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Posts Tagged ‘architect’

See-Through Marble at Ground Zero

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 14, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Dezeen magazine.
The translucent walls are made of Pentelic marble. So lovely!

You may recall reading about the Greek Orthodox church near the World Trade Center in New York City that was ruined on September 11, 2001. Fortunately, 9/11 was not the end of the story for that church. Tom Ravenscroft reports at Dezeen about Santiago Calatrava’s new illuminated wonder.

“The St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which replaces a church destroyed in the 9/11 attack, has officially opened at the World Trade Center site in New York.

“Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the building replaces a 19th-century church that was destroyed on 11 September 2001. … The church is located alongside the 9/11 memorial that stands on the site of the former twin towers.

“It was designed by Calatrava to be a ‘sanctuary for worship’ but also a reminder of the impact of the terrorist attacks. …

“Said Calatrava, ‘I hope to see this structure serve its purpose as a sanctuary for worship but also as a place for reflection on what the city endured and how it is moving forward. [Architecture] can have an intrinsic symbolic value, which is not written or expressed in a specific way but in an abstract and synthetic manner, sending a message and thus leaving a lasting legacy.’

“Built on top of the World Trade Center Vehicle Security Center, the church is raised around 25 feet above (seven metres) above street level and was designed to be a beacon.

“Informed by Byzantine architecture and the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul in particular, the church is arranged around a central drum-shaped form that is topped by a dome.

“The walls of this central section were made from thin sheets of Pentelic marble so that the building can be illuminated at night.

” ‘This Shrine will be a place for everyone who comes to the sacred ground at the World Trade Center, a place for them to imagine and envision a world where mercy is inevitable, reconciliation is desirable, and forgiveness is possible,’ said Ioannis Lambriniadis archbishop elpidophoros of America.

” ‘We will stand here for the centuries to come, as a light on the hill, a shining beacon to the world of what is possible in the human spirit, if we will only allow our light to shine before all people, as the light of this Shrine for the nation will illuminate every night sky to come in our magnificent city.’

“Surrounding the central domed spaces are four stone-clad towers that give the building an overall square shape.

“The entrance to the church, which faces a large open plaza, was placed between two of these towers and leads directly to the main series of liturgical spaces.

“The altar directly faces the entrance, while the two side niches were completed with translucent arched windows. Above the main space, the domed is surrounded by 40 translucent windows divided by 40 stone ribs, reminiscent of the Hagia Sofia.

“Alongside the main liturgical spaces, several community rooms and offices were placed on the upper floors of the towers.

“To mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks last year, Dezeen explored how the site was rebuilt and the numerous buildings created on the site including the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, which was also designed by Calatrava.”

More at Dezeen, here. Lots of beautiful photos by Alan Karchmer. No firewall.

The New York Times and many other publications reported on the reopening of the church, now a national landmark. From the article by Jane Margolies: “Olga Pavlakos grew up going to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Lower Manhattan. She was baptized there. Her parents were married there. She has memories of her father, who worked in restaurants, volunteering there on Sundays, and of celebrating Epiphany every January, when parishioners would walk to the Hudson River, toss a gold cross into the frigid water and watch divers plunge in to retrieve it. …

“Her connection to St. Nicholas can be traced to her grandparents, who left Greece in the early 1900s and settled in Lower Manhattan, then a bustling immigrant community. Residents there scraped together money and bought a tavern on Cedar Street that they converted to a place of worship, eventually adding a bell at the top.

“These original parishioners, who had arrived by boat, named their church after the patron saint of seafarers — a saint who fed the hungry and clothed the needy and inspired the character of Santa Claus. … The tiny church was obliterated during the terrorist attacks.

“Twenty-one long and difficult years later, St. Nicholas has reopened. But it is no longer a humble church, exclusively for its parishioners. Its mission is larger, as is its splendor.

“St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church & National Shrine, as it’s now called, has become a destination for all. It offers a bereavement center that will serve as a place for meditation and prayer for people of any faith. … The new church is a prominent expression of Orthodox Christianity in the city, and it is a source of great pride for the Greek American community.

“For the few remaining longtime parishioners of St. Nicholas, there is relief that their beloved church has finally reopened. But now, their intimate community hub is a global destination, and some wonder about the future of their once tight-knit parish.” More at the Times here.

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Floating Saunas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 15, 2022| 6 Comments »

Photo: Kevin Scott/Dezeen.
The designers of this sauna aimed to build a structure that engaged the local waterways and encouraged people to use them throughout the year, says Dezeen.

When Erik saw my post about a birdhouse championship, he told me one picture reminded him of floating saunas in Sweden. I had to look that up. I found out that saunas on the water are both like and unlike ice-fishing huts. You definitely have to dress differently.

Jenna McKnight at Dezeen writes about the sauna in the above photo: “Visitors can take a plunge into a cold lake after warming up in this floating wooden sauna by Seattle firm goCstudio – the latest example of the trend for buoyant architecture (+ slideshow).

“The structure is intended to be used all year round on Seattle’s lakes and can accommodate up to six people. It is called WA Sauna. … It follows the growing trend among architects to explore the possibilities afforded by building on water rather than land.

” ‘Following in the Scandinavian tradition of saunas as a place for gathering, WA Sauna provides a place for Seattle’s community to share a unique experience on the water,” said goCstudio, a firm founded in 2012 by Jon Gentry and Aimée O’Carroll. …

“Inspired by the concepts of fire, water and community, the designers aimed to build a structure that engaged the local waterways and encouraged people to use them throughout the year. The $25,000 (£17,000) project was funded through community donations and a Kickstarter campaign hosted in the fall of 2014.

