Today is an important day in Architecture. Groundbreaking French architect, Jean Nouvel, has won the Pritzker Prize. The prize, awarded annually to a living architect by a jury, is chosen by the Hyatt Foundation. Every single one of Nouvel’s buildings is unique. He is not recognized by a particular style, but by the innovation he brings to each project. In an article by New York Times he states, “Every time I try to find what I call the missing piece of the puzzle, the right building in the right place,” Having said that, he does not design buildings merely resemble the surroundings. “Generally, when you say context, people think you want to copy the buildings around, but often context is contrast,” he said.“The wind, the color of the sky, the trees around — the building is not done only to be the most beautiful,” he said. “It’s done to give advantage to the surroundings. It’s a dialogue.”
du Monde Arabe/Arab World Institute, interior
Abu Dhabi - Abu Dhabi, UAE
du quai Branly/Quai Branley Museum - Paris, France
La Philharmonie de Paris
Images: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/31/jean-nouvel-named-2008-pritzker-architecture-laureate/
and kwc.org/…/la_philharmonie_
I sometimes wonder whether we Americans can move beyond the mass produced, big box everything; homes, stores, SUVs; and whether we can think of value as something other than low cost.
And then, WOW! I see something so exciting, so authentic, that I realize some are thinking broadly and critically; collaborating and innovating to bring about authentic design which benefits people and the environment. The California Academy of Sciences,
According to executive Director, Greg Farrington, the Renzo Piano designed (see the BCAM blog), 2.5 acre, 400,000 square foot, $484-million museum is about “human survival and living in harmony on planet Earth.” The Museum includes a natural history museum, planetarium, rainforest with free-flying birds, a coral reef inhabited by 4,000 fish, and a salt water aquarium pumped from the
It’s most likely the largest public building ever to qualify for the ‘platinum’ LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) rating; the highest honor in green construction. The sustainable features marries architecture with the green space of
the living roof - the largest plot of native vegetation in San Fransico, the roof is planted with nine local species, absorbing 98 percent of rainwater, making irrigation unnecessary. The roof is tiled with 50,000 biodegradable trays made from coconut husks.
retractable roof –a retractable mylar rain screen opens the central plaza between the planetarium and the rainforest.
lighting – natural light reaches 90 percent of the exhibition space, minimizing the need for electricity. the walls and skylights are made from high-performance glass which reflects most of the heat, and roof top solar panels supply up to 10 percent of museum electricity needs.
materials – reuse and by-products are key. insulation is recycled blue jeans, the concrete contains 30 percent fly-ash (a by-product of coal plants), and the structural steel is from recycled sources.
park-n-plug – a recharging station is available for visitors and employees driving electric and plug in vehicles.
Design innovation that brings about harmonious living on Planet Earth is REAL VALUE!
The Museum, a collaboration between Piano and San Francisco-based Chong Partners Architects, expects to open the Autumn of 2008.
I am so tired of wearing my black coat! I am ready for a change of season and the Spring 08 collection from Junko Shimada is just what I’m looking for. The bold floral prints and intricate embroidery combined with the colors of spring is a beautiful, feminine mix. I especially love the detail on the shoes. It looks as though the models are walking in a bed of flowers with every step down the runway.
Photos: http://www.ohjoy.blogs.com/
Serero, a group of Paris-based Architects have won an open competition to redesign the Eiffel Tower’s public reception and access areas. In honor of the Eiffel Tower’s 120th Anniversary, Serero’s proposes a temporary addition to extend the top floor without any modification to the existing structure. It will expand the usable floor area from 280m2 to 580m2. Paris loves to celebrate their monument with these exciting temporary exhibits. I was there just before Y2K and there was a digital display mounted to the face that counted down the days until midnight on the eve of the year 2000.
Since the 1889 Expo in Paris when Gustave Eiffel unvieled it, the amount of visitors escalating to tht top has reached it’s limit capaicy of 6.5 million. People often wait in lines up to 1 1/2 hours to reach the elevators. And because floor area at each level decreases, the crowd management becomes a problem. The new observation deck hopes to solve this problem with an elegant solution.
http://www.serero.com/index_en.htm
Industrial Design, and by extension the Industrial Designer, makes life more interesting. Marrying creativity with technology, Industrial Designers create a vast number of consumer, commercial, and industry products.
