dysturb.net

CCTV Facade complete

Thomas — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:09:12 +0000

CCTV is ready for the games. The steel ribs reflect the distribution of forces in the construction (photo: Ole Scheeren)

OMA distributed a press release including the above picture (click for XXL) today that the facade developed in collaboration with ARUP has been completed. Just in time for the opening of the Olympic Games for an harmonious skyline, we might add. In that context: the extruded pagoda on the right is the Zhong Fu Tower.

XML architects: interns needed

Thomas — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:47:12 +0000

My friends at XML need some help, and asked me for support. They are looking for interns for a period of 3 to 6 months, starting from september. They’re young, small and interesting, and can only offer a minimum salary. Here’s their advert:

XML is a contemporary cultural practice specialized in Architecture, Research and Urbanism. From its base in Amsterdam XML is involved in worldwide cross-disciplinary projects with an emphasis on cultural analysis. XML’s projects are fuelled by a reflection on the contemporary city as source of cultural production. The work has been rewarded several prizes amongst which most recently the first prize in the Europan 9 competition Almere.

We currently invite people to apply for a position as trainee in our office in amsterdam. Candidates should have finished at least two years of relevant design education. Further requirements include:

- excellent model-making, drawing and render skills
- strong graphic and design talent
- willing to actively contribute to the rapid growth of our young office

Applicants for this vacancy should send their cv, motivation letter and portfolio(pdf) to hr@x-m-l.org.

Responsive City Workshop

Thomas — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:49:31 +0000

Gulensu - Almere Haven (© Ekim Tan)

Workshop announcements come in packs. Here is the third one, which I’d like to recommend especially. The INTI supported masterclass compares highly regulated planning strategies in the showcase newtown of the Netherlands, Almere, with the self-organised strategies employed in Gulensu, a clandestine city extension of Istanbul.

Planning is a messy, time and energy-consuming business of trial, error and failure. Success is not a certainty and even when the result is successful, it is often a surprise, not what was actually being sought. Jane Jacobs

THE RESPONSIVE CITY: ISTANBUL - RANDSTAD

Why?
The Responsive City: Istanbul-Randstad* focuses on new approaches to the 21st city. Theories of complexity and their application onto the field of urban design and architecture form its core. Here, the city is seen as a dynamic open system, constantly influenced by interacting bottom up and top down players.
Who?
The Responsive City is an interdisciplinary course offered as an once-only-elective for 16 participants with diverse backgrounds such as human geography, planning, sociology, architecture and urban design.
How?
The course requires a hands-on approach with two intense on-site masterclasses in Istanbul and Almere. Agent-based mapping and responsive design game are main tools of the course. Knowledge/interest in GIS mapping, informal city, Istanbul and/or Almere is highly appreciated.

The Deadline for Application is 5th of September 2008, Dates are 29 September - 3 October 2008 in Almere; 27 - 31 October 2008 in Istanbul. The Masterclasses are run by Prof. Arnold Reindorp, Prof. Juval Portugali & ir. Ekim Tan.

More at INTI, and soon at theresponsivecity.org.

One Land & Platform Paradise

Thomas — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:37:18 +0000

FAST, a Amsterdam-based foundation showcasing and critically investigating spatial conditions of segregation invites to Ein Hawd (Israel):

From the 28th of August to 7th September, we will finalize the One Land Two Systems project with a series of public events, workshops, and spatial, social and cultural interventions in Ein Hawd. The project aims at exposing the situation of the unrecognized Palestinian villages in Israel, and at the same time finding alternative planning solutions.

Check the Press Release PDF, or read more at www.one-land.org.

Sin Embargo

Thomas — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:09:17 +0000

sine embargo - con embargo

Our friends from Supersudaca host an interesting workshop on tourism in post-castro Cuba in September. It’ll set you back 1000€, but scholarships to reduce the fee are available. The objective of the workshop is to find specualtive answers on questions as:

How will Cuba change its tourist branding in a SIN-EMBARGO scenario?
How will it mutate its current spatial segregation strategy between locals and tourist in a SIN-EMBARGO scheme?
What will be the territorial impacts in a Cuba SIN-EMBARGO that admits cruise ship tourism?
Will Cuba become a role model for next generation tourist developments in the Caribbean and worldwide in a SIN-EMBARGO condition?
What is the emerging territorial paradigm of Sun and Beach in the Cuba CON-EMBARGO? Will it change in a SIN-EMBARGO context?
Will the regulation culture and environmental management remain the same in a â€˜liberalizedâ€™ Cuba SIN-EMBARGO?
How will Cuba react spatially to the opening of the massive market of second residences for American pensioners in a Cuba SIN-EMBARGO?

The inscription period ends on 15th of August. The (slightly disappointing) results of last years sudapan competition will be at display at RAS gallery in Barcelona from 4th September on.

More at sinembargo.org.

Final Presentations at the Berlage Institute - Watch Live

Darrel — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:18:29 +0000

Exhibition of the Berlage Institute at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale; FlickR photo: Darrel Ronald

The final presentations of the 1st and 2nd year Berlage Institute students are scheduled at the school this coming week and next. All of the presentations are open to the public, and are without entry cost. On the 24th June, the 1st year students will present two studios, Rethinking the All-Inclusive, and the Saemanquem Project; while on the 1st July two other studios, Associative Design: Urban Ecologies, and Capital Cities, The limits of the City: A Strategic Project for Seoul will be presented.

