Architecture

Flare_Webhead_L.htmlHot on the heels of the zero-enegry GreenPix media wall, comes Flare - a more analog solution to pixelated building walls. Flare is a ‘kinetic ambient reflection membrane’ that allows a building to express, communicate and interact with its environment.

The FLARE system consists of a number of tilt-able metal flake bodies supplemented by individually controllable pneumatic cylinders. Each metal flake reflects the bright sky or sunlight when in vertical standby position. When the flake is tilted downwards by a computer controlled pneumatic piston, its face is shaded from the sky light and this way appears as a dark pixel.By reflecting ambient or direct sunlight, the individual flakes of the FLARE system act like pixels formed by natural light.

Flare

[via Computerlove]

Greenpix is a Zero Energy Media Wall in Beijing created by Simone Giostra & Partners and the Arup folks. It’s been added to the curtain wall of the Xicui entertainment complex near the site of the 2008 Olympic Games. It mixes the largest color LED display technology with a photovoltaic system which means that the wall burns the only energy it harvests during the day.

New York streetwear brand Alife has opened a rather fabulous looking store in Tokyo. No news about who the designer is - but if you are in the neighborhood, do make sure to check it out: 3-15-10 Jingumae, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo.

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Keen readers may have spotted that we’ve been featuring reports about the future decline of the suburbs for a few months now, and now Business Week picks up the theme and interviews author James Kunstler about how the end of the ‘automobile age’ will also damage the communities it helped to build. Kunstler sats that major instabilities in the system will change the way we produce food, the way we conduct commerce, and the way we move around:

What about biofuels?
We will use all of them, probably. But we will be greatly disappointed by what they can do for us. We certainly aren’t going to run Wal-Mart, Disney World and the highway system on any combination of solar, wind, nuclear, ethanol, biodiesel, or used french-fry oil.

Isn’t it a bit radical to declare game over for Wal-Mart?
It is part and parcel of the suburban predicament. How long can they maintain their warehouse-on-wheels as the price of motor fuels goes up?

How will the U.S. have to adapt?
Virtually anything organized on a grand scale is liable to fall into trouble—government, finance, corporate enterprise, agribusiness, schools. Our gigantic metroplex cities will prove to be inconsistent with the energy diet of our future. I think our smaller cities and towns will be reactivated. We are going to be a far less affluent society.

Business Week: Good-Bye, Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia?

We’re noticing more examples of design making a difference in educational facilities. Here are three recent projects that have used interesting architecture and design to inspire and facilitate learning.

Copenhagen, Denmark has seen remarkable growth in teens living in the city and the current number of educational facilities couldn’t keep up. The Municipality of Copenhagen needed a new college and looked to 3XN Architects to design the new building. The architects created a dynamic interior plan based on four boomerang shaped balconies Each balcony contains a study zone that can be adjusted to create different spaces, and learning environments that can fit different group sizes. The ground floor contains several elevated lounge areas complete with giant beanbag chairs that create a comfortable place to study….or maybe nap.

The University of the Americas in the city of Concepcion, Chile employs a colorful and translucent exterior facade to define the building. Inside, D+ Arquitectos Asociados created a series of vertical shafts to bring natural light into the building while the exterior screens filter the suns heat. Planners knew the area where the school is located would shift from being a fairly quiet area to becoming a centralized area for new development. The school would be a foundational community asset.

No doubt few went to a high school with a cafeteria as cool as this. HHF architects completed a temporary integration of a cafeteria into a existing open lobby of a high school building in Basel, Switzerland. The architects devised a system of wood ribbons that were installed within the space and could be removed without damage. The ribbons extend outside to form a canopy for dining al fresco. The school is located in a land-marked building designed by Swiss architect Hans Bernoulli.

Yanko Design (Ørestad College, The University of the Americas)

World Architecture News (Cafeteria Kirschgarten)

This makes so much sense, I don’t know why more people aren’t using these. Usually found in hospitals or industrial kitchens, foot pedal water facets are not only more hygienic, but also have the potential to reduce wasted water use by 50%.

At a sink, you control the flow of a faucet with a pedal much like the accelerator in a car. It’s easier to turn off the faucet when you are brushing your teeth, shaving, or doing the dishes. In a four-person household, the use of pedal controllers in the kitchen alone can save up to 7500 gallons of water annually, as well as conserve the energy needed to heat those gallons.

[via Metaefficient]

Architect Lebbeus Woods recently posted an essay on his blog discussing the effect banal rectangular buildings (’dumb boxes’) have had on the practice of architecture and cultural thinking in general.

Architects are today routinely indoctrinated against the dumb box. Even advertising urges us to “think outside the box.” Why? Because it is thought we all hate the box for being too dumb, too boring, and we want to escape it. If we do escape, by buying the advertised product, we usually find ourselves inside another dumb box populated by boring people just like us. It is clearly possible to live an extraordinary life inside a dumb box. Question: is it possible to lead an extraordinary life in anything other than a dumb box?

Woods makes the case that society needs the box and that contemporary architecture is caught in a trap of ‘can you top this’ syndrome. He proposes that extraordinary conditions make devising extraordinary architecture relevant. He sees the need for some sort of balance to emerge where we gain greater understanding of the common ground.

Let us make the extraordinary only when extraordinary conditions demand it. Radical social and political changes. Recovery from war and natural disasters. The reformation of slums. Cultural ‘paradigm shifts,’ such as computerization, or the greening of technology. Let us refrain from dressing up old building types in extraordinary new forms that do nothing to transform the way we actually inhabit or use or think about them.

While you could argue that looking at the world this way throws a wet towel on creativity, it does start to make some sense when using this as a lens to look at China. Much of the worlds cutting edge architecture recently has happened or is happening there. But what is the significance? Modernism emerged in the West as a way of thinking that affirmed the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of technology. It encouraged thinking that rebelled against tradition with the goal of fostering progress. While China now has a nice collection of new and unique buildings, it’s a wonder if their meaning is more important to their architects on the other side of the globe rather than the people who use them.

A study of 200 businesses in the UK suggests that the creative class are leaving towns with little character and relocating to more rural locations thanks partly to the rise of digital communications. The Telegraph reports:

Clwyd in Wales, St Ives in Cornwall and Torridge in Devon are set to be among the top five most appealing locations for business in the future at the expense of places such as Exeter and Guildford, both in the bottom 10 in a list of 641 centres.

Researchers cite the “clone town” syndrome as a key reason for the migration and loss of creativity in urban locations. They say town centres now look the same, “causing bored locals to switch to autopilot when choosing where to buy a sandwich or coffee, stifling creative thinking”.

“Rural locations tend to have more independent retailers, leading to more diverse high streets and inspiring people to use their brains when out and about,” says the study by Cornwall College’s Morel Research.

Migration of professional workers from cities is helping what the researchers say is a “creativity boom” in rural locations.

These findings are somewhat counter to the the ideas contained in a recent article by NY Times economics columnist which talked about how the creative class flock to the inner-city
because of the exchange of good ideas. And before you start waving this around in your PPTs, dear readers, note-bene that the study was conducted by a college in a rural part of the UK.

Rural boom ‘driven by creative migration’ - Telegraph

With the refurbishment of Fortnum & Mason in its 300th year, the upscale London department store has worked on refreshing its restaurants and have added an icecream parlor.

Fortnum & Mason was one of the first places in London to serve Knickerbocker Glories back in 1955 and now in 2008, the iconic dessert will be served from the parlor alongside Viennese cakes and strudels. The Parlour aims to recreate the ambiance of a 1950s ice cream parlor with a few contemporary touches care of David Collins architects.

Fortnum & Mason