architecture

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }Heathdale House - Teeple Architects, originally uploaded by Scott Norsworthy.Heathdale House in Toronto, Ontario by Teeple Architects, 2005.To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just::: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or:: Tag your photos archidose

[Image: Photo by Jim Stephenson].Architectural photographer Jim Stephenson got in touch the other week with some photos he recently took of an elaborate stage set, constructed by the group dreamthinkspeak, for a new play based on Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard." The play was performed in Brighton, England, inside an old department store, the entirety of which had been transformed into a labyrinthine performance space, complete with a Russian supermarket, a simulated department store (within the very frame of the abandoned one), and a cottage surrounded by artificial snow. [Images: Photos by Jim Stephenson].There are nurseries and ballrooms, writing desks and dioramas, all stashed away inside a massive performance space through which the audience must walk, as if chasing down scenes. [Images: Photos by Jim Stephenson].I'll let Stephenson himself describe the building:The venue was the old Co-Op building on London Road, Brighton, familiar to most people who live in the city. Opened in 1931, the Co-Op was the largest department store in the city when it closed 3 years ago. It has been neglected since... A large department store, wandering around it was incredible to see how quickly it had fallen into such a bad state. It reminded me of the first few chapters of The World Without Us, where Weisman talks about the processes that would take place around, inside and on our buildings should humans disappear. Indeed, it could be a study of such processes—damp creeps in everywhere, stripping render from the basement walls and warping and tearing the plywood paneling upstairs. Plant life eases through gaps and cracks. Carpet has lifted and the building has a terrific smell of decay. Yet in the stockrooms, still evident, is graffiti from the early 70’s—name checking footballers that have long since retired, bought pubs and passed on. Locally, there has been calls, growing stronger and stronger, for the owners or the council to inhabit the building. This is where dreamthinkspeak stepped in to temporarily transform the former department store into an incredible series of set-pieces, opening up such a familiar building to a public for the first time in three years, curious to see what had happened the their local shop.The ensuing world of the play included some interesting moments of self-reference; as Stephenson writes: "The basement of the Co-Op used to feature some beautiful leaded windows around the circulation areas and these have been re-used with elaborate models of show apartments and odd and surreal rooms placed behind the glass. Closer inspection shows that these surreal rooms are models of the rooms we’ve already passed through and (we’ll soon learn) rooms to come." [Image: The "leaded windows... re-used with elaborate models of show apartments and odd and surreal rooms," photographed by Jim Stephenson].Indeed, one of the most architecturally interesting details of the production was its use of small models that refer to, repeat, or reveal in advance spaces of the play itself. Or, as Stephenson writes, "Repetition of themes continues throughout the show, using increasingly imaginative set-pieces to remind us of where we’ve been." It's as if the play somehow stutters, blurting out smaller versions of itself—like an inhabitable 3D printer that can't help but create images of its own surroundings. In one of the images below, for instance, Stephenson writes that we see a table "covered in a forest of formerly lit candles"—and within the melted wax, "models of the couple from earlier [in the play] sit drinking tea." It's microcosmic self-repetition—a kind of ontological splintering in architectural form. This takes on a somewhat mind-bending dimension when we learn that, in the fake department store (within the ruined department store...), attendees are confronted with architectural models "lent to the show by the architects Conran & Partners (so, interestingly, these models are for actual redevelopments that may someday be built)." That is, real buildings, constructed perhaps ten or more years from now, could someday be realistically interpreted as hypertrophied spatial aftereffects of this particular stage set. [Images: Photos by Jim Stephenson].In any case, I've included many of Stephenson's photos here, documenting the experience, but there are many more on his website (along with a much longer description of the space). [Image: Photo by Jim Stephenson].You'll find that I've barely even begun to describe the set's intricacy: there are internal CCTV networks covering the unfolding of the play, multi-lingual actors and actresses wandering through the scenes, and even a secret passageway through a department store cupboard. The final space, like the boss level of some massive new game, "is a huge room, almost an entire floor of the Co-Op," Stephenson explains, "filled with the remains of a former orchard. A deforestation scene, with woodchips all over the floor and tree stumps left." [Image: Photo by Jim Stephenson].And, with that, this particular variation on Chekhov's "Cherry Orchard" comes to an end. (Also check out Jim Stephenson's straight-ahead architectural photography while you are at his site).

