Architecture

For many observers, Thom Mayne might easily be considered the most unpredictable personality in architecture. Once labeled the “bad boy of architecture” by critics—a moniker which he has, at times, enthusiastically adopted and even encouraged—Mayne’s actions in the architecture world can range from something as responsible as designing one of the United States’ most sustainable university campuses to something as outrageous as proposing one of the world’s tallest towers in a revered Austrian mountain town. In this interview, the latest from Vladimir Belogolovsky’s “City of Ideas” series, Mayne discusses his ideas, his past statements on architecture, and where he thinks the profession will go next.

the intent of guillaume mazars’ design is to create a low tech installation to complement the existing opera house, by offering an alternative experience to access the musical scene.
The post g. mazars designs a musical plaza for the botanical garden…

As the first ever Spanish architect to receive the Pritzker Prize, Rafael Moneo (born 9 May 1937) is known for his highly contextual buildings which nonetheless remain committed to modernist stylings. His designs are regularly credited as achieving the elusive quality of “timelessness”; as critic Robert Campbell wrote in his essay about Moneo for the Pritzker Prize, “a Moneo building creates an awareness of time by remembering its antecedents. It then layers this memory against its mission in the contemporary world.”

184 Shepherd’s Bush Road was originally designed and built in 1915-16 as a motor garage and service depot with a showroom for the Ford Motor Company (England) Ltd. In 1926 it was taken over by Citroen as its main UK distribution and sales centre and later on acquired by Osram and incorporated as part of the large factory complex manufacturing electric light bulb filaments. The journal The Motor in 1920 described the building as ‘a massive structure of three storeys, designed solely from a utility point of view’. The concrete frame illustrated pioneering approaches to construction and materials technology for this period. The building was originally intended to be five storeys high, however due to the outbreak of the First World War the building and its use was identified by the War Office as being vital to the war effort. This meant that the two upper floors were never constructed which made the building appear unproportional and squat. Most of the interior of the former servicing depot comprised spaces where machinery associated with servicing cars and assembling parts were kept. By 2010 only a few features other than the structural elements themselves remained: elements of the former ground floor showroom area; the stairs up to the sales room and small office area at first floor. These were retained as original decorative features and finishes in ColladoCollins’ design.

Standing on a rise overlooking the Spanish Mediterranean coast, there is an odd structure which could easily be mistaken for an vast pile of forgotten blocks. Kafka’s Castle, built in 1968, was one of the earlier projects completed by Ricardo Bofill, a Spanish Postmodern architect known for apartment buildings as monumental as they were thought-provoking. While his later work indulged in Postmodern historicism, the modular and mathematically-derived Kafka’s Castle was an unabashed break from any local or global tradition – as much the case now as it was in the 1960s.

The house is set in a small village, called Trafaria, located on the other side of the Tagus river, just in front of Lisbon.

This is a place for Buddhist mediation, thinking and contemplation, as well as a place satisfying the needs of daily life. The building is located in the forest by the riverside. Along the river, there is a mound, behind which is a great stretch of open field and sporadic vegetable greenhouses. The design started from the connection between the building and nature, adopts the method of earthing to hide the building under the earth mound while presenting the divine temperament of nature with flowing interior space. A place with power of perception where trees, water, Buddha and human coexist is thus created.

Located in a quiet area near West Lake, Hanoi, “Nhà Thân Thiện #003″ is designed for the weekend getaway purpose of a young family. The idea is based on three factors: the way of organizing space for a weekend house in the city, size 6x10m; The use of friendly materials, creating a rustic atmosphere, relaxation; Last but not least, the energy saving issue for a home that is influenced by the West Sunlight.