“The deck consists of a pre-manufactured aluminum frame and marine-grade plywood with a clear varnish. Boats and kayaks can be tied up to the deck. The floating structure is powered by a 36-volt electric trolling motor. More than two dozen 208-litre plastic drums keep the vessel afloat. …

“Spruce was used to clad the interior and to form the benches. A wood-burning stove heats the space. Users can easily exit the vessel via a door or side hatch and dive into the cool water. …

“The structure was built by studio employees and skilled volunteers. It was erected within a warehouse owned by the local brewery, Hilliard’s, which allowed the team to use the space for free.

“One of the greatest challenges was getting the structure to the lakefront for the first time. … ‘Towed on six steel casters with a 1980 Volkswagen Vanagon, we slowly crept along at dawn making the eight-block trip to the boat ramp in just under three hours.’ …

“Rising sea levels and a shortage of development sites are leading to a surge of interest in floating buildings, with proposals ranging from mass housing on London’s canals to entire amphibious cities in China.

“Other examples that, like WA Sauna, are targeted at communities include a buoyant Nigerian school and a travelling London cinema.”

You can read about another nice sauna at designboom, a site that doesn’t seem to believe in capital letters: ” ‘löyly’ is a prefab floating sauna made of swiss douglas fir. gently swaying in the middle of lake geneva, ‘löyly’ is a floating prefab sauna designed by trolle rudebeck haar – a graduate from the lausanne university of art and design. haar completed this project after spending a year in finland, where he found a true appreciation for the sauna concept and translated it into ‘löyly’ – his final year project. 

“haar designed the structure as a 24 sq. ft floating sauna made of locally sourced swiss douglas fir – a lightweight yet durable material that he salvaged from a sawmill nearby. the entire structure was then coated with teak oil to create a more resistant shell all while preserving the fir’s natural look and feel.

“the interior of the floating sauna oozes with tones of intimacy and comfort. using sliding doors that echo japanese shoji screens, visitors are met with a small wooden burning stove from morzhand. … the choice of stove was made based on practicality: ‘I chose it because it’s compact, transportable, lightweight, and easy to heat up’,  comments haar. 

“haar also had to consider balance and weight while designing the sauna. ‘I was calculating the mass of every unit,’ he explains. the presence/absence of people aboard the floating structure, as well as the placement of the barrels underneath it were all carefully studied to create a safe and enjoyable experience. 

“in just six hours, the floating sauna was built – but haar made it easy to disassemble and scale for different uses.” 

You might also want to click at the Gessato website to see a sauna created by an Italian design team.

Beautifully integrated into its natural surroundings and context, this floating sauna conceptually links Sweden, Italy, and Japan.

“The structure stands on a floating platform, connecting the lake to the land and providing a relaxing space for the guests staying in the clients’ small bed and breakfast. … Self-built by the studio, the project pays homage to nature and sustainability, with impact on the birch forest minimized by moving the sauna on the surface of the water. …

“A glazed wall provides stunning views over the lake, helping guests relax completely and contemplate the beauty of nature. This floating sauna project was presented during the Superdesign Show 2017, held at Superstudio Più via Tortona 27, Milano in April 2017.”

More at Gessato, here, at Designboom, here, and at Dezeen, here. Lots of super pictures.

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Architect Comes in from the Cold

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Photo: James O Davies/The Historic England Archive, Historic England.
Sphinx House, Moulsford, Oxfordshire, is an example of Egyptian influences on the work of newly rehabilitated British architect John Outram.

Sometimes a person whose work hits a wall of resistance from contemporaries is merely ahead of the times. That may be the case with UK architect John Outram.

Guardian reporter Oliver Wainwright talks to the architect about his philosophy and rehabilitation. ” ‘Our beginning was a worm,’ says John Outram. ‘It had light-sensitive cells at one end that later turned into eyes.’ He is standing in the bathroom at the top of his house in London’s Connaught Square, explaining the symbolism of the patterns that line the walls of his shower.

“Three white worms wiggle their way across a background of blue mosaic tiles at the base of the cubicle, while a black I-shape floats against a band of red tiles above, denoting ‘the emergence of the ego.’ A third yellow band at the top marks the realm of light, where the figure of ‘thought’ appears between two triangles, signifying the parted halves of the ‘heap of history.’

“It’s a lot to digest before breakfast – and we haven’t even got on to the symbolic ceiling (the ‘raft of reason’) or the hexagonal serpent-skin floor tiles.

“ ‘I stand here every morning to do my exercises,’ says Outram, breaking into an infectious giggle. ‘A good dose of metaphysics sets one up for the day.’

“The eccentric architect has reason to be cheerful. At the age of 87, he is enjoying an unexpected wave of popularity. Having been stamped with the label of postmodernism – out of favor since the 1990s, when his work was described as ‘architectural terrorism’ – he has been rediscovered by a new generation, thirsty for color, pattern, ornament and fun.

“The last few years have seen several of his buildings listed, from the Isle of Dogs pumping station, that cartoonish temple to summer storms, to an opulent country house in Sussex built for the Tetra Pak billionaires Hans and Märit Rausing. Illustrations of Outram’s buildings can now be found emblazoned on T-shirts and mugs, while he has a growing following on Instagram, which he joined during lockdown, where he expounds his esoteric theories to a rapt audience. And now, for the first time, the full breadth of his maverick output has been brought together in a monograph. So how does it feel to be recognized so late in life, after years in the wilderness?

