Tag Archives: Architects

New Museums: “Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures” By Architect Renzo Piano (Opens 2020)

From the Renzo Piano Building Workshop website:

Academy Museum Renzo Piano Architect“The Academy Museum gives us the opportunity to honor the past while creating a building for the future—in fact, for the possibility of many futures. The historic Saban Building is a wonderful example of Streamline Moderne style, which preserves the way people envisioned the future in 1939. The new structure, the Sphere Building, is a form that seems to lift off the ground into the perpetual, imaginary voyage through space and time that is moviegoing. By connecting these two experiences we create something that is itself like a movie. You go from sequence to sequence, from the exhibition galleries to the film theater and the terrace, with everything blending into one experience.”

Renzo Piano, Architect

When it opens in the heart of Los Angeles, at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will be the world’s premier movie museum.

Academy Museum Renzo Piano Architect

Academy Museum Renzo Piano ArchitectSituated on the famed “Miracle Mile,” the museum will preserve and breathe new life into the former 1939 May Company department store, now re-named the Saban Building. Celebrating its history and imagining new possibilities, the additions to the building that date from 1946 have been removed and replaced with a spherical building that features the 1,000-seat David Geffen Theater and the Dolby Family Terrace with views towards Hollywood. The revitalized campus will feature more than 50,000 square feet of gallery space, two theaters, cutting-edge project spaces, an outdoor piazza, the rooftop terrace, an active education studio, a restaurant, and store.

https://www.academymuseum.org/en/

To read and see more: http://www.rpbw.com/project/academy-museum-of-motion-pictures

 

Top 2019 Home Designs: WARchitect’s “HACHI Skyscape” In Thailand

 The project’s owner runs a 5-story apartment. In the past, the rooftop was only used to keep water tanks, leaving a lot of empty space. The owner, therefore, wished to build a small house there for his own use. The rooftop location is an interestingly unique context that sets this project apart from other housing designs. Instead of a normal ground, this house has a concrete courtyard. Trees are replaced with vertical lines of tall buildings in the Lat Phrao district. 

WARchitect The Hachi Skyscape Interior

WARchitect The Hachi Skyscape Kitchen InteriorOur idea was not to make this house feel like a building, but to free it from form. We wanted it to be just a borderless box that emerges out of nowhere in the sky, as if the thickness of the wall and roof were non-existent, but still able to make holes in the ceiling to install curtains, air conditioners, and embed lights. Our intention was to give an illusion to onlookers that the entire ceiling was in the same straight line even though we featured a drop ceiling and a slope that was intentionally used to make the wall and ceiling look thin.

To read more: https://www.facebook.com/pg/WARchitect.design/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2010327902589589&ref=page_internal

Innovative Homes: Faye Toogood’s “Beguiling” Design For Cube Haus Architects, London

From the Cube Haus Architects website:

Faye Toogood Design for Cube Haus ArchitectsMost notable is Toogood’s sensitive approach to materials. She offers two different, equally alluring solutions to the exterior cladding and the internal finishes. Both external cladding options, raw galvanised steel and dark charred timber, are suggestive of industrial or agricultural structures, making it something of a thrill to see them in a domestic setting. The building clad in raw galvanised steel will have a refined, cream-coloured interior, whilst the structure clad in dark charred timber will have an exposed plywood interior finish.

Faye Toogood’s beguiling design for Cube Haus Commissions proposes a sanctuary that suits both rural and urban contexts. With a simple pitched-roof, single-storey form, it evokes the sort of ordinary, often-ignored buildings that have been built across Britain for centuries. But this being the work of Toogood, a revered designer across multiple disciplines, the scheme that she has created is far from being artless.

Website: https://www.cube-haus.co.uk/project/faye-toogood

Top Architecture Books: “Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Houses” By Dominic Bradbury (2019)

From an Architectural Digest online review:

Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Houses 2019“If one imagines a list of the greatest, most influential houses of the twentieth century, it seems highly likely that the mid-century period will dominate,” writes Bradbury in the book’s introduction, going on to name such famous edifices as the three famous glass houses by Philip Johnson, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Lino Bo Bardi, respectively; Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House; and Luis Barragán’s Cuadra San Cristóbal. “One could, of course, go on.…” he writes.

