Friday Late Subterranea

Another triumph for the V and A late series. The main event although far from the best was he unveiling of the new V&A tunnel installation (above) by architect CJ Lim. Visitors to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London can now enter the building through a subterranean garden. ‘Seasons through the Looking Glass’, an installation inspired by Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, is located at the tunnel entrance to the V&A. . . . it was somewhat disappointing

‘Nighthaunts’
National Art Library
A reading by Sukhdev Sandhu, from his recent book ‘Nighthaunts’, an exploration of nocturnal London and a reflection on the nature of the urban night. Accompanied by music by sonic artist Scanner. . . FANTASTIC the dark library allowed the mind to focus on the voice of the reader so you became completely absorbed by it . . . spine-tingling

The website that preceded the book is beautiful definitely worth a look – http://nighthaunts.org.uk/

Stephen Walter’s ‘Island’ and ‘Kensington & Chelsea’
Stephen Walter’s intricate mappings of the London landscape where objects and places are slowly taken over by their symbolic representations, creating forests of symbols and places where every inch is mapped and quantified for human purpose. . . AWESOME!

 

Ben Wilson – Architecture Now ‘up on the roof’

short talk on the future of roof design, accompanied by small display of existing projects

 

 

Höweler + Yoon: Davol Loft

‘Located in Boston, the Davol Loft by Höweler + Yoon was created by combining two 1,100 sf loft spaces on the top floor of a building in Chinatown. The two lofts were mirror images of one another, organized around a central core and separated by a partition wall.’

 via architecture.mnp (click for the entire article)

I really love the introspective nature of this design

Mark Elton – Wolseley UK Sustainable Building Center 29.02.08

This was an interesting lecture. The main focus was on the materials used within the design, something which due to my latest project I have been researching however the content regarding landscape was minimal.

This project of funded by Wolesley’s marketing department which shows that sustainability sells!

 - Sustain – consultant

- Techniker

- Folcrum consulting

- Dobson White Doulcott

- RGA Landscape

- The Green Guide to Specification

- Green Spec.

- Ecobuild

www.wolseleysbc.co.uk

natural materials, low embodied energy, operational benefits, low toxicity alternatives, recycled/by products content, lifespan, ease of recycling/re-use, renewable energy sources

Recycled plastic balls for concrete floors (Cobiax)

Mark Elton, ECD Architects. (Energy Conscious Design), click here for more info. 

Landscape within Architecture

Soil – ceramic tile inspired by the topography of Toolo Bay (Helsinki)

via moco loco

I know this is bit of a tangent from the source of this post but it did fuel my imagination!

Landscape within architecture: What are the possibilities? Interior design has become interior architecture so why shouldn’t there be interior landscape? A new discipline for the design world, conjuring images of living spaces that grow or erode, evolution from structures that decay

Architecture has begun to explore these concepts ; why shouldn’t interior do the same?

Architect Mitchell Joachim with his living tree houses presents one possible realisation of living, breathing, growing design. (interested? more info and video over at inhabitat)

FAT @ Bartlett

Fat a London based practice is run by Sean Griffiths, Charles Holland and Sam Jacob. Established in 1995,

 

Islington Square – Social Housing, New Islington, Manchester 2006

Subversive work and an amusing lecture. Projects discussed were many and varied all very distinctive catching the imagination, pushing at and breaking boundaries.

Sint Luas, Art Academy, Boxtel, The Netherlands, 2006

BLDG BLOG @ Bartlett

The lecture covered an enormous spectrum of topics. Ranging from trapdoors and subterrain tunnels to of world landscape and terrestrial weaponary. Although each subject was not covered in great depth leaving with a general feeling of inspiration, chatting about abstract concepts that came to mind.

 The abstract nature of the subject matter certainly balanced my day, contrasting with the practical issues of management ( city of london cemetery).

Very interesting to see the man behind the blog! Gaining – insight into the perspective from which he writes.

Literature

Just some books I picked up this week; page layouts to london’s dead and all the ‘isms’ of the avant garde

Tunnel House

An installation by Dan Havel and Dean Ruck involving a doomed house. >CLICK ME<

via swissmiss

Fractalled: The Interstitial Spaces And Frank Gehry

found this while researching something thought it was an interesting read http://www.mi.sanu.ac.yu/vismath/gilley/index.html

Fuji Kindergarten

Really interesting project but would/could it ever happen here?

Check out the video

via swissmiss

‘I read somewhere – I can’t remember where – that Michelangelo said one day: “A good sculpture is good if it rolls down the stairs from the third floor and is still good when it gets to the bottom.”
Alas!
In a hundred years’ time, what will our beautiful iron and glass architecture, our beautiful monutmental architecture and pride of society, look when it gets to the bottom of the stairs of time? Ebro, 1972 . . . . (DOMUS July/August ‘06)

An interesting question. . .