[Image: "Storm Clouds Over Central Park" by Joseph Bergantine].Do urban landscapes act as attractors for storms and hurricanes? "New research shows that rough areas of land, including city buildings and naturally jagged land cover like trees and forests, can actually attract passing hurricanes," a study claimed last week. It works because the whole landscape acts as a kind of vortex or chimney: "Rough cityscapes and forests trap air. This compresses the air and forces it up into the atmosphere, adding energy to the storm and pulling the center of the hurricane toward the rough region. As a result, a city can cause a hurricane to swerve from its predicted path by as much as 20 miles.""Cities impose greater friction on the swirling flow because of the tall buildings," said Johnny Chan, a professor of meteorology at the [City University of Hong Kong]. "Our results show that tropical cyclones tend to be 'attracted' towards areas of higher friction. So it is possible that cities could cause tropical cyclones to veer towards them."Defining cities simply as "rough areas of land," comparable to forests or cliffsides, seems actually to underestimate the bewildering porosity, and thus the true storm potential, of urban space—with tens of thousands of rooms and corridors, offering slightly different levels of temperature and air pressure, just sitting there behind closed doors like a storm reservoir. As if every silent room around you right now, in your home, campus, or office park, leads an unacknowledged meteorological double-life: rooms and streets full of air poised just this side of thunderous disequilibrium, on the cusp of becoming a hurricane. [Image: Hurricane Katrina approaches New Orleans—possibly attracted there, a new study suggests, by the "rough cityscape" of the greater metropolitan region].I'm reminded of the storm-storage islands described in Greek mythology—for instance, one of my favorite architectural designs of all time, from Virgil's Aeneid, a place called "Aeolia, the weather-breeding isle," where all the winds of the world are stored:Here in a vast cavern King Aeolus Rules the contending winds and moaning gales As warden of their prison. Round the walls They chafe and bluster underground. The din Makes a great mountain murmur overhead. High on a citadel enthroned, Scepter in hand, he molifies their fury, Else they might flay the sea and sweep away Land masses and deep sky through empty air. In fear of this, Jupiter hid them away In caverns of black night. He set above them Granite of high mountains—and a king Empowered at command to rein them in Or let them go. (Book 1, 75-89)Only here, in the 21st-century city, some rogue weather god keeps unparalleled atmospheric disturbances hidden away inside a carefully guarded urban archive of future storms, just waiting for release: proto-hurricanes saved inside sports stadiums, opera houses, suburban homes, and office towers, compressed down into sewers and alleys and discount shoe warehouse storefronts, all bodies of air prepared to become gales if the right links and cross-connections can be made. Vast ductwork cuts in and out of the city, carefully sealed off inside with valves—valves that should only be opened if you want to seed new storm systems, like a multi-county air conditioner gone absurdly out of control. Or it's the breezy future of street-cleaning. An alternative to fireworks on the 4th of July. A side-effect of urban planning just waiting to be weaponized. An opportunity for urban scale climatological re-engineering brought to you by Trane. [Image: Hurricane Isabel seen from space].We saw long ago, for instance, that "many of the skyscrapers in Shanghai could become quite dangerous" due to the high winds they've started to generate. Indeed, "concerns have been raised about the strong and thus damaging winds that are result[ing] from the dense population of skyscrapers so central to the metropolis." The city, in other words, is generating its own weather. Add this new study—with cities like New Orleans and Miami and New York literally attracting hurricanes to themselves—and the burgeoning field of urban architectural meteorology just got a lot more urgent (and interesting). (Thanks to Tim Maly for the link to this story).

