Life Without Buildings

An Architecture School Bathroom Wall

2008-05-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

A Tulane School of Architecture student voices a popular opinion above the men's room urinal. The note on the anti-graffiti device (i.e. legal pad) reads "Reed Kroloff left us as bastard children of his curriculum." The writing, as they say, is on the wall. For those not in the know, Kroloff was the short lived Dean at the Tulane School of Arch. before he left for the greener pastures of Cranbrook — after frequently seeing his name published as a supporter of post-storm New Orleans and becoming the public face of the School of Architecture. And yeah...some people are still a bit bitter about the whole thing.

Rem Koolhaas, Tunisia, and Sandcrawlers

2008-04-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

It would appear that the Star Wars Universe owes another debt to architecture. A reader sent in the above image with a note saying that the Hotel du Lac in Tunisia may have served as the inspiration for the Sancrawlers used by the Jawas to travel across Tatooine. Another visit to Wookiepedia (an increasingly important Life Without Buildings resource) tells us that filming for A New Hope largely took place in Tunisia, so it's entirely possible that this building did, in fact, have an influence on the production design. BONUS: a little trivia for you Extended Universe fans — "du Lac" was the origin of the "Dulok," the natural enemies of the Ewoks. Obvs.

The form of the Sandcrawler also brought to mind a more contemporary building — the Casa da Musica. Admittedly, this one is a bit of a stretch, as the Rem Koolhaas-designed building, really only resembles the dessert-planet vehicle from one angle. Plus, we know that it was based on an unbuilt design for a private residence — hence the name. But is it possible that somewhere in the inner workings of Koolhaas' mind, there exists some subconscious collection pond of sci-fi culture that gets channeled into his designs? Surely, the origins of Louisville's Museum Plaza must be extra-terrestrial in nature.

And finally, just for good measure, Life Without Buildings would like to present the second in a series of architects thinking about spaceships: Koolhaas considers the Sandcrawler.

· Otto Wagner and the Millenium Falcon [Life Without Buildings]
· What's Up With All The Death Stars? [Life Without Buildings]

Art From Disaster

2008-04-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Almost 3 years after Hurricane Katrina, many New Orleans homes still bear the spray-paint markings used by rescue workers who were searching for survivors. On the facade of their house in the Bywater neighborhood, some residents have installed a metal sculpture permanently memorializing these new urban hieroglyphics.

In New Orleans

2008-04-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

Back in New Orleans for 10 days of a little business and probably a lot of pleasure. If I see Brad Pitt, I'm tell him you say hello.

[image via Make It Right 9

· Holy Cross Project Show House Now a Reality [NOLA] [Jetson Green]
· Make It Right 9 [website]
· Local Architects Shaping The New New Orleans [Life Without Buildings]
· The New Orleans Riverfront [LWB]

American Cities That Almost Got It Wright

2008-04-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

[image via wired]

Middle Eastern cities reaching higher into the skies every week and continue to turn pre-dysopic set-pieces from Bladerunner or the Jetsons. In times such as these, Wired thought it'd be a good idea to look at some earlier ambitious plans — the enormous "what-ifs" of modern architecture. The above example, for instance, is Frank Lloyd Wright's effort to poke out the eyes of god, a Chicago tower known as The Illinois. To set the stage for this Midwestern retro-futurescape, Wired whipped up a fictious sci-fi inspired narrative

Almost everything below the 50th floor is an elevator lobby, and almost everything above the 300th floor is perpetually covered in vomit due to the skyscraper's oscillations -- it moves in 40-foot circles at its tip. It's such a chore getting from one end of it to the other that we didn't even evacuate on 9/11. After all, how could anyone hit a skyscraper that wiggles back and forth like that?

The article reminded me of a previous post on Life Without Buildings — Unbuilt Works Find Life in Art. Specifically, FLW's unbuilt complex of Ellis Island Key project, a complex of space-age looking apartment buildings for New York's (in)famous island.

[image via NYT]

The project found life in The Manhattan Guardian, a comic book written by Grant Morrison and published by DC. As you can see in the above image, in the Guardian's Manhattan, Wright's design became the home to Century Hollow, "the city's most unusual science park" in that it is a scaled-down robotic model of Earth—complete with a population of 100—designed to demonstrate global demographics.

