SANAA WINS PRITZKER 2010

Congratulations, you are the greatest (or one of the best architects from my point of view). So, it makes sense to be honored this way.

You can read what Sejima said once she heard about their winning:

“I am thrilled to receive such an honor. I would like to thank the Pritzker (Hyatt) foundation, the jury members, the clients who have worked with us, and all of our collaborators. I have been exploring how I can make architecture that feels open, which I feel is important for a new generation of architecture. With this prize I will continue trying to make wonderful architecture.”




















SANAA

Why "Tron Legacy" Will be Awesome: the Director's an Architect

Tron was one of my favorite films when I was a Kid (that's why I am probably a little freaky). Anyway, I am expecting much from the film and I just read an amazing thing... The director is not a film director, it's an architect. At first I was shocked so I just had to look the reason of doing such thing (picking an architect instead of someone from the film industry). And after searching I just realized that it just makes completely sense.

At this point is when everyone is expecting the WHY. Ok, who else can say that has an amazing design background, Web-design, a fine appreciation of space and how it flows, the texture of the movie means that he also had to have a knack with graphic design and product-design; and the heavy CGI means he has to understand animation work flows like a master.

Who else but a trained-architect has a resume like that?







Then here you can see a conference with Joseph Kosinski (the director).

Sentosa House By Nicholas Burns

My fascination about this particular house doesn't have anything to do with the project. The fact is that I didn't notice at first that the pictures aren real, they are renders of the project. They are so well done that I find them impressive, and I am very used to see really great renders and I am always able to tell they are renders... I wish I had the capacity of these guys!










Nicholas Burns Associates

Pier 1 by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

I don't love the project (at least yet), but the idea of reusing everything that was in the site, minimize the cost and have a conversation between what was before and now I think its great. Also its an important improvement towards the city, as the video quotes: "You can't have great cities without great parks" something that I am quite sure about.


Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

The Crack Garden by CMG Landscape Architecture

It's not the first time that I see this project. At first I thought It wasn't that interesting. But now I see it could bring many many possibilities, so it's important to be posted.



CMG Landscape Architecture

MOBILE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

I am not posting images of videos, because I am the first who can't stand images of animals being killed. But I think the concept it's interesting.

Here you have the link

I heart Net Neutrality

Because it's dangerous when you can decide which ones should keep going and which ones shouldn't...

Nature by Numbers

STREET TREES, BRISTOL, UK

Don't ask why, I just find it fascinating.

Automatic Internet and the Internet of Things

A Smarter Planet

Biomimicry = The next frontier

I was looking how wetlands can be used to treat water and I came up with this piece of gold. Enjoy!!

Mumbai Builds Miles of Elevated Walkways

What happens if the pathways get too crowded... maybe this could be part of a solution, and it could evolve into interesting projects.

Home Sweet *Mobile* Home by Hangar Design Group

I prefer Loftcube but this could be another alternative for integrated prefab homes.



Hangar Design Group

House in Katsuragi by Yuzuru & Minako Fukushi

I'm focusing this time on the interior, specially the platforms on first floor and how in interacts with the main floor as well as how this platforms move around spaces.


Yuzuru & Minako Fukushi

TED Talks: Barry Schuler; Robin Chase; David Keith

Some of the videos are here not because I am interested in the main topic but because certain detail or part of them. For instance Robin Chase main topic doesn't interest me a bit, as CO2 reduction focus shouldn't be mainly over cars (that's what a big part of the industry wants us to think), and as David Keith says... the economic reasons implied in lowering CO2 are blocking us into making other important decisions being worth talking (also even if we are ever able to reduce CO2 emissions the concentrations in the atmosphere will still be there as concentration means = accumulation over the years). What I do appreciate about Robin is in fact the collective reasons of information and transportation, the zipcar as a new urban formula and the future it brings (apart for the eloquent green topic behind).

Keith main topic is extremely interesting and important (I am not saying with this: "forget about CO2", I also think it's important to go "sustainable" and to reduce CO2, with out forgeting that sustainable doesn't only imply CO2). And Barry Schuler is fresh air, how to read the new manual of codes (also thanks because I never thought before about medicines as let's see if it works). As I pointed in a quote one or two days ago "if you don't know how to do it then you don't understand it".

Ecological Footprint

After searching Mathis Wackernagel I have to keep these link:

footprintstandards
footprintnetwork

Tron Legacy

Tron was one of my favorite movies as a kid, so I am expecting quite a lot from this film. It's going to be a long waiting until next winter...

New Songdo City

I'm impressed by the scale and magnitude of this project...

"New Songdo City is a fascinating globalised interzone, designed specifically for international capital and its needs. And so ‘nonplace-making’ strategies include populating the development with a Canal Street, a Park Avenue, a Central Park, a Broadway (interesting to see that Manhattan is seen as the space to draw symbols from - rather than, say, Shanghai, Tokyo, or Beijing, never mind London, LA, Paris etc. It was planned by the New York office of Kohn Pedersen Fox, but still.)"


"And I would later realise that the way the areas 'rez up' in that promotional video above, incongruously overlaid onto langorous Sigor Ros, is pretty much how it feels when you're standing and looking across to these giant cranes. You half expect a block to be completed, and then copy-and-pasted, right in front of you."




"As I return from the lake to the hotel, I have to pause for some minutes at the pedestrian crossing across the 10-lane highway. It really is a very, very wide road, entirely out of kilter with the prevailing winds in western urban planning. In former Soviet republics, planning codes inherited from another age ensure that military aircraft can land on roads if necessary - surely Seoul has no such equivalent stipulation."


"While the existence of the highway will generate large amounts of traffic at some point, there is very little traffic at the moment. When there is, New Songdo City is to file it away every single bit of it in underground parking; an approach that is traditionally very difficult to finance and build, yet will do something to lessen the impact of cars on the immediate environment. But the expanse of the street is so overwhelming, even when empty, that it’s difficult to see how a active non-car street life will emerge in these conditions."


"While Songdo is positioned to draw ‘western’ capital to a strategic intersection between South Korea, China and Japan, Philip Bowring recently noted that Korea’s links with Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand are just as crucial. This economy is extremely well-placed."


So it occurs to me that the logical thing to do would be the greatest engineering project of the next centuries; quite possibly the greatest diplomatic and economic project of the next centuries too, linking Japan with China via Korea via a high-speed rail link across gigantic bridges. (Of course.)























http://www.songdo.com/