You may also watch the Livestream Broadcasts online.

2007â€“2008 Second-year final presentations

Associative Design Research Program
Urban Ecologies

There is an ecology of bad ideas, just as there is an ecology of weeds.
â€”â€”Felix Guattari

In the Three Ecologies the French psychologist Felix Guattari states that now, more then ever, nature cannot be separated from culture. He argues for a politics of â€œecosphyâ€â€”or the interrelationship of social, mental and environmental ecologies. Based on this thesis, this research studio has hypothesized the forms of urbanization that can be actualized within the various environmental ecologies of Phoenix, Arizona.

The studio has been studying the regionâ€™s specific social, economic, political, climatic and material environments with the aim of presenting serious alternatives to the contemporary housing production surrounding Phoenix. Located in a wide valley that has allowed for low-density urbanization with few limitations, the region has maintained rapid and sustained growth since the end of World War II. Pro-growth civic policies have helped fuel an economy that, along with the regionâ€™s natural amenities, has attracted many new residents. This growth has resulted in the need for more water, much of it now coming from the Colorado River. This has also created regional and sectorial conflicts between Arizona and its neighboring states as well as between agricultural and urban land uses. Demand for electricity, especially for air conditioning, continues to escalate. An abundance of motor vehicles, but lack of highway infrastructure, has led to increased air pollution and traffic congestion. These specific site circumstances, and limited natural resources, have made Phoenix an environmental ecology between growth and supply.

In opposition to the conventions of typical American subdivision development, the studio is presenting neighborhood models that generate an urban environment. Instead of establishing a predetermined master plan, these growth models follow potential decision-making processes in order to react to various changes within the economic market and the development of complimentary programs according to of inhabitation or demand. They also are actualized in relation to the ecological constraints set by Phoenix desert.

Five projects will be presented that argue that new forms of housing neighborhoods must learn from site-specific circumstances. Each project is structured in four phases, taking a quarter mile section of the Phoenix desert as a case study. From the local vegetation ecology and radiation production to the effects of flooding in relation to the economic value of the raw desert, these projects unfold specific and intensive characteristics of the desert. Additionally, two projects will demonstrate the desertâ€™s potential as an urban growth model of one possible decisionmaking process.

This studio is part of the Associative Design Research Program, headed by Peter Trummer, which investigates the potential and design of new site-specific housing environments by applying associative techniques to all scales of a design process to increase its relevance to the architectural discipline.

Tutor: Peter Trummer
Participants: Tsung-Jen Chang, Botsung Chiu, Daewon Kwak, Tzu-En Hsu, Kyo Suk Lee, Chia-Ying Lin, Fairuz Razali, and Mika Watanabe.
Guest Critics: Lawrence Barth, Christophe Cornubert, Aris Georges, Christopher Lee, Lars Lerup, and Matthew Moore.

——————————————————————————–

Capital Cities Research Program
The Limits of the City: A Strategic Project for Seoul

We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and providing for their abundance.
â€”â€”Hannah Arendt

The studio focuses on the relationship between forms of metropolitan labor and the possibility of political life. As one of the most physically dense, socially complex, and technologically advanced cities in Asia, Seoul is the ideal site to test how economy affects a cityâ€™s political life.

It is generally assumed that our contemporary civilization is a post-industrial one, shaped by the emergence and the hegemony of immaterial labor over the production of goods. The studio argues that the place of this process of production is the metropolis.

The metropolis brings these processes outside of their canonical space â€”the factoryâ€” and disseminates them through all aspects of urban life. If we assume that industrialism is not simply the process of production of goods, but a way to make anything economically productive â€”from the human body to the human mindâ€” then we can presume that we are still part of the industrial civilization where urbanity itself is the ultimate factory. Confronting this scenario, the critical issue this studio explored is what kind of cityness can be imagined in the contemporary metropolis, where production seems to be sustained by economics.

The site of research and design is the conceptual border between the city as a locus of production and the city as locus of political life. The studio attempted to answer how an architectural intervention can consciously frame prototypical forms of density, shared facilities, and living and workspaces. An overall urban strategy for Seoul, consisting of 11 punctual and prototypical urban design interventions, will be presented. In their exemplarity, these interventions are capable of transforming the geography of the entire region. They are mainly concerned with the proposal of living typologies of space that can limit the expansion of the built environment, the proliferation of scattered settlements, and that can foster the creation of places of encounter and sharing that are different from the living and working patterns imposed by economic exploitation.

This studio is part of the Capital Cities Research Program, headed by Pier Vittorio Aureli, which aims to redefine the idea of the city as a political institution by focusing on the relations between architectural form, political theory and urban history by means of large-scale critical urban projects.

Tutors: Pier Vittorio Aureli, Martino Tattara, and Elia Zenghelis.
Participants: Julica Grzybowski, Seung Jeong Hong, Eun Kyung Lee, Alejandro Martinez, German Ramirez, and Tsai-Ching Tsai.
Guest Critics: Christopher Lee, Lars Lerup, Gabriele Mastrigli, and Andreas Ruby.

