March 7, 2013
No one quite seems to know what to do with Battersea Power Station — well, not everyone, it seems. The landmark decommissioned power plant presides over Southwest London like a monumental sculpture and some kind of historic relic — a notion emboldened by the building’s use in futurist/sci-fi graphic books and films — exerting a visual power that few, if any, of the city’s contemporary buildings match. So it’s easy to see why architects and developers have continuously tried to revamp the site since the station’s closure in the early ’80s. In that time, there have been a surplus of imaginative redevelopment projects, many of which, including Rafael Vinoly’s various “eco” schemes for the site, incorporated a combination of office and residential structures plus A LOT of green roofs. None of the projects was particularly appealing, nor did they do any justice to Battersea’s architecture and history.
This conceptual scheme from French designers Atelier Zündel Cristea is definitely not more of the same. The project envisions wrapping a massive roller coaster around the whole of the iconic building. We wholeheartedly approve. Click for more!
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July 13, 2012
“Schaustelle” by J. Mayer H.; All images courtesy the architects
The space frame lives–albeit in much abbreviated form. It exists now with little of its utopian associations or urbanistic aspirations intact, used more or less in small concentrations in short bursts until disassembled and recycled for future use. Continuing in this vein is J. Mayer H.‘s just-unveiled design for a temporary pavilion, event space, and gallery for the Pinakothek der Moderne. The “Schaustelle” will house the Pinakothek’s modern art collection for the full duration of the renovation work the museum will undergo beginning in February 2013. Mayer’s interim structure consists of an open scaffolding system that runs through the “closed” ground floor volume that will house the artworks upwards to the aggregated framework above, on which projection screens will be mounted, displaying films, texts, and media.
The gallery can be sub-partitioned and even expanded to accommodate the whims of the curatorial staff, while visitors will be able to ascend to the roof platform, where, amid rising clusters of scaffolding, they may meander to take in spectacular views of the city center beyond. This elevated space will also host panels, workshops and performances, not too mention function as additional exhibition space. At night, the structure will be lit by multimedia projections, resembling a carnivaleque scene from which one half-expects trapeze artists and fire eaters to materialize. According to the design statement, the project is meant to “send a political signal to push for the completion of the second section of the main building.”
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December 9, 2011
Image via Gothamist.
Sometimes it seems like scaffolding covers half the buildings in New York. At any given moment, says the Department of Buildings, over a million feet of New York sidewalks are covered by construction sheds. Maintaining an island packed with centuries-old buildings is a challenge that will likely never end. So it’s not surprising that the City’s design for standard scaffolding hasn’t changed for more than forty years – there hasn’t been much down time to think it over.
Until 2009, when the City launched a competition called urbanSHED, which invited designers to propose alternative structural solutions to the scaffolding problem. The winner, a UPenn student named Young-Hwan Choi working with Andrés Cortés AIA and Sarrah Khan PE of Agencie Group, named his scheme “Urban Umbrella” for its iron vaults (which feature integrated LED lighting).
That was back in early 2010, and earlier this week, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the first built iteration of the design. Gothamist reports that the rainy weather actually leaked on the unveiling – not because of a design flaw, but because they hadn’t had a dry day to apply the silicone sealant that will waterproof the acrylic flutes.
The umbrellas have been almost universally lauded… Universally, but for one Archinect commenter, who asked “where are you supposed to post your band’s concert posters?!”
More images after the jump.
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October 17, 2011
The “traveling toolbox” that is the BMW Guggenheim Lab packed up and left its humble spot on New York’s Houston Street yesterday with a closing party, and the mobile lab is now on its way to Berlin, where it is scheduled to reopen in spring 2012. Where are enthusiasts of pop-up architecture to look to in the interim? 1024 Architecture, the French collective most known for their audiovisual architectural light shows, has recently built a temporary open-air restaurant on Île Seguin in Paris. The extraordinary structure is part barge, part greenhouse, part oil platform and part wooden house, a peculiar hybrid that will soon disappear without a trace. More after the jump!
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August 11, 2011
All photos courtesy of SCAFFOLDAGE
SCAFFOLDAGE is a blog created by Shaun Usher. The site dishes out what Usher calls “skeletal archiporn,” stunning photos of scaffolding in a carefully curated tumblr. His collection jumps through time and takes us all around the world, inviting us to pore over the exquisite geometries of these oft-neglected temporary structures. Click through to see more.
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March 24, 2011
Co.Design pointed out a new entrée into the “[insert-design-field-here] porn” category: scaffolding. Copywriter Shaun Usher is the brain behind the Scaffoldage Tumblr, which highlights the exo-skeleton of construction rather than the end result.
What’s especially fascinating is the varying standard for building carapaces across the world: in Italy, they are often covered by canvas painted in a trompe de l’oeil of the edifice lurking within; in New York, virtually no art or design goes into erected scaffolding.
Peep a few examples of extraordinary scaffolding after the jump:
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