” ‘I call it being dug up,’ he says with a chortle. ‘Disinterred, as it were. It’s quite entertaining.’

“As Geraint Franklin, the book’s author, observes, the English have never quite known what to do with Outram. His buildings are hi-tech, neoclassical and postmodern all at once, yet they fit neatly into none of these categories. His chubby columns house sophisticated mechanical systems for ventilation, wiring and drainage, while simultaneously alluding to ancient mythologies in their richly layered ornament.

“A huge jet engine fan in the pediment of the pumping station helps to cool the machinery inside, while also standing as the symbolic source of the ‘river of somatic time.’ A pyramidal glass fireplace in the Egyptian-themed Sphinx Hill house in Oxfordshire summons momentous Pharaonic allusions, while cleverly sucking smoke beneath the floor to a hidden flue.

“In Outram’s world, embracing technology and modernity did not preclude the presence of poetry and history. … Outram piled it all on, mining inspiration from Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese and Mayan cultures with magpie glee. …

“Born in Malaysia, where his army officer father was stationed, Outram’s outsider status owes something to his upbringing. His childhood saw spells in Burma and India, before he arrived at prep school in England at the age of 11, feeling like ‘a refugee from the British empire.’ His early exposure to the vivid sights and sounds of South Asian cities informed his impression of the classical world, as being ‘much more like India than like the British Museum. Very noisy, very smelly, very colorful.’ …

“Unlike his hi-tech peers, his projects rarely exceeded the capabilities of the average builder. ‘The problem with hi-tech is that it’s very expensive, and the tech isn’t very high,’ he says. ‘I’d been a pilot, so I knew what real hi-tech was – and it wasn’t suitable for architecture.’ …

“As Franklin writes, base materials are subject to an almost alchemical transformation in Outram’s hands. Humdrum concrete – which he once described as a ‘funereal porridge of muddy ashes’ – could be transformed into ‘blitzcrete with fragments of colored brick, ground and polished to an edible nougat finish. It debuted at his New House for the Rausings in Wadhurst, Sussex, in 1986, where five types of crushed brick swirl across the facade like confetti in the wind.”

More at the Guardian, here. Great Pictures. No firewall.

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Inspiration in the Outback

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 30, 2022| 3 Comments »


Photo: Georges Lentz.
This water tank is also known as the Silver Tank because once upon a time it was painted in silver anti-rust paint. Read about a sound-art installation here that was a collaboration between the composer Georges Lentz and the architect Glenn Murcutt, in Cobar, Australia.

It’s always interesting to learn what inspires an artist. Inspiration from an old, rusted water tank may be unusual, but creative people are like that. It’s not really surprising.

Casey Quackenbush reported the story at the New York Times in January, “Life in Cobar was a delicate thing until the arrival of the Silver Tank.

“In the vast, red-dirt hinterland of Australia, over 400 miles northwest of the shores of Sydney, rainwater is scarce. ​​For thousands of years, the nomadic Aboriginal Ngiyampaa people excelled at the art of survival by creating natural rock reservoirs. But after European settlers discovered copper and gold in the area in the 1870s, enough water was needed to sustain a booming mining town. Reservoirs were dug. Water was trained in from afar. Then, in 1901, a 33-foot-high steel water tank painted silver, hence its nickname, was erected about a mile outside of town. While the threat of drought remained (and remains to this day), it turned dusty Cobar, a freckle at the edge of the Outback, into something of a desert oasis.

“Nowadays, Cobar pipes in its water from the Burrendong Dam, about 233 miles east, and the tank, whose silver finish long ago succumbed to rust and graffiti, is empty of water. It has, however, been filled with something new — music.

“On April 2, after two decades of work, it will be officially reborn as the Cobar Sound Chapel, an audacious sound-art collaboration between Georges Lentz, one of Australia’s leading contemporary composers, and Glenn Murcutt, an Australian Pritzker Prize- and Praemium Imperiale award-winning architect.

“For his reimagining of the roofless tank, Murcutt installed an approximately 16-foot cube within its cylindrical space, in which Lentz’s ‘String Quartet(s)’ (2000-21), a 24-hour-long classical-meets-electronica work, will play on loop via a quadraphonic sound system. Inside the chamber is a concrete bench that seats up to four, from which one can look out through the ceiling’s gold-rimmed oculus. Morning, noon and night, then, the otherworldly sonic stream will reverberate throughout the concrete booth. …

“Lentz has been consumed by questions of cosmology and spirituality ever since he was a child. Born in Echternach, a small town in Luxembourg that formed around a seventh-century abbey, he grew up attending classical music festivals and stargazing with his dad. Later, he studied music in Hanover, Germany. While riding the train to university in the fall of 1988, he happened upon a story in the German science magazine Geo about the creation of the universe. It threw the tininess of humanity into sharp relief for him. …

“Ever since, Lentz has devoted his entire body of work to exploring the questions of the cosmos, transforming his initial fear into a quest for contemplation, one that only intensified following his 1990 move to Australia and exposure to the Outback’s ocean of sky. Both a continuation and culmination of his work, ‘String Quartet(s)’ began as an attempt to translate that sky into a score.