——————————————————————————–
Program Tuesday, 1 July 2008

10:30am Welcome by Rob Docter, General Director
Introduction by Vedran Mimica, Director
10:45am Final presentations of the Associative Design Research Program
studio entitled “Urban Ecologies”
12:00pm Comments by guest critics and faculty
12:30pm Round-table discussion with guest critics
Moderated by Peter Trummer, Head of the Associative Design Research Program
1:30pm Complimentary lunch
2:30pm Final presentations of the Capital Cities Research Program
studio entitled “The Limits of the City: A Strategic Project for Seoul”
4:00pm Comments by guest critics and faculty
4:30pm Round-table discussion with guest critics
Moderated by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Head of the Capital Cities Research Program
6:00pm End-of-year exhibition opening and reception
7:00pm Graduation ceremony

——————————————————————————–
Graduating participants:

Tsung-Jen Chang, Taiwan
Botsung Chiu, Taiwan
Julica Grzybowski, Germany
Seung Jeong Hong, Korea
Tzu-en Hsu, Taiwan
Dae-Won Kwak, Korea
Eun Kyung Lee, Korea
Kyo Suk Lee, Korea
Chia-Ying Lin, Taiwan
Alejandro Martinez, Dominican Republic
German Ramirez, Colombia
Fairuz Reza Razali, Malaysia
Tsai-Ching Tsai, Taiwan
Mika Watanabe, Japan

——————————————————————————–
Guest critics:

Lawrence Barth, Senior Lecturer in Urbanism, Architectural Association, London
Christophe Cornubert, Architect, Los Angeles
Aris Georges, Dean, Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
Christopher Lee, Principal, Serie Architects, London
Lars Lerup, Dean and the William Ward Watkin Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture, Rice University, Houston
Gabriele Mastrigli, Architectural Historian, Rome
Matthew Moore, Visual Artist, Phoenix
Andreas Ruby, Architecture Critic and Theorist, Berlin

——————————————————————————–
Institute faculty:

Vedran Mimica, Director
Pier Vittorio Aureli, Head of the Capital Cities Research Program
Joachim Declerck, Centre for Architectural Research and Development
Salomon Frausto, Head of Architectural Broadcasting
Roemer van Toorn, Head of the Projective Theory Program
Peter Trummer, Head of the Associative Design Research Program

Wolfgang Tillmans at the Stedelijk CS

Darrel — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:48:46 +0000

The latest exhibition in the temporary location for the Stedelijk Museum CS will be a show curated by Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968) which includes his own work situated amongst other artists. The show is entitled, Presence of Mind, and will run through June 20th - September 30th, 2008. While previous works will be included, the show will also include the museum’s recent acquisition, an installation by Tillmans titled, Stedelijk Room.

Portrait of Tillmans; © AFP/Getty Images

In the forthcoming exhibition at the Stedelijk, Tillmans reveals the connections between his own work and that of a number of kindred spirits in the art world. Some, like German artist Isa Genzken, with whom Tillmans has exhibited on a number of occasions, share his free and easy approach to images and materials. Others, like RenÃ© DaniÃ«ls and Daan van Golden, are artists who constantly redeploy their own stock of images in new ways. Tillmans also creates a dialogue between his own experiments with the abstract qualities of the photographic image and the work of Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Robert Mangold and Niele Toroni. The socially committed, political aspect of his oeuvre is reflected in his selection of Roberto Matta, Peter Hujar and Timur Novikov.

The new installation, Stedelijk Room, will be a collection of his work combining:

[...] abstract images with portraits, landscapes, still lifes and townscapes. Tillmans even includes odd references to Amsterdam/The Netherlands, such as his self-portrait Mosshat (1988), made during a period in Amsterdam in his twenties, and a photograph of a painting of William of Orange. There is also an image that refers to one of the first abstract compositions he ever made, on the occasion of the 1998 From the Corner of the Eye exhibition at the Stedelijk. Iconic works from Tillmansâ€™ oeuvre included in Stedelijk Room are Lutz & Alex, climbing tree (1992), police helicopter (1995), man pissing on chair (1997) and the black-and-white image of an intertwined group of friends Arkadia I (1996). In contrast to these earlier photographs, there are also recent, large-scale abstracts like Freischwimmer 118 (2005) and Silver 50 (2006). Finally, Stedelijk Room includes three tables covered with montages of photographs and cuttings from newspapers and magazines which are in permanent dialogue with the images displayed on the walls.

London Festival of Architecture

Thomas — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 14:52:05 +0000

London Festival of Architecture’ overwhelming website

In a few days - on the 20th of June - the London Festival of Architecture starts and will go on for a month. The program is overwhelming (including events/hubs/themes/tours/projects..), I will write more after I’ve seen it. Go and check their site: http://www.lfa2008.org!

The Bouwkunde is Burning

johan — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:07:02 +0000

Bouwkunde burning today at (photo: Radio TV West)

This morning the Faculty of Architecture of the Delft University of Technology caught fire.
The building was evacuated immediately, there were no injured.

The probable cause of the fire was a short-circuiting in a coffee-machine on the 6th floor of the northern wing of the building, resulting from water leakage. The fire spread to the upper floors and later to the southern wing. Due to the height of the building, the fierceness of the fire and possible collapsing of the building firemen had to retreat and continue their work from the ground.

According to the fire department the building by Van den Broek and Bakema is to be considered lost entirely and could even collapse due to severe damage done to it’s structure.

Images here (Nu.nl) and here (NOS.nl). Movies after the break.