· Mile-High Skyscrapers and Floating Cities That Never Were [Wired]
· Unbuilt Works Find Life in Art [Life Without Buildings]

Tutti Frutti Brings A Democratic Development Derangment

2008-04-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

More than just an absurdly annoying Little Richard song, Tutti Frutti is a competition that gives anyone—developer, architect, investor, or average Joe—the chance to build their dream home on a canal in New Isliginton, Manchester. Competition organizers were inspired by the Borneo Sporenburg canal housing in Holland, but wanted to raise the bar by "making sure only the fruitiest (designs) are selected," Located near FAT's Islington Square social housing development, 26 canal-side plots were available, each one 15 meters deep with a cost between £160,000 - £200,000. Entrants had to show not only a promising design, but also the ability to pay for the lots, which severely vetted the field. The winning designs, as well as the arrangement of said designs, were decided by the incredibly adept and appropriate lineup of judges — Architect Will Alsop, Graphic Designer and Manchester's official creative consultant, Peter Saville, BD Editor Ellis Woodman, and comedian Grif Rhys Jones.

The first six tutti-frutty houses to begin the construction process went in for approval last week and the UK's telegraph took a closer look at three of the chosen designs.

1) In designing their home, "Perpetual Heights," Peter Gunning and Paul Ingrouille took advantage of the full six-story height limit and included a custom elevator and stairway.

2) Designed by engineer Julian Broster and architect Rupert Goddard, this home features a treehouse-like lookout tower clad in willow branches, a ground floor living space, 3 stacked bedrooms, and a home office.

3) The most notable element in the design from Gary Cripps and Stuart Frost (who worked with architects Glen Ombler and Sarah Campbell) is the central atrium — complete with tree and retractable glass roof.

What structures will bookend this whimsical socio-architectural experiment? A pub and a vestry, of course.

· Tutti Frutti [website]
· Design your own home: Tutti Frutti awards [Telegraph]
· Alsop’s 20-flavour housing [BD Online]

Otto Wagner and the Millenium Falcon

2008-04-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

The Millennium Falcon. As Han Solo's ship, it played a crucial role in the victory of The Rebellion over the Empire in the Star Wars films. Imagine my shock when that infamous smuggling vessel lept off the pages of an architecture book about...banks. A quick visit to "Wookieepedia" tells us that prop designer Ralph McQuarrie based the design of the Millennium Falcon on a "half-eaten hamburger next to an olive on a toothpick held by George Lucas." However, I'm more inclined to believe he was flipping through the pages of an Otto Wagner book and came across his 1880 design for the central offices of the Vienna Giro und Kassenverein competition. Behold, the first and only piece of evidence to support this theory:

On the left, Wagner's plan and on the right, a line drawing of the Millennium Falcon. Sure, it could just be a coincidence that a prop designer, inspired by a random grouping of hamburger, olives, and George Lucas' fingers, recreated an unbuilt design by one of the fathers of the Vienna Secession, but the damning evidence that surely proves otherwise is the off-center cockpit (to the right in the Wagner scheme and on the left of the MF). The rounded-off appendage is just too quirky a design anomaly in both schemes — and so similarly located. Whereas the Falcon consists of multiple hidden compartments and complex passages for a network of hacked-together electrical wiring, Wagner's design consists of a circular lobby leading to a grand processional route that culminates in a semi-circular bank of tellers' desks and bank offices. The plan's unique form was a response to the awkward site, and although the proposal did NOT win, Wagner was able to adapt the plan for use at the Landerbank, also in Vienna:

[image via Great Buildings Online]

So now two questions remain: 1) What other proto-modern buildings have inspired starship schematics? 2) If Wagner's bank was built, could it have made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs?