“To do so, he collaborated with the Noise, an experimental string quartet that’s based in Sydney. They used a range of techniques; to mirror a starry night, for example, the musicians invoked the pointillism of the contemporary Aboriginal painter Kathleen Petyarre, plucking their bows at the top of their instruments to create contained bits of sound. …

“They ended up with about six hours’ worth of music, which, through digital editing, Lentz expanded into a 24-hour, techno-infused soundscape of terror, wonder and reverence. …

“Around 2000, Lentz began dreaming of a music box amid a copper landscape, a place where his music could live alongside its muse. But it wasn’t until he played a concert in Cobar in 2008 that he considered the town as a potential site.

“He pitched the idea to the Cobar Shire Council, which later proposed the hilltop bearing the tank, suggesting it be demolished to make room. ‘Absolutely not!’ Lentz said. Soon after, he called Murcutt, 85, who is celebrated for hand-drawn, landscape-specific designs inspired by Australian vernacular architecture. …

“Murcutt has always been drawn to the desert, whose sparseness resonates with the Aboriginal mantra — touch the earth lightly — by which he tries to abide. In keeping with that idea, he set out to design, largely thanks to governmental funding, a simple, solar-powered chapel that would unify sound, site and atmosphere.

“Two large slabs of concrete mark the entrance outside. Inside, the cubic space (which is slightly slanted to optimize acoustics) is stark, just like the desert itself. In the four corners of the ceiling, sunlight streams through windows of Russian blue glass painted by the local Aboriginal artist Sharron Ohlsen, who also employs pointillism in her work. And, over the course of each day, an ellipse of light traverses the floor and concrete walls.”

More at the Times, here.

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Architect as Teacher

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 20, 2022| 2 Comments »

Photo: IHISADC.
Participants in the 2021 Indiana High School Architectural Design Competition.

It makes a difference when professionals offer their expertise to school students. In today’s story we see what happened when an architect returned to his old high school to teach in its STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math] program.

Victoria St. Martin reports at the Washington Post, “It can happen in an instant: that moment when you go from not knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life, to having absolute certainty about it. For Tarik El-Naggar, it happened in 1970, when he was in the seventh grade working on a project for English class.

“The assignment? Construct a reproduction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre out of everyday objects. He built a 2-foot-diameter cardboard model — and an architect was born. … Says El-Naggar, who’s now 63 and co-owner of an architecture and interior design firm, ‘I don’t know what it was about the building. It had all the seating, the stage and the open roof — it was just awesome. It was a lightbulb moment.’

“El-Naggar’s life came full circle when he added ‘high school teacher’ to his résumé nine years ago — building a STEM curriculum with members of the administration at his former school in northwest Indiana. Inside his Valparaiso High School classroom, students have their own lightbulb moments by creating projects using ping-pong balls, cardboard, computers and 3-D printers. ‘Instead of just teaching the basics of architecture, I’m actually really teaching them design theory,’ says El-Naggar, whose class is similar to what he taught at a nearby college.

“And he’s gotten results: [In 2021] his Valparaiso students swept the Indiana High School Architectural Design Competition, winning all nine awards out of 72 entries from eight schools. …

“Valparaiso, a middle-class community about 55 miles southeast of Chicago, began incorporating more STEM courses into its curriculum about six years ago. A school official said the district wanted to place more emphasis on skills such as critical thinking, communication, creativity and problem-solving, and secured several grants from the county redevelopment commission to bolster tools across K-12 classrooms. The high school roughly ranks in the top 10 percent in Indiana, and its standardized test scores in reading and math significantly outpace the rest of the state.

‘There are schools around the country that have great basketball programs. So, what do parents do? You move there because you want your son or daughter to go there,’ says El-Naggar. ‘I want people to look at what we’re doing here and say, “My kids are going to be engineers, architects. They need to be here.” ‘

“For high-schoolers who want to pursue architecture as a career, taking classes with El-Naggar is paying off: In the past three years, all five of the students who applied to university-level architectural programs have been accepted. ‘People were really impressed that I had already had this experience,’ says Henry Youngren, now a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. … ‘It’s really guided me on how I want to live the rest of my life.’

“Brandon Farley, an architect who is the chair of the high school design competition, says he has some records that date back to the 1970s and he’s ‘never seen anything where one school won all the awards.’ It’s rare that judges see high school teachers with formal architectural training, he adds. With Valparaiso High School’s entries, he says, ‘you can see it immediately in the way the students address the problems and their solutions, and in the way that they talk about their designs. It really raised the bar on the competition.’

“Seventeen-year-old Olivia Lozano received one of the awards. ‘It kind of got the ball rolling for me,’ she says of the contest, for which she created a reading room filled with glass windows that opened to the outdoors. ‘Then it turns into a vortex and you’re down in El-Naggar’s classroom like four hours a day, and then you’re here after school, and then you’re here on the weekends and over spring break.’

“El-Naggar says the lightbulb moment for his students today really happens when they first see a 3-D view of their building. ‘The ones that go, “Oh, my gosh,” and they start “walking” through it and they’re telling other people, “Look at this.” ‘ …

“When the University of Notre Dame, near South Bend, Ind., asked him to critique student projects, he met a fellow architect and professor who would help him get his first teaching gig, at Andrews University in Michigan. Once he started, he knew he’d discovered a second passion. Several years later, he was asked to fill in and teach architecture in his hometown at the high school. He welcomed the opportunity to teach five minutes from his home.

