Flaming Architecture

We have just read of a fire at Guangzhou Opera House. The project, designed by Zaha Hadid with a web-like exoskeleton, includes an 1,800-seat theater as well as a multipurpose hall and support facilities. The building was set to open this fall.

A Chinese media outlet reports that the blaze has been extinguished but that the extent of the damage has not been determined. A project architect is currently on site and a statement from Hadid’s office is expected shortly.

Following the recent fire of Rem Koolhass and Ole Scheeren's 522-foot OMA-designed Chinese, TVCC tower, the event represents the second construction blaze at a building site in China by an internationally known architect.

What are they doing over there?

The Top 50...and then some.

Architect Weekly / Hanley Wood announces its picks for the top 50 architecture firms in the United States based on profitability, commitment to sustainability, and caliber of design. A good read.

They, additionally, named 50 honored firms. Among them are two Baltimore firms that are not like those big, old, design mega-firms that usually eat everyone's lunch. The two firms that made the list are #74 Cho Benn Holback + Associates and #76 Design Collective. Congratulations! Thanks for the inspiration.

Urban Woodsman

Chris Holmgren, Seneca Creek Joinery
Photo: David Sharpe

Nothing is wasted. If a log has heart-rot or termites, Chris Holmgren dries it out and makes it into a bowl.

Holmgren is one of our eco-heroes right here in Montgomery County, Maryland. He was recently featured in the Washington Post. Once, as a contractor, he learned from the U.S. Forest Service that over 3.8 million board feet of timber are tossed or destroyed each year. He decided that was too much waste. Burned out on the remodeling business, he started the Seneca Creek Joinery and never looked back. He now collects every manner of salvaged tree or log. From them, he makes elegant Windsor Chairs, floor boards, tables and custom milled pieces.

Through his Wood Recovery Project he partners with local communities and tree companies to gather the wood that would normally be lost. Holmgren wants no tree to be wasted.

I envision six or eight processing centers like mine around the Beltway. Two hundred million board feet of lumber goes to waste each year inside the Beltway alone. What makes up that figure? Tree trimming, hazard trees and diseased trees. And there's always somebody saying, "Well, we don't like to take a tree down, but that one's so messy."

We lose 10 to 15 acres of woodland a day in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to land-clearing for development and growing corn for ethanol. That's not an economic disaster, but it's going to be an ecological disaster.

Holmgren makes the argument for thinking, buying and planning locally understandable and urgent.

Hit Tip to Paul Bowman

The Bus Stop

We are regularly dismayed by the condition of bus stops. Often they are vandalized and graffiti covered, or badly neglected. The guardian.co.uk offers a short slideshow of some bus stops that are pretty refreshing.

Tata of India Takes on Housing

Tata Housing Plan, Mumbai, India

Remember those people who brought us the $2,000 car? Well, now they have taken on housing. Here's what Tata's doing for less than imagined. Granted, they are building in India. Labor is cheap. But, importantly, they are DOING it. Business Week suggests that the price range from $7,800 to $13,400 encompasses the smart idea of selling to the "bottom of the pyramid" where the bulk of the population is.

Other's argue that even these prices are too high. For example, a well paid call center employee makes about $6,000 a year. One could speculate that Tata has anticipated the growth that the newly elected Singh party promises. Indians are unuse to carrying debt, but one can imagine that this, too, is in their future. We think the hopeful detail is that their project promises 70% open space.

Peter Zumthor - 2009 Pritzker Prize Winner

Peter Zumthor - 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize Winner

In honor of Peter Zumthor's award of the Pritzker Architecture Prize this year, we grabbed this extensive slide show of Flickr photos from Zumthor's studios and from fans around the world who have sought out and photographed his work. "His architecture expresses respect for the primacy of the site, the legacy of a local culture, and the invaluable lessons of architectural history," commented the judges.

Washington Post, architecture and design critic, Phillip Kennicott, wrote of Zumthor, "He is one of the least flashy of architects ever honored by the Pritzker jury. Zumthor's work, much of it built in Switzerland, is remarkable for its visual simplicity, its reliance on pure and sensuous materials, including wood and local stones, and for its careful integration into the natural or urban landscape."

