By lewism | Published:
24 Jun 09
I propose that Aalto University should stand for …..an unconditional respect for life, and for the conditions that support life. (via)
John Thackara proposes a new kind of oath for the forthcoming Aalto University based on a viewpoint that we are part of the Earths’ biological system not apart from it, and that the whole understanding of our development should shift to being sustainable in a wider sense. Read his excellent article fully to get an idea that what John means and how design and learning should contribute to more resilient and adaptive systems.
By lewism | Published:
16 Jun 09
A procedurally generated city or in other words a city generated purely by code by Seamus Young. Click on the image above to watch the video.
By lewism | Published:
15 Jun 09
Powerkiss is a Finnish Startup which integrates power charging of your mobile phones and other gadgets into pieces of furniture with no requirement for cables. The future for this should be huge just put your laptop or mobile down on a table to charge it, you will no longer have to think about charging your devices, they will just power up when you put them down. Powerkiss are quite far down the road of integration as well, they have collaborated with Martela which is bringing to market a couple of tables later in 2009 with wireless charging integrated into them, as you can see from the photo below it looks almost boringly normal except for the graphics on the top informing you how to use the table.
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By lewism | Published:
14 Jun 09
I found a set of images from the County of London Plan 1945 booklet which marks a milestone in visualising and planning for cities. Already being produced before the end of WWII when it came out in 1945 the brainchild of Patrick Abercrombie. The set on flickr is however missing a great map of Social and Functional analysis of London which probably prefigures the common idea that the city is made up of a ‘city of villages’ , also worth noting the ideas about redeveloping the South Bank, an area which is still being struggled with today.
By lewism | Published:
13 Jun 09
Did SimCity programme a whole load of computer geeks with the failed assumptions of 60’s planning? Me, I think the idea is good but the wrong way around. Actually getting lots of people thinking about urban design or gaming the city is a fantastic concept and each iteration of the game has added complexity and difficulty. Maybe SimCity is the best thing that happened to planning? Personal disclaimer: I was addicted to simcity2000 back in the day….
By lewism | Published:
12 Jun 09
What if our buildings could harvest power from the air, not wind or solar but literally out of thin air? Its not as crazy as it first sounds with cities literally spewing out electromagnetic radiation from TV, Radio, and Mobile phones constantly. That’s just what Nokia is doing right now, actively researching this for future generations of Mobile phones.
It’s also not a new idea, in fact the first station to harvest the power from the atmosphere has already been built and now stands derelict in a plot on Long Island for sale for $1.6 million. (map)
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By lewism | Published:
8 Jun 09
Flood control systems in the Netherlands are built to withstand storms of a severity seen once in 10,000 years, in the US the levees are built to stand up to storms of a severity anticipated once in a century. (via)
As storm season comes around in the USA Mary Landrieu a Senator from New Orleans wants the USA to move over to a sytem like in the Netherlands of managing water instead of just building levees. It’s really most about a change in mindset, from merely opposing nature to trying to manage it and cope with it where possible. Where all urban design incorporates water management into its basic structure. Louisiana, Florida and Georgia could all benefit from such a change. But I won’t be holding my breath.
update: mammoth took this post and wrote an excellent article about the Dutch water management system, bulwarks and flux.
By lewism | Published:
28 May 09
The construction of new buildings fell in Finland by 19 per cent in January-March. (sigh) I have a feeling it’s going to get worse before it gets better. (via)
By lewism | Published:
16 May 09
And now MPs are feeling morose. Tough! They’ve had plenty of opportunities to do the right thing by parliament and by the people. At every juncture they behaved in the worst possible way. They refused legitimate requests, they wasted public money going to the high court, they delayed publication, they tried to exempt themselves from their own law, they succeeded in passing a law to keep secret their addresses from their constituents so as to hide the house flipping scandal … (via)
Remember a democratic society is an open society, so we’ve got to keep watching those bastards. Thanks to Heather and the other journalists who pursued this story.
By lewism | Published:
15 May 09
Last Thursday night I went to see Adrian Carter give a lecture about Jørn Utzon. It was a warm and poignant lecture given by a friend and colleague and I can’t think of a better tribute to Utzon that he could have given. It provided a timely reminder that Architecture is the power to stir emotion and create relationships between people and places, and that Utzon had that ability above most, so not much more need be said.
Some things I didn’t know also came up of course, that Utzon went to work for Aalto but after only six short weeks found out his wife was pregnant with their child and had to go back to Denmark. I did know already that it was Eero Saarinen who arriving late for the jury on the Sydney Opera House competition picked Utzon’s entry from the rejected pile and said it was the winner. I didn’t know however that so possessed he was with the project that he went back to his hotel that night and drew the perspective view of the building from the harbour that Utzon himself had neglected to submit, in an effort to persuade his colleagues that it was the winning project.
