Not Just Invisible, Earthquake Invisible
Architects have, for obvious reasons, been fascinated with earthquakes for as long as they have been knocking over buildings. Lots of structural systems and building materials have been explored, but what about invisibility? Capitalizing on recent advances in invisible cloak technology, scientists in France and Britain think they can hide buildings from those damning shockwaves coursing through the earth. New Scientist explains the tech thusly: Read More
Sesame Street or P.S. 1?
Could this year's Young Architect's pavillion give the children of Queen's nightmares? (Courtesy MOS)
MOS just posted a picture of its nearly completed pavilion at P.S. 1. We’d say more, but Archinect really put it best: “Somebody Skinned Snuffleupagus.” The pavilion, winner of the 10th annual Young Architects Program competition, opens this Sunday.
White Love Lair in Foreclosure
You naughty, naughty architect. (Courtesy The Real Deal)
Sure, there are lots of foreclosures sweeping the city, sadly to say, but none is quite like 22 West 24th Street. Beyond the property’s current $82,987 in back taxes, an ownership fight between an infirm mother and her mentally challenged son, a 2003 fire and 2007 collapse, the property is also the location of renowned architect Stanford White‘s dalliances with a married 16-year-old girl over 100 years ago, according to an article in The Real Deal today. Read More
Up on the Roof
The party is definitely pool (noodle) side. (Photos by Matt Chaban, except where noted)
Last night was the opening party for No Soul For Sale a (very) temporary show (it closes Saturday night) at the old Dia space on West 22nd Street organized by X Initiative. The crowning achievement–literally–is a lounge designed by LA-based architect Jeffery Inaba and his eponymous firm. An amusing if uncertain follow-up to Dan Graham’s former installation, the new piece, entitled Pool Noodle Roof, is meant to provide both comfort and unease. Read More
Campgrounds? Try Campskies
Go pitch a tent. (Courtesy AR)
From David Livingston to Edmund Hillary and Lawrence of Arabia, the Brits have always been ace at camping, so it only makes sense a firm ‘cross the pond would come up with a system to provide space for tents in cramped urban environments. Read More
The Architecture of Fun
Sim City 2000: I think I can see my house from here. (Courtesy Game Axis)
First, AJ brought us the architecture of Star Wars. Now, in another brilliant twist, comes the Top 10 video game designs. From Sim City to Marioworld, Second Life to World of Warcraft, we nerds couldn’t be happier. Sure, they left out Diablo II and Roller Coaster Tycoon, but who are we to complain about our new favorite architecture pub? After ourselves, of course.
Deep Cuts for Deep Pockets
Matteo Thun's TWIN Profection knives for Zwilling. (Courtesy Zwilling J.A. Henkels)
Update: Wrong Matteo Thun knives. More after the jump.
We’ve been all over the architecture/fashion hook-up, but what about cooking? Age-old knife maker Zwilling J.A. Henckels has just announced a new set of knives designed by Milanese architect Matteo Thun. They certainly look nice, enough so that your culinary-inclined editor considered getting a pair. But the Times talked to Thun about the knives last year, which, it turns out, cost between $300 and $450. That’s well out of our meager price range, but hearing Thun justify the exorbitant cost is worth it all. Read More
Moussavi the Architect
The architecture of Mir-Hussein Moussavi (Courtesy Tehran24)
I first remembered reading about it in The Economist, arching an impressed eyebrow, and then forgetting about it. After all, this was before the Iranian elections had even taken place, let alone led the country into its current near-revolt. But there, at the heart of it all, was an architect. Read More
Beautiful Maybe, But Not Bold
Fixer-upper. (mr.seymour/Flickr)
Yesterday, the Bloomberg administration released an RFQ for a “BQE Beautification Study.” Now that’s a tall order, if ever there was one, as the borough-bisecting biway is one of Robert Moses’ many “most reviled” memories. But the RFQ also signals a diminishment of sorts for the once ambitious mayor. After all, it was only three years ago that, with the help of Alexander Garvin, the city had envisioned decking over the roadway, not only restoring long-separated and suffering neighborhoods but also creating opportunities for considerable amounts of housing. Then again, maybe it was an obvious decision. After all, those grand plans haven’t gone so well of late.
Straight and Narrow at the Globe
KPF's proposed Boston Arch (Courtesy KPF).
This past week, the Boston Globe‘s editorial page has been enthralled with the Greenway and Don Chiofaro’s proposed Boston Arch thereon. (We’d like to think they were inspired by us.) It began with an editorial criticizing the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s apparent foot-dragging on its Greenway development study, followed by an encapsulation of the comments from said editorial–many in favor of the project–and now an op-ed calling for greater density on the Greenway. While the Globe‘s editorial board is welcome to its opinions, it should not be as disingenuous as the power brokers it attempts to lampoon. Read More
A New-vel Skyline
Bon jour, neighbors.
After both impressing and frustrating the Landmarks Preservation Commission last year, Jean Nouvel’s Torre de Verre is making its way through the public review process in order to secure a few zoning variance to allow the funky Moma-ttached tower to be built. Curbed reports the tower was panned by the local community board (it’s a largely symbolic vote, however), but the most striking thing to us was this new rendering, which shows how the now-1,250-foot tower would look from Central Park. Quelle horror!
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Reader Jill J.'s uncanny take on the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook. (daily pleasure/Flickr)
We’ve been bombarded on the blog with increasingly insidious spam over the past few months, which led us to installing CAPTCHA to filter out the bots from the peeps. Hopefully it doesn’t cause too much of a problem to all you commenters out there.
Meanwhile, as we tried to clean out much of that spam, we came across two particularly compelling comments (not that the rest of you aren’t special). The first were these great photos of the Baldwin Hill Scenic Overlook and the second was a particularly poetic remembrance of Max Bond that appeared some three months after his death. You can find both after the jump. Read More