And see the building going down (dumpert.nl).

Amendment: Original design drawings and history of the building on the nai site.

Open Form Architecture @ Pecha Kucha, Montreal

Darrel — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:36:31 +0000

Fellow dysturber, Darrel Ronald, founded Open Form Architecture in MontrÃ©al (Canada) with colleagues Maxime Moreau and Maurice Martel. We were recently invited to participate in the Pecha Kucha MontrÃ©al as our first public presentation. Following our 20 slides / 20 seconds at the special edition of Pecha Kucha MontrÃ©al as part of the Portes Ouverts Design MontrÃ©al festival, we have made the slides, as well as video available online.

The title of our presentation is, Simple Rules, Complex Behaviour, and illustrates a limited selection of our work over the past years dealing with generative design, cellular automata, simple programming and complexity. We have been particularly influenced by the work of Steven Wolfram and his book, A New Kind of Science. Having participated in two of his NKS Summer Schools, we’ve been fortunate to collaborate with him and a team of mathematicians and programmers in the United States using Mathematica software.

The presentation is bilingual French and English, just like our favourite city! Unfortunately the first words are cut off, and they are: WE ARE OPEN FORM, and WE LOVE OPEN FORM! We hope you enjoy! Below are our 20 slides, that accompany the video.

WAF? WTF?

Thomas — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:39:15 +0000

World Architecture Festival Barcelona

Emap, a Business-to-Business media group (from their website), hosts the first World Architecture Festival in Barcelona. Architects are invited to put their buildings up for competition (entry fee a smacking 950€), and among the exhibited projects the best will be awarded. The interesting jury (to name a few: Will Alsop, Cecil Balmond, Stefan Behnisch, Richard Burdett, Luis M. Mansilla, Richard Meier, Sir Peter Cook, Neil Denari, Norman Foster, Massimiliano Fuksas, Zaha Hadid, Michel Rojkind, Michael Sorkin, Francine Houben, Robert Stern, Christoph Ingenhoven, Charles Jencks) might redeem the commercial/artificial flair the event exudes. We’ll keep our final judgement to ourselves until we know more about the event.

perceptive pixel

Martin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:23:23 +0000

you like your new multitouch-pad?
check this out:

also check Jeff Han’s presentation @ TED two years ago:

well be standing at drawingboards again!
Thanks for the link Alex!

De Eenvoud - Simplicity

Martin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:20:17 +0000

This friday at 16:30 an interesting exhibition opens @ the Casla in Almere. It will feature the winning projects of the Eenvoud Competition, the third edition for an experimetal neighbourhood in Almere. Its predecessors, “De Fantasie” and “De Realiteit”, ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Reality’ were held back in the eighties and their results are still worth an excursion. More information on that below.

â€œDe Ã‰Ã©nvoudâ€ or ‘Simplicity ‘is the result of a competition held in 2006. The brief was to design a freestanding and simple low-cost house, expressing their own wishes and ideas for dwelling. The winners got the possibility to build their design on a beautiful open spot in the woodland of Noorderplassen-West.

The twelve winning projects, amongst which an ornithologistâ€™s house, a rubber house, a convertible house and a scaled version of the UnitÃ© d’Habitation were submitted from The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and Sweden. The houses will have a permanent character, with a minimum of building regulations. Some of the projects will be built by the designers themselves; nine projects are still open for clients to join in.

Rubber House, Cityfoerster

Convertible House, Matthias Bauer, Stefan Werrer

Het Huis van de Vogelaar, Anouk Vogel / Johan Selbing

Unite, Joao Pedro Prates Vital Ruivo

The Exhibition â€œDe Ã‰Ã©nvoudâ€ opens the 28th of march and will run until 10th of may 2008 @ Architectuurcentrum CASLa, Weerwaterplein 3, 1324 EE Almere Stad
Open Tuesday to Saturday between 12.00-17.00

The Predecessors
â€œDe Fantasieâ€ and â€œDe Realiteitâ€ were meant to stay only for five years, but as always with experimental projects, they usually last longer than permanent houses. The houses are used either for permanent living, as holiday homes or studios.
They are part of a number of special residential neighbourhoods in Almere, amongst which such ridiculosities as The Regenboogwijk (Rainbow Quarter), Stedenwijk (City Quarter), Muziekwijk (Music Quarter), Filmwijk (Movie Quarter), Parkwijk (Park Quarter). De Realiteit and De Fantasie have arguably yielded the most striking architecture. De Realiteit comprises seventeen projects on the Noorderplassen lakes, while nine houses make up De Fantasie on Weerwater.

Hard Glass, BenthemCrouwel

De Fantasie
De Fantasie has developed into a beautiful and tranquil neighborhood on the southwest shore of the Weerwater. Because of the involvement of the people in this area it has the feel of a holiday resort. The intention was to build homes which were to be demolished after five years. However, due to the projectâ€™s success, the houses are still standing. A striking design in this quarter is â€˜Hard Glassâ€™, by architect Jan Benthem of famous dutch office Benthem Crouwel. It was one of their first projects, now they are building every major train station, airport etc. This project, ‘Hard Glass’ is a glass, cubic villa which has been lifted off the ground by a construction of steel tubes. The living quarters inside the cube resemble an aquarium. The type of doors also used on ships divide the villaâ€™s rooms.
The VVV (the local tourist information office) in Almere has a CASla route description through De Fantasie which you can enjoy without a guide.