Here's a wrap-up of my 31 buildings/places in 31 days: #1 - Phyto Universe#2 - One Bryant Park#3 - Pier 62 Carousel#4 - Bronx River Art Center#5 - The Pencil Factory#6 - Westbeth Artists' Housing#7 - 23 Beekman Place#8 - Metal Shutter Houses#9 - Bronx Box#10 - American Academy of Arts and Letters#11 - FDR Four Freedoms Park#12 - One Madison Park#13 - Pio Pio Restaurant#14 - Queens West (Stage II)#15 - 785 Eighth Avenue#16 - Big Bambú#17 - Event Horizon#18 - Murano#19 - William Lescaze House#20 - Morgan Library and Museum#21 - MTA Flood Mitigation#22 - Wilf Hall#23 - Yohji Yamamoto#24 - NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Life#25 - Nehemiah Spring Creek#26 - Longchamps#27 - 9th Street Residence#28 - Crocs#29 - Art et Industrie#30 - Tartinery Nolita#31 - Sperone Westwater GalleryAlso see my 31in31 Flickr set.

This is a series for August 2010 which documents my on-the-ground -- and on-the-webs -- research for my guidebook to contemporary NYC architecture (to be released next year by W. W. Norton). Archives can be found at the bottom of the post and via the 31 in 31 label.The Sperone Westwater Gallery, designed Foster + Partners, is nearing completion about a block north of the New Museum. This piece continues the transformation of the Bowery, from Cooper Union down to Chinatown. In the ten or eleven years since I stayed at a hostel on the Bowery the street has seen numerous new buildings as well as restaurants and shops, displacing the old flophouses and mainstays like CBGB's.I always liked to think of the Bowery as un-gentrifiable, a zone immune to the changes in neighborhing SoHo, NoHo, the Lower East Side, and the East Village. Of course I was wrong, but a nine-story building with a bright red elevator on its facade is probably the last thing I would have expected from the alternative scenario.Norman Foster's design is the antithesis of the New Museum, which made the Bowery cool for institutions with money to spend on buildings by name-brand architects. SANAA's stacked and shifted white boxes respond to the zoning envelope without making that legal device explicit; Foster's design rises to the maximum street wall and then sets back once. Done.Granted, the 20-foot-wide lot doesn't give much room for play, so Foster focuses on the skins. Facing the Bowery on the first five floors is an all-glass wall with laminations that allow light and views, but the latter are indistinct, yet not so much that the elevator's workings aren't apparent. One effect of the glass, which lies somewhere between transparent and translucent, is the band of light visible in these photos. It must be an unwritten code that new buildings must have a surface that blinds passersby!The side walls, facing north and south, are blanketed with black corrugated metal, the panels mimicking -- but oddly not following exactly, in size or spacing -- the glass on the front. The rear facade is similar to the top of the front, with a zipper of clear glass running vertically between what looked to be solid panels (not translucent like the front). Foster's design certainly has a strong presence on the Bowery, but its industrial elegance will pack more of a wallop at night when the glass box is illuminated and the red box glows.Previously:#1 - Phyto Universe#2 - One Bryant Park#3 - Pier 62 Carousel#4 - Bronx River Art Center#5 - The Pencil Factory#6 - Westbeth Artists' Housing#7 - 23 Beekman Place#8 - Metal Shutter Houses#9 - Bronx Box#10 - American Academy of Arts and Letters#11 - FDR Four Freedoms Park#12 - One Madison Park#13 - Pio Pio Restaurant#14 - Queens West (Stage II)#15 - 785 Eighth Avenue#16 - Big Bambú#17 - Event Horizon#18 - Murano#19 - William Lescaze House#20 - Morgan Library and Museum#21 - MTA Flood Mitigation#22 - Wilf Hall#23 - Yohji Yamamoto#24 - NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Life#25 - Nehemiah Spring Creek#26 - Longchamps#27 - 9th Street Residence#28 - Crocs#29 - Art et Industrie#30 - Tartinery Nolita