“Now his fervor for teaching is gaining more attention, earning him a teacher of the year award from a national project-based-learning group this past fall. ‘We consider ourselves very blessed to have a teacher like him in the classroom,’ says Nick Allison, the school district’s assistant superintendent for secondary education.”

More at the Post, here.

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After Blindness, His Work Improves

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 24, 2020| 8 Comments »

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Photo: CBS News
Blind architect Chris Downey explains to CBS News correspondent Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes how his disability has made him a better architect.

Talk about making lemonade if life hands you lemons! This story about a man who suffered a devastating loss and eventually came out ahead of the game is inspiring.

Lesley Stahl reported on Chris Downey’s saga for 60 Minutes.

“Several mornings a week, as the sun rises over the Oakland estuary in California, an amateur rowing team works the water. It’s hard to tell which one of them is blind. And Chris Downey thinks that’s just fine.

“CHRIS DOWNEY: It’s really exciting to be in a sport where nobody looks in the direction they’re going. You face this way in the boat and you’re going that way. So, okay even-steven.

“It’s not exactly even-steven in this design meeting, where Downey is collaborating with sighted architects on a new hospital building. But he hasn’t let that stop him.

“LESLEY STAHL: Here you are in a profession that basically requires you to read— read designs and draw designs. You must’ve thought in your head, ‘That is insurmountable?’ …

“DOWNEY: Friends that were architects and anybody else would say, ‘Oh my God, it’s the worst thing imaginable, to be an architect and to lose your sight. I can’t imagine anything worse.’ But I quickly came to realize that — the creative process is an intellectual process. It’s how you think, so I just needed new tools.

“New tools? Downey found a printer that could emboss architectural drawings so that he could read and understand through touch. …

“At age 45, Chris Downey had pretty much constructed the life he’d always wanted. An architect with a good job at a small housing firm outside San Francisco, he was happily married, with a 10-year-old son. He was an assistant little league coach and avid cyclist. And then — doctors discovered a tumor in his brain. He had surgery, and the tumor was safely gone, but Downey was left completely blind. As we first reported in 2019, what he has done in the decade since losing his sight, as a person and as an architect, can only be described as a different kind of vision.

“And he came up with a way to ‘sketch’ his ideas onto the plans using a simple children’s toy — malleable wax sticks that he shapes to show his modifications to others. And he says something surprising started to happen. He could no longer see buildings and spaces, but he began hearing them. …

“DOWNEY: I was fascinated — walking through buildings that I knew sighted. But I was experiencing them in a different way. I was hearing the architecture, I was feeling the space. … It was sort of this — this excitement of, ‘I’m a kid again. I’m— I’m relearning so much of architecture.’

It wasn’t about what I’m missing in architecture, it’s what— was about what I had been missing in architecture.

“Chris Downey’s upbeat attitude doesn’t mean that he didn’t go through one of the most frightening experiences imaginable — and struggle. He and his wife Rosa were living in this same home with their son Renzo, then 10, when Downey first noticed a problem while playing catch with Renzo. The ball kept coming in and out of sight. The cause turned out to be a tumor near his optic nerve. Surgery to remove it lasted nine and a half hours. He says his surgeon had told him there was a slight risk of total sight loss, but that he’d never had it happen. … The next day half his field of vision disappeared. And then —

“DOWNEY: The next time I woke up it was — all gone. It was just black. …

“After days of frantic testing, a surgeon told him it was permanent. Irreversible. And sent in a social worker.

“DOWNEY: She says, ‘Oh, and I see from your chart you’re’— you’re an architect, so we can talk about career alternatives.’ …

“Alone that night in his room, Downey did some serious thinking. About his son, and about his own father, who had died from complications after surgery when Downey was seven years old.

“DOWNEY: I could quickly — appreciate the wonder, the — just the joy of, ‘I’m still here.’ …

“He knew that how he handled this would send a strong message to Renzo. … Motivated to set an example, he headed back to work only one month later. …

“Just nine months after going blind, the recession hit and he lost his job. But he got word that a nearby firm was designing a rehabilitation center for veterans with sight loss. They were eager to meet a blind architect.  …

“DOWNEY: It took my disability and turned it upside down. All of a sudden, it defined unique, unusual value that virtually nobody else had to offer. …

“Starting with that job, Downey developed a specialty, making spaces accessible to the blind. He helped design a new eye center at Duke University Hospital, consulted on a job for Microsoft, and signed on to help the visually impaired find their way in San Francisco’s new, and much-delayed, four-block long Transbay Transit Center, which we visited during construction. …

“DOWNEY: I’m absolutely convinced I’m a better architect today than I was sighted.

“STAHL: If you could see tomorrow, would you still wanna be able to feel the design? …

“DOWNEY: I don’t know. I would be afraid that I’d — I’d sorta lose what I’ve really been working on.” More.

Hat tip: Kristina.

 

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Designing Shelters for the Displaced

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 8, 2020| 4 Comments »

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Photos: clockwise from top left, Emma Smales/View; Afyen Hsin-Chu; Takanobu Sakuma; Hufton+Crow/View
The bottom right photo shows Shigeru Ban’s Paper Log Houses, temporary housing in Kobe, Japan, created after a 1995 earthquake left many residents homeless. The New York Times took an in-depth look at Ban’s body of work here.

It’s inspiring to see a successful person in any field turn her or his talents to a humanitarian cause. That is what innovative Japanese architect Shigeru Ban did after seeing problems with post-disaster housing in Africa. He knew he could do better.