ER VLIEGT EEN VOGEL ONDER ONS HUISâ€¨, De Realiteit 11, â€¨Dick Bruijne and Gerard Koppelman

De Realiteit
The â€˜temporary characterâ€™ is also reflected in the much talked-about quarter De Realiteit. Here too the houses are still standing, as they are a resounding success. De Realiteit lies in a fairly remote area, which has resulted in a surprising ambience. The seventeen houses differ in the materials used and the construction, but mainly in shape. The house created by Dick Bruijne and Gerard Koppelman is a striking design which stands out. â€˜A bird is flying underneath our houseâ€™ is suspended five meters above the ground in a steel frame. The house itself is a small, two-storied wooden cube. The surface area of the house is small in proportion to the steel frame.
You probably also come across ‘Markies’ a house which unfold from a trailer. I guess you won’t see it there though since its constantly on the road.
De Realiteit is situated on the Noorderplassen and the VVV also has a route description on this one.
Check out the website for more details on the houses.
More photos also here

archiCULTURE: The Film

Darrel — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:43:53 +0000

A new documentary film, archiCULTURE, is in the works about the lives of student architects and the culture surrounding the daily life of design students. The film (trailer) is a grassroots project currently seeking money to finance the project.

The Film Synopsis:

Archiculture is a feature length documentary that examines contemporary issues surrounding the realm of architecture through the perspective of university students during their final thesis semester. The film follows the protagonists through the evolution of their respective senior thesis projects and the internal and external conflicts each student faces during this intense year-long process. Interviews with family, friends, significant others, industry professionals, architects, and design professors are woven throughout the film to create a story that builds an intimate connection between the characters and the audience. The emotional storyline will reveal a breadth of experiences ranging from the 4AM deadline dash, to the fulfilling sensation of graduation. The film provides viewers with an in-depth look into the creative yet competitive process of architectural education while also depicting current issues such as the role of architecture in society, the disproportion of gender and race within the profession, and environmentally conscious design. The story is structured in a way that chronologically follows the studentsâ€™ development of their theses and continually builds suspense as the final critique looms. The film concludes at the studentsâ€™ final thesis presentation as they find themselves on the brink of their adult and professional lives, and the closure of their adolescence.

Get A Flag!

Martin — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:41:00 +0000

June 11th the first Museum entirely dedicated to Graphic Design will be opened by our Queen Beatrix in Breda.
For the opening my friend Teun Castelein will make his graphic statement out of concieved content from 250 participants. Everybody is welcome to design its own flag and mail it to flag@graphicdesignmuseum.com. All designs will be printed on unique flags and put against the building. The result will be an explosion of information. A colourful art piece at the old baroque building of the supermodern Graphic Design Museum.
Really a piece of art that makes people think about modern visual communication, about the position of musea in the contemporary image-culture and the fact that everybody is a designer/ image-maker nowadays.

So invest some 250 â‚¬, add another line to your CV and be part of the opening exhibition. You can upload your images here.
It seems to be selling quite well and I’m sure it will look amazing.

Teun did a similar spectacular work of art inspired by the famous website ‘www.milliondollarhomepage.com‘ in 2005. He sold the faÃ§ade of his Alma Mater, the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam to more than 300 companies, organisations and individuals.

They added logos and trademarks, images of art, poetry and lovenotes. The faÃ§ade consists of more than 16,000 tiles [35x29cm], each of which is supplied with its own individual printed plastic plate. The result is an overwhelming mosaic of colour and information â€“ a project that seeks to push the boundaries between commerce and art, society and the movements of the market, the private sector and public space. The Sandberg Institute is located on the Amsterdam ring road in the Zuidas district, the cityâ€™s new economic centre.

Teun Castelein, who is actually the first man in real size on the web, graduated in 2002 at the Art Academy of Utrecht with a research on Dutch suburban town Hoogvliet, just outside Rotterdam.
This ghetto town had a very negative image, so he decided to start a feel good branding campaign for its citizens as part of the WIMBY! project. One of his proposals was a Hollywood sign of â€˜HOOGVLIETâ€™ [which was implemented in a park design by FAT architects]. With this icon of Hollywood he wanted to give the people something to believe in, that you can be somebody! By giving Hoogvliet a bit of Hollywood allure, he made its inhabitants the stars.

So, go get your creativity boiling, convince your boss to spend those Euros and put something more on it than just your average company logo!

Parlez-vous Francais? Donâ€™t miss MÃ©tropolitains.

szacka — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 09:39:35 +0000

I recently discovered a radio program that is broadcast by Radio France Culture every Wednesday from 10 to 11 am. Called MÃ©tropolitains, this show existed since 1999 and is hosted by the architectural critic FranÃ§ois Chaslin. MÃ©tropolitans is a program about architecture and the city. With a smooth voice, FranÃ§ois Chaslin and his guests talks about several subjects from landscape architecture to design, lighting, scenography, exhibitions, the city and - of course - its buildings. For example the show of February 27 was entirely dedicated to the British architect Richard Rogers, who is presently presenting a monographic show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Also have a look at the 5th of March show, which was dedicated to the philosopher and architect Wittgenstein. Celine Poisson, specialist of the Wittgenstein house and professor of design at the UniversitÃ© du QuÃ©bec Ã MontrÃ©al, was guest of the show. On the 20th of February the roles were reversed: various architects and historians challenged FranÃ§ois Chaslin on issues regarding the actual status of architecture.

