When do you fire a client?

You can refer to these four warning signs (taken from "Inside PR", a a weekly Canadian podcast about public relations, episode #108):

1. The chemistry and your relationship to the client have gone flat.
2. Unreasonable client demands. You just continuously deliver.
3. No return of investment, you simply don’t make money with the client anymore.
4. Abusive behaviour of the client, the mean client-syndrome.

But what applies to PR agency must not be true for architectural practices. Strangely, architects have a more masochistic approach to clients: They are dying to see their designs actually being built and accept even the strangest client demands. But when do architects lose their patience?

Everybody Loves Architecture. Festivals and Biennale.

Architecture has become an industry. Interestingly not for building but for the perception. It's a flood of books, magazines, newspaper articles, documentaries and now even of architectural festivals. It seems as if these events are mostly self-supporting– students, starlets and wan bees, theorists, architectural journalists, etc - architects for architects. But where are the clients?

2008 festival guide

I haven't got a clue about all these festivals – but they have one thing in common: passion for architecture. Summertime is festival time and here is the uncompleted list:

Architekturtage, architektur erleben, Austria,
May 16th to 17th
"Experiencing Architecture is the motto under which all the provinces of Austria will present a wide-ranging programme, providing you an exciting overview of the most varied aspects of architecture."
http://www.architekturtage.at/English
factor: have fun, a lot of office parties, www.feld72.at, www.000y0.at and more.

London Festival of Architecture 2008,
June 20th to Juy 20th
"The London Festival of Architecture 2008 is a celebration and exploration of the city's buildings, streets and spaces, aimed at Londoners and visitors alike."
factor: have fun
http://www.lfa2008.org/

XXIII UIA World Congress of Architecture, Transmitting Architecture, Torino 2008,
June 28th to July 3rd, 2008
"Architecture that is a part of an overall process that wants to face problems that go beyond the tight environments and languages of the profession to face the mankind's true and far-reaching problems."
http://www.uia2008torino.org/U8T/Engine/RAServePG.php
factor: be smart

La Biennale di Venezia, 11th International Architecture Exhibition
from September 14th to November 23rd, 2008
According to Aaron Betsky, the 11th Architecture Biennale "points out what should be an obvious fact: architecture is not building. Buildings are objects and the act of building leads to such objects, but architecture is something else. It is the way we think and talk about buildings, how we represent them, how we build them".
http://www.labiennale.org/en/
factor: be a dandy, architecture and Venice – simply great

World Architecture Festival, Barcelona,
October 22nd to 24th, 2008
"The World Architecture Festival is the annual event for architects worldwide. The Festival will celebrate the work, concerns and aspirations of the international architectural community, during a three-day event taking place 22-24 October 2008 in Barcelona."
http://www.worldarchitecturefestival.com/
factor: be competitive, each competition entry costs 950 €

Padiglione Italia 2006

Wonderland Magazine. Architectural Entrepreneurship.

Wonderland Magazine has published their third issue: "going-public". The magazine is (somehow) a guide to support emerging architects as they start out on their careers. Modern spoken: architectural entrepreneurship. After #1 "getting started" and #2 "making mistakes", the third issue deals with publicity - marketing techniques for architects. "This issue’s succession of chapters is informed by three guiding questions: why, how, and where to go public."

You can download the current issue at wonderland magazine.

Rolling Gates by Edouard François.

Usually car ports are an eyesore in the city centre. The doorways banalize the street space and replace shops and pedestrian-level facades with rolling gates. Additionally, parking garage often increase inner city's traffic. A guaranteed parking-lot makes driving more attractive, doesn’t it?
But at least there are variations to the ordinary rolling gates: at the luxury Hôtel Fouquet's Barrière by architect Edouard François.

Hôtel Fouquet's Barrière by architect Edouard François

Plan Poncho.

Frequent printing errors? - Make a plan poncho!

Beijing Lights.

In several projects Herzog and de Meuron increasingly pay attention to light design and its orchestration. Needless to mention because everyone might know the impressive colour changing of the Allianz Arena in Munich or the illuminated façade of the St. Jakob Station in Basel. Likewise HdM has also done custom designed lightnings: Commercial successful products like the “pipe sospensione”, produced by Artemide or the “Jingzi” hanging lamp by Belux.

from left to right - Jingzi-30 light by Belux - pipe, by artemide, http://www.artemide.com/- simple light design at Dominus Winery

A Beijing-based friend has recently uploaded interior photographs from the Beijing National Station's (Bird’s Nest) opening. Again some innovative lightining: futuristic chandelier in the stadion's middle zone and downscaled mini versions of the bird's nest as outddoor lights.

interior and exterior light in the Beijing National Stadion, images courtesy of grüngrün, copyright grüngrüm

Le Corbusier. Still Modern.

Maison La Roche today and the Weissenhofsiedlung in 1927.

Both in 1927 at the Weissenhofsiedlung and in 2008 at the Maison La Roche cars make a big contrast to Corbusier’s architecture. Corbusier’s buildings simply succeed to appear timeless - whatever car parks in front.

Urban-bicycle schemes in Vienna and Paris.

The threat of climate change makes alternatives to motorized transportation in metropolitan areas increasingly important. Overloaded subways can hardly handle more commuter and thus different means of transportation are needed.

Recently both cites – Paris and Vienna – have introduced a self-service bike rental system: “bike-hire” stations distributed over the city allow you to pick up your bike from one service point and drop off to another. People simply register with their bank card and cycle one hour – in Vienna – or half an hour – in Paris - for free. The registration will guarantee that cyclists return the bike and keep the system running. Who could imagine that the good old bike is currently experiencing a comeback?

Bicycle station in Paris, by AP

Bicycle station in Vienna, copyright Citybike Wien/Peter Anzböck

Although both cities share the same rental system / technology the ambition is different. While the Viennese Citybike might only encourage people to give cycling a try, the Paris Vélib offers a real alternative to driving or public transportation. The amount of rental station in the French capital is simply amazing: 1,451 bike terminals, equipped with 20,600 bicycles provide access at nearly every corner of the city. On the contrary, the Vienna Citybike is rather diffident. Only 54 bike terminals and 600 bikes spread mainly over the historic center and make it challenging to find a station.

Even more surprising is the different design of the Parisian and Viennese city bikes. The Austrian bicycle looks more like an old fashioned grandma’s bike, with solid rubber wheels, no gearshift and advertisement on it. The Paris model, however, is an aerodynamically shaped bicycle equipped with pneumatic wheels, three gears shift and a lock. It simply looks Parisian - Vive la petite différence!



Both Citybike and Vélib are operated and financed by JCDecaux, No. 2 in worldwide outdoor advertising. (JCDecaux has acquired Gewista, the former Austrian outdoor advertising company) In return JCDecaux got the exclusive rights to the French capital's 1,628 billboards. (see Economist, Vive la Vélorution!) Surprisingly the French bicycles are still ad-free.

Real Estate Stock Ticker.

Colliers International came up with an interesting visual idea: showing building shape, rental rate and availability of space floor by floor.


The light shows available space and the dark is occupied. Almost like a real estate stock ticker. (via 37signals)

Building Asia Brick by Brick.

Building Asia Brick by Brick Photo by MADA s.p.a.m.

Building Asia Brick by Brick Photo by MADA s.p.a.m.

People's Architecture Foundation is a New York based non-profit educational organization that seeks to strengthen the relationship between China and the United States thru architecture, urbanism, arts and culture.

The "Building Asia Brick by Brick" project - a series of public interactive programs - is designed to raise urban awareness in a playful way. Read an interview with the currators ot the project at PingMag.