Lakeside sauna a modern invention

There is nothing more traditional in Finland than a lakeside Sauna right? Well researchers for the Central Finland in Jyväskylä who prepared an exhibition on the sauna have identified the lakeside sauna as a relatively modern trend beginning with urban Finns starting it when they bought second homes beside the lakes.

In the countryside, the family sauna was usually to be found close to the farmhouse and close to the well. But, as increasing numbers of urban residents began acquiring villas and cottages as summer holiday retreats during the latter half of the 19th century, saunas began appearing on lakeshores….

It was during the war period that lakeside saunas became much more widespread. Soon, they began to take over from the bathhouses of the genteel folk, becoming so common that few people today even consider that they have not always been a central feature, and a delight, of the Finnish way of life. – YLE article

This is all consistent with the Sauna moving from being an integral part of life to a leisure activity.

Feathers of Steel

In a follow-up to my post about Glenn Murcutt. I went to a lecture about Murcutts’ work given by Juhani Pallasmaa at the MFA on 24th April this year. Some things I didn’t know were that Pallasmaa and Murcutt are really very close ‘like brothers’ he said. I also saved a quote of Glenns that Juhani gave during the lecture and many of the themes talked about by Juhani come out in this talk given by Glenn I found on YouTube. Public Talk with Glenn Murcutt

I love buildings with order. I find chaotic buildings too close to my real nature. I am  an untidy human without a frame of reference. I’m like a bagperson. I get great pleasure in having a frame of reference that establishes what I can and cannot do. The zones developed by framing allow an ease of order yet can provide great flexibility. It’s like structure in music, an order which the composer will develop as layers of complexity that add richness within the established order. – Glenn Murcutt

Glenn Murcutt – Architecture for Place

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The MFA in Helsinki currently is hosting an exhibition on the Australian Architect Glenn Murcutt. Architecture for Place shows off a selection of Murcutt’s projects through photos, drawings and models.

The drawings sometime blown up show all the stages of the design, ‘napkin’ sketches to working drawings. One of my favourite drawings is a page of sketchs and notes on a roof and details sent as a fax, dated and a ‘with love Glenn’ at the bottom. The models, all sectional have the sectional drawing attached to the back showing they are less concerned with an investigation of the spacial qualities of the building than of the way the materials are put together. Continue reading →

British Government Launches Architecture Policy Review

The British Government will launch an Architecture Policy Review headed up by headed up by Terry Farrell which will report back at the end of the year. It was commissioned by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey.

Farrell will look at four main points the government’s role in promoting design quality, the economic benefits of architecture, cultural heritage and the built environment and improving education about architecture and buildings. See the report in The Guardian and  BD. You can write comments about the review direct to Farrells office here:  FAR@terryfarrell.co.uk

The Terrainator

terrainator

The Terrainator by Dan Wilson is a service that prints a region of the world of your choice into a 3d model delivered to your door. You can do it all online and have it shipped to you for around $45. Not all areas on the globe are covered yet and I got some mixed results making maps of places I know in the UK, but the Alps and mountains of Scotland look great. As data is added both the areas covered should increase and the quality of the models will too.

I would love to see Dan add cities, imagine New York for example and even single buildings.

Kiruna 4-ever wins

Kiruna_aerial

The city of Kiruna has announced the winner of the competition to effectively move the city away from the subsidence radiating from the iron mine which is slowly swallowing the old city. Kiruna 4-ever won by White Architects AB (Stockholm), Ghilardi + Hellsten (Oslo), Spacescape (Stockholm), Vectura Consulting AB (Solna) and Evidence BLW AB (Stockholm).

Because of what must be one of the largest mines in Europe Kiruna is the biggest energy consumer in Sweden coupled with a relatively extreme northerly climate the redesign of Kiruna is a big and interesting urban challenge. The winning proposal has at it’s heart in many ways the introduction of a cable car system to link the mine the new center and other key points of the city.

Aalto app

Aaltosites is a nice app showing Alvar Aalto buildings has been released. It gives a description and photos and shows the address and puts it on a map for you.

You can also save a list of favourites. It’s for IOS & android at the moment but it only has Aalto buildings in Helsinki. However the aim is to release updates to eventually include all Aalto buildings. (via)

Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary by Dan Hill

Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary by Dan Hill

This book was one of those pleasurable of reading experiences where my brain felt like it was being subtly rewired as I was reading it. I loved this book and what follows isn’t really a review but a summary with an awful lot of quotes. A set of notes for myself. I’ll try to make a faithful outline of what Strategic design is and what it might mean to the Architect without the examples that Dan gives. Also Strelka press should be congratulated on a nice series of e-books.

Continue reading →

Thanks Pinboard!

I first came across Pinboard during the great escape from Delicious which came about the time that Yahoo sold them off. I checked out a few other services, I even ran for a short time a tiddlywiki out of my Dropbox. Then I took the plunge paid my 9 dollars and signed up with Pinboard, that was in October 2011. It was just what I was looking for.

On the 4th of January last year I got an email from Maciej Ceglowski of Pinboard, giving me a year full archiving account. There had been a small glitch with a note I had saved the evening before, and by way of apology he upgraded my account to full archiving for a year. I had noticed something awry the night before but honestly had thought nothing of it so I was more than pleasantly surprised by his email.

Pinboard has kept slowly developing without changing character and now with a few recipies from ifttt I can tie many of the things I use day to day back to pinboard for easy archiving. For example all my items in pocket I’ve read and all my google reader starred items are automatically backed up to my pinboard account not to mention my tweets.

So while facebook goes from strength to strength and twitter mutates into a media company there are services like pinboard that provide proper proactive customer service. Unlike some others it doesn’t leverage your content, (which you signed away to them) because it provides you with a service you pay for yourself. So thank you Pinboard!

The Amphibious House

106-3-baca-amphibious-house-riverside-view_smallBACA Architects have just gained planning permission for building an Amphibious House.

An amphibious house is a building that rests on the ground on fixed foundations but, whenever a flood occurs, the entire building rises up in its dock and floats there, buoyed by the floodwater. The Local Authority and Environment Agency supported this proposal because it was a replacement dwelling so flood risk was reduced on this site. -BACA

Continue reading →

Park Hill Reborn

The event itself, a week or so into the new year, will involve little fuss, simply a few households moving into refurbished flats. But the symbolism is momentous: a rebirth for one of Britain’s most infamous housing estates and a half-century of turbulent social history coming full circle. (the Guardian)

Urban splash have after eight years managed to renovate some of the Brutalist masterpiece Park Hill. It looks like the second incarnation won’t have the social baggage of the first and therefore has a much better chance of being successful.