This is a series for August 2010 which documents my on-the-ground -- and on-the-webs -- research for my guidebook to contemporary NYC architecture (to be released next year by W. W. Norton). Archives can be found at the bottom of the post and via the 31 in 31 label.Spotted at The Architect's Newspaper, Tartinery Nolita is a new restaurant located on Mulberry next to Spring Lounge. Designed by SOMA Architects, the facade is marked by deep-set, black-steel fins projecting from the storefront glazing.These fins -- spaced randomly across the elevation --work to hide and reveal the spaces behind. The shallow bar occupies the northern end (right in photos), and the double-height dining area sits to the south.The bar-code design is more interesting from across the street than from the adjacent sidewalk (the top image of the archpaper piece testifies to this). But from directly in front of the restaurant, the double-height dining area attracts the most attention. From the sidewalk the space extends to the cellar; an exposed brick wall behind mesh stands out at the southern end of the restaurant. A small tree also occupies this lower space, rising from the middle of a table. Previously:#1 - Phyto Universe#2 - One Bryant Park#3 - Pier 62 Carousel#4 - Bronx River Art Center#5 - The Pencil Factory#6 - Westbeth Artists' Housing#7 - 23 Beekman Place#8 - Metal Shutter Houses#9 - Bronx Box#10 - American Academy of Arts and Letters#11 - FDR Four Freedoms Park#12 - One Madison Park#13 - Pio Pio Restaurant#14 - Queens West (Stage II)#15 - 785 Eighth Avenue#16 - Big Bambú#17 - Event Horizon#18 - Murano#19 - William Lescaze House#20 - Morgan Library and Museum#21 - MTA Flood Mitigation#22 - Wilf Hall#23 - Yohji Yamamoto#24 - NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Life#25 - Nehemiah Spring Creek#26 - Longchamps#27 - 9th Street Residence#28 - Crocs#29 - Art et Industrie

My weekly page update:This week's dose features 40R_Laneway House in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by superkül inc | architect:The featured past dose is Courtyard House in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Studio Junction:This week's book review is Encyclopedia of Detail in Contemporary Residential Architecture by Virginia McLeod:**NOTE: The next "weekly dose" will be 2010.09.13.**Some unrelated links for your enjoyment: The Bankruptcy of ArchitectureSee the results of "an intensive 10-day studio 18-27 August, Chania, Crete, Venetian Arsenal."round housesNot square, round. (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)Things Organized NeatlyJust like the title says.World Landscape Architect"A weblog to provide built environment news and information for landscape architects and built environment professionals." (added to sidebar under blogs::landscape)

This is a series for August 2010 which documents my on-the-ground -- and on-the-webs -- research for my guidebook to contemporary NYC architecture (to be released next year by W. W. Norton). Archives can be found at the bottom of the post and via the 31 in 31 label.Although completed a couple years before 2000, the former Art et Industrie sculpture garden is something I was intrigued about, so I searched it out over the weekend and took a close look at it. Designed by Architecture Research Office (ARO) and located at the corner of Thompson and Broome Streets, the meat of the project is basically two solid-steel fences that follow the corner.I'm not sure what Art et Industrie displayed in its indoor and outdoor galleries, but the fence is like a piece of Modernist sculpture: well-crafted, simple, and easy to miss.Painted a dark gray, thin sheets of steel (I'm guessing about 8' by 8') are welded to matching steel H-shape supports which double as deep reveals.The posts stop a little bit short of the panels, allowing the thinness of the latter to be legible. Visible below, the corner overlap puts the simple construction of the two elements on display.The adjacent storefront space is empty, and a peek through the space reveals a pleasing garden. But in an area surrounded by mid- and high-rise construction, what is the future of this outdoor space? If I'm reading it right, a recent DOB filing points to an "eating and drinking establishment," something easy to imagine working well here, indoors and out.Previously:#1 - Phyto Universe#2 - One Bryant Park#3 - Pier 62 Carousel#4 - Bronx River Art Center#5 - The Pencil Factory#6 - Westbeth Artists' Housing#7 - 23 Beekman Place#8 - Metal Shutter Houses#9 - Bronx Box#10 - American Academy of Arts and Letters#11 - FDR Four Freedoms Park#12 - One Madison Park#13 - Pio Pio Restaurant#14 - Queens West (Stage II)#15 - 785 Eighth Avenue#16 - Big Bambú#17 - Event Horizon#18 - Murano#19 - William Lescaze House#20 - Morgan Library and Museum#21 - MTA Flood Mitigation#22 - Wilf Hall#23 - Yohji Yamamoto#24 - NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Life#25 - Nehemiah Spring Creek#26 - Longchamps#27 - 9th Street Residence#28 - Crocs