Nikil Saval at the New York Times wrote an in-depth feature on Ban’s larger body of work and explained how he got into building temporary paper-tube shelters.

“His move to create shelter architecture came out of seeing the temporary structures offered to Rwandan refugees in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1994. At the time, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was handing out plastic tarps and aluminum poles to hold them up, but many people were instead selling the aluminum and harvesting nearby wood to frame their tents, contributing to massive deforestation.

“Ban wrote to the U.N.H.C.R. several times before flying to Geneva. There, he encountered the organization’s senior physical planner, Wolfgang Neumann, who became interested in Ban’s idea of using recycled paper tubes to build shelters. Ban was hired as a consultant and the concept was later implemented at a camp in northern Rwanda.

“The first time Ban used paper tubes for a disaster relief project was in Kobe, Japan, in 1995, where a series of small houses — about 170 square feet each — were constructed for victims of an earthquake that killed more than 6,000 people.

As is typical for Ban’s humanitarian projects, each shelter cost less than $2,000 and took a single day to construct; according to Ban, about 30 were built over the span of a few weeks, mostly by volunteers.

“These shelters remained in Kobe for about a year, after which they were dismantled and recycled. But a church and community center in the city, also designed by Ban and built out of recycled paper, stood for 10 years, a testament to the durability of his work.

“He has also used shipping containers to build thousands of small housing units in Onagawa, on Japan’s northeast coast, following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami there, and beer crates weighted with sandbags have occasionally served as the foundation for his Paper Log Houses (including in Kobe), illustrating Ban’s commitment to relying on ‘local materials’ in the most expansive sense: whatever is cheap and locally available that won’t result in waste.

“These structures are off-the-cuff, constructed quickly by staff members of the Voluntary Architects Network, a nongovernmental organization founded by Ban in 1995, along with the help of local students and volunteers. Initially, he was able to pay for them through donations and his own earnings; some of his relief projects now receive public funding. But he often uses his expensive commissions to test out ideas for his aid work, toying with cheap materials in structures for the rich so he can use them later to help those who have lost everything. …

“Ban is not given to displays of pity or indignation; he usually explains his humanitarian efforts by citing his horror at waste rather than some charitable impulse. It is an austere, utilitarian front for the architect to present, considering that, at the moment, he is trying to expand his humanitarian efforts beyond temporary structures and has just begun working with the southeast Indian state of Andhra Pradesh to develop housing for its new capital, Amaravati — multistory units for which paper tubes would not likely be appropriate (he has instead been considering fiberglass foam-core panels). But disasters will continue to preoccupy him.

“He spoke of doing larger urban-scale planning, preparing cities for disaster relief. More earthquakes, certainly in Japan, are likely, to say nothing of climate-change induced nightmares. ‘This moment, the beginning of the 21st century, is a big moment to change the direction — toward sustainability and disaster relief,’ he said. ‘This will continue as the main theme of this century.’ Times had changed since the Modernist era: ‘Those times, people believed that they would have utopia some day. But we know that it’s not true. There’s no utopia.’ ”

More at the New York Times, here.

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Pop-up Classical Music

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2016| 2 Comments »

Photo: Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
A stage in the back of a U-Haul (paid for in part by Fresh Sound Foundation) allows the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet to perform anywhere.

Classical musicians who believe their music will bring a blessing to whoever hears it have been presenting in offbeat locales in the Greater Boston area. Tomorrow, too. Malcolm Gay has the story at the Boston Globe.

“The 17-foot U-Haul truck sat parked in an empty field, ringed by trees. With the touch of a button, a roof-mounted winch whirred into action, unspooling cable as a fan-shaped stage lowered like a drawbridge from the rear. The U-Haul’s modified rear doors acted as a band shell, flanking the stage to project sound, and a custom-made sail, supported by deep-sea fishing rods, projected as a visor from above.

“Fifteen minutes later and the vehicle, dubbed the Music Haul, was a fully functioning stage — a 21st-century gypsy caravan that will bring live performances to the streets and schools of Greater Boston, Sunday through Tuesday.

“ ‘It really is more boat than truck,’ said Catherine Stephan, executive director of the Yellow Barn music center. ‘We got to know RV dealerships really well.’ …

“ ‘It’s supposed to be as close to magic as possible,’ said architect John Rossi, one of the traveling venue’s principal designers. …

“Its creators say the Music Haul’s main mission is to bring world-class concert performances to the most unlikely of places: schools, underserved neighborhoods, hospitals, perhaps even prisons.

” ‘We exist in the world as musicians that is in a way so finely controlled and tuned,’ said Yellow Barn’s artistic director, Seth Knopp. ‘Music Haul removes some of the ceremony, which can be a barrier for people who are not often exposed to that world. There’s an element of taking something out of its accustomed place and allowing it to take people by surprise.’ ”

What a good thought! Reminds me how you can suddenly start seeing the pictures on your walls again if you move them to a new location in the house.

Read more about this enchanting initiative here.

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Communities that Develop Organically

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2016| 4 Comments »

Tim is an architect and WordPress blogger who is concerned with, among other things, how real communities develop organically. He has a strong sense that creating places top-down should not be regarded as sustainable place making.

Being a bit of a contrarian, I’d love to think of a contrary example, but so far I can’t.

Here Tim takes off on a planned community in his neck of the Florida woods.

