architecture

New micro-dwelling

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The manual for micro-dwelling shows interesting new micro-dwelling development:

MICRO DWELLINGS is a system for making low cost dwellings of variable sizes for any number of persons. It consists of movable housing modules that can form different configurations on land, on water and under water. The system allows for a diversity of materials as well as changes and adaptations. The MICRO DWELLINGS are modular, can be scaled up and down, and expand and grow together with other systems into small communities. (...) An energy unit could be hooked on to the MICRO DWELLINGS, consisting of for example micro-windmills, solar panels and solar heat systems, heat pumps etc. (...) The MICRO DWELLINGS can be built onto rooftops of existing buildings or be suspended from a bridge or a wall.

Why do I blog this? I like the last point: living above a bridge... that sounds so William Gibson.

A 'cultural hub' in Dubai

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I am not a great fan of Dubai architecture craze; however, there is this interesting new project called 'DUBAI HUB one' designed by GEORGE KATODRYTIS / STUDIONOVA, via Bidoun Magazine (Arts and Culture from the Middle East).

The proposal is for a series of cultural hubs which will act as focal points and public foyers where cultural programs can be plugged-in: art galleries, museums, libraries, performance stages, poetry reading salons, music recital spaces, art auction facilities, etc. The main lobby of the buildings is to be as public and accessible as possible, like a typical Dubai shopping center, with escalators and ramps leading to the upper levels, and to special rooms for additional cultural events. All events and items will be consumable: The aim is to convert the culture of shopping into shopping for culture. The external skin structure and glazing is designed using algorithmic weaving scripts.

Phone masts disguised as trees

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Preserved TreeScapes InternationalTM (PTI), a company specialised in replica trees. They now expanded their products to phone mast disguised as trees:

Most recently, PTI has turned its experience and talents toward concealment solutions for the wireless communications provider. The tremendous increase in demand for wireless towers has generated great opposition to the use of conventional, unconcealed structures. Both community and zoning requirements for high quality concealment are on the rise. Today, concealment issues may be the greatest obstacles to obtaining zoning approval. PTI’s botanically correct tree tower products will help speed the approval process. PTI has an ongoing commitment to develop future products and concealment opportunities through design, research and testing.

Why do I blog this? this kind of today's artefacts would definitely appear to be weird for time-travellers coming from the past.

Renzo Piano's conception of space

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The Guardian recently featured a nice article about italian architect Renzo Piano. I was not so interested by his take on french's so-called riot (even though his take about it is relevant: "The peripheries are the cities that will be. Or not. Or will never be"), rather his thoughts about space and emptiness are clever:

Piano wants to introduce the European idea of urban planning to the British capital, ideas which he characterises as understanding the difference between a piazza (good) and a plaza (less good).

"A piazza is not a plaza," fumes Piano. "The plaza is the theme park of the piazza; the plaza is the commercial version. A piazza is an empty space with no function. This is what Europeans understand." A space without function allows one to be "in the moment", he says, and to counter what he sees as a major flaw in modern life - the habit of interpreting all experience in the light of achievement, as a means to an end. We should, he thinks, learn to lighten up, and the creation of empty, purposeless spaces within cities might encourage that. "You don't have to struggle to give function to every single corner. You can just wait and see and enjoy."

Finally, one of the last quote in the article is a good food for thought that reflects all his thinking: ""Architecture in some way has the duty to suggest behaviour".

Why do I blog this? I find pertinent to have insights from architect's vision of space, how they think about it and how they envision spatial features as well as their connections with behavior. As a 'user experience' researcher, I am interested in how spatial features frame people's behavior.

The weirdest research lab structure

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(via), FLIP seems to be the world's weirdest laboratory:

The lab starts off as a regular ship but when it reaches its destination it 'flips' so that most of the ship sinks leaving the end of the ship standing above the water. Once flipped walls become floors and ceilings and whilst some furniture rotates during the flipping process others are built twice so that one of them is always in the correct position

It's meant to be used by scientists who "needed a more quiet, stable place than a research ship to study how sound waves behave under water":

When FLIP is in its vertical position it is both extremely stable and quiet. Since Drs. Fisher and Spiess completed their first tests, many other important data have been gathered using FLIP. The way water circulates, how storm waves are formed, how seismic waves move, how heat is exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere, and the sound made underwater by marine animals are just a few of the subjects studied using the amazing FLIP.

Walking Cities by Ron Herron

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While wandering around on the Web tonight, I ran across this Walking Cities project by Ron Herron (a member of the Archigram avantgarde group). In this concept, the city is a giant, reptilian structures which glided across the globe until its inhabitants found a place where they wanted to settle.

It seems that this concept is now forgotten, there are still temporary architectures but moving habitations (apart from trailers) are not really trendy...

A house out of a 747

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The WSJ has an intriguing story (by Alex Frangos) about an architect who designed a house out of an cut-apart and junked 747 airplane.

Her architect had an idea: Buy a junked 747 and cut it apart. Turn the wings into a roof, the nose into a meditation temple. Use the remaining scrap to build six more buildings, including a barn for rare animals. He made a sketch. (...) "We are trying to use every piece of this aircraft, much like an Indian would use a buffalo," says Mr. Hertz. (...) The wings of the old 747 will rest on thick concrete walls, forming the roof of a multilevel main house. Other pieces will be used to assemble an art studio, a loft and a barn to house rare domestic animals.

The picture below is taken from the architect website:

Is it a cradle-to-cradle oriented design?! I like it anyway