Frances Anderton, noted design and architectural critic, offered this: "many (have) argued that an ideal architecture for our times would fuse environmental and social responsibility with wondrous design. I would say that Zumthor's work, especially the Vals spa -- built for the well-being of local villagers as well as visitors at the adjoining hotel; made largely with local materials utilizing local craft; and at once very simple and utterly luxurious -- exquisitely embodies that convergence."

For 30 years, Zumthor has worked in the remote Swiss mountain village of Haldenstein.

Thermal Baths in Vals, Switzerland

30 seconds : MoMA Shorts

We thought we would share a video feature of MoMA's redesigned website. Members get a :30 shot at describing their ideas and experiences in and around the museum. Here is the link providing an exceptional point of view on MoMA. It was created for MoMA by the Swiss filmmaker/artist, Thilo Hoffman.

MoMA's new site anticipates the growing use of social media and offers opportunities for people from around the world to respond and inform through the site.

Art Babble

ArtBabble offers a tremendous relief from the millions of videos flooding the world with mindless piffle. For keeping up with a wide spectrum of the art and design world in a video medium, don't miss it. Art Babble offers a concentration of illuminating work, interviews with notables such as Robert Irwin and Chuck Close, and video essays on current works of creators such as architect/artist Maya Lin. We like it.

Eco-Refit : Empire State Building

New York's most iconic building has announced a $20 million eco-refit in addition to its $500 million renovation efforts to attract new tenants. It is projected that the energy refit will save $4.4 million a year with a 38% energy savings.

According to the U.S Department of State, buildings account for an estimated 36 percent of overall energy use, 65 percent of electricity consumption, 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions and 12 percent of water use in America, exemplifying a major area of interest for ecologists.

The Green Business Council is forecasting that the market for green architecture and buildings will reach $60 billion in the US by 2010, up from $7 billion in 2005. But this latest trend in investment in existing buildings provides a new challenge in the architecture society, and a welcome economic opportunity.

Skateable Habitat!? OMG!!

Photo: Theo Vranas

A client asked Archivirus Architecture and Design, an architectural firm in Athens, Greece, to create a home you could skateboard IN. It is called "Ramp House" and it is pretty stunning. It is not just a house with a ramp; the whole house is skateable. We'd call that a mega ramp for an excellent, 50-50 grind. Read on.

How Palladian was Palladio?

Palladio’s Villa Rotonda

Andrea Palladio was the most influential architect in Western history. This week Paul Goldberger, in The New Yorker magazine, provides a crisp critique that describes Palladio as "a modern architect, not a copyist. It was the new ideas that mattered." It is not often that Palladio is described as a modernist. But, Goldberger defends this idea, by claiming that Palladio's designs went beyond any known style. Here's the link for your reading pleasure. (Please note: Sorry, a commercial "dashboard" may cover the article. Just click the "close" button.).

Heads Up! Vote Earth this Saturday!

Earth Hour 2009 takes place this Saturday, March 28 at 8:30 pm local time. Earth Hour is sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). This year they expect that over 1 billion people will vote YES for the future of the earth by turning off their lights for one hour. The San Francisco Bridge, the Sidney Opera House, the humongous Coca Cola sign in Times Square, to name a few lighting monuments, will go dark at 8:30 pm Saturday.

Visit the Vote Earth site to get a feeling for this enormous world-wide event. Baltimore, College Park, DC, and Arlington are among the local cities pledged to turn off the lights. We were impressed by how many more cities in Canada were registered than American. If you go to the Earth Hour site and cursor down the home

screen, to the world map, you can see the 2,800+ cities and 83 countries that are participating.

Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia in 2007. These year's event has been turned into the world's first global election. For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming.

WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009. This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.

World's Cheapest Car is Ready

India's Tata Motors is debuting the $2,000 Nano. Time magazine offers a photo gallery of the new car and Ten Things You Should Know about the Nano.