· What's Up With All the Death Stars? [Life Without Buildings]

Protest Urbanism and the Art of Misdirection

2008-04-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

Thousands of people descended on San Francisco's SoMa and Mission Bay neighborhoods today to protest against/for China/Tibet, see the Olympic torch, skip work, or just plain people watch. 3 of those 4 groups weren't disappointed. The torch route was announced earlier this week, with the caveat that it may "slightly" change. Well, as you can see in the above map, the route more than "slightly" changed due to the fear of another London or Paris-like protest. In the above map, blue is the announced route and red is the ACTUAL route. The air was thick with anticipation, tension, and excitement as everyone gathered to gawk at or attempt to extinguish the Olympic torch. However, unbeknownst to many of the patient observers and impatient protests, it had long passed-by in a boat or a bus or a secret underground tunnel. Cadres of riot police contributed to the misdirection and either encouraged people to stay put or herded them back and forth into different areas — god knows why, as the torch didn't even come close to where anyone was waiting.

“We’re getting every barricade known to man and hauling it in from everywhere," quote SF Mayor Gavin Newsom. Today, the streets and sidewalks of San Francisco are redirected. No one. Gets. Anywhere.

Jetskis in Mission Creek. On any other occasion, this would be completely awesome. As it stands, Giant's stadium (and hopefully the foundations of the bridge I'm standing on) will be safe from aquatic attack, deep-sea protestors, and agitated Atlanteans.

On the other side of the bridge, cops kept forming up into different shapes. Here, their military training permits the creation of an ersatz plaza in the middle of 3rd St. It's like there's going to be a performance or something. Surely this is the torch route? Nope. Just defending a small portion of SF asphalt from the confused masses.

It seems like every cop in San Francisco is completely occupied with making shapes and lines in Mission Bay. There's gotta be a crime spree going on in the opposite corner of the city.

More photos at the Life Without Buildings flickr page.

Derivé

2008-04-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

It's another contribution to Giant Statue Fridays, as Giant Lenin takes a cruise through Budapest.
A Daily Dose of Architecture takes a look at habitable bridges and we realize that Steven Holl is having way too much fun in China.
Where's Blogedanken entries reimagine the urban landscape. Favorite idea: "Wireless capable crosswalks." That's it. Now if only there was no explanation, that simple phrase could be read so many ways.
"Urbexing" may sound vaguely sexual, but Space & Culture assures us of its legitimacy as an urban subculture:
At the core of the subculture lies a special relationship that participants experience with physical spaces and the material infrastructure left behind by the waxes and wanes of a capitalist industrialized economy.
· The Magazine On Urbanism, otherwise known as MONU, is looking for submissions for their next issue, "Exotic Urbanism." The increasingly ambiguous definition of "exotic" should be embraced, as both mind-stretching speculation and speculative mind-stretching are welcome.

The Photographs of Katherine Westerhout

2008-04-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

In San Francisco this Thursday? Come on by and check out an encore presentation of Katherine Westerhout's Detroit.

Thursday, 3 April, 6 - 9 pm
3A GALLERY
101 South Park
San Francisco, CA 94107

As a great American city bows under the impossible weight of time, Katherine Westerhout freezes the passing of Detroit and invites us to really look, and to consider the physical manifestions of the temporal world. Within the empty spaces of abandoned buildings, light and color fall across the architecture as it slowly deteriorates to reveal structure and to create new implications of space. These mysterious spaces, although devoid of human presence, are full of possibility.

Like Piranesi's etchings captured the beauty of Roman Architecture through its ruins, so do Westerhout's photographs present our own modern ruins. Her lens transforms these crumbling Midwestern interiors -often filled with reflective puddles of stagnant water and carved through by beams of sunlight -into picturesque landscapes of rich surfaces that are almost baroque with the excessive ornamentation of decay. The Ruin has been a part of the western visual art canon since the 17th century, and Katherine Westerhout's large-scale images meaningfully continue this dialogue into our own time.

Previous photography posts:
· Camera Obscura [Life Without Buildings]
· Artful Project Documentation [Life Without Buildings]

[Images via Katherine Westerhout's website]

Sex Architect

2008-03-31T21:01:00.000-07:00

For the above reason, and many many more, I will reiterate that How I Met Your Mother is my favorite television show.