In the design world, is there any style that’s having more of a Renaissance moment than midcentury modern? It’s everywhere, from luxury hotels to high-end residential interiors to mainstream furniture lines from the likes of CB2 and Anthropologie, and it’s showing little sign of slowing down. In the midst of this revival, writer Dominic Bradbury, who has contributed to Architectural Digest, has compiled what might just be one of the most comprehensive books ever to be published on the subject.

To read more: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/atlas-of-mid-century-modern-houses

 

Profiles: Remembering “Postmodernist” Theorist & Architecture Historian Charles Jencks (1939-2019)

From an Apollo Magazine article:

Charles Jencks 2008Jencks’s book grew out of his PhD thesis, supervised by Reyner Banham at the University of London in the late 1960s, and paved the way for his later, more explicitly polemical The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977). In this bestselling book, Jencks set out his stall for a pluralist architecture that rejected what he saw as modernism’s reductive ‘univalent’ approach, swapping it for a symbolically rich and historically engaged ‘multivalent’ postmodernism. For good or bad it became the defining book of its era, an unabashed rejection of mainstream modernism that ushered in a new architectural style.

Modern Movements in Architecture (1973) by Charles JencksModern Movements in Architecture (1973) by Charles Jencks was one of the first books on architecture I read, a birthday present given to me the summer before I started my degree. In some ways, it spoiled things: I thought all architecture books would be that much fun. Modern Movements in Architecture is a complex and sophisticated history, but it wears its learning lightly. It relates architecture to a wider cultural discourse and it is unafraid to be critical, even of some architects, such as Mies van der Rohe, who were previously considered to be above criticism.

To read more: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/remembering-charles-jencks/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=APNE%20%2020191125%20%20AL&utm_content=APNE%20%2020191125%20%20AL+CID_7c3d4bb6631465b2c8eab8a1cebe2725&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Apollo&utm_term=His%20writing%20was%20always%20alive%20to%20the%20deep%20pleasures%20of%20great%20buildings

 

Future Of Homebuilding: “Cork House” By Matthew Barnett Howland (2019)

From Architect Matthew Barnett Howland website:

Matthew Barnett Howland Cork HouseCork House embodies a strong whole life approach to sustainability, from resource through to end-of-life.  Expanded cork is a pure bio-material made with waste from cork forestry.  The bark of the cork oak is harvested by hand every nine years without harming the tree or disturbing the forest.  Matthew Barnett Howland Cork HouseThis gentle agro-industry sustains the Mediterranean cork oak landscapes, providing a rich biodiverse habitat that is widely recognised. This compelling ecological origin of expanded cork is mirrored at the opposite end of the building’s lifecycle.  The construction system is dry-jointed, so that all 1,268 blocks of cork can be reclaimed at end-of-building-life for re-use, recycling, or returning to the biosphere.

Completed in 2019, Cork House was designed by Matthew Barnett Howland with Dido Milne and Oliver Wilton.

Cork House is a brand new and radically simple form of plant-based construction.  Monolithic walls and corbelled roofs are made almost entirely from solid load-bearing cork.  This highly innovative self-build construction kit is designed for disassembly, is carbon-negative at completion and has exceptionally low whole life carbon.

To read more: https://www.matthewbarnetthowland.com/

Future Of Homebuilding: First 3D Printed Homes Of “Locally Sourced Clay” In Italy By Mario Cucinella Architects And WASP

From a Mario Cucinella Architects online release:

Mario Cucinella Architects 3D Printed homes in Italy with WASPDesigned by MC A and engineered and built by WASP, TECLA will be the first house to be entirely 3D printed using locally sourced clay – a biodegradable and recyclable ‘km 0 natural’ material which will effectively make the building zero-waste. It will be built to adapt to multiple environments, and it will be suitable for self-production through the use of WASP’s innovative Maker Economy Starter Kit. This approach will limit industrial waste and offer a unique sustainable model that will boost the national and local economy, improving the wellbeing of communities. Furthermore, the scheme will significantly accelerate the construction process as the 3D printer will produce the entire structure at once. 