Spring Forward

We've crossed the equinox. Heat is not far away. Neither is the urge to GREEN our world. The importance of the Green Revolution is evident in the willow's bloom. This spring, choose one thing you can do to combat climate change and promote sustainability. Save the willows. Save the earth. Choose to help.

1. Plant a tree in your yard or start a garden. Plants and trees help clean the air, are visual expressions of nature's beauty, and uplift us. Even something as simple as growing herbs in a garden can provide nourishment and delicious meals for the family.

2. Simply stop using pesticides on your lawn. Pesticides contribute to the pollution of the Earth and poison our water supply, endanger human health, and sicken wildlife. There are many effective, natural alternatives available, or even simpler, allow nature to take over the growing of your lawn, creating food for bees, birds and animals.

3. Support a local, organic farmer or CSA. Some farmers require your active participation, some deliver to urban areas. The food is nutritious and delicious, and uses less of our non-renewable resources.

4. Buy organic. Look for and ask for - organic produce wherever you buy your groceries, or even better, shop at your local health food store which carries only organic produce. Buying organic reduces pesticide exposure to the land, farmers, harvesters, and your family.

5. Spend time in nature. Taking a walk, having a picnic, or simply sitting outdoors and watching the sky, deepens our connection to the natural world , thereby motivating us to be better stewards of the Earth.

6. Buy energy-saving, compact-fluorescent light bulbs and other energy efficient products. When your next bulb goes out, replace it with a compact fluorescent light bulb. They last 10 times as long, and over their lifetime, use 1/4 the energy of an incandescent bulb, saving you $30-$40 on your electric bill. When replacing major appliances purchase energy efficient ones - look for the government's EnergyStar label.

7. Recycle. The old adage "reduce, reuse, recycle" still works very well today. Many large waste disposal companies have an at-your-curb recycling program. Check your own local disposal company.

8. Shop Green. Be a consumer that uses your dollars to support companies and products that are better for the Earth. Hundreds of companies offer everything from organic and hemp clothing to non-toxic cleaners and solar energy products.

9. Join or make a donation to any organization that supports the environment. There are numerous worthy organizations that work hard for the Earth and are in need of our support. If the aforementioned tasks seem to require too much effort or time, simply write a check to those who have integrity regarding the Earth and make a meaningful contribution to the Earth's health.

10. Create good thoughts. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "All we have to fear is fear itself." By creating the awareness that we can heal the Earth - that it is not too late, we combat the paralysis that fear often produces. So if all you can do on this Earth Day is think one good thought about the Earth, you will have contributed to a changing of the fear-based mentality.

Very Small Homes

The apartments shown in Michael Wolf's "100 x 100" helped us to appreciate minimalism in an entirely different way.

Wolf asked residents of a housing project in Hong Kong for permission to photography their 10 x 10 apartments: some spare, some cluttered, some claustrophobic. We found it interesting to try to identify what we could find, besides the basic utilitarian objects---bed, table, chair---that is universal in these homes. Right off the bat, we found the color red everywhere, warming the most cluttered space and inviting us in.

As we clicked through the photos, we had to remind ourselves that the Chinese are the people who developed the practice of feng shui.

Maya Lin, Landscape Amnesia

Maya Lin, 2009

Maya Lin, designer of the deeply moving Vietnam Veterans Memorial, is exhibiting in DC for the first time in 15 years. Her exhibit, titled "Systematic Landscapes," opened this Saturday at the Corcoran Art Gallery and runs through July 12. This article in the Washington Post provides helpful perspective on her life after the Vietnam Memorial and her maturing work.

What also caught our imagination is her next project called, "What is Missing?"

It will be dedicated to extinct and endangered species, and to threatened habitats. More subtly, it will highlight "landscape amnesia" and "shifting base lines," the notions that we don't know what is missing because we have forgotten the way things were -- the lost sound of songbirds in the yard when we were children.

Where will this memorial be? Nowhere, everywhere, says Lin..."Let's rethink what a monument can be, and what if a monument can, in a funny way, be formless," she says. "A memorial that can go wherever it wants to go. It's basically free."

