Inspired by the Past

The Hwangryongsa temple, a 9-story pagoda, was built in 645 AD by Silla (one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea), but was demolished in 1238 during the Mongol invasion of Korea.

That building itself would already be worth a post on this blog, but what if you'd want to pay architectural tribute to this building? What if you'd like to make a contemporary statement out of it? Of course, the sheer reconstruction of it would make no sense. It's faking the past, and not doing something that is also connected to the present.


So, the Gyeongyu Tower makes complete sense, doesn't it? The contours of the Hwangryongsa temple pagoda have been carved out of a solid shape, in order to create this building. It shows the historic form in a contemporary way. Mission achieved, I would say. The building is great in it's weirdness, it's so kitchy that I'm really loving it for it's boldness. It's all that's good and evil at the same time, architectonically speaking.

Temporary materiality

The materialization of temporary structures mainly has a certain genericness. For instance, for the construction of a temporary restaurant (called Studio East Dining) on the top of a construction site overlooking the construction of the 2012 Olympic Park in London the office Carmody Groarke used materials that could be considered pretty standard for a temporary structure. They used scaffolding and boards, borrowed from the construction site, and covered the lot with recyclable plastic.

Using pretty mundane materials doesn't make this a standard or boring building. And that's not just because of the spectacular views over the construction of the Olympic Park. No, it's also because the temporary building itself is rather elegant. A pavillion with no front or back, with a slick and playful form, gives space to a delicate interior. Too bad the restaurant only remains in place until the 4th of July...


I found this project via dezeen.com

Maison Eco-rce

The architect Cyril-Emmanuel Issanchou challenges all the preconceived ideas of what a timber house means. Wood isn't necessarily a material to make archetypical houses, but it can also be a material to make contemporary buildings. Like in this case, a house that looks like no other.
You could say that this project is a means of showing france that timber isn't necessarily less sturdy than stone, for houses. Or as a way of showing how a house can connect to the surroundings. Or a attempt to merge a seemingly random pattern to the functional division of the house. Anyway: a nice image doesn't necessarily need a extensive description and explanation...

Roll it

There has been many a quest for a small container to live in. In the past there have been concepts like the Suitaloon by Mike Webb, or the Nagakin Capsule Tower by Kisho Kurokawa, and now students at the University of Karlsruhe developed Roll It, a small, tubular building, of which the function and effect can be changed by simply rolling it over on its side. Hence the name.

The idea in itself sounds almost too easy to produce anything even remotely interesting, but in this case it produced a smart conceptual research into space-efficiency. And at the same time, it produced a interesting built form. For more information, check out the project at detail.de.

all you need is... sticky tape!

Packaging tape is generally only used to keep pieces together, not to make self-supporting structures. Exceptions to this rule could probably only be found in episodes of McGuyver. Until now, that is. The design collective For Use/Numen used nothing but packaging tape to create huge cocoons which you can actually enter and explore.


I stumbled upon this project onfastcompany.com

Beer goggles?

It's nothing new to build pavilions out of beer crates. For instance, Atelier Kempe Thill designed and built a mobile pavillion out of translucent beer crates, called the Light Building.
However, the (unknown/unnamed) designers/builders of the Pavilion Du Bonheur Provisiore in Brussels (Belgium) must have thought that here's always something more extravagant that can be done. And they designed this cathedral out of Jupiler crates. This pavilion is an extension of the exhibition about the 1958 expo, and is situated near the Atomium, and it took 19 builders a total of 3900 hours to build this.

In case you are wondering about the name of the building: "the pavilion of temporary happiness" (the official name of the pavillion) might be a joyful play on the function of the former contents of the crate - or a contemplation on the short joyous life of the pavilion, which is probably just temporary.

They say classics never go out of style...

But apparently, forgotten classics can be reinvented. Like the "commode", a piece of furnite of which I was pretty sure it was about to become extinct. At least, as a contemporary piece I thought it was doomed, pretty much.
But luckily young austrian designer Marek Gut stepped up to the plate. He took a traditional piece of furniture (the commode), traditional woodworking skills and combined that with a contemporary style of form, material and colour. The result is pretty sexy. If one could actually claim that a piece of furniture is sexy, that is. Let's, for now, just say that it looks pretty damn smooth...