Borne from a vision to provide a home for everyone at a time of exponential population increase and an associated lack of affordable housing, TECLA is a new circular housing model, created using entirely reusable, recyclable materials taken from the local terrain. Built using Crane WASP – the latest innovation in on-site 3D construction, TECLA represents a step-change in the move towards eco-housing.

To read more: https://www.mcarchitects.it/mario-cucinella-architects-and-wasp-start-on-site-with-tecla-a-prototype-3d-printed-global-habitat-for-sustainable-living

Video Profiles: Architect Roger Zogolovitch Tours His “HouseBoat” Home In Southern England (2019)

From a The Modern House online article:

Away from the city, Roger escapes to his home near Poole, Dorset for what he calls an ‘analogue retreat’. To hear Roger talk about the inspirations behind the building, which resembles an up-turned boat and which is both eccentric and serene, fun and functional…

For the final instalment in this batch of our Masters of Design series, we’re paying a visit to architect Roger Zogolovitch’s boat-inspired house near Poole, Dorset – the recipient of two RIBA awards and a paragon in split-level living. Watch the film here.

Roger Zogolovitch The Houseboat Southern England Interior

 

Roger is the founder and creative director of Solidspace, an independent developer focused on unearthing the potential of backland gap sites rarely noticed by mainstream housebuilders. By skillfully utilising overlooked sites in the urban environment – adjacent to railroads or between and above office buildings, for instance – Roger proposes intelligent design solutions to the challenges of providing enough homes for a growing population.

Roger Zogolovitch The Houseboat Southern England 2019

To read more: https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/boat-inspired-house-roger-zogolovitch/?prm_name=homepage_featured_link&prm_id=journal_article&prm_position=1&prm_creative=cta_button

Future Of Home Design: “Freedomsky” From Czech Architect Atelier Štěpán

From a Freedomsky webpage:

atelier-stepan design small house images 2Freedomky offers a unique way of living that combines thoughtful design, style purity and uncompromising material quality. Freedomky are charming houses you just choose and then move right in. You don’t have to follow it; it comes wherever you decide. A pleasant space with minimal energy requirements, it’ll hook you immediately. Once you enter, you’ll understand. Maybe you’ll start to live a little differently, freely. Freedomky is not just a house, it’s a lifestyle.

Websites: http://www.freedomky.cz/en/vse-o-freedomku

http://www.atelier-stepan.cz/en/projects/#project-8-sec

Top Designers: Jacob Brillhart’s “Travel Drawings” Seek To Find “Persistencies” In Physical And Living Architecture

Brillhart Architecture Travel Drawings 3TRAVEL DRAWINGS

The office engages in a hybrid design process that is directed by analog forms of representation and digital production techniques. Each project is explored using a matrix of different media lenses, including painting, hand drawing, physical models and mock-ups as well as cad, hyper-photorealistic renderings and 3D computer models, wherein application and implication are prioritized. We believe this fusing of media provides a larger, more creative palette from which to work. Travel drawing also serves as a platform of inspiration and a fundamental aspect of research and development.

Voyage Le Corbusier Jacob BrilhartThis approach stems from my own formal education and the unique 10-year period in contemporary history in which I studied architecture. Occupying both “paper” and virtual / digital environments, I learned the fundamentals at Tulane University using purely traditional architectural methods of representation. By the time I earned my Masters from Columbia University, the pedagogy had radically changed, wherein the old, analog systems of production were abandoned for a purely paperless studio that solely engaged digital technologies such as Maya, Max and Photoshop. Working within both territories, I learned that each medium has a profound effect on the way in which we draw, design and understand architectural space and form.

Meanwhile, after leaving Columbia, I set out to rediscover the practice of drawing on the road and have since made over 800 paintings, sketches and notes of architectural details, buildings, cityscapes, art and culture. These personal “drawings on the road” have evoked an intensive physical and living architectural investigation of how I process and perceive information. In the authentic and active experience of drawing — of physically recording what we see — I believe we develop a new way of seeing. We bring back sketchbooks that are full of information and analysis as well as a better understanding of architectural persistencies that make what we see matter. This level of engagement furthers the architect’s artistic intuition and enables him or her to see anew.

Website: https://brillhartarchitecture.com/academic-2/