· Ted Mosby is a porn Star [Ted Mosby is a Jerk]
· Ted Mosby, Architect [Life Without Buildings]

Nouvel Wins Pritzker

2008-03-30T18:37:00.000-07:00

"The jury acknowledged the 'persistence, imagination, exuberance, and, above all, an insatiable urge for creative experimentation' as qualities abundant in Nouvel's work."

· French Architect Wins Pritzker Prize [New York Times]
· Nouvel's 'Exuberance' Rewarded with Pritzker [NPR.org]
· Nouveau Nouvel [Life Without Buildings]
[images via NPR.org and NYTimes photo galleries]

Fashion, Architecture, Tastefully

2008-03-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

Giant globes float over the runway for a Yves Saint Laurent show in Paris' cavernous Grand Palais and my mind is completely blown. These images will haunt me all weekend. I had no idea fashion shows could be so... sublime.

And this Alexander McQueen show featured an enormous web of fluorescent lighting spun menacingly around his models - who apparently need to protect themselves with fantastical headgear that remind me of Bladerunner...if it were written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

And in non-architectural fashion news, Thom Browne's pants have finally gotten too short.

· B&W images by Paolo Pellegrin for New York Magazine
· Found over at 2 or 3 Things

Local Architects Shaping the New New Orleans

2008-03-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

Contemporary architecture is making some welcome headway in post-Katrina New Orleans — at least if we look at the top four winners of this year's New Orleans AIA Awards.

[Image via studiowta.com]

The Rebuild Center at St. Joseph Church, designed by Wayne Troyer Architects is a community resource center built from six trailers, organized around a courtyard and joined together by wood canopies & decking, as well as translucent polycarbonate screens. Compared to a "zen fishing camp" by the architect, The Rebuild Center was intended to stay open for 5 years, but with the slow reconstruction of New Orleans, it looks like it might be around just a bit longer than that...

[Image via Make it Right]

The above winning entry comes courtesy of Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, and is one of the local contributions to Brad Pitt's "Make it Right" housing program. The energy-efficient design is a riff on the classic New Orleans shotgun, and can be somewhat customized to fit the tastes/needs of the owner.

[image via bildit.com]

Bild Design's Lowerline residence is another twist on New Orleans vernacular -- this time it's the Camelback house that gets a thoughtful, contemporary update. The two-family home makes maximum use of its height in providing additional living space and river views.

[Image via Eskew+Dumez+Ripple]

Eskew+Dumez+Ripple also won the Urban Design category with their entry for the "Reinventing the Crescent" competition. When complete in 2016, their masterplan will be the largest continuous waterfront park in the city. Developers will work closely with the planners and architects to ensure that public are granted easy access to The River. The plan also includes the adaptive reuse of existing buildings, to help merge any new construction with the existing fabric of the city.

Preservation in New Orleans will always be necessary, but it's nice to see that the city seems to be growing more open-minded about contemporary architecture. Perhaps EDR partner Steven Dumez put it best: “we are a city of architectural diversity and people love that diversity and sense that as 'New Orleans.' What is being designed now is a contemporary design for the city as it is now...and there is room for a new interpretation of New Orleans.”

· N.O. architects lean to edgier, modern designs [New Orleans City Business]
· Modern in New Orleans [Life Without Buildings]
· The New New Orleans Riverfront [Life Without Buildings]

Sneak Peak Inside Libeskind's New Jewish Museum

2008-03-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

Over at Curbed SF this week, a sneak peek into the recently finished Contemporary Jewish Museum. Designed by Daniel Libeskind, the museum doesn't officially open until this summer so there were no crowds or installations to detract from the space. Whether or not that's a good thing is subjective, but this CJM is thankfully one of the more...shall we say "retrained" Libeskind designs. For more info, check out the Plans, Photos, and earlier construction shots.

[image courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, via Curbed SF]

· Curbed Inside Update: The Contemporary Jewish Museum Full Reveal [Curbed SF]
· Putting the Damn in DAM [Life Without Buildings]
· "The Elephant Man of Museums" [Life Without Buildings]

What's Up With All The Death Stars?