You can download Podcasts and archives of the show at the MÃ©tropolitains site.

Questions & Flowers - a Retrospective by Fischli & Weiss

claudia — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:04:33 +0000

Peter Fischli / David Weiss: “Objects From the Raft”, 1982; Source: unknown

This sunday i went to see the exhibition of swiss artist duo Fischli & Weiss in Milan,Italy, organized by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi. Get the first impression by a video on youtube. It runs until the 16th of march, but afterwards it will move to Hamburg (18. April until 31. August in the Deichtorhallen Hamburg). The exhibition space is the beautiful Palazzo Litta, the perfect frame for their work. They are dealing with a wide range of means: multimedia installations, photography and sculptures.Their most famous piece of work is the movie titled “Der Lauf der Dinge” (How things go), from 1987, at the documenta 8. Their basic principle is to pick up objects and situations of daily life and transforming them into a new context. What do they exactly aim at? Do they try to find answers on the philosophical and theoretical questions of life is their irony and also tremendous humour a notion to cheer up in a complex world?
One extract of a Super 8 movie shows Fischli & Weiss, dressed as a bear and a rat, strolling through Hollywood, questioning life.The bears’ comment ( in “the least resistance”): ” I hate this chaos in the world. Nothing works. Everything is hopeless and sad.”

Stasi Spaces @ FOAM, Amsterdam

Darrel — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:51:42 +0000

Amsterdam’s finest photography museum, FOAM Fotografiemuseum, has what should be an excellent exhibition opening on the 14th March. The new exhibit by Daniel & Geo Fuchs: STASI â€“ Secret Rooms runs until the 4th June 2008, and documents the interior spaces used by the East German Stasi.

From the FOAM press release:

From 14 March 2008 Amsterdamâ€™s photography museum Foam presents STASI â€“ Secret Rooms by the German artist duo Daniel & Geo Fuchs. The exhibition opens up the hidden rooms once used by the STASI, the infamous East German secret service, in a series of monumental photos. While much of the former DDR infrastructure has been destroyed, or given an entirely new function, the clandestine spaces that Daniel and Geo Fuchs photographed are still in their original condition. Offices, cell complexes, bunkers, living quarters and interrogation rooms: everything is exactly the way it was before ‘Die Wende’. The typical East European interiors, with their functional furniture and sober colours seem remarkably stylised in retrospect. Yet above all, what this large, intriguing project shows is the symbiosis of architecture, power and impotence.

In January 2004, the Starke Foundation invited Daniel and Geo Fuchs to participate in an artists-in-residence programme in Berlin. Following their successful Conserving and Famous Eyes projects, it was only now that they discovered the full extent of the DDRâ€™s structural heritage in Berlin. Besides the Palast der Republik (the DDR parliament) this consists primarily of offices of the Ministry of State Security (STASI) in Lichtenberg, Bautzen and HohenschÃ¶nhausen. Even today many of these places remain practically untouched.

Daniel and Geo Fuchs researched the historical background of these locations and photographed them meticulously with an large format-camera. They used a strict system, photographing each room from the same perspective. Thanks to the subtle framing, apparently insignificant details acquire a new importance and give each picture an unusual interpretation. A red phone, a large, archaic intercom, typically East German furnishings, a solitary calendar; it all seems as if it were deliberately put in place by a fashion-conscious stylist. That the reality is rather more sinister gives these pictures their typically bitter aftertaste: the places we see here are checkpoints, prison cells, and for example the residence and offices of the former minister of state security. Daniel and Geo Fuchsâ€™s extremely precise pictures gradually draw us into the maelstrom as we realise the awesome absurdity of this most recent chapter of German history.

UN data

Thomas — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:44:44 +0000

UN data: slum population in metropolitan areas 2001

â€œThe UN-system has accumulated over the past 60 years an impressive amount of information. UNdata, developed by the Statistics Division of DESA, is a new powerful tool, which will bring this unique and authoritative set of data not only to the desks of decision makers and analysts, but also to journalists, to students and to all citizens of the world, â€ says Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

Since its foundation, the United Nations system has been collecting statistical information from member states on a variety of topics. The information thus collected constitutes a considerable information asset of the organization. However, these statistical data are often stored in proprietary databases, each with unique dissemination and access policies. As a result, users are often unaware of the full array of statistical information that the UN system has in its data libraries. The current arrangement also means that users are required to move from one database to another to access different types of information.

UNdata addresses this problem by pooling major UN databases and those of several international into one single internet environment. The innovative design allows a user to access a large number of UN databases either by browsing the data series or through a keyword search.

I love when major organisations understand that opening up their knowledge to the public is the way to the future. We’ve added the UN database to our our list of resources - scroll down to ‘data’.

