007). The fake cit...

The New York Post published a couple pieces over the weekend that openly criticize projects dedigned by famous architects. First is an editorial on the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC, designed by Frank Gehry. The yet-to-be-built project has been mired in approvals and budget cuts, and hampered by some neotraditional opposition with the Eisenhowitr family on its side. But for the Post the Memorial is marked by "a design process flawed from the outset," leading to a design that "ignores Ike’s achievements as both general and president," and ultimately "obscure[s] rather than enhance[s Ike's] historic achievements." More premature criticism (before the project is completed) comes from Steve Cuozzo, in an opinion piece where he blasts Santiago Calatrava's Transportation Hub under construction (my photo is from Friday) at the World Trade Center as a "4 billion boondoggle, ... a hideous waste of public money." More than the admittedly bl...