2008-03-05T12:46:00.000-08:00

It's a case of life imitating art as Death Stars sprout around the globe and the inevitable looms as competing Galactic Empires will surely annihilate the planet. Rem Koolhaas strikes first with a new scheme for Dubai. It's like Manhattan...but way more futuristic and in the desert:

[Image via NYT]

The 44-story sphere is actually a "a self-contained three-dimensional urban neighborhood" containing smaller spheres joined together by a series of tubes. As is their nature, OMA seem to be establishing a new intra-office archetype (quick, call the patent office!), as this scheme is not entirely dissimilar from the one they visited with the RAK Convention and Exhibition Centre.

[Image via OMA]

The RAK is a scheme so original, it's actually Original - as in primoridal. In the architect's words: "the sphere and the bar explicitly abandon claims to formal invention or 'originality'. (The sphere even existed before man itself...) Yet both geometries still continue to feed the architectural imagination: perfectly autonomous shapes, within their bounds the promise of a perfect world."

Moving on, it's time to forget about 5-star hotels, because Heerim Architects have designed what appears to be a Death Star Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijain:

[Image via Inhabitat]

The rendering is a bit misleading though, as this isn't a sphere at all. It's more of a disk - a Death Palette if you will. Way less terrifying, and way less likely to engineer a complete takeover of the universe.

And just for good measure, let's include the original piece of interstellar architecture that inspired these bold new designs:

[Image via George Lucas' brain]

Oh, and just so this post isn't ENTIRELY without academic reference, consider this sentence the obligatory Boullee reference.

· City on the Gulf: Koolhaas Lays Out a Grand Urban Experiment in Dubai [NY Times]
· Death Star Lunar Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan [Inhabitat]
· Otto Wagner and The Millennium Falcon [Life Without Buildings]
· OMA will Eat Itself [Life Without Buildings]

Andrei Codrescu's Innovative Infrastructure

2008-02-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

In a recent Architect Magazine article, a diverse group of professionals were asked how they would change infrastructure if they had $1.6 Trillion to play with. Most of the response were what you'd expect -- get rid of cars, more greenspace, light rail systems -- but a couple stood out from the rest. By far, the best (well, at least most original) response was from writer, NPR correspondent, and New Orleans resident Andrei Codrescu:

A dense network of hydrogen-fueled magnetic fast trains with rainmaking devices is the immediate answer. Light rail should feed into the magnetic network from every community. Both interstate rail and light rail should multitask to seed clouds (for the upcoming water crisis) and to power windmills when they swoosh by.

Commuter vans and clean-fuel motorbikes, hydrofoils, bicycles, and canoes should be freely available at stations run by the National Park Service. There should be hitchhiking shelters equipped with showers and beds at all the stations.

Within every municipality there should be a tax-exempt 24-hour zone where everything is legal: drugs, sex, and music.

Following this immediate infrastructural change, emanating at the national level and integrated locally, we should mobilize a huge national will to make teleportation available to everyone.

Incidentally, New Orleans should float and become the first of our many future coastal Venices.

Somebody give this man $1.6 trilllion, stat.

· Infrastructure: How Would You Spend $1.6 Trillion? [Architect Magazine]

Bunker Bustin' in the Headlands

2008-02-22T12:53:00.000-08:00

Apropos yesterday's post on French architecture firm Block and their reuse of military bunkers, some photos from last weekend's cloudy hike through the Marin Headlands.

Once occupied by the military, the National Park is now a haven for artists and military ruins - and a damn fun place to ~~play war~~ explore. Check out the LWB Flickr page for more photos.

· New To Me: BLOCK [LWB]

New To Me: BLOCK

2008-02-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

Why do I like French architecture firm BLOCK? 2 reasons: clever adaptive reuse projects and because they live up to their name, dammit. "BLOCK." The name provokes images of solid mass -- even the letters somehow read heavy -- and I like a certain weight in architecture. It seems difficult to find a successful contemporary work of architecture that just allows itself to be heavy. Without resorting to outdated "styles," BLOCK's projects manage to merge the gravitas associated with scale & mass with a contemporary design aesthetic. The weight, however, manages to avoid becoming unweildy or awkward, as it is often balanced with a lightness to offset the heft and a thinness that balances the thickness. Take the folowing (proposed?) project for example:

Blockhouse is a one-time WWII bunker that has been repurposed as an experimental arts facility. A ghosted image of the original structure elegantly floats above the thick, concrete bunker. This thickness helps shape the program of the new form, as the 2nd story circulation width parallels the thickness of the original bunker's outer walls. Passage is derived through what was designed to prevent just that. Form follows function follows irony follows poetry.