“The problem with the Love Street / Jupiter Inlet Village project is that nobody will live there. … The planners, architects and developer of the project say the project is all about real place making.  Fortunately, we have a large amount of accepted research and knowledgeable writing on the subject of place making dating back over 40 years …

“First, 2 things need to be clear about place making – 1) It is a human phenomenon that is, therefore, very personal, varying, and not measurable; 2) ‘Real’ place making happens anywhere, and anytime there are humans present. …

“Wasteful land use in the form of a high percentage of non-places is the critical flaw with all drive-to places that claim to be urban or have high quality place making at their core. They simply do not, and they perpetuate the car-centric development pattern that exacerbates quality-of-life negatives in South Florida – traffic, loss of identity, and the replacement of real places with faux places.

“For Love Street / Jupiter Inlet Village to become the real place in claims it will be, it should do the following:

  1. Embrace the residential patterns that are still in the area, and were once far more prominent, and include residential units of a similar urban village quality.
  2. All parking should be metered, and of the on-street variety, and the parking lot should be replaced with a public green.
  3. Retail, commercial, and office space should be geared toward neighborhood uses, with the goal of replacing vehicle trips with bicycle or pedestrian trips to a very high degree.
  4. The lighthouse promenade must actually align with the lighthouse, and, thereby, solidify a framed street scape view of this landmark in perpetuity for all to share in. The promenade is presently a few degrees off, and focuses on a point well east of the lighthouse.

“Development and redevelopment projects are not inherently bad things, in fact, many developments create great pedestrian and transit oriented places that foster living, working and playing within a tight-knit community. However, developments that pretended to be great place makers, and really are not, represent a continuation of the very harmful growth patterns of the last half-century in disguise.

“Jupiter Inlet Village can be a great place, and an asset to the community, but it will not get there by pretending to be something that it is not.” More at Tim’s WordPress blog, here.

Map: https://www.jupiter.fl.us/index.aspx?NID=884

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Gingerbread by Architects

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 18, 2015| 2 Comments »

You have until Jan. 3 to see beloved Boston landmarks in the form of  gingerbread, gumdrops, frosting, and pretzels. The annual competition is put on at the Boston Society of Architects, which has a public exhibit area on Congress Street between Atlantic and Dorchester avenues.

The public is invited to a reception on Monday.

“Please join the Community Design Resource Center (CDRC) for the Gingerbread Reception, where we will view more than 20 gingerbread designs from teams of architecture and landscape architecture firms on exhibit, enjoy light refreshments, announce the winners, celebrate the incredible bakers, and launch CDRC’s first Open Call for Projects.

“Vote for your favorite gingerbread house now!

“At the Gingerbread Reception we will launch our first Open Call for Projects — an open invitation to neighborhood groups and community nonprofits in the greater Boston area to apply for a design assistance grant. Underserved audiences are especially encouraged to apply, as well as projects that otherwise fall between traditional funding cracks but that somehow serve to make communities better. …

“While challenging designers to explore a new medium, this sweet event also raises funds for the CDRC. A special thank you to the Boston Society of Landscape Architects and the BSLA ‘gingerscapes’ for joining us this year!” More here.

The BSA’s photos are on instagram. Look for bsaaia. It’s fun to guess what you are seeing.

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121815-BSA-gingerbread-3.

 

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Rising from Rubble

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 24, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Kimberley Mok reports at Treehugger about how a prize-winning architect plans to repurpose the rubble from the recent earthquake to rebuild Nepal in an adaptable style based on traditional Nepalese architecture.

“Japanese architect and recent Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban announced back in May that he would be part of the humanitarian effort in rebuilding post-earthquake Nepal. In addition to employing his signature cardboard tube architecture, Ban has announced that he intends to re-use brick rubble from the disaster, in order to speed up the rebuilding process.

“According to Designboom, Ban’s design for relief housing will consist of a modular wooden framework measuring 3 feet by 7 feet. Immediate occupation will be made possible by tossing temporary tarps over the structure, which will allow residents and builders to rebuild at their pace, u sing rubble or other materials for the infill. Walls could be then mortared with whatever is locally available. …

“Ban studied traditional Nepalese methods of building, and used this research in the design of the operable window frames. … For the long-term, there are plans to implement some sort of prefabricated housing, which the architect has done before in the Philippines.”

More here.

Photo: Shigeru Ban

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Library Is a Draw for Chinese Village

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I have another unusual library story — this time from China. It’s about a small village that built a magnificent library, drawing admiring visitors and boosting the local economy.

Jane Perlez writes at the New York Times, “The tiny village of Jiaojiehe suffers from being close to the nation’s capital. The young flee easily to the big city, leaving the elderly behind, lonely and poor.

“In today’s China, villages like this often try to engineer a sense of well-being by opening a new medical clinic, say, or by upgrading the water supply.

“But Li Xiaodong, an award-winning architect who fuses traditional Chinese ideas of design with Western themes, had a different idea for Jiaojiehe. He was captivated by the potential he saw in the village’s most abundant natural resource, the branches of its thousands of trees, which the locals harvest for fuel.

“So he built a library — with a twist. At its base, it is a steel and glass box in the vein of a Philip Johnson open-plan creation from the 1950s, but its exterior walls and roof are clad with fruit-tree twigs.

“The spindly sticks are arranged in vertical rows, and their uneven shapes allow natural light to filter into the library’s reading room, while keeping the building cool in the summer and cozy in the winter. They also act as a kind of camouflage, making the library’s rectangular edges barely noticeable in the landscape as visitors approach the village on a narrow, twisting road. …

“The library has a presence on social media, and many of the visitors on the weekend are university students or young professionals. They wander around the village, snap photos of themselves and order the local delicacy, stewed chicken with chestnuts, at one of the restaurants.

