Direct out from Brighton (Hove, actually), putting up pictures and news of all things beautiful and designed, built and drawn…
I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while now, being slightly obsessed with Architecture and Architectural Models and such. Amy Bennett builds little cardboard models of street-scenes and then does a painting of them, and the result is these beautiful images that look like dioramas. Lovely serene stuff.
Amy Bennett folks, check out her website for lots more info and images.
As seen on Today and Tomorrow
Dutch Architects, MVRDV are pretty good at what they do. Very good, in fact. This is a project of theirs, completed a couple of years ago now, called the Didden Village. Located in Rotterdam, the structure is rooftop extension to an existing building below. The idea is that each of the little “houses” are bedrooms – one for the parents and one each for the two kids. The way these houses are placed on the roof creates a series of miniature outdoor spaces, streets and avenues – creating a tiny sleeping village on the roof of their house. Great stuff.
Outside is all done out in bright blue poly-urethane finish and inside is simple and clean, with bloody lovely staircases and nice little playful touches.
Found on good old Arch Daily
Back when architecture was booming everyone got to draw fun buildings there was little booms in niche buildings. Buildings that performed functions outside of what we typically design for. This has always happened of course, recession or no recession, it just seemed more common then. Anyways, here’s a little round up of buildings from which to watch birds. Birdwatch, if you will.
First up, Alllies + Morrison’s building at Welney Wildfowl Trust in my dear ol’ Norfolk.
Followed by this little peach from GMP Architects. A 15m high observation tower in Heiligenhafen.
Finally, this amazing concept for a birdwatching hotel from Morris Architects for “Extreme Birding” (it sounds better if you shout “EXTREEEEME”). Interesting stuff. Did you know America has over 48 million twitchers?
Following on from yesterday’s post about augmented ski jumps into stadiums in the US, this is a fantastic old poster advertising the London Glaciarium from 1844.
A 3,000 sqft. replica of Lake Lucerne was constructed in Covent Garden, along with a replica glacier. It was then thawed out. If this were to occur today, it’d be a massive environmental statement. The Victorians didn’t care much for that, they just thought it’d be a laugh. Sledges were available for women and children and the members of the London Glaciarium club (yes, they had a club) did skating shows on the ice. Murphy Outdone! Awful Prediction!
This comes from the always incredible bldgblog, definitely worth checking out.
dRMM have long been industry favourites. At least, I like them. I’m pretty sure everyone likes them to. Anyways, the London based architects dRMM have just completed a new private house in Suffolk (I’m a Norfolk boy, so I’ll add “Boo!!” after the word Suffolk there), the outer skin of which slides across to reveal and hide certain features and to create new features of its own. These pictures show the sequence, which is very interesting, but what really fascinates me is the details as it slides. More pictures can be seen on the Dezeen blog, and I’d recommend heading over there to check it out.
Nice photography as well.
These images of ski jumps stitched into American stadia fascinate me. Stadiums get used for all kind of things outside their everyday use. Anfield has held boxing bouts, tennis matches, concerts, ice hockey all kinds of stuff. But this seems a bit more extreme. I like the idea that they just appeared over night and one unsuspecting Dodgers fan turned up to see a game and found this.
I tried to get Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards to give me his tuppence on this, but his people said he wasn’t available.
These images come via an excellent Pruned article (far more insightful and intelligent than mine).
Alrighty. How is everyone? This time around, there as a damn good reason for me not posting for a while. As opposed to the normal reasons for forgetting etc etc. I’ve been in Paris! And in a wonderful marketing world where I’m trying to push my new business onto everyone. We had our first advert on Spanish radio yesterday!
But anyway, this isn’t about me, it’s about you and its about damn bloody good design. So let’s get on.
Out in China, they’ve been building a series of pavilions on the banks of the River Yiwu, in the Jinhua Architecture Park. 16 architects from all over the world have been bought together by artist and curator Ai Wei Wei and the results look pretty good. It’s all dedicated to his father, Ai Qing, the Chinese poet extraordinaire. This seems to be somewhat en vogue in Asia at the moment – the idea of getting several architects together to design different buildings all on one site. It’s nothing new, but it is very very exciting.
These photos are by Iwan Baan who is almost certainly the best Architectural Photography working in the field today and his website is well worth checking out.
Saw this on Space Invading – probably my favourite website at the moment (except for mine)
Alright then, time for a little bit of self-promotion. Hope you’ll forgive me for it.
Asides from occasionally adding to this blog (occasionally) I spend my days as an architectural photographer, photographing buildings for architects and the like, under the moniker clickclickjim. Anyways, my new website is now up and running and you can see it here, or here, or even here.
So, check it out. It was designed by moocow media by the way.
Slowly, my studio space is turning into a mini jungle as my houseplant addiction shows no sign of withering in the Winter. Even my Christmas tree is still fairing well after I didn’t have the heart to throw it out, superstition or not. The only issue I have with all these plants is their pots. There’s nothing great about them and I’ve been thinking for a while about replacing them all with something new. These miniature concrete houses as planters are great, from Pull+Push…
I thought they’d go very well with the Habitat blackboard / house moneybox…
Saw this on good old Apartment Therapy, they’re avaliable from MollaSpace apparently.
The Chinese government, looking for something good to do, have been looking into creating 1.5million temporary homes, primarily to be used after major disasters, earthquakes and the like. In response to that and a Re:Vision competition, Ming Tang has designed these origami inspired, folding bamboo huts that can be produced cheaply and efficiently. They can also easily be folded into a number of different forms, all remaining structurally sound.
Via Inhabitat
