Yoyogi House

A small house in Tokyo by frontoffice architects.

link for part 2

Letting The Light In

Most shanty towns consist of corrugated iron shacks with no easy source of direct sunlight. Liter of Light, a sustainable lighting project, aims to fix the problem using old soda bottles

The Beauty of Design

The Beauty of Design: a short artistic documentary directed by Brandon "Frank" O'Larey following the work and aspirations of two Seattle architects, Kevin Eckert and Andrew van Leeuwen co-founders of BUILD, LLC. The duo are infusing the architecture of Seattle with notes of Scandinavian design adding adding a dose timelessness throughout the city.

House of the Week 119: Containers of Hope

Images ©Benjamin Garcia Saxe

Located outside San Jose, Costa Rica this 100 sqm residential project was the result of a close collaboration between the architect Benjamin Garcia Saxe and clients Gabriela Calvo and Marco Peralta, who also acted as the contractors. The U$40,000 house is constructed of two inexpensive disregarded containers and with sections of recycled metal used to make the adjoining roof and windows. The result provides an airy openness and a passive alternative to air conditioning mitigating the intense tropical climate.

blog wunderlust : 25th July 2011

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning. There should not be a single ornament put upon great civic buildings, without some intellectual intention.

John Ruskin

Snooze Towers by John Becker for Hypothetical Development Organization

The value of good design | FLW's Fallingwater, at 75 | Deconstruction: Z Table by Hellman-Chang | Living Large In Narrow Houses | Dave Degobbi's "Crawler Town" and Other Inhabitable Mobile Mega Structures | Child’s Play, Grown-Up Cash | Implausible Futures for Unpopular Places | Starchitecture High | RIBA Stirling Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced | nonLin/Lin Pavilion by Marc Fornes & TheveryMany |

last word: World-Architects has added the newest country profile, Indian-architects.com

Video: New Head Offices of PGGM

New Head Offices of PGGM Insurance Company from Josep Lluis Mateo on Vimeo.

The new head offices of the PGGM insurance company in Zeist, the Netherlands by architect Josep Lluís Mateo.

On the Boards: Aegean Breeze

A master plan and concept design for a 37,000 m² beachside resort in Alaçati, Turkey designed by Leo A Daly. The design, which includes Hotel lodging, a spa & fitness/wellness centre, marine park, beach club and residential villa, emphasizes views of the sea from all site locations, while the composition of the hotel and villas lends way to the arid, rocky landscape.

via

On the Boards: Water as the 6th Borough

The competition called for ideas for the NYC Blue Network and E3NYC, The World Largest Clean Tech Expo. The propositions ranged from: expanding waterborne transportation, linking the five boroughs with transit hubs, incorporating ferries, water taxis, bike shares, electric car-shares, and electric shuttle buses, as well as providing in-water recreation, educational events, cultural activities, pavilion halls, and climate resilience.

The competition drew 256 people in 86 teams from 18 countries and four continents. Click to see the shortlisted entries

Beach Chair

Hexagonal Pewter Stool from Max Lamb on Vimeo.

A video of designer Max Lamb building his one-of-a-kind furniture using simple methods, made at his favorite childhood vacation spot.

blog wunderlust : 18th July 2011

Architecture is a social act and the material theater of human activity

Spiro Kostof

Imagining an Alternative Future | The history of the bathroom: putting Plumbing before People | Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven | JDS launches new website | 100% Neutral Home | New ideas for sustainable architecture in the Americas | 2011 RIAI Irish Architecture Awards | Rebuilding Haiti: Houses for Haiti's homeless | Is a Bookless Library Still a Library? | Architect Barbie Dream House Competition

last word: On the Waterfront - Van Alen Traveling Fellowship Contact Sheets – 2003

Paul Housberg, a fine artist and master craftsman known for his innovative use of glass in architecture, has steadily gained worldwide recognition. With each new installation, he further ensures his place in contemporary architectural art glass. The works created in collaboration with the building’s architects and designers, and reflects a particular theme that complements the space, as interpreted artistically by Housberg himself.

James Dyson Award

Design something that solves a problem

The James Dyson Award is an international student design award running in 18 countries. It’s run by the James Dyson Foundation, James Dyson’s charitable trust, as part of its mission to encourage the next generation of design engineers to be creative, challenge and invent.

International Winner:
- £10,000 the student or student team (of up to four members)
- £10,000 for their university department
- James Dyson Award trophy and Certificate

The James Dyson Award supports students not only with monetary prizes but also by promoting and recognizing good quality entries.

competition ::: SLANT magazine

The July 2011 issue of SLANT magazine is launching a competition, open to all, to design a garden for a private residence. The house in question is not a real house, it has been designed specifically for this competition, and its location is not being specified. The “blanks” or “options” in the brief are deliberate, and the opportunity on offer to the entrants is that they can fill in the blanks in any way that they choose.

“It is a generic house and garden which could be almost anywhere in the world, and you are free to choose the country in which you would like this imaginary house and garden to be located.

To enter

Pop-Upchitecture

POP-UPchitecture: 2nd Future Environments Future Generations Workshop from PLAYstudio on Vimeo.