Boeing hotel room

What would you do if you'd happen to have a spare, 1965 vintage Boeing 727 lying around? Well, the sensible idea would be to make a hotel room out of it, is what the people at the Hotel Costa Verde in Costa Rica must've thought.
Carefully, they transported the frame of the aircraft into the jungle, and refurbished into a spectacular hotel room. It's so tacky, it's so extra-ordinarily over the top, that I cannot help but loving the plane-became-hotelsuite....

Maximilian's Schell - Ball-Nogues Studio

Maximilian Schell was an actor, who played the role of Dr. Hans Reinhardt in the sci-fi adventure movie "The Black Hole" (1979). The character of Dr. Reinhardt is on a quest to conquer the unknown forces of black holes, and actually wants to steer a spacecraft through a black hole. The movie is (and probably rightfully so) almost forgotten, but the name of Maximilian Schell lives on, as namegiver of an outdoor installation in Los Angeles, by the architects of Ball-Nogues studio, called "Maximilian's Schell".

The installation looked like a rendition of a vortex. It creates an outdoor space to inhabit, by means of a swirling canopy made out of tinted Mylar panels. As the designers themselves write on their website "During the day as the sun passed overhead, the canopy cast colored fractal light patterns onto the ground. When standing in the center or "singularity" of the piece and gazing upward, the visitor could see only infinite sky. In the evening when viewed from the exterior, the vortex glowed warmly while both obscuring and allowing glimpses of the building behind it."

And while this background story of black holes, vortexes and whatnot is somewhat entertaining, and while the spatial effect was indeed stunning (as far as one can judge by looking at the images), the most fascinating part about this structure is the amalgamation of "skin" and "structure". The installation is a contemporary version of the work of Frei Otto in the fifties and sixties, in the sense that it is a behaved as a so-called "minimal surface": a prestressed form which is always in tension but still is definable mathematically.
Membrane engineer Dieter Strobel did an awesome job transforming hand-sketches and computer models by the architects into a digital model that actually worked the way it should, fysically. The interaction between architect and engineer created the form as such. This gave the canopy the smooth look, whilst giving space for creating it out of the Mylar panels, which give the space the lovely spatial and lighting patterns it has on the interior.

Transforming your shoes

As a kid, I was totally into transformers. I didn't have too many of them to play with (just a couple), but I watched many episodes of the cartoon, wished to get something Transformer-related for christmas and all that.
And even though I don't care about the toys anymore (or even the 2007 Transformer-movie, for that matter), but I still really enjoy the idea of something being one, and being two different things at the same time. A transformer might be a car - looking a bit odd for a car, though - and when transformed into a robot, it still has a slight car-like appearance. The two identities are merged into one, with the one slightly influencing the other.

That being said: some transformers move beyond that, and contain a little surprise. Like these sneakers. They are sold by Nike, are packed in a typical shoe-box, and look exactly like a pair of sneakers. But it is impossible to wear the shoes, since they are actually toys: a transformer is hidden inside the shoe. The toy is hidden in the shoe, making it quite a surprise discovery when the robot pops out. If I were a collector of either shoes or transformers, I'd love to get one of those. But since I'm neither of the above, I'll just stick by saying that these transformer-shoes are absolutly lovely.


I found these shoes/transformers via designboom.com, by the way.

Image Construction

Belgian photographer Filip Dujardin made a really intriguing series of photocollages under the title "image/construction". The starting point appears to be an existing building, which is cut up, sampled, mirrored, warped, distorted, cloned and appropriated to make a new structure, possible and impossible at the same time. It plays on the dichitomy of the image and reality. It questions the value of representation in many aspects. And it implicitly asks the question what a building is.

Other than this quasi-intellectual interpretations, these images just look great. So here's another one:

Crawling all over Liverpool

Try to mentally picture those amazing drawings by Lebbeus Woods, which show those parasitic, mechanic creatures that appear to be crawling up along the side of a "normal" building. Those drawings look bizarrely futuristic. And even though years have passed between the first time he draw one of those parasitic robo-creatures (if I may call them that, for lacking a more becoming name), they still had a look like they were something out of the future...

...Until just now, I must say. Actually, since somewhere in September 2008, but I didn't know until today. The vision that seemed to redeem in the drawings of Lebbeus Woods became alive: The French company La Machine made a gigantic mechanical spider for the celebration for Liverpool as the European Capital of Culture. The mechanical spider, weighing in at 37 tons, could have been seen crawling up a side of a pretty non-descript tower building with the speed of two miles per hour.

