May 2, 2013
Designers. They seem normal on the exterior, but inside, it’s another story. Actually, even on the outside they don’t seem all that normal, as demonstrated in this illustrated diagram of “The Brain of a Designer” that shows a designer’s fictional cerebral anatomy dressed up in token thick-framed glasses. There’s much more to it than that, so click through.
May 2, 2013
Artist and programmer Clement Valla has been tracking strange anomalies in Google Earth for years, but his most recent discoveries are completely warped! Because of a glitch in the way that Google builds the infrastructure of Earth—which involves complicated and tedious tech jargon—a number of buildings highways, bridges, and rivers look like they are melting, twisting, and turning upside down.
While these weird scenes offer a break from otherwise realistic landscapes, they may not be there for long. In an interview on Fastco, Valla reports that Google has been working to fix these crazy peculiarities. Click through to see them while you still can!
May 2, 2013
![manila-cemetery-2[2]](http://www.architizer.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/manila-cemetery-22-600x399.jpg)
Photo by Martin Kurt Haglund
In the metropolitan area of Manila in the Philippines, affordable and adequate housing is extremely scarce for the urban poor. The city has the highest population density in the world, (110,000+ people per square mile), and 40% of its 21 million residents live below the poverty line. With those numbers, the impoverished often are forced into shantytowns and makeshift shelters.
But, according to a fascinating article and photo series published on Amusing Planet, some residents have come up with another option. Starting around 1950, poor Manilans began squatting in the North Cemetery, the oldest and largest in Metro Manila—and they’ve been transforming it into their own thriving alternative community. Click through for more.
May 2, 2013
Jane Fonda: esteemed actress, iconic fashion model, health guru, outspoken political activist, and… avant-garde architectural inspiration? Yes, the Hollywood star and 1980s face of fitness has recently lent her name — knowingly or not — to a project by Spanish firm Elli Studio. The Jane Fonda Kit House (abbreviated as JF-Kit) is a prototype residence and pop-up gymnasium that envisions a future in which healthy, active inhabitants power their own homes through physical exercise. More after the jump.
May 2, 2013
This summer Gensler will break ground on Chicago’s first affordable housing development for LGBTQ seniors. Located in the heart of Lakeview (aka Boystown, the city’s most prominent gay district), the project will offer the area’s 55-and-over set the chance to grow old in their own neighborhood. It’s not exactly aging in place—this is still a retirement facility, after all—but it sure beats getting shipped off to unfamiliar surroundings. Read more!
May 2, 2013
At the epicenter of the world’s largest urban area, Tokyo is synonymous with density—an overflux of people, spaces, and ideas. Upending the general take of Tokyo as an urban over-stimulant, photographer Gabriel de la Chapelle has captured a novel, arresting view of the city as desolate landscape in his series, Tokyo End. His images are achingly captivating, showing empty stretches of urban infrastructure. Upon closer inspection, the empty “highways” are in fact canals with road striping superimposed. With not a soul in view, these impossibly beautiful images offer an intimate (if inaccessible) window onto the city. Click through to see them all.
May 2, 2013
This house “may not look like much, kid, but she’s got it where it counts.” (No, we love this house.)
Full disclosure: We’ll take about any excuse to talk about Star Wars. But this time we’ve got a legitimate reason: May 4 is international Star Wars Day! This Saturday, let your geek flag fly high, and have no shame in putting that old Boba Fett Halloween costume to use. We thought we’d start the festivities a little early (we don’t work on Saturday!) with this list of buildings that were clearly inspired by (or that influenced) the look and feel of the Bearded One’s timeless space opera.
Who knows want the architecture of Episode VII will look like, but if it’s anything like these structures, we’d approve. Click through to see them all.
P.S. May the fourth be with you!
May 2, 2013
On the Mur River in Austria, terrain: loenhart & mayr designed this wild observation tower that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Taking cues from the shape of DNA, two staircases rise high above the surrounding tree tops in a twisting double helix, meeting at a pinnacle platform. While the essential and omnipresent molecule has an organic tubular shape, the Mur observation tower is a jagged, zig-zagging metallic marvel that lets you see for miles and miles. Click through to see more!
May 1, 2013
Architizer friend and A+ juror Olafur Eliasson has won the 2013 Mies Van Der Rohe Award for his design of the Harpa – Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Reykjavik, Iceland, and we are thrilled! Eliasson, who helped conceive the building’s radiant façade, shares the prestigious prize with the Studio Olafur Eliasson team, Henning Larsen Architects, and Baterii∂ Architects, who all collaborated on the project.
Known for some of the most memorable contemporary art projects in the 21th century thus far, such as the Weather Project at Tate Modern and the Waterfalls in New York City’s East River, Eliasson’s works are often inspired by his obsession with atmosphere and light. Accordingly, the variegated glass façade of Eliasson’s concert hall was inspired by Iceland’s famed Northern Lights and dramatic scenery, and helped the artist and architect grab the award. Read more!
May 1, 2013
The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, has made an undeniably compelling case for biomass energy. By replacing its outdated oil-burning boiler with a squeaky clean wood-chip biomass burner in the Biomass Heating Facility, the boarding school has reduced its winter energy bill by $350,000 and slashed its carbon footprint between 35% and 45%. Not to mention: The organic, undulating living green roof ain’t too shabby either. (And we are experts on gorgeous green roofs.) Click through for more.