“And some of them actually read. Sun Liyang, 27, an automotive journalist, said a friend in Beijing had donated some books after hearing about the library online, and he decided to come for a look. ‘I am sitting here reading “The Adventures of Tintin,” ‘ he said. ‘It’s taking me back to my childhood.’

“Wang Fuying, 57, who used to grow crops in the area, is now the librarian, even though she can barely read. ‘All the library visitors are from the city,’ she said. ‘We have up to 200 visitors a day over the weekend. They come for fun, take a look, take some pictures and take a walk.’

“There are a few flaws. To preserve the wood floor, patrons must remove their shoes at the front door, but in the summer when there are many visitors, the reading room becomes smelly from all the socks, Ms. Wang said. …

“Mr. Li’s projects in other parts of China where he has built small structures in rural areas — including a school built high over a creek — have won many prizes. But few honors seem to have pleased him more than last year’s Moriyama R.A.I.C. International Prize, named for the Canadian-Japanese architect Raymond Moriyama. …

“On a recent weekend, Mr. Moriyama, 85, was one of the visitors to the library. He liked what he saw. ‘I was so happy this particular project won,’ he said. ‘It was all about picking one that represents service to the people. The sense of humanity of the library is so great.’

“The older architect patted Mr. Li on the back. ‘You did good,’ he said. ‘I was not on the jury, and quite often, I disagree with the jury. But in this case, I believe it was 150 percent right.’ ”

More here.

Photo: Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times
Li Xiaodong, a prize-winning architect, was inspired by the branches of local fruit trees, which he used to cover the Liyuan library’s roof and exterior walls.

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Best Houses of 2014

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 6, 2015| 2 Comments »

Photo: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

ArchDaily has published the editorial team’s choices for best houses of 2014. Some of the houses are widely fanciful, like storybook dwellings. Be sure to look at them all.

The magazine says, “For another year, in 2014 ArchDaily has featured hundreds of houses from designers around the globe, with homes that appear to float above ground, sink below grade, snake through forests, jut over cliffs, and blur the line between building and environment.

“This year, we’ve seen some of the most intuitive, outlandish, and creative designs cropping up around the world, from São Paulo to Ho Chi Minh City to Stockholm, and to celebrate the end of the year we’ve rounded up our 50 best projects from 2014, representing an incredible range of living environments from the world’s most innovative architects.

“Enjoy the sandy surrounds of House in Miyake or the minimalist paradise of Love House; or escape for a getaway to Weekend House in Downtown São Paulo. Find out which houses stray from the norm, reviving the wooden cottage and redefining the stone cabin with a touch of linearity and serious panoramic views. Step inside wondrous spaces that soar skyward or connect with the earth, speak to the divine or convene with the spiritual – and yet all share the unmistakable feeling of ‘home.’ ”

See the amazing houses here.

Architecture on the Stockholm page includes homes, apartment complexes, and the public library. Perhaps a Swedish reader will be familiar with a few of them.

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Treehugger Highlights Former Shack

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 15, 2014| 1 Comment »

A 70-year-old California homesteader’s shack near Joshua Tree national park is now a light installation, Lucid Stead.

When architect Michael Graham Richard talked to artist Phillip K. Smith about the work, Smith explained, “Lucid Stead is about tapping into the quiet and the pace of change of the desert. When you slow down and align yourself with the desert, the project begins to unfold before you. It reveals that it is about light and shadow, reflected light, projected light, and change.”

To Richard, the disappearing act that Lucid Stead achieves with reflections is a revelation. “Sometimes the best way to be part of the landscape is to blend into it,” he says. “Animals have been using camouflage for millions of years for survival, but there can also be aesthetic reasons to want to disappear, at least a little.”

In Smith’s creation, he continues, “the desert itself is used as a material,” as is reflected light. Check out a slide show here , at Treehugger.com, which highlights the artist’s use of solar power. Be sure to note how amazing the “shack” looks at night (slides 7-9).

Photo: Steven King, Phillip K Smith, III/royale projects contemporary art

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Birds

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Heather Murphy reviews a cool-sounding book about birds as architects in Slate.

“Birds are exceptionally skilled architects. And, unlike humans, they do not require expensive schooling to obtain their skills. Nor do they covet their neighbors’ homes, explains Peter Goodfellow, author of Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer and Build. The innate ability to create sturdy and beautiful nests is written in their DNA. Goodfellow, a retired English teacher, has been studying birds since the 1970s. His new book documents the process of nest design and construction in extensive detail.” Read the article and check out the terrific slide show at Slate.

To see a bird building one of nature’s most complex nests, watch this BBC video of about 4 minutes, showing a weaver bird learning to master the skill.

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Another new writer focuses on Feathers.

Amazon posts the book description: “Feathers are an evolutionary marvel: aerodynamic, insulating, beguiling. They date back more than 100 million years. [Biologist] Thor Hanson details a sweeping natural history, as feathers have been used to fly, protect, attract, and adorn … . Engineers call feathers the most efficient insulating material ever discovered … . They silence the flight of owls and keep penguins dry below the ice.”

John has been reading Feathers, which he interrupts occasionally to tell us some little-known evolutionary fact or to praise the author’s writing style. John and Meran are really good birders, and it’s looking like their son is a birdwatcher in the making.

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