Happy holidays!
Snowing @ Fabrica
Archived entries for Architecture
Mujiland has arrived
In the suburbs of Tokyo, instead of Gibson’s Chiba sprawl, you will soon find a glistening new Muji village accomodating 152 homebuyers in February 2010. Developed in collaboration with real estate developer Mitsubishi Estate, it is a nine-storey, three building complex that is the ultimate manifestation of Zen that Muji maintains in their product line, where even flip-flops are divine.
The concept for the village is based around three concepts: Green, plain and community. Green for trees, plain for simplicity and flexibility, and community for common spaces. Although the Muji village looks like a vacation resort, it still conveys the Muji philosophy which is based upon the absence of style, identity and remarkableness. What this achieves is a normalcy that is beyond normal. In this type of architecture, the buildings are so ordinary that they become remarkable. Another characteristic of this community is the subculture of Muji aficionados – now they will literally have common ground.
New Ars Electronica Center
Recently launched, the new Ars Electronica Center was designed by Treusch Architecture, an austrian-based studio. It features 38500 LEDs divided through 1100 glass panels. The RGB lights can be fully programmed using a different array of tools (eg. Max/MSP, Processing, VVVV), and the building also has built-in SMS capabilities. For the opening of the festival, artists Zachary Lieberman and Daito Manabe were invited to present a 10-minute show, and students and developers can also pre-test their work using an environment developed by the Ars Electronica Futurelab. The video shown above is a visualization made by Ingrid Stürmer based on bacteria patterns.
Treusch Architecture
Out There: where Architecture meets Semiotics
What are the first things you think when I say “architecture”?
Heavy long-lasting buildings? Pyramids? Sparky skyscrapers? A thirty floor residence? The tour Eiffel?
If this is what we usually mean by “architecture”, maybe we need to change our beliefs.
As Semiotics tought me, the meaning of things is not simply an “object” (a “chair” is not only “the object that has the shape of a chair”, because a stone on the grass is actually a chair, if you sit on it!) but the consequences related to them (actions but also feelings).
In other terms, the meaning is what things REPRESENT.
Thats why the 11th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice is called “Out there: Architecture Beyond Building”.
Architecture is not just about “buildings” and “constructions” (=objects): we need to look beyond them.
Today the world is extremely dynamic, buildings cannot be something eternal anymore. What we create must be easy to develop, light, avaiable to be changed in order to our temporary needs.
Architecture is the way to create a world that
we feel like home
(Aaron Betsky)
but paradoxically, without building stable houses.
Its a way to communicate our time, our fears, our views.
Buildings dont represent this anymore.
Visual arts and performances, cinema, collage, illustrations, practices, immaginations, deconstructions, experiences, undefined shapes. Sperimentation, and not just an exposition of what already exists.
This is what I saw “Out there”.
jorn utzon
On a day drenched with rain, the Jorn Utzon exhibit at this year’s Venice Biennale provided shelter and stimulation. The exhibition has a number of models and plans of the buildings he built, most notably the Sydney Opera House. There was an interesting video segment explaining how how all the wedges that sit atop the Opera House are all pieces cut from a sphere. He rearranged these shapes until they attained a compositional and spatial rhythm that he found pleasing. Because they are all from the same shell of a sphere, they have a natural harmony that we can unconsciously perceive. Deriving it from a geometrical body helped him find that natural harmony – it’s really quite profound and beautiful once the underlying logical form is made apparent.
Lisbon Tiles
Lisbon has probably the most beautiful and imaginative tiles. They became an art form and today they still remain a very important part of the country’s architecture.
Here you can find 64 different -and really nice- patterns to download and save as wallpapers.
Porta San Tomaso
And for all those generations that came to Fabrica and spent their nights with a good spritz in the traditional San Tomaso -but never got to actually see it- we are happy to say that finally, after all the years of never ending renovation, Porta San Tomaso, in Treviso, is finally visible (and free of that terrible advertising).
Cheers!
Student Housing
If you are looking for student housing in Amsterdam nothing can be more interesting than this. These Blue, Red and White apartments are a part of a complex of 380 Shipping Containers turned into living cabins. Each box has its own services like a kitchen, bathroom, toilet, tv-connection and internet…about 350 euro to rent, all inclusive.
Click here to find more
brooklyn’s floating pool
So the Neptune Foundation is apparently this group of people who really liked the floating baths that traveled around NYC in the late 19th century and wanted to recreate some today. Well after years of planning and construction, they have done it. The first floating pool has opened this summer, stationed at Brooklyn Bridge Park with of course an amazing view of lower Manhatty. The pool is open to everyone free of charge. They host like 1000 people a day. That’s a lot of pee!
Neptune Foundation