Sky Mirror

(India-born, UK sculptist) Anish Kapoor, (mostly known in the U.S. by “Cloud Gate” in Chicago’s Millennium Park opened last year) is planning to install yet another huge public art in NYC. This time in front of Rockefeller Center, the piece titled “Sky Mirror” (first installed in Nottingham Playhouse, UK in a smaller scale) is a 3-story high, contact-lens-like stainless steel, highly reflective to mirror the street life around as if it is through a drop of water. Kapoor’s work is famous for their contrasting qualities: material vs. immaterial; weight vs. weightless; tangible vs. intangible… Nevertheless, we should all take time to reflect, once a while.

Mr. Light Bulb

Humorous illustration from Germany’s AK3D. They should work for Pixar…

When Sex is not Sexy

About Mike’s comment about A&F selling lifestyle last week, this would be a interesting and contrasting point of view from a “feminist” branding and marketing professional. Some people call it selling lifestyle, others call it selling sex. Can lifestyle be sex and vice versa? Architecture and design being “sexy” is increasingly a consideration if not priority to (some of) the profession. Regardless, it should be little debate about whether Hadid is the architectural diva of our time.

99% Air: Aeromads

This is an intriguing inflatable temporary housing structure developed by some Sci-Arc students to mull over....

For the full link:http://www.sciarc.edu/aeromads/

Terrorism and Sustainability

Given the Heathrow’s liquid bomb threat last week, here is an interesting blog on World Changing about “Why sustainability, not terrorism, should be the security focus”. In his post, Steffen argued that the climate crisis and environmental degradation we are facing is by far a much large threat to us than the occasional terrorist plots… It sounds right, but I am wondering, why we choose or allow these supposedly ineffective wars on terror that there are very few convincing evident that we are in a more secure and safer place than 5 years ago. Is it because it is easier to “fight” terror with a very clear target and we are the good guys and they are the bad guys? Is it because terrorism deals with fear, not necessarily fact or evidence? Or is it because there are no obvious evils in sustainability? Because we are all kind of guilty?

Xavier Lust

I saw this on Re. the other day. Belgian designer Xavier Lust showcased an effective way to create very sculptural and dynamic furniture at the Mode Design Brussels.

Xavier Lust’s Website

How to attract top-notch talents?

An interesting story on BusinessWeek about Patagonia, an outdoor clothing and equipment company, headquarter in California with 39 stores in 7 countries. Yvon Chouinard is the founder and chairman of Patagonia, who wrote a book called Let My People Go Surfing as a manifesto of sustainable business practice. The 1275-employee, $240 millions revenue-per-year company has a simple yet challenging mission: to produce the highest-quality products while doing the least possible harm to the environment. Are they just hollow words? How about a 2-month full pay sabbatical for employees who choose to work for environmental groups as volunteers (among other things)? The result is a highly motivated and passionate workforce who is not only in for the money but higher ideals, which in turn provides an edge in a highly competitive apparel market. Not a bad company to learn from…

Image Found

Can't find enough beautiful images on Flickr.com, by Lilian Staerck.

The Age of Icons?

Charles Jencks, the author of The Language of Post-Modernism, furthers his view on the trend of contemporary architecture (or starchitecture) in Iconic Building (2005). The key idea seems to be about architecture as “multiply coded enigmatic sign” if it is to be iconic. He goes on to point out the problem of icon making in architecture. If every building is a landmark, then there is no landmark, blar blar blar… I think architecture is almost always “multiply coded sign” in some ways (whether it is enigmatic depends on who you talk to). Landmark is hardly accomplished solely by architects’ personal intent, but a collective sentiment towards certain structure over time. Yes, Bilbao is an instant landmark but I don’t think Gehry has had too much control over it. The problem is not in landmark itself but when powerful clients (and architects) are trying too hard to create a landmark for landmark’s sake. I prefer the accidental iconic buildings better. Buildings that were first hated and later loved, like a Hollywood underdog happy ending. Pei’s glass pyramid, Pompidou, not to mention, the WTC Twin Towers…

Archinect’s Interview

Debate with Eisenman

Book Review by Michiel van Raaij

(Meta)Morphosis

Talking with J.No yesterday about boxes and Morphosis (and some others). Morphosis is one of my early heroes when I only knew Mies, Corbu and those “first generation” modernists. I knew little about PoMo, Decon and boom, I was like, you can do that? I was attracted to Mayne’s work not because I got it, but because it was cool, pieces flying in the air. It was the rock-n’-roll architecture. Like music, this happens almost entirely on the emotional level with very little intellectual satisfaction. Can we learn from (or at least copy) it? Is it about contemporary society becoming ambiguous in every way that there are always layers of information on top of one another? Is it about form folding and fragmenting in movement to suggest… shall we say… change? Or is it manifestation of post-modernity (not pomo) without Eisenman’s BS? It seems that architects take many forms and approaches, and at the end of the day, it is as much internal as external influence. Maybe it is the integrity and persistency that matters most, not so much the “right” ideas.

Can Prefab be inexpensive? Not anytime soon.

The long publicized LivingHomes (designed by Ray Kappe) was recently completed in Santa Monica. LA Times has an article about it and the future (and present) of prefab houses. In terms of cost, these high profile prefabs are still way above “typical” houses we find in our neighborhood, close to $300/SF (not including land cost and site work). Yes, the quality is higher, with green roof and solar panels, and it can be built much faster but mainstream? Maybe we need to team up with Target to figure out how to make good design affordable for everyone. I heard IKEA is selling houses in Sweden now…

Flintstone and MP3

Thanks Corrie for the info of this latest I-Log

Microsoft Photosynth

Thanks Mark Ours and Lindsay Kenzig for this link.

From the website: "Photosynth is an amazing new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that will change the way you think about digital photos forever..."