VVVV Real-Time Video Programming Toolkit

Darrel — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:22:08 +0000

blackVSwhite from desaxismundi on Vimeo

I have been hearing more and more about VVVV. If you are a fan of Processing, then you’ll surely be a fan of VVVV. The results are amazing, both the screenshots and videos, it is worth a look for its inspiration alone. And if you’re interested in a visual programming interface for real-time video creation, this is a fascinating software:

vvvv is a toolkit for real time video synthesis. It is designed to facilitate the handling of large media environments with physical interfaces, real-time motion graphics, audio and video that can interact with many users simultaneously. vvvv uses a visual programming interface. Therefore it provides a graphical programming language for easy prototyping and development. vvvv is real time. where many other languages have distinct modes for building and running programs, vvvv only has one mode - runtime. vvvv is free for non-commercial use. Commercial use requires a license. Get the latest version from the Download section.

Download VVVV here. And you can scope out the interface screenshots here. And check out the software features through their propaganda here.

If you want to see the best of the VVVV work online, check out these links:
VVVV Blog
VVVV Group on Vimeo
VVVV Group on Youtube
VVVV Pool on FlickR

A couple of my favourite visual artists / designers using multiple softwares, including Processing and VVVV is:
LennyJPG on FlickR and Desaxismundi on Blogspot.

Free Trial Until May - Bentley’s Generative Components

Darrel — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:43:47 +0000

If you’re the type to follow the latest developments in architectural software (read: CAD Geek), then you’ll be excited about this announcement. Bentley Systems has released it’s industry-leading software, Generative Components, as a free trial until May 2008. The software has been making waves, especially in London, over the past few years. I was especially taken by the Generative Components plug-in when I heard Robert Aish speak (director of researcher at Bentley Systems) at the Game, Set and Match conference at the NAi in Rotterdam, 2006.

The software is featured through the Smart Geometry conference series. Presentations from the winter 2007 Smart Geometry conference in New York City is available online, and the list of presenters is impressive. The 2008 Smart Geometry conference is happening as I write in Munich, DE. We will be quite fortunate if the presentations are made available after the conference.

What Bentley Systems has to say about their Generative Components:

GenerativeComponentsâ„¢ (GC) enables architects and engineers to pursue designs and achieve results that were virtually unthinkable before. Empowered by computational methods, the designers can direct their creativity to deliver inspired sustainable buildings that are freer in form and use innovative materials and assemblies. GC facilitates this by allowing the quick exploration of a broad range of “what-if” alternatives for even the most complex buildings.

This unique generative design software captures and exploits the critical relationships between design intent and geometry. Designs can be refined by either dynamically modeling and directly manipulating geometry, by applying rules and capturing relationships among building elements, or by defining complex building forms and systems through concisely expressed algorithms.

To inform decisions, GC is integrated with building information modeling, analysis, and simulation software, providing feedback on building materials, assemblies, systems performance, and environmental conditions. This integration also ensures that intent becomes reality by enabling designs to accurately and efficiently flow through to detailed production and fabrication.

GenerativeComponents is already enabling leading architects and engineers around the world to deliver inspired sustainable buildings. Among them are Arup, Buro Happold, Foster + Partners, Grimshaw Architects, HOK, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Morphosis, and SHoP Architects.

Aaron Betsky to Curate the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale 2008

Darrel — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:42:41 +0000

Arsenale Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale 2006 (photo: Darrel Ronald)

Ahhh, the Venice Architecture Biennale is coming again in 2008! The exhibition runs from the 14 September to the 24 November and I’m totally stoked for another visit to the magical city.

This year’s 11th International Architecture Exhibition will be curated by Aaron Betsky, the former director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute and now director of the Cincinnati Art Museum. You can find an interesting interview from 10.2004 between Archinect and Betsky here.

This year’s theme will be:

Out There: Architecture Beyond Building

These days â€“in Betskyâ€™s visionâ€“ buildings are not enough, or too much, to answer to the call of making ourselves at home in our modern world. We must be willing to use all forms, shapes, images and tactics to help us frame, figure out and order a world that is continually changing.

The worlds of art, interiors, landscapes, projected media and literature can and must be mined for such elements. We must not let buildings be the tombs of architecture, but must make an architecture that helps us to feel at home in, figure out and represent the world we live in.

This year’s theme seems uncannily similar to the manifesto of Volume magazine, published by Archis:

About Volume
Volume is an independent quarterly magazine that sets the agenda for design. With going beyond architectureâ€™s definition of â€˜making buildingsâ€™ it reaches out for global views on designing environments, advocates broader attitudes to social structures, and reclaims the cultural and political significance of architecture. Created as a global idea platform to voice architecture any way, anywhere, anytime, it represents the expansion of architectural territories and the new mandate for design.

And the official Aaron Betsky biography published through the biennale:

Aaron Betsky

Born in Missoula (Montana, USA) in 1958, Aaron Betsky trained in the Netherlands and the United States. Betsky brings vast and varied experience as curator, manager, historian, critic and in creating architecture exhibitions to the Biennale di Venezia.

Director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) of Rotterdam â€“one of the most important architecture museums and centres in the worldâ€“ from 2001 to 2006, for three editions (2002, 2004, 2006) he held the post of Commissioner for the Dutch Pavilion at the Biennale di Veneziaâ€™s International Architecture Exhibition. At the 8th International Architecture Exhibition (2002), the Dutch Pavilion, curated by Aaron Betsky, won the Golden Lion for best foreign pavilion.

