Archive for 2006
Greater Helsinki Vision 2050
A new international competition for planning Helsinkis’ future has been launched. It’s scope and scale is massive and it’s not often you get the chance to reimagine a Capital city like this. The Competition briefing information alone is a great repository of information about Helsinki and indeed the Baltic. Visit greaterhelsinkivision for details also see [...]
I amsterdam
I love Amsterdam. I lived there for two years, and fell in love there. The city is a fantastic backdrop to life which contains wonders for anyone and everyone, from the cross eyed French teenagers stumbling out of their coffee shops we sometimes bumped into outside our front door to rich retired couples shopping for [...]
Gazprom City Controversy
On the 1st December RMJM won the gazprom city competition in St.Petersburg. But an interesting development was that the Architects walked off the jury before the winner was announced. Norman Foster and Rafael Viñoly walked off the jury that chose RMJM’s designs for the massive Gazprom City development in St Petersburg. The two stars joined [...]
Architecture Lectures at Harvard
Some Architectural Lectures (via) from Harvard School of Design. The Webcasts page has a full list. I’ve only watched Rem Koolhaus and Ben van Berkel so far, but its a wonderful resource, and something which all design schools should be doing. Now I am using a tagging system as well as a category system on [...]
Kiruna
The Town of Kiruna in Sweden is cracking apart. Like an earthquake in slow motion the ground near Kiruna cracks and sinks in an ever widening circle which is beginning to tear apart the city. A huge Iron ore Mine to the west of the town has caused the earth to subside around the mine [...]
OMA at work
I’m unsure what to make of this essay about working at O.M.A. On the one hand I’m thrilled by the thought of working there in a kind of supercharged electrical field of design, where ideas are ruthlessly produced, used ,discarded, reworked. On the other it sounds like a slightly authoritarian production office which makes last [...]
Helsinki Complaints Choir
Hah! Lifes a bitch so why not write a song about it and form a choir watch the Helsinki Complaints choir. (via swissmiss)
Eero Saarinen
A New Eero Saarinen Exhibition has launched in Helsinki (07.10-06.12) at the Kunsthalle here is the press release. That this is the first retrospective of the Architect is quite staggering given his body of work which, along with the Eames perhaps sums up U.S.A’s post war expansion best in the field of design. His list [...]
Ted Talks
I have been very busy at work but have been enjoying the Ted Talks while sitting at my computer. For the Architects among you there are Cameron Sinclair and Joshua Prince-Ramus giving talks. There are many other highlights as well though, Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Levitt offer a different perspective, Rick Warren fights it out [...]
Book Challenge
Georg has a book challenge for me (passed on from Kirsty), and I’ve got to take him up on it as it’s a really nice challenge to do. 1. The book that changed my life. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I was really ill working in Madras when I started reading this. When I finished [...]
WeeGee Opens
The WeeGee building once a printworks reopens today in Tapiola as an cultural centre it has five museums, a modern art gallery, a media-art centre, a museum shop and cafe. Originally designed by Aarno Ruusuvuori its a Finnish Constructivist classic and now houses Espoo city museum. There is a flash guide of the original building [...]
Peter Zumthor wins Wood Architecture Award
The Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award which is sponsored by the Finnish Forestry industry was awarded to Peter Zumthor this year (via). See the pdf of award and the organisers website. Even in Finland we talk about “Wow” architecture. The buildings are expected to astonish the viewer. I’m convinced that this is exactly the [...]
When Do Ugly Buildings Make Great Architecture?
Reading about the recent coverage of the bienalle and more specifically on the talk ‘My kind of Town’ which included a discussion between Rem Koolhaus and Alain DeBotton on Architecture, PartIV quoted something DeBotton said and which was taken up by rob about ugliness; When at the end, he (A de B) said that he [...]
Japan and Finland with a Shared Design Culture
Natural materials and the economy of their use seem to be a common theme see Pinmag for a flavour of the latest news from Japan, where they have featured several Finnish items. Oh and they like to make films over here to! Finland has established a considerable reputation in Japan. This is reflected in the [...]
Dongtan The Worlds First Eco City
With China facing an urbanisation of 300 million people in the next twenty years, it will not only face a massive expansion of its current cities but will have to build some 3 to 400 new cities to do this. Along with India, the rate of growth, urban change, and industrialisation will dwarf anything seen [...]
Architecture of Control
I remember going to a lecture as a student about the strategies used in malls and large shops in attempting to control the behaviour of their clients. This handy A-Z of retail tricks (via) is a nice summary of the main ones. There is also a weblog called Architectures of Control in Design which takes [...]