Architecture For a Cold Day

The Walking Igloo, The Architectural Forum, April 1968

"This eight-legged tortoise is a glass-fiber igloo designed by Architects Cohos, DeLesalle & Evamy of Calgary, Alberta, and manufactured there. It weights all of 480 lbs., which comes to 2/3 lb. per cu. ft. of space enclosed. This particular model is made of 12 orangepeel-shaped sections that can be bolted together in 90 minutes to form a shelter 14 ft. in diameter and 7.5 ft. tall at the center. Other models are lengthened by the use of straight, intermediate sections; and there is a super-igloo currently going up at the North Pole that will house helicopters. It measures 76 ft. long and 17.5 ft. high, and weighs 6,000 lbs. The igloos come in bright colors, and the shells are translucent".

The Sun Sets on Venturi Scott Brown at Yale

If you are looking for something to do this weekend hop on Metro-North and catch the final weekend of What We Learned: The Yale Las Vegas Studio at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven. The exhibitions, there are actually two, showcase some of the original data collected by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and 13 Yale graduate students on their legendary site visit to Las Vegas 40 years ago. Given the iconic status of the resulting publication, it is really exciting to see these previously archived treasures first hand. The exhibition also covers their firm's later work with a focus on urbanism but also including buildings (the obligatory model of Venturi's mother's house is in there) and design objects from dinner ware to chairs.

The exhibition and companion symposium at Yale were just some of the events which have put the couple back on the architectural map. Denise also recently released a collection of essays titled Having Words which traces the evolution of her thinking about architecture and urbanism. The book was celebrated back in December at the Municipal Arts Society in the form of a conversation between Denise, Sarah Whiting and Hillary Sample, with moderation from Paola Antonelli. Ironically, this was technically the first event I covered on behalf of Headband Press, but somehow the potency of the group did not pan out into a really meaningful conversation.

My favorite of these nostalgic trips is the June 2009 special issue of A+U, Venturi and Scott Brown: What Turns Them On, which is an interview between the couple and OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu. Below are a few cute excerpts from the interview as well as snap shots of the exhibition which closes February 5th.

A few fun moments out of the A+U issue in no particular order:

#1 DSB: My mother had studied architecture, she was part of the group that initiated the change to modernism at the university. And there is a letter from Le Corbusier to students in that Johannesburg group in 1936 saying can't you find a very rich client there and I'll come out and we'll all do a project together.... My mother took gymnastics exercises with a woman who had connections with the Bauhaus. One of her claims to fame was that at a Bauhaus party she had danced with Jean Arp.

#2 DSB: I picked up the Smithsons' 'active socioplastics'. I still think it's a pretty nice idea but when the Smithsons actually tried to put it into effect and by working with sociologists to understand how people really live, how they have a street life, the things the Brutalists were talking about, they found the sociologists could not bend to them, and they could not bend to the sociologists. So they said no to active socioplastics. But I did not, though I had to come to America to find people to help with this problem and to learn it was no use asking sociologists to interpret their knowledge for me.

#3 RV: Denise once came out with this wonderful statement, its a bit pretentious, but sort of fun, about being misunderstood. Freud was not Freudian, Marx was not a Marxist, and ....

DSB: And we're not post-Modernists.

RV: We're not post-Modernist. Venturi is not post-Modernist.

#4 SS: When I first read your books, it was very interesting how provocative they were, and I was almost jealous that someone had something to react to so strongly.

#5 RV reading from is essay the Vision Thing: Creeps who talk about vision make me sick and suspicious. I say screw you to vision. Up your's to visionaries. Vision sucks. What a supreme irony that those who proclaim and pursue vision are least likely to attain it. Vision is not something you attain by consciously or heroically trying. It's achieved via indirection.

Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas

The Aula Magna, part of the University of the City of Caracas designed by Carlos Villanueva, is easily one of my favorite architecture projects of all time, so I was completely delighted to come across this set of 21 pamphlets which document all of the Villanueva designed buildings on the campus.

Created in 2007 by the Fundacion Centro de Arquitectura Caracas, the booklets are essentially a reorganization of the materials prepared in support of the project's nomination as a UNESCO world heritage site. Each pamphlet represents a different building or public space on campus with photography, drawings and text. The boxed set format of the publication is very successful in its ability to communicate the incredible quantity of buildings Villanueva designed in one place.

The project is praised as "a masterpiece of modern city planning, architecture and art" and a "coherent realization of the urban, architectural, and artistic ideals of the early 20th century" but for me the campus is so compelling for its strange blend of the sensual and the melancholic.

Thanks to friend, lighting designer and native Venezuelan, Francesca Bastianini for brining this book to my attention and for the incredible photography of the campus below.

Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront

So I think this is going to be really good, and I don't say that about everything that comes out of the architecture and design department at the MoMA.

Five teams including ARO/dland Studio, LTL, nArchitects, Mathew Baird Architects and SCAPE, participated in an eight week residency at PS1 to create landscape and urban design propositions in response to the rising water levels which will impact New York City as a result of climate change. The teams who each worked on a different site in New York harbor (pictured above) presented their work on January 9th to a standing room crowd at PS1.

The work was introduced by chief curator and exhibition organizer Barry Bergdoll, who explained that the idea for the project is a critique of hard infrastructure and "shovel ready" projects -- which Bergdoll believes "shut down innovation." Bergdoll further argued that climate change is an urban problem that must be addressed, but rather than a doomsday scenario he offered the Rising Currents project as an optimistic exploration of design potential that comes from an unpleasant reality.