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }Würzburg Weingut Stein a, originally uploaded by david pasek.Weingut Am Stein (presentation and seminar rooms for winery) in Wuerzburg, Germany by Hofmann Keicher Ring Architekten, 2005To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just::: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or::Tag your photos archidose

This is a series for August 2010 which documents my on-the-ground -- and on-the-webs -- research for my guidebook to contemporary NYC architecture (to be released next year by W. W. Norton). Archives can be found at the bottom of the post and via the 31 in 31 label.Across the street from the strange Germanic streetscape of NYU's Deutsches Haus is a full block of beige brick, setbacks, and balconies. Some of the last are filled in (bottom middle of photo above) to convert the outdoor "rooms" to indoor space. Most of these new enclosures are unexceptional, but a piece capping one of the setbacks is subtly different, channel glass walls rising behind the old guardrails. Designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, the 9th Street Residence combined two apartments into one; the glass enclosure is an extension that houses the living area. The channel glass wraps over the space, visible in the photo below through the horizontal vision glass that wraps the corner.Previously:#1 - Phyto Universe#2 - One Bryant Park#3 - Pier 62 Carousel#4 - Bronx River Art Center#5 - The Pencil Factory#6 - Westbeth Artists' Housing#7 - 23 Beekman Place#8 - Metal Shutter Houses#9 - Bronx Box#10 - American Academy of Arts and Letters#11 - FDR Four Freedoms Park#12 - One Madison Park#13 - Pio Pio Restaurant#14 - Queens West (Stage II)#15 - 785 Eighth Avenue#16 - Big Bambú#17 - Event Horizon#18 - Murano#19 - William Lescaze House#20 - Morgan Library and Museum#21 - MTA Flood Mitigation#22 - Wilf Hall#23 - Yohji Yamamoto#24 - NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Life#25 - Nehemiah Spring Creek#26 - Longchamps

Here are some photos of the South Pond pavilion (for yoga and other uses) at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois by Studio Gang Architects, 2010. Photographs are by John (& Beth) Zacherle.To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just::: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or:: Tag your photos archidose

This is a series for August 2010 which documents my on-the-ground -- and on-the-webs -- research for my guidebook to contemporary NYC architecture (to be released next year by W. W. Norton). Archives can be found at the bottom of the post and via the 31 in 31 label.Double glass doors cut into an otherwise blank brick wall barely hint at the stunning space for Longchamps on Spring Street in SoHo. Designed by Heatherwick Studio and completed in 2006, a "landscape stair" is the defining element that ties the ground floor with larger second floor above. Longchamps makes handbags, among other things, so appropriately the continuous treads appear to be made of leather (they are rubber on steel plate). Black posts and handrails are the only other major visual element occupying the space (beside the goods); the glass guardrails--fabricated the same way as car windshields--disappear at certain angles and create blurry reflections at other angles. All is skylit, like a luxury stairway to heaven. It is one of the best retail environments in Manhattan, because it finds inspiration in the product and fuses its expression with its function as an armature for displaying merchandise.Previously:#1 - Phyto Universe#2 - One Bryant Park#3 - Pier 62 Carousel#4 - Bronx River Art Center#5 - The Pencil Factory#6 - Westbeth Artists' Housing#7 - 23 Beekman Place#8 - Metal Shutter Houses#9 - Bronx Box#10 - American Academy of Arts and Letters#11 - FDR Four Freedoms Park#12 - One Madison Park#13 - Pio Pio Restaurant#14 - Queens West (Stage II)#15 - 785 Eighth Avenue#16 - Big Bambú#17 - Event Horizon#18 - Murano#19 - William Lescaze House#20 - Morgan Library and Museum#21 - MTA Flood Mitigation#22 - Wilf Hall#23 - Yohji Yamamoto#24 - NYU Center for Academic and Spiritual Life#24 - Nehemiah Spring Creek