Author Archives: lewism

House of Orphans by Helen Dunmore

House of Orphans by Helen Dunmore  Amazon (.com) (.uk). This is an interesting book because it is by a British author but the novel is set in pre-revolution Finland. As such the author faces the challenge of making the characters and settings both believable and accurate without bogging down the story with too much detail. [...]
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Open House Helsinki 2010

Open House Helsinki 2010 is running from 1st to 4th September, again it’s part of Helsinki Design Week which looks better than ever.
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Back to Finland

So I’m back at work and in Finland after a very long summer which took me and my family to Italy and Scotland. It was nice to arrive back after many weeks to the news that Finland is the best place in the world to live. These polls or surveys of best places like the [...]
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City 2.0 to Europe

Living PlanIT and Cisco systems have announced a collaboration to build the next generation city in Northern Portugal. It is going to integrate IT into the fabric of the city, we will see if  unlike Dongtan this project can make it off the drawing board.
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Chinese Mortar

How do you make Mortar the traditional way in China? Just add Rice Soup. “Analytical study shows that the ancient masonry mortar is a kind of special organic-inorganic composite material,” Zhang said. “The inorganic component is calcium carbonate, and the organic component is amylopectin, which comes from the sticky rice soup added to the mortar.”
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Scandinavian Summer

Detail of Wigert Summerhouse in Brekkestø, Norway by Wenche Selmer (taken from the book Norwegian Wood – the Thoughful architecture of Wenche Selmer / photography by Frode Larsen) (via) This photo of a beautiful detail sums up something of the Scandinavian Summer, long days by the water, living with nature, escape from the burdens of [...]
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Walking the Line

There is an old railway line that leads from the shore to the centre of Helsinki. I remember talking about it while on a little Architectural trip in Helsinki during the summer with some friends. So last autumn when I saw on flickr that vornaskoti had walked it and knew that with the closing in [...]
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Roundabout

I was invited to make a guest post on Life of an Architect, it’s here so please go and visit it and then have a look around Bobs’ place its a great blog. If you have landed here from Life of an Architect  please feel free to have a look around. I can recommend a few [...]
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View from Stockholm

Johnathan Glancey in a recent article stated that Stockholm and Helsinki are under threat of getting the ‘world class city’ treatment. This of course is a bad thing because it means a kind of internationalized blandness in the pursuit of some imagined advertisers dream. I was just in Stockholm for the first time a couple of [...]
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Provisional Book Review

Provisional – Emerging modes of Architectural Practice US by Elite Kedan, Jon Dreyfous, Craig Mutter                (Princeton Architectural Press 2009) This book takes nine practices from the U.S.A which are by their nature different from a standard architectural practice and look at how they work. Some things are about the practical building relationships during a project for [...]
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Herzog & DeMeuron Hotel Cancelled

Herzog and DeMeurons’ hotel design for the centre of Helsinki has been rejected. Earlier this month on 3rd April the city council voted against the scheme and it looks like a study of the whole area will take place before another competition is announced. I’m not sure but I’m guessing that that this will probably [...]
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Life of An Architect

There are a diverse range of Architecture blogs or blogs that are Architectural to put it more accurately. The best often cover theory and conjecture or post cool stuff. But someone who hits the sweet spot somewhere in the middle is lifeofanarchitect.
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Against the Eiffel Tower

Note: The following post is by my Father Graham Martin. He sent this to me after a conversation we had over the phone. I don’t remember exactly what we started talking about but we ended up with Dad telling me about this passage by a famous French author about the Eiffel Tower which had been [...]
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Michelin 2010

Finland has five restaurants with at least one Michelin Star Luomo, Carma, Demo,  Postres, and Chez Dominique with two. Honourable mentions go to Grotesk, Mecca and Solna, all based in Helsinki. (via)
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First LEED Building in Scandinavia

The first LEED certified building in Scandinavia is the office Moveres Business Garden in Pitäjänmäki in Helsinki, Finland. By SARC Architects and with the artist Outi Martikainen who designed the custom painted glass facades.
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Ascending and Descending

The first showing of M.C.Escher in Finland is now at the Amos art gallery. With a film and most of Eschers best loved wood cuttings and prints on show it is a real treat. What I love about Escher is his play with dimensions. He shows with his illusions on the paper the difference between [...]
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