It is a fascinating idea. Lin claims this will be her last memorial. We offered this post "Maya Lin, Artist or Architect?" in November 2008. A video of her accompanies the post along with several links to deeper information about her.

Where in the World are You?

The Newseum in DC has created a brilliant interactive design, featuring the front page news in real time from newspapers all over the world.

For those of us with our noses in the New York Times and the Washington Post, it is a bracing reminder that the rest of the press in the states and around world have a great variety of issues that somehow seem rarely addressed by the big guys and, when they are, they seem weighted differently.

See what the press is saying and how they are saying it, from small towns to cultural centers of the world at the Newseum's site. The design is impressive, er, news worthy.

LEED Platinum House

A prefab home, called "Unity House," was completed by Bensonwood Homes of Walpole, N.H., in collaboration with an M.IT. research consortium. The house built for Unity College, in Unity, Maine, has just been granted LEED Platinum designation by the U.S. Green Building Council. Designed for net-zero energy use, the house is actually performing ahead of expectations, even in Maine's severe winter weather where the temperatures in December slid to -15 degrees. LEED Platinum has been awarded to only 200+ homes in America.

The residents of Unity House, Cindy and Mitchell Thomashow, Mitchell is the President of the college, are blogging about their experience. It is an informative blog! Interestingly, Unity College calls itself "America's Environmental College." This house is the first in a master plan to convert the entire campus into a zero carbon institution.

A short slide show of photos, including the interior of the 1,900/sf house, can be found at the end of this article.

Shelter for the Poorest

Brenda Gardenhire was homeless over the last year, until she got her EDAR unit.

They are currently calling it the "Hobo Condo." We posted in December last year about EDAR (Everyone Deserves a Roof) an innovative shelter designed by Pasadena Art Center College of Design students. We are happy to report that the unit is on the streets and helping people already. Here is a web article from CNN.

It's the brainchild of "Revenge of the Nerds" movie producer Peter Samuelson, who has spent much of his life working with charities to help impoverished children. He researched the project while cycling to work from LA to Santa Monica. He interviewed 62 homeless people on one ride alone.

Samuelson put his smarts and money to work and came up with the EDAR.

The four-wheeled home has an expandable base that stays off the ground and is covered by a canvas, giving it the feel of a tent. It extends 86 inches and is 32 inches wide, thin enough to fit through standard doorways. Each unit has a mattress and sleeping bag to provide comfort. It's also flame-retardant and sturdy enough to keep its occupants dry during heavy rains. A braking mechanism prevents the unit from rolling away at night. They also come with a chain and padlock to prevent it from being stolen.

It's not a moment too soon.

The Mod.FabTM, although designed by Taliesin, the desert based studio started by Frank Lloyd Wright, the prefabricated units don't bear the typical warmth of material choice associated with the master architect. The added use of color and minimal interiors reflect a more Bauhaus aesthetic.

Nonetheless the 600 sq ft prototype, built at Taliesin West is another intelligent and welcome addition to the host of modern prefabricated structures now available. The prefab structure when built is meant to be "unplugged," relying on low-consumption fixtures, rainwater harvesting, greywater re-use, natural ventilation, solar orientation, and photovoltaics.

The Taliesin class that designed and build The Mod.FabTM was co-taught by Jennifer Siegal or the highly regarded Office of Mobile Design in Los Angeles.

Nostalgia Nod

For everyone who sorely misses the familiar local stores and markets, James T. Murry and Karla L. Murray have produced a photo collection of local New York storefronts that just makes us smile.

From butchers to knish makers to florists and five-and-dimes, they provide a luscious photographic review in their book "STORE FRONT: The Disappearing Face Of New York ." It is a massive 6+ pound historic New York City document of a quickly disappearing urban phenomenon.

There are four fold-outs that extend to a fabulous 51 inches. As local stores quickly disappear from cities everywhere, the new city seems more defined by what is gone than by what has arrived. We think that as the recession creates more and more uncertainty, we will find ourselves even more deeply moved by what has been lost.

