Architize

Architize is for the architects, architecture lovers, and people related to the field of architecture. Whether you are in real estate development, interior design, landscape architecture, or just like to admire beautiful pieces of architecture, this is the place to absorb architecture in its glory. 

Source: archidose.blogspot.com

http://archidose.blogspot.com/2009/11/architize-me.html

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Architize Me

 

Monday was the official beta launch* of Architizer, “a new way for architects to interact, show their work, and find clients…an open community created by architects for architects.” Developed by Marc Kushner, Matthias Hollwich (both of HWKN), Ben Prosky (Columbia University) and Alex Diehl (KREATIVEKONZEPTION*), the site is being referred to as “Facebook for architects” by many, what with its social networking framework, but it’s actually closer to LinkedIn’s focus on professional relationships. Comparisons aside, at first glance Architizer is a sharp-looking page that is almost guaranteed to be popular with its intended audience.

The three main categories on the page are Projects, People and Firms. Just about every architectural publication, blog, etc. is focused on projects, and architecture offices are listed on sites like world-architects.com, where I work, and others. But the inclusion of “people” between these two is where the novelty and potential of the site exists. Returning to LinkedIn, one could say that people already have a networking tool describing their positions in firms, but Architizer does this and combines pretty pictures with it, linking individuals to the projects they worked on.

But will Architizer be the exclusive domain of OMA, other well-known architects and their former employees? Or will it embrace the diversity of architecture all over the world, even projects produced by more lackluster firms? Too much of the latter runs counter to the high-quality projects and name-brand architects that stocked the site before its launch (guidelines for the direction of the site?), but the opposite condition would turn the site into just another page where architects can look at cool projects.

Most likely the site will evolve into something between these two extremes, full of all shades between the good and the bad, though the former will rise to the fore in the mix. This will happen via the filters for each of the three main categories, mainly “featured” and “most viewed.” The first is the default, which I’m guessing is controlled by the administrators, and it’s pretty much a sure bet that the most viewed projects, people and firms will be the best of the bunch; no painted concrete condos or suburban strip malls at the top of these lists.

Architizer also features Schools, Jobs, Competitions and a Blog. These are certainly secondary to the main bread and butter of the site, though the school feature has great potential, visually exhibiting the strengths of alumni, and therefore the school, more directly than anywhere else. It also looks like the $$ will come from “the window manufacturer [that] sponsors a page for their product used in [a] project” and advertising, though I think the latter will run the risk of cluttering the site, which has a nice legibility to it, rounded corners and all.

*Check out Guest of a Guest for photos from the beta launch party at Storefront for Art and Architecture on Monday.

Lviv, Ukraine

Empirical Glamour and Glory

Source: CNTraveller

http://www.cntraveller.co.uk/Guides/Ukraine/Lviv/

“Architecturally stunning, miraculously well preserved and practically untouched by tourism, Lviv is set to become a must-see destination. It was known as Lwow under the Poles, Lemberg under the Austro-Hungarians, and Lvov under the Russians but, amazingly for a city that has changed hands so often, Lviv has never been badly bombed and came through the turbulent 20th century more or less intact. For 50 years under the Russians, it was designated a closed city where foreigners weren’t welcome; as a result, it is now unspoiled and ripe for visitors. It is less brash than Prague, more manageable than Budapest and hardly less spectacular than St Petersburg.”

 

Opera House Mirrored Hall, Photograph by Michael Turek

Opera House Auditorium, Photograph by Michael Turek

 

Russia: Big Land Mass, Big Buildings

source: inhabitat.com

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/12/26/tallest-skyscraper-in-the-world-coming-to-moscow/

 

World’s Biggest Building Coming to Moscow: Crystal Island

 

by Karim Yergaliyev (December 2007)

 

Moscow’s rapidly growing skyline will soon feature an eye-popping new addition: Crystal Island, which will be the world’s biggest building when completed. Sir Norman Foster’s mountainous 27 million square feet spiraling “city within a building” will cost $4 billion and it is scheduled to be built within next 5 years.

The Crystal Island will be Lord Foster’s second large scale project in the Russian capital, and his third new building design that resembles a volcano (we’re talking about his two mountainous buildings in Astana, Kazakstan). Although many people are calling this design the ‘Christmas Tree’ of Moscow – we can’t help but be reminded of the utopian and also rather volcanic X-Seed 4000 design for Tokyo. Unlike that pipe-dream project, however, Foster has a track record of getting buildings built, so the likelihood is high that we will see this striking structure towering over the Kremlin within 5 years time.

 

The statistics for the project are absolutely staggering; floor area alone will be four times the size of Pentagon in Washington DC. The incredible 1500 ft. tall multi use structure will feature 900 apartments, 3000 hotel rooms, an international school for 500 students, cinemas, a theater, sports complex and much more. There will also be a 16,500 space underground parking lot for all the visitors. The Crystal Island visitors will be able to enjoy panoramic views of Moscow on the viewing platforms located 980 ft. above ground.