Utzon doubtless pursued a kind of purity of design that had it’s kindred spirit in nature and tried to engineer his projects in the way nature evolves form. Its clear to me many of his spaces and places he made are analogous to natural spaces, of clouds passing overhead, of the roof as tent or enclosure with a kind of bottom up philosophy of served and servant spaces that provided an order that was natural rather than preconceived. That he wasn’t designing buildings in the same way as say Gehry does is clear, and it’s part of what makes his Architecture timeless and so hard to emulate today.
The drawings Utzon’s studio made of the structural solution that was found after two years of fruitless calculations are beautiful and by Rafael Moneo (photo) a then newly qualified Spanish Architect, it makes me wonder what is the Architectural Equivalent of the Bacon number? In the Modernist movement you could use Aalto quite easily to map the connections between Architects the world over. Here the connection is tangible both in a personal and professional form.
The issues of the Opera house budget came up and the tensions between Utzon and Arup the structural engineers, first over the authorship of the structural solution something that Cecil Balmond would know something about and then on their continuing role in the project once Utzon had resigned. Although the Opera House made his name it also broke it in terms of his ability to get further work, there was some, but it could have been so much more.
Adrian Carter instigated and now runs the Utzon Centre which tries to promote the ideas of Jørn Utzon.
The photo above is of the sketch made by Saarinen that helped Utzon win the competition and can be found online at Yale’s Saarinen database here.
By lewism | Published:
8 May 09
We spent a weekend a couple of weeks ago in Amsterdam, so I was back in the city I lived in for two years after being away for seven. It struck me being back there again how strong the memories came back. From the pea shooter rat-a-tat of the old bike coming up the street behind you. To the smell of the streets, briney, dirty and rough. I remembered again how busy Amsterdam was compared to the comparative emptiness of Helsinki and the organic quality of the city at eye level. Hardly any building line is straight, or repeated. It feels like the city sways with the canals, moves with the muddy earth beneath on imperceptably slow waves. Contrasted with Helsinki which feels planted motionless on the hard rock beneath. The shabby chique of the nine canals seemed a little more chique this time around but otherwise everything was mostly as it was. A beautiful city full of the undiscovered around every corner.
Posted in Journal | Tagged amsterdam |
By lewism | Published:
29 Apr 09
There is going to be a Jørn Utzon Lecture in the Atheneum on 14th May at 5pm given by Adrian Carter the Director of the Utzon centre. Drop me a line if you are going to be there.
Posted in Architecture | Tagged lecture, utzon |
By lewism | Published:
21 Apr 09
The Swedish speaking finns or Svenskar constitute an important minority in Finland, but their genetic origins are a little uncertain (see wikipedia), there being much argument about how much immigration from Sweden happened and how much assimilation into the language of government was made. A study just made appears to confirm that there was a significant amount of immigration into Western Finland to the Swedish speaking areas. (via)
The Finnish population in Northern Europe has been a target of extensive genetic studies during the last decades. The population is considered as a homogeneous isolate, well suited for gene mapping studies because of its reduced diversity and homogeneity. However, several studies have shown substantial differences between the eastern and western parts of the country, especially in the male-mediated Y chromosome. This divergence is evident in non-neutral genetic variation also and it is usually explained to stem from founder effects occurring in the settlement of eastern Finland as late as in the 16th century. Here, we have reassessed this population historical scenario using Y-chromosomal, mitochondrial and autosomal markers and geographical sampling covering entire Finland. The obtained results suggest substantial Scandinavian gene flow into south-western, but not into the eastern, Finland.Male-biased Scandinavian gene flow into the south-western parts of the country would plausibly explain the large inter-regional differences observed in the Y-chromosome, and the relative homogeneity in the mitochondrial and autosomal data. On the basis of these results, we suggest that the expression of ‘Finnish Disease Heritage’ illnesses, more common in the eastern/north-eastern Finland, stems from long-term drift, rather than from relatively recent founder effects. (link)
By lewism | Published:
9 Apr 09
That little old granny crossing Mannerheimintie infront of you may just have been a heroin addict. Between 1930 and 1950 Finland consumed more heroin per capita than anywhere else on earth.
In Northern Europe we were really the odd men out. Finnish heroin consumption was many times higher than that of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland – and just to put that into perspective, we are talking the combined figure of those four countries.
It was given liberally out during WWII also, see the amazing story of Aimo Koivunen a commando during the war and one of the first Finns to overdose on speed. The reason for there being so much use of Heroin in Finland is because it was a prescription drug present in many popular medicines of the time. But when Finland wanted to join the UN it phased out use of the drug quite quickly.
By lewism | Published:
2 Apr 09
The Skate House by Archivirus is a penthouse apartment in Athens turned into a skateable home. The ramp is fully integrated into the home creating a spatial flow for skating or walking (via).
By lewism | Published:
21 Mar 09
external view (images copyright Lahdelma & Mahlamäki)
Architects Lahdelma & Mahlamäki have won the design competition for a new Finnish Embassy in Tokyo. The project is notable for the semi-opaque all glass facade which is patterned. In so much as it conveys an atmosphere or even an imagined landscape by a layering through the different glazing it could be a great project. Here is a link to the embassy page which annouced the winner, but it leaves a little questionmark as to when the project will be completed.
