Twisted Towers

For some reason, twisted tower is becoming very popular in architecture in recent years, from SOM’s early version of the Freedom Tower, to Calatrava’s Melmö in Sweden. H&dM’s new Roche Tower in Basel takes an asymmetrical approach which is quite interesting.

SeARCH

How to deal with existing historical structure is often a tough task for the “modernists”. This is an exception. SeARCH is one of the Dutch firms feature in Taschen’s new Architecture in the Netherlands.

Manifold

One of the 10 finalist entries to the master-planning competition in Singapore called “Garden by the Bay” by Ah’be Landscape Architects and George Yu Architects, it is another way to merge landscape and architecture called “manifold”.

George Yu was my thesis advisor.

Thom Mayne, the face of the AIA

For those who doesn’t get AIA weekly e-newsletter, this is an interesting short feature on Thom Mayne, who, for some reason, becomes the “face” of the AIA, talks about the responsibility of architect, not as professional, but as citizen and human being… In short, no matter what we do, it is a result of what we believe in. So what do we believe in? Transformational design? Change design? Integrated design? Or cool and sexy design?

Samonite by Marc Newson

I have to say the new lines of Samonite are quite nice (and expensive too). The one designed by Newson is very much along the design when he did the 021C concept car for Ford, not so much of my favorite Felt Chair. More on Newson, see Design Museum UK’s designers profile.

Chinese Avant-garde

Cai Guo Qiang, one of the well known Chinese artists outside China. He has done a lot of installation and performance art all over the world about some kind of abstract symbolism. I found this “Borrowing Your Enemy’s Arrows” very interesting. It is the famous “Battle of Red Cliff (Chi Bi)” during the Three Kingdoms (San-Guo) period in Chinese history, where a weaker army was able to defeat the stronger by a clever tactic of sending boats with grass-stuffed figures into the enemy’s territory and collected the arrows for use as weapons.

Chinese artists (and architects) often find it very difficult to express themselves artistically in the modern world without comparing to the West and looking back to the long cultural history. How can we be not western but also not traditional?

Eliza (my wife) said to me the other day, “There is no Chinese or American contemporary art anymore, it’s all global now.” There may have some truth in it, given that Cai is actually living and working in NYC.

BIG “Person” Building

Talking about being iconic and humorous... BIG from Copenhagen is more Dutch than, say, Neutelings-Riedijk.

The Next Green Roof, TM9 Turf by Toyota

Green roof has become so popular that people are talking about the “next” green roof. How about a mere 2 inch thick, come in 500mm2 tiles, and you only have to mow once a year? Maybe we should think about putting them in the backyard than on the roof.