blog wunderlust: 4th August 2014

If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.
Frend Kent

George Lucas announces architects for lakefront museum | Are the ‘Star’ Architects Ruining Cities? | Medellín made urban escalators famous, but have they had any impact? | David Adjaye interview: ‘I’m not always looking at the usual references’ | David Adjaye designs a new boutique for Couturiere Roksanda Ilincic | Never Too Young; 15 Librarian-Recommended Architecture Books for Young Children |

last word: Build communities, not just home units

[ccw-atrib-link]

blog wunderlust: 4th August 2014

If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.
Frend Kent

George Lucas announces architects for lakefront museum | Are the ‘Star’ Architects Ruining Cities? | Medellín made urban escalators famous, but have they had any impact? | David Adjaye interview: ‘I’m not always looking at the usual references’ | David Adjaye designs a new boutique for Couturiere Roksanda Ilincic | Never Too Young; 15 Librarian-Recommended Architecture Books for Young Children |

last word: Build communities, not just home units

[ccw-atrib-link]

blog wunderlust: 251th August 2014

The sun never knew how great it was until it struck the side of a building.
Louis Kahn

Could Lego Architecture Studio actually be useful for architects? | The ‘Starchitect’ Image | Rebel Architecture: The creator’s view | Big Read: A feast of art, food 
and architecture in Rodez | Paper Palaces | Clay robotics: the future of architecture is happening now in a Chilterns farm | Guerrilla architect | 20th Century architecture: Is it the end of our ‘concrete jungles‘? | Edible Chocolate LEGOs by Akihiro Mizuuchi

last word: Stop Order Placed On St Lucia Towers

[ccw-atrib-link]

blog wunderlust: 14th July 2014

There’s a lineage of carpentry and masonry, building with high skill and great efficiency that’s specific to India, and I am transferring that ideology to projects around the world.
Bijoy Jain


Why the Millennial Architect Won’t Be Your CAD Monkey | How Chinese Urbanism Is Transforming African Cities | Inside the Iconic World Cup Finals Stadium | Why the modern bathroom is a wasteful, unhealthy design | Is maverick master builder Bjarke Ingels the world’s smartest architect – or just the craziest? | Slovak architect turns billboards into homes for the homeless | Knud Lonberg-Holm: ‘The Invisible Architect

last word: Villanueva 114 years

[ccw-atrib-link]

SketchUp 2014 for Architectural Visualization

Create stunning photorealistic and artistic visuals of your SketchUp models with this book and eBook

Overview

Take advantage of the new features of SketchUp 2014 Create picture-perfect photo-realistic 3D architectural renders for your SketchUp models Post-process SketchUp output to create digital watercolor and pencil art Make the most of SketchUp with the best plugins and add-on software to enhance your models

In Detail

SketchUp is an amazing and remarkably powerful 3D modeling software used by millions of architects, visualizers, and drafters across the globe. It allows you to create animated 3D drawings and photorealistic renderings that approximate real-life objects easily.

This book is the perfect introduction to SketchUp 2014. It will help you to get started quickly and efficiently to produce and present commercial quality photorealistic or artistic outputs of your designs. It will teach you how to plan and set up the content of your scenes, use SketchUp and professional rendering software to produce stunning visuals and animations, and how to add an artistic touch to your images.

What you will learn from this book

Produce a photorealistic rendering of a scene modeled in SketchUp Render ultra-realistic soft shadows from multiple light sources Master the low polygon modeling techniques that you need to adopt for visualizations Work with texturing techniques utilizing PhotoMatch and your own digital photos Enhance your models by adding depth of field and other postprocessing tricks in GIMP Devise movie-set scenes to digitally photograph your projects Enhance your SketchUp scenes by adding lamps, sun, and sky lighting Add smooth camera paths for airborne and walk-through animations Learn all of the simple tricks to ensure you get great-looking models when rendered

Approach

Beginning with a quick start tutorial which will get you up and running with SketchUp 2014 quickly, you will move on to learning the key skills you will need to wow your clients with stunning visualizations through a series practical steps, tips and tricks.

Who this book is written for

If you are a SketchUp user, from an amateur right through to an architectural technician, professional architect, or designer, this is the book for you. This book is also suitable as a companion to any architectural design or multimedia course, and is accessible to anyone who has learned the basics of SketchUp.

[ccw-atrib-link]

blog wunderlust: 9th June 2014

It is in hard times especially, that good architecture is made.

Christopher Whyms-Stone [Cornerstone.Design Ltd]

Are Ivy League Schools Really Offering the Best Architectural Education? | 25 Architects You Should Follow on Twitter | A new blueprint for architectural excellence | Berlin Plans ‘House Of One,’ A Place Where Jews, Muslims, And Christians Will Pray Under The Same Roof | Life in the suburbs: the good, the bad and the ugly | How to make a tool set | Miami’s new vice – an addiction to star architects |

last word: “LEEDing” The Pack: acla:works Deepens Commitment to Green Building, Design and Construction

[ccw-atrib-link]

Review> 2014 Tribeca Film Festival Addresses Multiple Levels of Displacement

The recent 2014 Tribeca Film Festival screened a remarkable number of films on displacement. People were displaced from their homes—often forced but sometimes voluntary—for financial reasons, discrimination, landlord harassment (or irritation), and natural disasters. In the film Below Dreams, which takes place in New Orleans, a character says “Everybody needs a room.” Here are a […]

[ccw-atrib-link]

Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture

The architects of NRJA have been chosen to curate Latvia’s participation at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. Based on the assertion that “there is (no) in Lativa,” the pavilion’s Unwritten will confront the lack of research and evaluation of Lativan post-war modernist architecture.

