The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Let this be the best 12 minutes of your day. Watch it full-screen and in HD. And when you are done watching, read the description for a surprise.

A nice gallery of Jean Nouvel’s fantastic architectural works. Jean Nouvel was awarded the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious award in architecture. In fact, he also designs home objects like bathroom faucets and showers that incorporate touch sensor technology that look to be inspired by Playstation.

The Rogers Stirk Harbour proposed design concept for the Transbay Terminal was unveiled earlier this week. The proposed towers will be the tallest structures on the West Coast.

Jim Leftwich [via Boing Boing] has a different view of the design. He proposes couple of additions to the design and envisions a Middle Earth-esque vision for San Francisco. See his modified design below:

 Well, why not? After all, we have had a Lord of the Rings subdivision in the works as well.

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Architecture continues to push boundaries and of course, Daniel Libeskind is doing his share of pushing as designs for Gazprom City in St.Petersburg [HQ for the Russian gas giant] stream in. The building is expected to rise at least 300m into the air and symbolize the growing power of the firm. Check out the other designs in the image gallery – each is more ambitious than the other.

After 9/11, people were ready to write off towering skyscrapers as they tend to be sitting ducks for potential terrorism. But they are larger than ever and fears of terrorism are history. Right from the age of the Pyramids, bigger has always been considered better but is it really? Such a tall building in the heart of historic St.Petersburg is a virtual slap in the face of the city’s urbanscape. I have always believed in contextual design and this is so not it. But then again, change is revolutionary and departs from the status quo.

Technorati Tags: Daniel Libeskind, St. Petersburg, Gazprom, Russia, design, architecture, skyscraper

I had participated in a design competition that asked for a reconceptualization of the unbuilt Governor’s Palace. We had integrated the adjoining plaza as a gathering place to represent the exuberance of Punjab and its jolly people. We wanted the re-use of the feudal structure to be as democratic as possible. But I bet this was looked down upon purely from the perspective of security. The city could not trust its own citizens.

Bruce Schneier writes on a similar theme about architecture and security. His examples are a stark reminder of the cautious nature of man protecting the people against a threat that might not even exist:

When Syracuse University built a new campus in the mid-1970s, the student protests of the late 1960s were fresh on everybody’s mind. So the architects designed a college without the open greens of traditional college campuses. It’s now 30 years later, but Syracuse University is stuck defending itself against an obsolete threat.Concrete building barriers are an exception: They’re removable. They started appearing in Washington, D.C., in 1983, after the truck bombing of the Marines barracks in Beirut. After 9/11, they were a sort of bizarre status symbol: They proved your building was important enough to deserve protection.

It is indeed sad to see security triumph architectural aesthetics or even functionality. Vulnerable countries like India and Israel have often lived with a constant threat and such security-first architecture is almost expected and taken for granted.

openhousenewyork (OHNY) will present the 4th Annual OHNY Weekend, America’s largest architecture and design event, October 7 & 8, 2006. Presented by Target, OHNY Weekend provides the public with free access to more than 180 sites of architecture and design significance throughout all five boroughs, including many that are normally closed to the public, as well as 120 tours, talks, performances and family activities and workshops that explore New York City by foot, bus, bicycle and even canoe.

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