Similar ideas can be seen in this sports complex in Brest:

The structure sits like on the site like a well-formed boulder, but it's exterior belies the open space within. In their own words, "The design appears as a hybrid form that lies somewhere between an industrial hangar, the generic image of sports graphics and a bunker. "

And just for good measure, let's round out the project lineup with a housing design:

Again, an adaptive reuse of a concrete structure; and again, a response with a light touch -- this time with a natural element added to soften the somewhat intimidating existing building.

Thoughtful work from another great French office. I might even be inspired to brush up on my français to keep up with these guys.

· BLOCK
· BLOCK Architects [Wallpaper]

[all images via BLOCK]

Less Hadid, More Giant Women

2008-02-15T10:03:00.000-08:00

The Architecture Foundation recently announced that they've called off plans for construction of a permanent London address. Program development will continue, but due to the current economic slump, their new Zaha Hadid-designed home was scrapped -- and Life Without Buildings couldn't be happier. Nothing against the AF or Ms. Hadid, but the aggressive design left us wanting, and paled in comparison to the sexy simplicity of Lacaton Vassal's proposal.

Yes, it's another Giant Woman Friday. To get started, I'll let the architects introduce the project:

The building is at home, almost ordinary, on its site: transparent, open, evolutive, undemonstrative. Inside, a statue twenty times bigger than life-size occupies the entire volume. It creates a second, unexpected architecture that is out of sync with its context, which detourns and transforms normality and creates the exceptional, as called for in the program.

Why so much love for this proposal (besides the obvs)? Well, by presenting the human body at an unfamiliar scale their giant woman creates an awareness of how our bodies occupy space -- how anything occupies space, really. This concept seems to be missing from a lot of architecture. It's not necessarily about the building -- a simple, almost miesian glass shell -- it's about what it contains. And I like to think that the statue comes across as a bit of a wink at Corbu's Modulor. Love it. There's actually humor here! Humor in architecture! My god what would the Modernists think? What would almost any contemporary architect (excluding Will Alsop, FAT, and too few others) think ?

Pretty great section, eh? And now some closing words from Lacaton Vassal, who inspire hope for the future of the industry.

Contemporary architecture acquires meaning in its ability to blend realism and the imaginary , to transform the ordinary, to generously permit of different usage, to create the unexpected.

· The Architecture Foundation
· James and the Peach Giant [Life Without Buildings]
· New to Me: Lacaton Vassal [Life Without Bulidings]

[images via the excellent 2G book on Lacaton Vassal]

Folk Football and Baseball Urbanism

2008-02-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

[images via strange harvest]
In a fascinating revisiting of his Folk history of football, Strange Harvest describes the 15th century game as a picturesque divertissement played across villages and into the surrounding landscapes, with loosely defined "players" essentially turning their environment into a gamefield.

The whole landscape became transformed into game-space. Houses, agriculture, sites of worship lost their everyday meaning and became an abstract terrain whose qualities impact the possibilities of game play.

With this idea freshly imprinted on my brain, it was through fresh eyes that I recently saw a commercial for a new Gatorade product.

In the commercial, as New York Yankees shortstop, Derek Jeter, walks through NYC, a baseball field grows around him, covering the city like some sort of beautiful athletic infection. As grass grows and lines are painted throughout New York, the result is a near infinite "game space" with somewhat puzzling mercurial boundaries.

Whereas the Strange Harvest article points to the strict contrast between the "landscape of folk football" -- ie a village or town -- and the streamlined modern athletic field (or pitch, as it were) as an abstraction of that landscape, the gatorade commercial opts for a unification of the two -- a direct overlay of modern sport and urban landscape -- in order to pitch (or advertise, as it were) their new "off-field hydrator."

