Wien Architektur. Wohnen am Park.

"Wohnen am Park" by ppag, view from park, image by anarchitecture

"Wohnen am Park" is a 190 m long slab of 270 individual apartments by the Austrian architectural practice PPAG. "All south-facing flats got unrestricted park-view, apartments facing north are maisonettes, compensating the less privileged position with additional spatial quality (gallery and void, double height spaces, etc.)" (source: ppag)

The building is subsidized by the Department for Housing and Urban Renewal Vienna responsible for the subsidisation of several thousand new apartments each year. "Wohnen am Park" meets the performance criteria of a "low-energy house" and of "affordable housing".

Urban Design for Google Earth.

How to link architectural design with the the bird's eye view of cities seen in cartographic application like Google Earth or Microsoft Earth - the place in the internet where we virtually "travel" ? Pentagram Architects "was asked to mark the points of arrival in Newark and to address the history and culture of the city in the urban landscape. [...]"

Route 21 and Miller Street. Image by Pentagram

" [...] Our gateways address both remote and local audiences with a set of ideas that are legible in reality and cyber-reality. In our concept, a series of painted “events” on the Newark streetscape would bring Newark to the world, and bring the world to Newark." (source pentagram blog)

Street view of Route 21 and Miller Street. image by Pentagram

Read more on Pentagram Blog about the project.

Blog of the Week. bldgsim

bldgsim - Tools for Better and more Sustainable Building Design.

The authors, Jens Voshage and Kerstin Müller "believe that in sustainable design the really significant decisions happen in the early stages. Hence the focus of this blog is on green building design tools for architects and planners that are easy to learn and apply."

The blog is a excellent source of building design tools, allowing the architect more control over the environmental impact of a building design.

Small Worlds.

Tennis half-pipe, Images used with permission of Frank Kunert

From Frank Kunert's website:

"his 'Small Worlds' are, in their symbiosis of idea, image and caption, just as multi-dimensional as excellently-crafted written narratives. On the surface, these photographs confront us with all of the hollow words, catchphrases and banalities we encounter in our daily lives. The stereotypical and senseless aspects of human communication cannot be unveiled more convincingly than in their literal conversion into a visual medium."

Subtle irony? Satire? Definitely, the images are a perfect escape from life's (built) seriousness.

With balcony, Images used with permission of Frank Kunert

Designing Failure.

Rough transcript of the conversation between Debbie Millman, Lita Talarico and Steven Heller at Design Matters from Februar 6th:

"Designers (maybe as well as architects) fall in love with their work. They usually do not plan that clients might hate everything. But they only fail if they do not have a strategy for that. (not like: "the client is an idiot")
When you client doesn’t like something, it is very rare that you ever going to convince them to be wrong about not liking your design, and the more you fight them the worse it gets. They never suddenly decide “Oh well, you might be right!"

It’s not the mistake; it’s how you respond to the mistake."

More in:
Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failure, and Lessons Learned
(link to amazon)
(see a preview on google books)

Pritzker Prize Goes to Peter Zumthor.

This year's Pritzker Prize Goes to Peter Zumthor."All of Peter Zumthor’s buildings have a strong, timeless presence. He has a rare talent of combining clear and rigorous thought with a truly poetic dimension, resulting in works that never cease to inspire.", says Thomas J. Pritzker, the chairman of The Hyatt Foundation. See pritzkerprize for the photo and text booklet of the prize.

Anyway, it seems great architects do not own a webpage.

DIY Architecture. Tools for Actions.

"The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents the exhibition Actions: What You Can Do With the City, an exhibition with 99 actions that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world. Seemingly common activities such as walking, playing, recycling, and gardening are pushed beyond their usual definition by the international architects, artists, and collectives featured in the exhibition. Their experimental interactions with the urban environment show the potential influence personal involvement can have in shaping the city, and challenge fellow residents to participate."

Foamy Velour Suits Challenge Authority, copyright by Sarah Ross, Los Angeles, USA, 2005, action #38

Examine the wonderful online action lists that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world.

Actions: What You Can Do With the City
26 November 2008 until 19 April 2009
Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920 Baile Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3H 2S6

Blog of the Week. today and tomorrow.

Databending by Fang Fengdi. [via today and tomorrow]

Featured Blog of the Week: today and tomorrow. An amazing blog by Pieter, a Belgian living Berlin, Germany: "This website is a collection of things that I like, some are beautiful others just funny or faits-divers. The most frequent topics are advertising, art, design, fashion, music and sneakers."

Perfect for a daily visit and source of poetic inspiration: today and tomorrow

1973: Sorry, Out of Gas

book cover of the exhibition catalog, 1973, Sorry Out of Gas

1973: Sorry, Out of Gas investigates how architecture and urbanism responded to the 1973 oil crisis, when the value of oil increased exponentially and triggered economic, political, and social upheaval across the world.

“Architects, engineers, craftsmen and thinkers invested their skills and ingenuity in finding answers to the problems the oil crisis presented. A closer look at their solutions, projects and experiments reveals much that can be applied to the challenges of today's world.”

1973: Sorry, Out of Gas was an exhibition (2007/08) at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal, Québec. See the accompanying publication or the exhibitions website. (thanks Wim)

And today? 2009, Sorry, out of Money?

Off to Paris.

          
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