The Disciples Of Design » ARCHITECTURE

MOSES BRIDGE

Jennie Spiller — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:09:26 +0000

This ‘Bridge’ has been built on The West Brabant Water Line in Halsteren, the Netherlands. The water Line is a defensive fortress. So the architects from
Ro_ad architects thought it would be improper to build a bridge across a defensive moats, especially on the side of the fortress the enemy was expected to appear on.
Instead, they came up with an ‘invisible’ bridge that sits within the moat and would allow people to cross virtually undetected from water level’.
The award-winning Moses Bridge – so named as it invokes the biblical image of Moses parting the Red Sea – is now a landmark feature of Fort de Roovere.

Looks pretty cool, but what happens if the water level rises?

OUTPOST: COCKATOO ISLAND

AlexC — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:09:48 +0000

Yesterday I visited Cockatoo Island. For those of you who don’t know Cockatoo Island was amongst others a prison, a shipyard and a school. It has since shut down its industrial activity and is now a world heritage site. The island is largely complete and in many cases houses the machinery and utilities that were around a hundred years ago. In itself it is fascinating, but for the past month or so a street art exhibition has taken over the island called ‘Outpost’

“Visitors to Cockatoo Island will experience the world’s freshest art movement later this year when leading local and international street artists transform the gritty, industrial spaces into an urban art festival called Outpost Project.”

Anyway long story short it was amazing, I got to see some more conventional graffiti to collage, to stencil work and sculpture. I am not a massive fan of everyday graffiti but for the most the work on show here was amazing. And much like Sculptures by the sea the backdrop helped.

THE HIGH LINE

Jennie Spiller — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 09:25:53 +0000

The High Line is a park walkway converted from a disused high railway line through the city of New York.

The line was originally constructed in the 1930s, to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan’s streets. Friends of the High Line is the conservancy charged with raising private funds for the park and overseeing its maintenance.

“When all sections are complete, the High Line will be a mile-and-a-half-long elevated park, running through the West Side neighborhoods of the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen. It features an integrated landscape, designed by landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, combining meandering concrete pathways with naturalistic plantings. Fixed and movable seating, lighting, and special features are also included in the park.”

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Brilliant use of this disused space in my opinion, creating a beautiful way to walk around the area and adding lots of green to a very grey space.

Nice logo and print work aswell designed by Pentagram

MONU-MENTAL

Billy — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:10:54 +0000

Amazing monuments in former Yugoslavia shot by Jan Kempenaers and available in a book here and at Amazon.

These structures were commissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s to commemorate sites where WWII battles took place (like Tjentište, Kozara and Kadinjača), or where concentration camps stood (like Jasenovac and Niš). They were designed by different sculptors (Dušan Džamonja, Vojin Bakić, Miodrag Živković, Jordan and Iskra Grabul, to name a few) and architects (Bogdan Bogdanović, Gradimir Medaković…), conveying powerful visual impact to show the confidence and strength of the Socialist Republic.

Via ISO50

MVRDV

Andreas — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:07:40 +0000

Following on from Mike’s post back in February, architect Winy Maas of Rotterdam firm MVRDV talks about the Balancing Barn.

TREE HOTELS

Mike Rigby — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:17:21 +0000

Love these tree house hotels in North Sweden. There’s an interesting interview about the design process on the site. Worth a read. Sounds like a great brief “I told the architects that they must come up with a unique design. They had to create something new that you couldn’t find anywhere else in the world.”

I love the birds nest house, but my favorite has to be the Mirrorcube. Talk about being sympathetic to the immediate environment, it looks as though it’s been ‘cloaked’. Amazing.

Thanks to Kristen Ord for sharing.

BALANCING BARN

Mike Rigby — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 09:48:44 +0000

You may have seen this fantastic balancing barn by MVRDV architects located in suffolk England. The approach looks much like any other development.

The entrance is interesting but unspectacular.

It’s only when you make your way around the sides that you realise how vast it is, and just how much of it is unsupported. The person on the swing gives us a good sense of scale.

Images courtesy of blog2modern.

THE CHAPEL

AlexC — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 10:07:08 +0000

I was recently shown this amazing time lapse video.

Put it on full screen and sit back. It almost looks like a computer game at times.

TheChapel. A short film. (HDR timelapse) from Patryk Kizny on Vimeo.

Thanks to Mark Arrowsmith for the heads up

DEAD SPACE BROUGHT TO LIFE

Mike Rigby — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:30:11 +0000

Crono is an interesting urban art project that began in Portugal 6 months ago. Some of the world’s best street artists are given dilapidated, disused, city buildings as their canvas, in and around the heart of Lisbon. Found here.

GOOGLE LONDON

Mike Rigby — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:32:58 +0000

Spanning 40,000 square feet in total, the new London office of Google is designed to create a collaborative work environment featuring a strong local theme of London-Brighton. Various iconic elements of both the locations have been incorporated into the office design such as brightly coloured timber beach huts that are used as meeting rooms, giant colourful dice as individual video conference booths, and original dodgem cars and traditional red telephone booths as workspaces.