After finishing his secondary education in the Netherlands, Betsky graduated from the Yale School of Architecture (USA) and gained a Ph.D. in the History of Architecture from the Technical University in Delft (Netherlands).He is currently Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum (since 2006), one of the most important and oldest (125 years) in the United States. Before this, between 1995 and 2001, he was Curator for architecture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Betsky is a prolific writer and journalist and the author of a dozen books and numerous articles with leading international specialised periodicals. He has written for the â€œLos Angeles Timesâ€ (1991-1994), and amongst the many other newspapers and periodicals he has contributed to, the â€œNew York Timesâ€, â€œThe Village Voiceâ€, â€œDomusâ€, â€œElleâ€ and â€œMetropolitan Homeâ€.

He has held the Eero Saarinen chair in architecture at the University of Michigan and has been Visiting Professor at some leading US universities: at Columbia University in New York, at the California College of Arts in San Francisco, at the School of Architecture in Houston, and at the Southern California Institute of Santa Monica. He is an honorary member of the British Institute of Architects (2004) and has won an award from the American Institute of Architects (2001). From 1985 to 1987, he worked with Frank O. Gehry Associates, Inc. (Venice, California).

Among his books are What is Modernism (Phaidon Press, to be published in autumn 2008) and The United Nations Building (Thames & Hudson, 2006).

Giardini Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale 2006 (photo: Thomas Stellmach)

You can follow these links to see photos from the 10th biennale in 2006 from Darrel Ronald and Thomas Stellmach.

Soulburn scripts - for 3d Connaisseurs

Thomas — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:09:08 +0000

wireBundler script in action.

The soulburn scripts by Neil Blevins have been updated. They are a useful and free collection of commands to be used with 3ds max or maya.

New in the update:

Added 5 new scripts:

bitmapCollector: Collects all the scene bitmaps and places them into a single directory, updating your scene to point to their new home.
objectPainter: This script lets you paint objects (geometry, splines, lights, helpers, etc) onto a piece of geometry. Like for example, you can make 10 different rocks, and then paint them in a random fashion onto a terrain. This script is still IP, and there will be lots of additions in coming months.
softSelectionControl: Toggles, or turns on or off the soft selection tool for objects.
faceNormalDisplayer: Toggles, or turns on or off the face normal display for objects.
surfaceSnapper: This script allows you to move one object along the surface of a second object. Great for placing objects on a terrain.

Updated a bunch of scripts, here’s the major updates:

materialInfoDisplayer: Added “Number Of Maps In Active Material” function.
nameManager: Renames way faster in some situations
texmapPreview: Script turns off “Select Buckets Mode” in Brazil 1 (if it’s on), and then turns it back on after the render.
objectDropper: Now you can align dropped objects with ground. Also, you can now select an axis, to drop the objects in different directions.
splineKnotToObject: Added ability to instance the objects, and have it use the spline thickness as the object size.

Mole’s View

Thomas — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:18:44 +0000

Advertisement clip for Madrid’s metro. Via my favourite daily blog and source of beauty, monoscope.

DRL Ten _ AA School London

szacka — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:58:10 +0000

From 22nd February to 18th March 2008, The Architectural Association in London present DRL TEN.

DRL actually stands for Design Research Lab, a research unit started at the AA in 1997. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of DRL, the AA have decide to organise an exhibition, build a temporary pavilion in Bedford Square, and publish DRL TEN: A Design Research Compendium.

The pavilion, designed by DRL graduates Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang is not yet ready. Its opening is announced for ~~Friday 29th of February~~ Thursday 13th of March (6.30pm â€“ 8.30pm) while the show at the AA gallery opened yesterday night.

The book will be launch Thursday 13th of March (6pm-8pm) and will documents the activities of the DRL from 1997 to 2007.

The exhibition DRL Ten is featuring ten years of work by the DRL’S staff and former students. The coordinators of DRL TEN invited a group of selected graduates of the program (called the â€˜Young Punksâ€™) to present their work since graduation. Some of them have now started their own offices, while others are working for some of the big starchitects (Zaha Hadid Architects, Future Systems, OMA, and so forth).

Yesterday’s opening at 36 Bedford Square was painfully congested: Visitors had to queue for about twenty minutes in order to enter the exhibition, as the â€˜one in, one outâ€™ rule seemed to be of primary importance for the DRL TENâ€™s organizers.

[CG Textures] Will Rock You

Darrel — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:01:45 +0000

Source: CG Textures - Splatter Set

If you busy creating 3D digital models and don’t know about the Netherlands-based CG Textures database, it is worth the look. Run by a friend, Marcel Vijfwinkel, he generously has an open source attitude to the content. You can read the license here. A lot of the material comes from Marcel himself from his work in the gaming industry, and the site now has many content contributors. If you or your office are able to pay for a year-long membership, it will support the site and give you multiple perks.

One Version of What it’s Like to Work at OMA

Darrel — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:23:38 +0000

I had to laugh when I found this video linked from the OMA website. After OMA won the BNA Cube award in the Netherlands, this video was produced by Blue Eye Productions to portray the working atmosphere within the office. I really hope you guys (that work there) respond to this. I can tell that some things are true, but others are misleading, like the fact that the teams in the office “are not competitive.” Also linked from the Blue Eye Productions website are other videos and topics concerning architecture.

And if you get the urge to work for OMA, and haven’t applied all ready, they’re (always) looking for people.

Favourite Books of Archinecters

Thomas — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:52:25 +0000

A little follow-up to the 010 publications: some Archinect editors share their favorite book titles of year of the pig: see their selection here.