Three visions of the urban future as told in animated "POP-UPchitecture". Created by primary schoolchildren, who provided the drawings, and university students, who constructed the pop-ups

Studio Tv ::: Innovation in Architectural Education

International Architectural Education Summit 2011 Innovation in Architectural Education.
This event brings together internationally renowned architects, educators, and scholars to explore trends, issues, and research in architectural education worldwide.

Toronto 1960-11

Toronto1960-11 from davide tonizzo on Vimeo.

This film is an ode to Toronto 1960s architectural heritage.

Installation ::: Alien Cathedral

The newest piece from the Creators Project - delves into the workings, inspirations, and methods of acclaimed director Jonathan Glazer and English rock band Spiritualized frontman J Spaceman that came to life in the ephemeral interactive installation for the Coachella Music Festival in April 2011.

The Creators Project first followed Glazer and Spaceman during the early stages of construction of their epic light and sound-controlled installation, inspired by the song, “Ladies and Gentleman, We Are Floating in Space” and built by One of Us. The dreamlike piece, aims to capture the often intangible moments of magic revealing an architectural sensibility.

For more

House of the Week 118: Small House

Designed by New York based architects Cooper Joseph Studio, the Small House sits amongst an orchard of newly planted olive trees on a site overlooking the Dry Creek Valley near Sonoma, California. The 80m² house embodies rich layers of detail & texture despite its small size; the simple programme - a bedroom, a kitchen and a living room are made beautiful through a reduced palette of zinc and gray stained oak.

New Work ::: Visitor Centre of the Roman Theatre of Málaga

Designed by Tejedor Linares & Associates, the 172 m2 Visitor Centre was aimed to be fully integrated with the historic site, the visitors, and the city beyond. The facility acts as a cultural axis that passes the Native House of Pablo Picasso, the Alcazaba, the Museum of Málaga and the Picasso Museum. This axis leads the city into an experience of the past and future of the area, uncovering layers of Spanish culture that touch art, entertainment and civic remains.

The materials of the building are humble, coloured concrete integrate with the natural tones of the limestone and soil of the hillside and the walls of the Alcazaba. The exterior is finished with the Lex Malacitana - the laws of the Roman municipality of Málaga in the last first century written in a serigraphic on both the glass . This graphic condition is a beautiful system in Latin that supports the context the two fundamental needs of the Visitors Centre: to present and archive the archeological remains recovered from the site and to provide interpretation and support to the on going archeological works.

photographs © Fernando Alda via

Street Furniture 2001 Competition

Metropolitan areas today are complex landscapes crossed daily by thousands of people who do not necessarily have local ties, but in addition to traditional citizens, they live in there not only permanently but traverse and use them tirelessly 24 hours a day.

Given the increasing complexity of cities it is becoming more urgent to imagine new urban devices that have the ability to act as signs of a strong identity and at the same as places that protect people temporarily while offering news, information, and digital materials about the area being traversed.

The objective of the Third Edition of the Premio Lissone is to imagine a new generation of street furniture capable of helping in the creation of these new elements, urban furniture designed to meet the needs of the new city.

The competition is open to students of design & architecture, artists, draftsmen, architects and designers of all nationalities, who in the calendar year (2011) have not yet turned 36.

blog wunderlust : 11th July 2011

Structure is not just a means to a solution

Marcel Breur

New pictures emerge Of Tower Bridge under construction | Will no one halt the vandalising of London's skyline? | Polish architect designs world's narrowest house | another 3d-CAD?? | 30 Eco-Chic houses made of 10 types of recycled materials | Architecture Photo of the Day #50 | Koolhaas, Delirious in Beijing | Fictional Architecture of Filip Dujardin | fashion and architecture | Green Roof Infographic

last word: On Influence: Batman, Gotham City, and an Overzealous Architecture Historian With a Working Knowledge of Explosives

House of the Week 117: Palácio da Alvorada

the official residence Brazil’s president, Palácio da Alvorada was designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer completed in 1958. The 7,000 m² house sits on peninsula at the margins of Lake Paranoá in Brasilia and houses not only the private residence of the president but a medical centre, building administration and a large reception area for official functions. In 2004 the residence underwent renovations at the cost of $18.4 million funded by IPHAN (Brazilian Institute for the Historic and Artistic Heritage).

blog wunderlust : 4th July 2011

Architecture, like food is best when it reflects the local environment

David Cuthbert

images by Walter Herfst

Across Europe, irking drivers is urban policy | Book Reveals Secrets Of Nature's Premier Architects: Birds | Totally cosmic: the Life Mounds of Charles Jencks | top 100 architects on Twitter | Unesco does not consider candidacy works of Le Corbusier as world heritage | Frank Gehry: Dizzy heights | Take this design, and sit on it | Bjarke Ingels designs incinerator that doubles as ski slope in Copenhagen |

last word: (daily double) Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011 and Serpentine From Past to Present: Zaha to Zumthor

On the Boards: National Gymnastics Centre Pegan Petkovšek

The competition entry for the National Gymnastics Centre in Ljubljana designed by architects Enota was conceived as a daily training facility where athletes spend a lot of their time. The central guideline for the 6,500 m² was thus to design a building with plenty of natural light which would appeal to its users and inspire in them a feeling of direct connection with sport at all times.