This is not to say that we regret change, it is to say that change shifts our paradigms and it takes a while for our hearts to catch up. That seems as it should be.

From Porch to Patio

The porch in early America represented opportunities for social connection on many levels and a sphere of civil society on another. Patrick Deneen remembers an article he read in college, back in 1975:

In this simple but profound essay, Thomas explores the social implications of the architectural practice of building porches on the front of homes and its eventual abandonment in favor of patios behind the house...As with any central feature in our built environment, this is more than merely a passing fashion trend or a meaningless design change: the transition from porch to patio was one of the clearest and significant manifestations of the physical change from a society concerned with the relationship of private and public things - in the Latin, res publica - to one of increasing privacy. The porch, as a physical bridge between the private realm of the house and the public domain of the street and sidewalk, was the literal intermediate space between two worlds that have been increasingly separated in our time, and hence increasingly ungoverned in both forms.

Radical Architecture Intervention

Claimed to be the most radical public art in England, British artist Richard Wilson created "Turning the Place Over." And that he does! One of the wildest interventions into a piece of architecture we've seen. The art was created for the Liverpool Biennial.

Flickr offers some terrific still shots of the work.

Can Modern Architecture be Truly Sustainable?

"Yes, says Hopkins’ MD Bill Taylor, we have no choice but to build sustainably; No, says the Victorian Society director Ian Dungavell, modern architects prefer gadgetry to thermal mass."

The British debate. You decide.

Nothing is Original.

Click on the image to enlarge

Jim Jarmusch's films have nearly single-handedly defined independent cinema. We think his films are hip, smart, quirky, slow, and always interesting. The above poster articulates his belief in thievery in the cause of authenticity.

Abandoned Places : Chernobyl

The melancholy of abandoned places is heightened in Chernobyl, by the physical and emotional contamination caused by one of our great environmental tragedies.

On 26 April 1986 01:23:45 a.m. reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant, near Pripyat in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, exploded. Further explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Four hundred times more fallout was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Here is a huge collection of haunting photos taken by Dimitry Kuznetsov in Pripyat, Ukraine, the town of 50,000 people who worked at the plant. They were a small part of the 336,000 who were evacuated from the area. The evacuees were told that they would return to Pripyat in three days, explaining why clothing and furnishings remain.

Don't Wait to be Laid Off!

We came across a snappy list of 100 ways to save money if you are laid off.

But, we say, WHY WAIT?! These are terrific, good, sustainable ideas. Get ahead of the damage. Take action now.

Villa Savoye

Villa Savoye, before its restoration

Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, Le Corbusier, built in 1929

Villa Savoye, after its restoration

Another gem has been saved. It remains hard to imagine that Le Corbusier built this house in 1929. The house is timeless. It could have been built last week. Whether you've warmed up to the International Style or not, love it or hate it, its influence continues to drive design and architecture ideas right into the 21st Century.

Villa Savoye hovers above a grass plane on thin concrete pillars, emphasizing mass and diminishing support visually, with strip windows, and a flat roof with a deck area, ramp, and a few contained touches of curvaceous walls. Simple.

Design by Jihad : Insomniac-punk

The Princess at work

We are always intrigued by graffiti. This young graffiti artist is French and Islamic and fed up with western advertising's "impurity":

By day, she wears a white veil, symbol of purity. By night, her black veil is the expression of her vengeful fight for a cause. With her spray paint and black marker pen, she is out to hijabize advertising. Even Kate Moss is targeted. She knows all about visual terrorism! And she will not spare her right of expression for the likes of publicists. Make sure that all advertising can be hijabized “ ‘cause that’s her fight Jihad is her art”. And don’t forget, she acts upon her own free will. She is not involved in any lobby or movement be it political, religious or to do with advertising. In fact, the Princess is an insomniac-punk. She is the leader of an artistic fight, nothing else.

Beware the Princess. She's got your number.

Stop Recycling! Start Repairing.

Platform21 offers these counterintuitive mandates. CLICK on the Manifesto to get the full effect. Repair!