The transformation of urban landmarks into the abstract terrain of a life-field is indeed a clever advertising ploy for a non-sport athletic drink. The New York is reorganized as a playing field, defined here by the presence of the athlete, who in turn is redefined as the modern urbanite. Regressing the concept of "sport" from the "essentialized urbanism" of football back into a loosely defined environment, the modern city becomes a place where everyone is a potential player.

· Folk Football: Landscape, Space and Abstraction [Strange Harvest]
· Truck Commercial Architecture [Life WIthout Buildings]

Over 1,321,453 Served

2008-02-12T14:19:00.000-08:00

Fresh off a loss in Arch Duel, New York architects FXFOWLE will have to console themselves with their winning entry for a new bridge in everyone's favorite future distopia, Dubai. At 1 mile long and 673 ft high, the "multi-modal" bridge will the longest and tallest arch bridge in the world, the 6th crossing across the Dubai Creek ("Creek?" Really?), and the most famous pair of arches since McDonalds went global.

[image via io9]
This may be the World's longest AND tallest arch bridge, but Life Without Buildings is still partial to the Millau Viaduct --the perfect marriage of elegance and practicality which never quite looks real in photographs.

· Dubai to Build the World's Largest Arch Bridge in 2012 [io9]
· Millau Bridge Opens [Life Without Buildings]

LVHRD Duel: Scotch + Lumberjacks Edition

2008-02-11T00:31:00.000-08:00

Once again, Life Without Buildings turns to erstwhile London correspondent, present New York correspondent, and all-around art-world darling, Veronica Kavass, who attended LVHRD's recent architecture duel -- the results of which were announced today.

LVHRD's motto is "build ghettos out of cheese". This rather lively organization exists to gather imaginative, stylish NYC geeks -- with the generous help of their bibulous sponsor Dewars, of course -- under the bright lights and against the backdrop of hot women to promote a competitive camaraderie that borders on the maudlin. One activity LVHRD gets very excited about is the Architecture Duel. Last year's event, ARCH DL III, involved all female architects, a comedy club, and twenty pounds of cheese. Replacing the literal cheese with the figurative, ARCH DL IV, held on January 28th, took place at the Williamsburg Music Hall and involved a dress code -- come furry or come plaid-y. Isn't that how hipsters always come?

Local architecture firms Konyk and FXFOWLE were asked to respond to a challenge: It is 2029 and oil is no more. Dismantle the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to build a wildlife research center, "a monument to mankind's commitment to preserving earth's natural resources." The two firms were hardly briefed prior to the event. If I am not mistaken, they were emailed one word as a hint: caribou. [Ed. note: 24 hours before the event, the firms were also informed that secret building material would be straws] They arrived, were attacked by journalists, Konyk was represented by a Dash Snowish lumberjack and FXFOWLE by a giant, flirty bear. Divided by a wall, the two teams were provided with Alaskan wilderness mock-ups and countless straws.

Watching an architecture duel is like attaching your pair of eyes to a ruler and a marker -- more specifically, it is like one eye is holding a ruler and the other is holding a marker. Being an active viewer consists of analyzing two teams of two architects, each bent over big pieces of paper with markers, come up with a draft and model in a ninety-minute span. One of them pulls out the marker and slashes across the page like a swordsman. Your eyeball holding the marker likes this, wants more, and makes bold strokes with architect. You are rooting for that team, the one that seems to just go for it. The other team is very close to their piece of paper making close calculations and measurements. Depending on your personality this may either give you a sense of calm or make you antsy. Your eyeball holding the ruler empathizes with the obsessive-compulsive desire for exactitude and safety measures. Lets throw something else at the eyeballs -- some alcohol. Namely Dewars scotch. Ginger Dewars, Sour Dewars, Dewars and water, Dewars straight up, Dewars on the rocks, a double of Dewars, an endless supply of GDMN Dewars! The eyeball holding the marker pokes little playful dots into the ruler. The eyeball holding the ruler giggles and rolls around. At the end, drunkards dutifully handed in their votes for the favorite team. This spectacle championed Konyk. A week of online voting ensued.