What we get IS a lot of potential. Collectively, the five propositions envision a New York whose edges become porous allowing water to enter the city and enliven its public spaces. Teams also employed ecological solutions including new plant life, artificial islands and colonies of oysters to control water levels and minimize the impact of storm surge. The result is new urban conditions that we have never seen before, and this is exciting. More important perhaps is the shift in attitude that occurs in these propositions. Rather than evading nature, they are allow it to come in and make the city a more interesting place.

The one item that does raise eye brows is the participant selection. Most of the selected teams are architects with very thin or no urban design portfolios. For a project that has the potential to provide landscape and urban design with an unprecedented amount of public attention, why were so many of their best thinkers left out? This is not to deny the importance of SCAPE on the participant roster. Kate Orff is one the most refreshing landscape designers in recent memory and I am very excited to see her working here.

Final proposals will be on view at MoMA beginning March 24th.

Pictured below in order are presentation slides from ARO/dland Studio, LTL and SCAPE.

Letters from OMA

One of the perks of being a former OMA employee (aside from no longer working 20 hours a day) is that you occasionally wake up to a new releases from the office announcing a new commission or winning competition entry. Such was the case this morning when I received an email detailing the win of Chu Hai College Campus in Hong Kong. Below are a few images and an excerpt of the concept description from the press release.

"OMA conceived a building that consists of two parallel horizontal slabs connected by a ‘mat’ of social and educational facilities. The slabs, each eight stories high, contain flexible space for classrooms, studios, and offices. Their aerated structural facades provide a visual unity for the campus, and allow views into the inner workings of the buildings and out over Castle Peak Bay and its verdant surrounding hills. The slabs are oriented to maximise natural ventilation, reducing air conditioning demands by 15–30 per cent and contributing to an efficient, sustainable design.

Connecting the two slabs, the mat contains the library, cafeteria, gym, and lecture theatres. On top of this mat OMA has designed a shaded area of steps, platforms, and ramps that acts as a circulation system between the various educational and social facilities. Crucially, this ramp coincides with the slope of the existing hill on the site, grounding the new campus firmly within the landscape.

OMA’s concentrated and efficient design for the campus allows several of the original British army buildings on the site to be preserved. These buildings will be used for accommodation, student union and canteen facilities."

Bess Krietemeyer at Hendershot Gallery

This is the last week to enjoy the work of designer Bess Krietemeyer as part of Architecturally.../ a series of installations on display at the Hendershot Gallery in Chelsea. Krietemeyer's installation is a video which approximates the effects of a daylighting system she has been developing as part of her doctoral research at Rensselaer Polytechnic. In this instance however, she leaves the science behind to create a video installation which is a stand alone work in itself.

The video feels like a contemporary update of Edward Hopper paintings like Room in Brooklyn or Night Windows, as we the viewer find ourselves again staring out a triptych of windows that might appear in an a typical brownstone apartment. Unlike in a Hopper where we look out on the shock of modernity, in Krietemeyer's video our view is obstructed by a white gridded field making wave-like pulsations across the windows. This time we are wrapped in a strange technological membrane which produces the same sense of melancholy and isolation that Hopper's figure always seem to exude.

The video takes us through a twenty-four hour period of daylight and dark which effect the grid's constantly changing speed and aperture. The result is atmospheric, haunting and not to be missed.

The Beast Must Die

Remnants from Afterparty, the woolly mammoth-like winner of the 2009 MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program created by Michael Meredith and Hillary Sample of MOS. We miss partying under your prehistoric carcass.

urbanSHED

Thursday, January 7th, 6:00-8:00 pm, at the Center for Architecture

So you may remember that this summer that the AIA and the New York City Department of Buildings sponsored a competition to redesign (err, design in the first place) the sidewalk sheds that currently protect New York city pedestrians from from the falling debris of buildings under construction. More than simply being ugly, the current sheds do not feel safe to walk under and their presence often proves fatal to small businesses, so a change was certainly overdue.

The competition finalists presented their work on Thursday evening at the Center for Architecture. The three finalists (which are pictured in order below) included: Tripod MOD(ule) by XChange Architects, Urban Umbrella by Young Hwan Choi and Urban Cloud by KNEstudio. I was impressed by how robust and complete all three proposals were. Finalists collaborated with structural engineers, cost estimators and lighting consultants to come up with three very viable and ready to be built designs.

Entries from the three selected finalists are all very different. Tripod MOD(ule) moves to accommodate the width of the street and is clean and minimal in appearance; Urban Umbrella operates on the structural logic of the umbrella; and Urban Cloud provides shelter with a field of truncated diamonds that are illuminated. I didn't leave the presentation with a clear favorite, but having sometime to digest the schemes I would favor the Tripod MOD(ule) for its simplicity and lack of association with any particular aesthetic. In ten years this shed won't look dated the way the other two schemes might.

While each of the schemes improves the experience of being under a sidewalk shed, they don't radically altar the structural framework. We are still standing under a roof with two or more columns. I kept wishing for an option with an unobstructed cantilever to appear, which seems like the most ideal condition. The winner will be announced later this month and then installed at the Department of Buildings on 280 Broadway. An exhibition on the competition continues through January at the Center for Architecture.