I found this via outnext.com.

The view from a mountain top

Yeah, I know, it's been a while since the previous post. I can come up with a whole bunch of excuses, but I won't. It will sound lame anyway. The most important thing is: here's a new post.

It might seem pretty easy to make a beautiful piece of architecture in amazing surroundings. The location might already be so fabulous that one might suppose there's nothing much to it to make something stunning. Well, the truth is: it's not like that. It's actually much harder to make something really good, simply because you are adding to a site that was good before you did your thing there. You need to measure up to the site, but still be respectable to the amazing qualities of it.

Therefore, a mountain-viewing platform in the Alps is pretty much a difficult task for any architect. It's not a complex program or anything, and structurally it might prove to have some challenges, but the real difficulty is in the fact that any not quite fitting piece of architecture might appear to be competing against the site itself.


And that is one of the reasons that I enjoy this viewing platform in the Tyrolian Alps (in Austria) so much. The designers, astearchitecture, found a way to add to the landscape. The structure holds middle ground between a piece of landscape and construction. Its platform cantilevers about 9 metres off a ridge of the Stubai Glacier, at about 3200m height.
The structure adds a subtle new dimension to the scenery, but it is not screaming too loudly about it's presence. The platform fits subtly into the surroundings, and adds an extra experience to it. I think this is a great job in synthesising landscape and construction


I found this gem on dezeen.com.

Falken Baden - Burkhard Meyer

If you'd like to have a crystalline, edgy smooth-shaped building, be sure to contact a Swiss architect. The practice of creating tightly lined buildings with a subtle twist has been traditionally Swiss. And the firm Burkhard Meyer has proved to be among the best at this game, with their Falken Baden building. This building consists of offices and appartments, in a sleek, elegantly morphed box. There are several things that make this building spectacular, besides the shape of things. For starters: the huge overhangs of the building. The sharp, fully glazed corners of the building cantilever up to eight metres, with a cantilever in a different direction above that. This makes the already elegant building extra sexy in its shape.

Also, organisationally it's quite interesting how Burkhard Meyer put the different parts together. On top of a block of offices, arranged around an atrium, there are houses around a central patio. So the roof becomes a roof-terrace, inverted, turning away from the cityscape around it.
The question might be: is there nothing wrong with this building whatsoever? Well, to be honest, the atrium in the office block seems to be a bit gloomy (and almost depressing, in a way). But other than that, this building has so much going on for it. It's sheer elegance, in organisation, morpheology, materialisation and urban positioning.

Swoosh pavillion

Some time ago, I wrote a post about the [C]-space pavillion that some students of the Architectural Association in London designed and constructed on Bedford Square in London.

It seems as though a herd of pavillions is slowly taking over the square. A group of second and third year students - lead by Charles Walker and Martin Self - recently designed and constructed a pavillion, aptly dubbed the "Swoosh Pavillion". Even though this name seems to be a reference to the well-known logo by Nike (which is also called the swoosh), I am pretty much positive that the pavillion isn't sponsored by the sporting goods mogul. I believe that the name seems to relate to the dynamic nature of that logo.
Because, simply said: the Swoosh Pavillion is a sleek, dynamic form. It swirls itself around a lamppost on Bedford Square. In the centre, the pavillion is closed off by a dense structure of pieces of timber. In the outskirts, the spiral becomes looser, transforming the overhanging enclosure into benches.

The pavillion started out as a scripted 3D model, I assume. Therefore, it is quite an impressive feat that the pavillion was constructed by manual labor. It's always really good to see how an experiment in a computer program is transformed into something that can actually be built. The fact that it is done by a bunch of students makes it even more impressive...


The images come from dezeen.com.

Manhattan in Tuscany

They must have been pretty useful at one time or another, those towers in San Gimignano in Tuscany, Italy. Historians haven't reached an agreement yet about their original goal was. Their estimated guesses mount up to functions such as storage space or defence. In medieval times, San Gimignano was a town devoted to trade, situated on a crossing of some main trade routes from the east to the west.

