Since moving to the DC area it has been easy to feel lost in the neoclassical and federalist architecture that pervades the area. Many of the firms here still work within those vernaculars. Those who differ seem to err on the side of bland post modern boxes. I decided that there had to be firms in the area who had a more avant-garde/metropolitan sense in their design aesthetic and so I searched through the websites of over 400 firms listed in the Washington, DC / Northern Virginia (NOVA) / Maryland region. I only looked at architecture firms whose only office is in the DC metro area, and selected those that I felt had a more contemporary/avant-garde design sensibility. I feel that I have achieved my goal of proving that there are small to medium firms in the DC metroplex that focus on creating buildings/spaces that further the architectural dialogue and do not just rehash old building styles for the sake of building. The following firms are in no particular order. amestudio Geier Brown Renfrow Architects Robert M Gurnery, FAIA David Jameson Architect, Inc Randall Mars Architects Fox Architects French Studios Suzane Reatig Architecture envision Schick Goldstein Architects Bonstra Haresign Architects [...]
In the last week Gizmodo has had 2 different posts about Dubai, one detailing a new 1.55 mile high tower design and the other the torturous and abusive conditions of the workforce without which buildings like this wouldn’t exist. This dichotomy between the shining city of modern architecture and the slave dwelling-liked slums have been known for a while, at least amongst the socially conscious in the architecture field. Yet, it is nice to see that a blog that focuses on the new and shiny is finally looking at the workforce behind the product and their abysmal conditions. The thing that really intrigues me here is that almost all societies who hold themselves up as model nations seem to have some sort of slave/lesser citizen class bearing the weight of the whole machine. The development of China has had a similar comparison in regards to poor health and bad working conditions for its construction and manufacturing force. Yet this is not a modern problem, the American dream was built on the backs of slaves, the British empire was made possible by raping the wealth from its colonies, even classical paragons like Athens and Rome were founded on slave labor. This [...]
One of the things that has stuck me recently is the lack of a good space to do laundry in my current condo. Now, I have a stacked washer/dryer unit hidden in my front closet, but I really don’t have a good place to set up shop to fold clothes and iron. If I want to be near the laundry machines I can stand in my front hall and face a wall. But I tend to like distraction while I work, even considering that I truly do like to iron, so my living room is my chosen place of work. There is something very zen and calming about the repetitive motion coupled with the warmth and moisture, even with House blaring in the background. Now the problem with ironing in my living room/den/dining area is that like most 900 square foot condos, there is just not enough floor space to set up a board, have a place to hang finished clothes, a place for the wrinkled clothes, and have the standard coffee table and chairs or a couch. I guess I can look to building a board and hanging bar into some wall or part of an entertainment unit, and [...]
Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, which I blogged about suffering flood damages, has re-opened to special guided tours on a limited basis. These special tours will raise money for restoration and repairs and will focus on the extent of the damages caused by the flooding and the process of historic restoration. More information can be found in this press release from the National Trust for Historic Preservation or at their blog, PreservationNation.
There is a great post over at ArchitectureMNP showing a stair by the London based Levitate Architects that doubles as a giant bookcase. This is a great way of adapting a zone of typically dead space so that it can serve a dual purpose. I can imagine this would be really useful in some of the Washington, DC town houses that area really narrow and lacking in storage space. With a stair like this you would not need book cases, so wall space can instead be used for artwork and furniture.
I submitted the op-ed below to the editorial desk of the New Orleans Times Picayune two weeks ago. I have not received any response to my inquiries, so I assume that they are not interested; if that changes I may have to remove this post. In any case, I would like to present my solution for a sustainable redevelopment of New Orleans: An urban plan for a new New Orleans. Although New Orleans avoided Gustavʼs wrath, we need to learn as much as we did the hard way from Katrina. Instead of rebuilding the city and the levees as they were, we need to make it so that New Orleans will never worry about a hurricane again. New Orleans has had a past fraught with disasters: twice ï¬res wiped out the bulk of the French and Spanish colonial city and there have been numerous floods and levee breaks which have altered the cityʼs shape. Over the last century we believed that we had bent nature to our will by controlling the course of the Mississippi River and preventing the annual flood. At the same time developers drained the surrounding swamps to make new low-lying easily flooded subdivisions. The damage caused [...]