Tag Archives: housing
The Skate House
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).
No New Building In Finland
No new private apartment building projects were started in Helsinki , and the equivalent of only three apartment blocks in the whole of Finland were begun between October last year and February this year according to HS. There is a cold wind blowing so button up!
Better Mortgage Systems
I have bought houses in Scotland (it’s quite different to England) and in Finland, and thought seriously about buying in Amsterdam when we lived there. Having at least a taste of the different systems and seen the U.S. problems with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae it would be reasonable to go looking for an improved [...]
Housing Prototypes
A realy nice web resource for Housing Prototypes, each project has extensive text, images, drawings, and references. You can also search by Architect, location and building type. I’ve seen and used this site a few times but kept loosing the address, buried deep in my del.icio.us links no doubt.
Japanese House
Houses in Japan typically last for 30 years and are never sold before they are demolished. This article in the economist explains the economic reasons behind this but I instantly remembered that at least some Japanese temples like the Ise Shrine are remade every few years. The ideas of time, ageing and solidity seem tantalisingly [...]
Energy Awareness Visualisations
We don’t really think about it day to day but we live in an energy grid, a complex system of infrastructure and activity of which we know only the vaguest details and definetly rarely think about beyond plugging the light in when its dark. But that really has to change soon, if we are going [...]
Planet of Slums by Mike Davis
The scale and velocity of world population increase over the last fifty years has been unprecedented in human history. Urbanisation, with over a billion people living in cities has become the key signature of this growth, with the urban population for the first time greater than in the country. These facts are startling, if common [...]
Hanasaari
(image from Arkkitehtitoimisto ALA Oy) ALA just won the design competition for the new urban plan of Hanasaari. As can be seen from the graphic the new housing blocks are going to make a real statement from the sea, with large balconies and an extended wave like form or possibly boat hulls. This development will [...]
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 [...]
Stephen Holl Wins Second Helsinki Project
For the Taivallahti Residential Area competition in Helsinki Stephen Holl beat Jo-Coenen, Dominique Perrault, and Cino Zucchi to win. This is Stephen Holl’s second success in Helsinki after Kiasma (some slides here) and actually I don’t know of any other project by a foreign Architect completed in Finland other than this one! The winning entry [...]
The Seashell House (Kotilo)
If you go to Helsinki this summer you can get a very good idea of the current state of Architecture and Design in Finland by going to three exhibitions. There is the the Asuntomessut (Housing Fair) in Espoo, the 0405 Architecture Exhibition at the Finnish Architecture Museum and at the Design museum there is the [...]
Best place to live in Finland