On February 8, LVHRD gathered the DL IV architects and press friends in their hot pink office for the final voting results and more Dewars. Konyk won. The losing team swallowed this news, grabbed ping-pong paddles, and bounced balls back and forth until they realized no one was really losing or winning. As a voter for the losing team, I spent most of the evening talking to Paul Kim of FXFOWLE (a conversation which only confirmed to me that they should have won). Not that I think a great injustice had been done. I, too, am a sucker for height. I thought that Konyk appealed to the inebriated appetite for dramatic effect. They treated their markers like swords, chopped up the land, incorporated it into their leaning tower, and moved like ninjas. For the sake of performance, bravo. For the sake of Alaska's wild life future, their model was problematic. Wouldn't the elevated chunks of permafrost melt all over the place until the tower toppled over on to the precious caribou? FXFOWLE's research center at least appeared sturdier. The structure was clever looking. When I think of 2029, I picture humans spending more time in the air -- maybe even in outer space. Aerial views will make up most of our future postcards and a smiley face made out of pipeline may appear more impressive than a giant tower. During our conversation, Kim discussed about other uses for the empty pipeline -- an information highway of sorts.

[FXFOWLE's smiley-face in progress]
[Konyk's finished tower]

Speaking of information highways, this one is turning off at the next exit. I see a gas station on the horizon and it is in the shape of a bed. From the city that never sleeps, this is LWB's NY correspondent signing off!

Thanks Veronica!

· LVHRD.org
[images via LVHRD Flickr pool]

PS1: And Now for Something Completely Different...

2008-02-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

[image via the NYT]
Under the pavement...the farm? By Turning a situationist slogan on its head, the dynamic duo of Work Architecture Company have won this year's PS1 Young Architects Program with a design for an urban farm. (Is it just me or are "urban farms" making a big comeback this year?) Work - made up of Dan Wood, previously of AMO, and his wife Amale Andraos - won over the competition jury with their presentation, proving that a little showmanship can go a long way. "The two of them looked like stock actors from the background of a Mozart troupe where they needed some rustic peasants," said Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of arch. + design at MoMa.

Theatrics aside, the design stands on its own just fine. Built from a series of large cardboard tubes bolted together, their Urban Farm will undulate throughout the courtyard, creating several smaller spaces for more specific functions. While some tubes will be open-ended, others will contain various edible plantings - ideally designed to provide ingredients for cocktails and the brewing of beer. What better program for a space designated for drinking and dancing?

[images via work.ac]

From the Architect's webite:

Leaving behind the Urban Beach, our project becomes the 'Urban Farm' a magical plot of rural delights inserted within the city grid that resonates with our generations' preoccupations and hopes for a better and different future. In our post-industrial age of information, customization and individual expression, the most exciting and promising developments are no longer those of mass production but of local interventions. As cities have finally proven their superiority to their suburban counterparts in everything from quality of life to environmental impact - they should again become our much needed laboratories of experimentation: opening our minds and senses towards better living with each other and the world.

· Betting a Farm Would Work in Queens [New York Times]
· Work Architecture Company
· PS12005: Invasion! [Life Without Buildings]

What if NYC... Winners Announced!

2008-02-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

"What if New York City...?"

117 design teams representing 52 countries ventured to answer that ominously vague competition question and now ten winners have risen to the top with their solutions for post-disaster NYC emergency shelters. The unranked finalists will be awarded $10,000 to further develop their projects, with the possibility that one or more of the designs will be selected for prototyping. Jurors based their selection on criteria including flexibility, deployment, security, and sustainability. In brief, the winners:

For a lot more information on the winning projects, as well as over 100 additional selected entries, see the competition gallery. Life Without Buildings is torn between the Lego-based entry and the airship city.

UPDATE: With dramatic prose and some incredible images, BLDGBLOG waxes fantastic on the aforementioned airship city submittal, designed by NYC-based Studio Lindfors.

...a part of me thinks that there's no real reason to wait till disaster strikes; we could simply migrate into the sky. We will renew ourselves -- literally airborne -- in a vertical migration that evacuates the earth.

· What if New York City... [Competition website]
· We will migrate into the sky [BLDGBLOG]