In my fourth year of Tulane I discovered one of the little known great secrets of New Orleans, the vietnamese market in New Orleans East and Dong Phuong Bakery on Chef Menteur Blvd. That first trip, we left the Willow Street Leadership village at 6am; when we got to the market it was just barely light. In that gray dusk, I felt transported unto another place, this was not the New Orleans I knew, nor was it even a part of the US as far as I knew. The sounds and smells were all so different, so alien.
Apr 152008
Frank Lloyd Wright thought that he was the messiah of architecture and that his work would change the face of the earth. Ayn Rand immortalized this part of his personality in The Fountainhead. Buckminster Fuller believed that if we changed out bodies to his Dymaxion Rhythym and lived in Dymaxion Houses we could produce more and prosper. His geodesic domes never really caught on, but one did land a prominent place in the most prosperous and happiest place on earth. Le Corbusier imagined himself to be a new Vitruvius reinventing the discourse of architecture and the human habitation environment. By the end of his century (the 20th) society had rejected his massive housing blocks as dehumanizing and there was a massive resurgence in classical pastiche. Now Frank Gehry has envisioned himself as the new Pope, when working ex-catia he is a man that can do no wrong. In essence, no one can hate him even when they appear to be mad at him. According to an article in the New York Magazine, Mr Gehry refuses to accept that the recent protests about his new Atlantic Yards development have anything to do with him. Instead they are directed towards the developer. [...]
If you can’t be London, why not be Paris? At least that’s what NYC seems to think according to an article in New York Magazine. The article discusses that with the failure of the congestion surcharge, New York City officials are looking towards the changes that Paris has made since the turn of the century (from 20th to 21st) to be a more resident/pedestrian friendly place; specifically Paris-Plage, bike sharing and the new bus lanes and routes. It appears that NY may be looking at making some streets pedestrian only during the summer, and adding more bike routes. Having lived in Paris for a summer, I believe that parts of New York City that the are the most talked about – lower manhattan and midtown – are already as Paris-like as they can get; It is the outer boroughs that need to be brought up to speed. The reason for this is mass transit. The Métro is extensive within Paris much as it is in Manhattan (though the Métro does seem to run more trains it closes at 2am). This allows rapid movement within the city for pedestrians, sometimes it can be faster than driving. In addition, nothing short [...]
The Newseum has always been a strange concept for me: a museum, an embodiment of the past, dedicated to the news, the embodiment of the present. Way back in 1999 I came to DC with my Highschool Government Class to participate in the “We the People” Competition as the New York State Champions. One of the many tourist-y things we did was visit the old Newseum in Rosslyn. At the time the museum was two years old and with its gleaming white ceramic sphere of a dome architecturally significant. I do not remember much – we were only there for an hour or so – but I do remember the rooftop garden and memorial, which was dedicated to journalists who died in pursuit of the news. It was a twisting spiral of glass plates engraved with the names of the fallen, a light and airy contrast (and tiny) to Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial. I can not wonder, that in light of the Iraq Occupancy and the 127 journalists who have died there, if the new Museum was to have such a structure, how big would the spiral be? Would it start to approach the Vietnam Memorial in size?
The other day I was discussing the mortgage crisis and mentioned that I believe that we should be moving towards a more dense mass transit rich residential development model. Treehugger recently posted about a possible reinvetion of the the Cul-de-sac. This interesting article revisions suburbia as a series of duplexes, triplexes, quadruplexes, and sextuplexes which could be tessellated to efficiently fill space and allow for a maximum of residents on their own quiet cul-de-sacs.
AnArchitecture has a link to an article on 37signals about the above graphic from Colliers International which imagines real estate space as a commercial stock-like ticker. To me this image is very reminiscent of Maxis’ Simtower and the way metrics of occupied and unoccupied spaces were shown.
World Architecture News has an interesting article about the plan to save Venice from rising sea levels by raising the city above sealevel. At first mention this seems like a crazy idea. It doesn’t seem logical to raise a building and then add below it, a little force called gravity seems to argue against this; it would seem that it would be easier to building up and out instead. In reality, this is not the case, raising a building is actually a preferred method of renovation for a number of reasons. First, shoring (the process of supporting a building for raising) allows for a new stronger and more stable foundation to be created. Second, raising a building from below allows for the opportunity to build the walls and integrate modern electrical and HVAC systems into the new interstitial spaces. Third, raising a building allows for a more Historic Preservation friendly adaption; an addition below can be built to so that the design of original building above is minimally affected. This method of house renovation has been continually used in New Orleans for over a hundred years, if not more. In fact, this can be used not just to raise a [...]
Apr 112008
Life Without Buildings has an interesting post showing the top four winners of this year’s AIA New Orleans design awards. As is no surprise to any one who has lived in New Orleans and been involved in architecture, Eskew+Dumez+Ripple had a good showing with one landscape project and an urban housing schema designed for Brad Pitt’s “Make It Right” housing program. The residential project seems to me to be very much in the vein of the rest of their work. The renderings available on the website are signature EDR – hyper distorted perspective, large swaths of color, gauzey scale figures, and an almost too crisp structure. Their landscape project is more of an interest to me. It encompases the site I used for my architecture thesis and shares some of the same concepts – reintroduction of the city to the river and revitalization of a much neglected part of the city. From the one image I have seen, the similarities appear to only be in design concept, and not execution, but I am more than interested to see how this project develops.
Inhabitat posted an article today about the Bahrain World Trade Center turning on its 3 very large turbines. It has been reported that these turbines can generate 10 – 15% of the buildings power needs. In the US – LEED requires a 20% alternative energy power generation on the building premises (solar, wind, geothermal, etc) to get one credit. For an oil nation this is a huge step – even if it may be a publicity stunt. Though I still have to wonder, three gigantic blades spinning in open air have got to be very dangerous for the surrounding birds. Unless of course these are the slow turbines.
Apr 102008
Today, The New York Times ran an article about moving the proposed performance space from the as of yet still unbuilt World Trade Center Plaza to the proposed transportation hub at Fulton Street and Broadway. I just have to wonder if the people who propose these things have ever ridden mass transit? The last time I went into the City I took the Long Island Rail Road and arrived just as a Nicks game was letting out of Madison Square Garden: Penn Station was a Nightmare. I felt like a salmon swimming upstream just to get out of the system. I can’t imagine someone trying to get on a train or worse, enter the subway there.