A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

Earth Sciences Center in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada by A.J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt and Company The following text is by Jack Diamond of the Canadian firm A.J. Diamond, Donald Schmitt and Company. The accompanying images are a project for the Earth Sciences Center in Waterloo, Ontario. Unrecognized in the governance structure of Canada, in which only federal and provincial governments hold real power, is the re-emergence of the city as the predominant social and economic unit in the late 20th century. This is particularly true in Canada, where more than 80% of the population live in urban areas. Canada is as much a country of towns and cities as it is of farms and forests. The present lamentable rush of the federal government to devolve powers to the provinces is not only destructive in terms of Canadian achievements in social equity, but also highly inappropriate in an urbanized society. To extend the p...

Sport Zentrum in Davos, Switzerland by Gigon & Guyer, 1996 Gigon & Guyer are part of the growing younger generation of Swiss architects with a strong tectonic and aesthetic sense toward designing boxes. Their sport center in the Swiss Alps gives the town of Davos a cultural center that transcends its current landscape of commonplace condominiums. Their first commission in the town, an art museum, exhibited their intelligent and artistic use of glass, while this second commission focuses on wood and concrete. In each case the choice of materials is appropriate to the program. The center is made up of restaurants, offices, sports surgery, apartments for guests attending sport's workshops, and a grandstand. This last piece gives the building its most notable expression, giving depth to its facade while shading interior spaces behind it. The other elements are contained within two parallel bars that ove...

Massey Residence in Los Angeles, California by Neil Denari, 1994 Project and text by Neil Denari : This house is for a young graphic designer in Los Angeles. The house is located on a typical sized LA site: 50ft x150 ft, proportionally a triple square. It is the client's wish to explore the basic conditions of the North American Suburban Subdivision through a typical flat site and a typical program of 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. However, the house itself, though accommodating these ordinary factors, should be extraordinary. Like many smaller multi-unit apartment buildings in Los Angeles, this house has one level below ground and two above, thus disguising its size. Essentially, the house sits in an excavation with the driveway sloping down to -2.6 meters. The experience and concept of the house is about the SECTION CUT. The front and rear elevations show the roof skin and the basic ...

Casa Condesa in Mexico City, Mexico by TEN Arquitectos, 1994 This three-story house designed by Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos is located in a residential neighborhood of Mexico City, unaccustomed to such minimal architecture. Although the brute concrete facade has few openings it strongly expresses the interior's logic. The front is made up of garage doors below a concrete wall on the right and a door with vertical windows, a balcony and roof projection on the left. These two halves, opaque and transparent, tell more than a passing glance may indicate. The entrance and windows continuing above illustrate the houses main vertical circulation and, hence, its grouping of living spaces. And while the garage does lead to other service spaces, the concrete wall hints at an introverted space, attempting to screen itself from passers-by. This simple parti of ...

The Tao of Architecture by Amos Ih Tiao Chang, 1956 This is an excerpt from Amos Chang's The Tao of Architecture , words that stand up on their own and ring true today, as much as they did when written, in 1956. Chang uses Lautzu's Tao-Te-Ching as a template for a text on creating architecture, specifically intangible content's importance in architectural composition over tangible form. The illustrations are a project I completed for the 1998 James Steedman fellowship competition, sponsored by Washington University in St. Louis. The multi-use project is located on the Seine River, across from Notre Dame in Paris. The means for architectural composition is something conceivable. To achieve the end of a composition concerns personal creativity and is beyond our knowing. It seems, however, that Lautzu's thinking is also helpful in this respect. The way to learn is to assimilate. The way to know is to forget. ...

Lieutenant Petrosino Park in New York, NY by I-Beam Design, 1996 This is I-Beam Design 's (Azin Valy & Suzan Wines) submission for the Biennale di Venezia , proposed for the intersection of the Soho, Chinatown and Little Italy areas of New York city. The text is written by I-Beam Design. The proposed design creates a programmatic, cultural and spatial connection between Lt. Petrosino Park and its surroundings. A hanging garden extends from the facades of the surrounding buildings to a series of columns within the park. Neighboring residents are invited to participate directly from their windows in selecting, growing and planting the flowering vines and ivy that constitute the garden. This simple gesture provides animated patterns of light and shade at street level, and a view of the entire street through a levitating tapestry of rich greenery and brightly colored flowers from the windows above. The ...

Landesgartenschau in Weil am Rhein, Germany by Zaha Hadid, 1999 Zaha Hadid 's first major executed project, the Vitra Fire Station, brought her, and the chair manufacturer's campus, international attention. Containing structures by Frank Gehry , Alvaro Siza, Nicholas Grimshaw, and Tadao Ando , in addition to Hadid, Vitra became synonymous with cutting-edge design, even though most of the company's output is early Modernist design. The adjacent German town of Weil am Rhein took advantage of Vitra's attractions, choosing Hadid because of her formally bold fire station. Though the British architect has a recognizable style - evident in her sweeping, gestural paintings - the proposal for the Landesgartenschau (state flower exhibition) stands apart from her previous works. Hadid's fire station at Vitra is an object, sitting in a concrete ca...