Fantastic architectural renders demonstrating great skill. I wish I could get them like that!

(Source: cg.tutsplus.com)

The long-awaited start into the final year of the BA (Hons) Interior Design course at the LCC, I am beginning to write my dissertation about Brasilia. What are your thoughts on Brasilia?

archimaps:

View of the model at the Futurama, New York World’s Fair in 1964

Loving this.

archimaps:

Walter Netsch’s Cadet Chapel U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado

Brilliant church design!

Amazing interiors of the now abandoned and soon to be demolished Stella Artois brewery in Leuven, Belgium. More images and a small write-up over at SilentUK.

on show at ‘this way’, design academy eindhoven’s exhibition at milan design week 2011 is akko goldenbeld’s musical device ‘stadsmuziek’. a scale model of the city of eindhoven  is transformed into the role of the recorder as each building, unique in size, shape and proximity to others, creates the musical score. placed on a revolving wooden cylinder, the buildings set little hammers in motion that play the keys of the piano. by turning and turning, the city makes its voice heard - from loud to soft, long to short, high-pitched to low - translating the three-dimensional reality of the city into an aural experience.

Watch the video here.

(Source: designboom.com)

I don’t even know where to start with describing how bad this proposal is, which now has received planning permission (!). Absolutely no context what so ever, horrible backward-thinking architectural design (well, it is for the orthodox…) and a parametric digital glass draper around it. All in front of Paris’ Eiffeltower. Russian tackiness has just reached another level. Disgusting.

Head over to Dezeen to join the discussion about this project.

“Tronic tapped into their architecture backgrounds for the film they created for Herzog & de Meuron’s 57-story hi-rise residential tower in Tribeca. Combining a live action helicopter shoot with extensive CG modeling, the film shows the poetic beauty of how the building was conceived, beginning with the elements of each floor descending from the Manhattan sky and landing into place on top of the Anish Kapoor sculpture.”

(Source: notcot.org)

Here are some images of the seven shortlisted designs for an extension to the V&A museum in London, including proposals by Oslo architects Snøhetta with Glasgow firm Hoskins, Amanda Levete Architects of London and Jun Aoki & Associates of Tokyo.

My personal favourite is Amanda Levete’s solution. Click the image for more.

Freaking fascinating: The Times did this article and attendant video piece on an uncompleted 45-story skyscraper in Caracas, Venezuela, that is filled with 2,500 squatters coping with that country’s housing crisis. And these aren’t 2,500 ne’er-do-well junkies — these are family people, like the tie-wearing bank employee seen above.

The municipal government has turned a blind eye to the structure and the goings-on within, and the residents have organized admirably: While there’s no doubt that life is rough, they have a building coordinator, a security team of doormen, jury-rigged electricity and hose-fed water, a basketball court, and even bodegas on every floor. They also have no windows, elevators, stairway handrails, and balcony guardrails, so that’s one hell of a dangerous walk-up. Check it out:

(Source: core77.com)

Podčetrtek Sports Hall

QuaDror is a lap joint construction that provides for limited freedom of movement without the use of a traditional pin. The design is elegant enough to prompt wonderment that it hasn’t already been built in the world, even as forgotten carpentry. By superimposing two lap joint frames with miter cuts, Dror makes the formation of a collapsible structure possible. Once a load is applied to the top of the two frames, it spreads out to an optimal angle for load distribution. Dror said that the finished structure could attain the strength of a correspondingly wide concrete or steel structure while using only 20% of the material.

(Source: core77.com)

Fab Lab House is a prototype solar house designed to be built and customised locally to lower distribution and transport costs. Prospective buyers choose the size, shape and layout they want on the Internet.

(Source: abitare.it)

Filip Dujardin takes photographs of buildings to re-arrange them in Photoshop. This series is titled ‘fictions’.

I went for a bike ride along the canal today and stumbled upon this old mill in east London. Imagine having a small studio in that white extension overlooking the canal! I think it used to be part if a water mill with warehouses and even a distillery up until the second world war and the blitz.