As the curators describe, the insufficient acknowledgment of Lativan post-war modernist architecture is the result of a tricky situation. On one hand, “there is an aversion to anything that occurred during the period of Soviet occupation,” while on the other “there is wave of uncritical nostalgia for the country’s youth and childhood, as well as the superficial hipster joy at the exotic Soviet heritage.”

Though many of these structures would have already achieved “monument” status in other countries, there has been no evaluation of their importance to Latvia’s architectural heritage. At the threat of demolition, these post-war buildings risk never being researched, leaving a period of Latvia’s architectural history unrecorded.

Thus the curators of Unwritten plan to highlight the modernism in Lativa and spark a global discussion that will hopefully result in the largest-ever database for post-war Latvian modernist architecture.

Join the discussion, here.

Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture Restaurant “Sēnīte” (1967); Vidzeme highway 37.km / Linards Skuja, Andris Bite, G. Grīnbergs, R. Ozoliņš - Courtesy of The Museum of Architecture of Latvia
Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (1970); Latviešu strēlnieku square 1, Rīga / Gunārs Lūsis-Grīnbergs, Dzintars Driba, Valdis Albergs © P.Alunāns, itl.rtu.lv
Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture Unwritten - exposition of Latvia in Arsenale as an analog representation of virtual information collection in real time and space. Over 2000 pages suspended in a frame fastened to existing beams, creating a sense of an information cloud that is moving in response to airflow. © NRJA
Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture Restaurant "Jūras Pērle" - Latvian architectural heritage monument representing uncritical nostalgia of youth and childhood time. Demolished in 1994, a proof of modernism architecture absorption. (1965); Jūrmala, Latvia / Josifs Goldenbergs © Mechanik, wikimapia.org
Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture Type project for gas station (1965); Daugavpils 74, Ogre © Zigmārs Jauja, NRJA
Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture Railway station (1977); Dubulti, Jūrmala, Latvia / Ilya Yavein © Jānis Vilniņš, lv.wikipedia.org
Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture Riga high-rises: Z-Towers (NRJA, 2004-2015), Preses nams (Jānis Vilciņš, Ābrams Misulovins, 1978), Saules akmens (ZENICO PROJEKTS, TECTUM, 2002-2004) © Uldis Lukševics, NRJA
Venice Biennale 2014: NRJA to Establish First-Ever Database of Latvian Post-War Modernist Architecture Former factory “Radiotehnika;” Kurzemes 3 Rīga, Latvia © Igors Nerušs, panoramio.com

[ccw-atrib-link]

blog wunderlust: 12th May 2014

By tattooing walls, graffiti writers free them architecture and turn them once again into living, social matter, into the moving body of the city before it has been banned with functions and institutions.
Jean Baudrillard “Kool Killer, or the Insurrection of Signs”

When Architects Build Brands: Is Architecture’s Future in Advertising? | Meet the Dynamic Duo Behind Architecture Firm Fuksas | Why Architects should Blog | The Green Building Reality: Why Two-Thirds of the Profession Are Cowards | One of America’s Most Famous Architects Was a Nazi Propagandist | A beautiful mobile home for just $33,000? | A degree in architecture … but all I can get are menial jobs

last word: 2014 – End of Year Exhibition at the Caribbean School of Architecture

[ccw-atrib-link]

The Top Architect-Designed Products of Milan Design Week 2014

This week marked the 53rd edition of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. Hundreds of exhibitors showcased an endless display of the latest international design products and home-furnishings. Among them included a variety of designed items envisioned by some of our favorite architects. Continue after the break to preview some of the most talked about architect-designed products featured this week at the Milan Design Week 2014.

Benedetta Tagliabue for Passoni Nature: Sofa ‘BOTAN’

A comfortable wood and fabric seat whose components join like the petals of a flower, producing endlessly harmonious, balanced combinations, inspired by nature.

David Adjaye for Knoll: The Washington Skeleton and Skin 

David Adjaye’s cantilevered chairs establish a play between propping and balancing, so that they are simultaneously functional and sculptural. Washington Skeleton is reduced to a fine geometric lattice while its inverted counterpoint, Skin, offers a colorful envelope to the same form.

Zaha Hadid for Citco: Tela Shelving 

According to design aficionado Lisa Roberts, Zaha Hadid’s new shelving collection with Citco “blurs the boundaries of art and design.”

UNStudio for Artifort: Gemini

Gemini comprises two asymmetrically-designed seat elements and a small matching table to offer plenty of scope for variation.

Daniel Libeskind for Poliform: Web

Just like the Internet allows users to browse and use a collection of contents which are connected to each other by links, WEB – with its alternating blocks and voids – presents a brand new bookcase concept with a strong visual impact and devised for the most disparate uses.

Nendo for Emeco: The SU Collection 

Su, a traditional Japanese concept meaning minimal, served as the primary inspiration for this new collection of stools and tables made from reclaimed materials.

MVRDV for Sixinch: Vertical Village

The Vertical Village: a self-organized and initiated manner of city building inspired by richness of informality found in East Asian settlements prior to being overcome by economically-driven block towers. 

Charles & Ray Eames (1958) for Vitra: Aluminium Chair EA 101, EA 103, EA 104

Vitra has now launched models EA 101, 103 and 104 that belonged to the original 1958 product family and was first marketed as the Aluminium Dining Chairs, expanding the selection of chairs in the Aluminium Group with models that are smaller, lighter and brighter. 

Nendoprint-chair

A chair whose surface mixes two different patterns, created by printing woodgrain patterns onto wood with an already distinctive grain.

Daniel Libeskind for Lasvit: ICE

A bold, geometric chandelier that achieves a ‘one-of-a-kind’ luminosity through the delicate and fluid quality of hand-blown glass.

Compare this year’s participation with the top architect-designed products of the Milan Design Week 2013.

[ccw-atrib-link]