But, as things go: the practical towers grew out of proportion, into a status symbol. Everybody wanted a tower bigger than the next door neighbors, to show the wealth of the family owning the tower. Laws dictated only that the towers shouldn't be higher than the La Rognosa, the 51 metres high tower of the Palazzo del Podestà (the seat of the magistrate). And even though a tower of 50 metres high wasn't of that much use in medieval Tuscany, as the years passed, the towers of San Gimignano grew higher and higher. And their numbers kept increasing, too. Eventually, there were 72 of these towers in the city.

And the story goes as many historical stories go: the righ and famous families of San Gimignano were increasingly obsessed with their rivalries and feuds. And eventually, they couldn't defend themselves against the attacks from Volterra or Poggibonsi. The power and wealth of the high society of the town decreased, and the towers became obsolete. Slowly, San Gimignano became a sleepy, dull town.

And paradoxically, that is exactly the reason that 15 out of the original 72 towers are still standing in San Gimignano as a unique tourist attraction in this particular small town in Tuscany.

An alien intervention

At a first glance, it looks as though a giant sculpture by Richard Serra accidentally landed on this square in Schaarbeek, near Brussels. Closer inspection learns that it is in fact a building. Even more so: it is building with rental appartments.
The architect Mario Garzaniti used this oddly wedge-shaped site (with a footprint of about 50 square metres) to redefine the corner between the Koninginnelaan and the Liedtsplein.
In contrast with all the dynamic morphological limits of the surrounding buildings, this social housing block looks rather monolithic. The cladding plays an important role in this aspect: the corten steel is used as facade, wall covering and roof, as well as part of replacable shutters for the windows.

The thing is: the building looks really great. But that's probably the architect in me talking. I appreciate the fact that Mario Garzaniti didn't make any compromises, I appreciate the detailling, I appreciate the look of the weathered corten-steel...
But I just cannot imagine that the building is really appreciated by the target audience for this social housing. Or am I condensending about this? I cannot make up my mind about this building - I'm in doubt between the beautiful architecture and the contextual response to its surroundings...

If you want to read or see more about this project, you might check out this article on A+ (in Dutch), or this thread at pushpullbar (in English).

A radical conversion

The German Meixner Schlüter Wendt got a commission for a house in a wealthy residential area near Frankfurt. The thing is: on the site was already an unspectacular, 1930-style house. Most (rationally thinking) architects would've probably suggested to tear down the house. But not the architects of this project: they decided to have a little bit more fun with the house, and went for an approach that seems to be barrowed from Gordon Matta-Clark.

They took the original house and went for a process of transforming the object. But not in the traditional way, but by means of a metamorphosis. The appearingly normal setting of the house in the nature is distorted, but at the same time made more tangible. They built a shell around the old house, creating interesting intermediate spaces between the old and the new. Then they slowly started to cut open the old house. Either to let light in (or to create a stronger relation to the surrounding nature), or to allow for spatially more interesting places. Some other parts (such as the rooftop rooms) were extended to meet the boundaries of the new structure.

It's a paradoxically unnormal house. Or a paradoxically normal house. It depends on the way you look at it. The thing is that the distortion of the existing reality into a blurry, new reality creates a spectacular building that can be read like a house, like a piece of art and like a layering of history, all in one.


Read more on convertible ity.de.

Name that building, please?

So today I was randomly browsing through some photos on the archinect website. And I stumbled upon this image, and I was intrigued. It looks just fascinating. The thing is: I have no clue which building this could be. Or where it could be. It was labeled "edificio cepal" which leads me to conclude that it's either a building for the "Comision Economica para America Latina y el Caribe" or the "charitable organization aiming at raising public awareness in Canada about Palestinian refugees." I'm pretty sure it's the former. But other than that, I'm stuck. Does anyone have a clue which building this could be?

Booster Station - Group A

The process involved in this building, the so-called booster station in the southern part of Amsterdam (the Netherland) is really down to earth. Basically, it's an utter technical utility building for draining sewage - consisting of a set of pipes and pumps. Most of the times, such buildings are not considered as a source for creative design. It seems illogical to make a brave statement of aesthetic principles out of such a structure. But why? such an object is highly visible in the city-landscape - that should be reason enough to invest a bit more into such a project... On the other hand: who wants to invest a bunch of euros to make the sewer system look sexy?

Luckily, in the city of Amsterdam, Waternet decided to spice up the look of this one specific booster station at the Spaklerweg. And they hired the architects of Group A to design this building. Or better yet: this object in public space. It looks very high-tech, like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, making a attractive and intriguing object.

the photo is from flickr, by the way.