And as we’d expect from Foster + Partners, this soon-to-be world’s biggest building will also incorporate a number of sustainable design features into the overall scheme. The exterior facade will be solar responsive and will include solar panels which, along with wind turbines, will generate electricity for the huge tower. Natural ventilation will be provided thanks to numerous strategically placed large atriums. The internal environment will also have dynamic enclosure panels slotted into the structural framing that will allow daylight to penetrate deep into the heart of the structure; the panels will also be controlled to modify temperature inside the building – closed in winter for extra warmth and opened in summer to allow natural ventilation. Energy management is at the heart of this structure, several on-site renewable and low-carbon energy generation projects are planned.

+ Crystal Island – by Norman Foster

+ X-Seed 400 — City Within a Building Proposal For Tokyo

+ Foster Green Tower in Siberia

Via Skyscrapernews.com via Times Online: Foster plans world’s biggest building

Copenhagen Harbor

A new image for Copenhagen Harbor

brought to you by : http://www.designaddict.com/design_addict/blog/index.cfm

 

Town Gate Bridge in Copenhagen Harbor posted on November 25 by DesignAddict.   3XN’s proposal for a construction on Marmormolen in Copenhagen is both: a town gate and a bridge that links Marmormolen with Langeliniekaj, creating a new coherent area in Copenhagen Harbor. A bridge spanning a body of deep water, providing the only dry connection between two stretches of land, is one of the most powerful architectural experiences in the landscape. Another classical element is the town gate, which marks the boundary between the countryside and the town, and ‘contains’ the town, physically, structurally and aesthetically. 3XN’s proposal for a construction on Marmormolen in Copenhagen is both: a town gate and a bridge that links Marmormolen with Langeliniekaj, creating a new coherent area in Copenhagen Harbor. The towers and the bridge constitute one single, floating dynamic movement, characterized by the bold span across the harbor entrance in terms of both the plan design and the facade. Establishing a connection across the harbor radically improves public access and creates brand new opportunities for life and growth in the area.

For the Architect Inside You

Here are a few architectural books to consider for the design enthusiasts…

from Archidose

http://archidose.blogspot.com/2008/11/holiday-gift-books-08-edition.html

010 Publishers:

Space and Learning by Herman Hertzberger
The third of the architect’s “lessons in architecture” looks at schools, “one of the few areas in architecture today where designers are still able to define and influence human conditions.”

 

AVA Academia:

Basics Interior Architecture: Form + Structure by Graeme Brooker & Sally Stone
One of a series of books on interior architecture aimed at students, the abundance of projects and illustrations make it appealing for others as well.

 

daab:

Contemporary Ecological Architecture by Daab Books
“A selection of extraordinary international projects that impress thanks to their design and environmentally friendly construction.”

 

Princeton Architectural Press:

Integrated Design in Contemporary Architecture by Kiel Moe
“Taking sustainability to the next level, the emerging practice of integrated design provides the strategies to achieve high performance, low energy, and cost-effectiveness.”

RIBA Publishing:

Eco-Minimalism: the Antidote to Eco-Bling by Howard Liddell
A book that realizes “going green” is really about paring down.

source: http://archidose.blogspot.com

Future of Architecture

{source : Esquire.com}

http://www.esquire.com/fiction/book-review/futuristic-architecture-book-review-1208

An Architectural Google Earth for Your Coffee Table

The 1,037 beautifully photographed buildings in The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture are a testament to everything that is right and really wrong in architecture today.

By Tom Chiarella

 

 

Architecture, especially the sort that lies far from the shadow of America’s recent cultural and economic stagnation, is the best bellwether of innovation, a representation of the relative health of the imagination of the species. Enter The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture (Phaidon Press, $195), a lovingly bound, clearly written compendium, a Google Earth of the now for your coffee table. It’s big enough (800 pages), encyclopedic enough (5,500 color illustrations), global enough (1,037 buildings by 653 architects in 89 countries) that it is both a distinct survey of the current cultural geography and something far more than a wet finger in the wind of contemporary design. And this volume reveals everything that is right and wrong in archi-tecture today–the large and small, the private and public, the grandly understated and the quietly obscene.

Truth is, most of it is happening elsewhere. You can bounce from a detailed study of Diego Montero’s Scott House, a warm modernist forest home–the interior wood is left raw, and the exterior is painted to mimic the color of the surrounding gum trees–in the forests of Uruguay to the unbearably miraculous curl of the Millau Viaduct in France, perhaps the most beautiful bridge in creation. The work signifies a reverence for the spirit (like the House to Watch the Sunset, in Niger, a single brick column built on a desert oasis) and the spiritlessness of the time (witness the requisite Frank Gehry, a hotel that looks as if it were dropped from the undercarriage of a zeppelin and left to rot on a Spanish hillside).

Once, Europeans used atlases such as this one to witness the expansion, development, and discovery of the New World from their sitting rooms. Americans are in the sitting room now, while the rest of the world builds. So we are left to judge. And whether the design efforts of this nascent century thrill you for their simplicity or suck the life out of your heart for their self-indulgence, every choice herein–richly detailed and lushly represented–is worthy of inclusion in this important inventory of design.