There’s Brutalism and just plain brutal. The University of Toronto’s Robarts Library is both.
[Link to Turning the page at Robarts Library]
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Tiny Dioramas of an Abandoned World
Fine-art photographer Lori Nix is adding her eerie vision to the mix with an exhibition called “The City” — in which “public spaces devoted to history and science lie deteriorating and neglected while nature slowly takes them back.” The twist is that Nix’s photos aren’t Photoshop manipulations — they’re real images of tiny, painstakingly detailed dioramas that Nix has designed just for these photographs.
Now on display at New York’s ClampArt Gallery until December 18, and then at Chicago’s Catherine Edelman Gallery from January 7 to February 26, 2011
Mall to a Mixed-Use Walkable Neighborhood
The redesign will be in line with many new urbanism projects. There will be shops, cafes and offices connected by walkways. Storefronts will be on the first floor and residential units will occupy the top floors. There will also be a mix of cottages, multi family homes, and condos in the neighborhood as to add variety. Parking will still be present but will be hidden behind the retrofitted mall, away from the storefronts.
[Source: Mall in Utah Being Transformed into a Mixed-Use Walkable Neighborhood]
Animated Buildings
Epitome of Density
Now this is dense. Kowloon Walled City, a Chinese settlement in Hong Kong was at one time thought to be the most dense place on the planet. A Japanese team was able to document the city in section before it was disassembled in 1993.
[Link to Epitome of Density]
Hatching a cheap way to live in Beijing
Dai Haifei, 24, a newly graduated architect, decided to make his own egg-style home after being unable to afford Beijing’s sky-high rental prices. The two-meter high house with two wheels underneath is made from sack bags on the outside wall, bamboo splints on the inside and wood chippings and grass seeds in between.
[Link to Hatching a cheap way to live in Beijing]
Israeli Builders Love Iranian Marble
Builders Think Stone From Jewish State's Sworn Enemy Rocks, Stoking Trade in Smuggled Slabs
People after all want to trade and care little about politics.
[Link to Israeli Builders Love Iranian Marble]
BiniShells
Binishells may be the greenest way to build ever invented. Using low air pressure to lift and shape reinforced concrete thin shell structures, poured at ground level, Binishells essentially use air as their form work.As well as being inherently green, Binishells are fast, strong and flexible and can be made in an infinite variety of shapes. They can be used for everything from high-end residential, to schools, to gymnasiums, commercial buildings, low cost housing, emergency shelters and an infinite variety of other typologies.
[Link to BiniShells]
Norman Foster to design Apple’s new campus called ‘Apple City’
El Economista reports (English)that renowned British architect Norman Foster is hard at work designing Apple’s new campus in Cupertino. The 100 acre campus was picked up from HP last month for a measly $300M
Two of my favorite things. I can't wait to see the result.
[Link to Norman Foster to design Apple’s new campus called ‘Apple City’]
The Fall of Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls' descent into blight—in spite of its proximity to an attraction that draws at least 8 million tourists each year—is a tale that Hudson's little newspaper has been telling for years. It encompasses just about every mistake a city could make, including the one Frankie G. cited: a 1960s mayor's decision to bulldoze his quaint downtown and replace it with a bunch of modernist follies.
Important lessons in how not to take advantage of the huge tourism influx. I've visited Niagara Falls twice and have never stayed in the town for more than a few hours. It is a lost opportunity when you've people in the door and fail to keep them interested in things other than the Falls. The other side on the Falls has, on the other hand, done remarkably well.
[Link to The Fall of Niagara Falls]