ID is responsible for new product development; developing aesthetically appealing, user friendly objects. The profession views the world of buyers and users with both wide and focused lens; looking beyond current product use to design the next generation of goods, and sharply analyzing user experience for product improvement.
In short, Industrial Design and Designers are concerned with developing products we simply must own or use.
Emory Krall, a Philadelphia Industrial Designer, demonstrates the breadth of product development in which ID is involved. An award winning designer, Krall’s works have been featured in publications and exhibitions such as Avant-Garde Industrial, a 2005
His ‘everyday’ consumer products demonstrate the brilliance of simplicity.
Krall’s rug-vase puts flowers at our feet, transporting us to a more peaceful place. According to Krall, flowers, in their natural setting are not centerpieces, they don’t pop out of ornate vessels, or sit on surfaces three feet above the ground.
His design diversity also provides complex products for the medical sector. Krall’s projects supply the neuroscience community with fiber-optic computer input devices, used primarily for fMRI based studies.
For an industry known in the
RugVase
Mile High Kit: erotic travel kits for discrete sexuality
for couples & individuals.
Mozzi: real-world gaming robot
(source: quesited.com)
Peter Gluck, of Peter L. Gluck and Partners, is challenging the design and construction industries. He’s speaking out about design project process and delivery difficulties. And, he’s developed a model which empowers architects and demonstrates they can design and construct innovative and aesthetically interesting buildings at lower cost.
I became aware of his model while attending a business event at the Yale Club in Manhattan. On the cover of the Club’s newsletter was a photo of Gluck and a brief description of his lecture. The synopsis included a disturbing statistic: economists estimate a loss of as much as $120 billion per year due to inefficiencies in construction process and projects. I wrote him requesting the source of the stat and info on his model.
He directed me to the book Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets written by real estate, design, and construction attorney Barry LePatner. LePatner states the outmoded manner in which the construction industry operates is costing Americans billions; saving 10 percent in the $1.2 trillion construction industry puts $120 billion back into the economy. According to LePatner, the market for construction services is broken. Gluck apparently agrees and is taking his firm’s success story on the road to encourage other architects and property owners to adopt his model. I attended another of his presentations a few weeks later at City College in
Don’t confuse Gluck’s design and construction process with design-build. Gluck pares down the design process; drawings are less complex to ensure the artisans and trades people he hires can translate them to realistic project costs; making contingencies unnecessary and minimizing change orders and delays. When possible, the design team builds a full scale mock up to ensure the project is achievable and compliments its environment, a common practice in
Gluck’s business model dictates his architects fill the roles of design, project, and construction managers and are on-site and hands-on every day. On multiple occasions, on-site designers were readily able to remedy construction difficulties with innovative solutions and instrumentation; something that otherwise would result in delayed projects and increased costs.
Overall, the model places responsibility for project success squarely on the relationship between architect and client. Gluck advocates the empowered architect take control of the process; resulting in quality buildings on time and on budget.
The Little Ajax Affordable Housing Project: A 14 unit Aspen, CO project.
Gluck & Partners acted as architect, contractor, and developer.
(source: aiany.org)
If you’re tired of staying at the Holiday Inn, check out a new concept in hotels called, Galactic Suite, which is slated to open in space in 2012! Galactic Suite’s Barcelona-based architects say guests would pay $4 million each for a three-day stay aboard the orbital equivalent of a three-bedroom boutique hotel.
Before the flight, guests would get eight weeks of intensive training at a space camp on a tropical island. Then the tourists would ride an private shuttle into orbit. This may not be for fashionista’s as the Hotel guests use Velcro suits to crawl around their pods by sticking themselves to the walls. That may be a small price to pay to see the sun rise 15 times in one day!
The hotel’s joined-up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space. The designers say that the most difficult challenge was how to accomodate bathrooms in zero gravity.
One avid supporter of the Galactic Suite venture is Florida-based 4Frontiers Corp. , a company that cites Mars settlement as its top goal. I think Galactic Suite is following a trend,of putting hotels in orbit: Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace has already launched two inflatable prototypes for a privately built space station, and is planning to send up its first habitable module by 2012. California-based Space Island Group also has been working on a space hotel concept, but that venture has not announced a launch timetable.
