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Design for the other 90%

2010-04-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

¿Cual es el impacto trascendental de una práctica profesional que discrimina nada menos que al 90% de la población mundial?

La triste realidad es que los arquitectos estamos orientados a buscar clientes con recursos económicos -cuanto más, mejor- y olvidamos que la arquitectura es mucho mas que hacer ejercicios estéticos con materiales caros y lujosos. Los arquitectos tenemos la obligación ética de satisfacer también las necesidades fundamentales de la mayor parte de la población del mundo que debe construir con materiales y procedimientos básicos.

El National Geographic Museum abrira el 28 de este mes una exposición dedicada a proyectos de diseño enfocados en cubrir las necesidades mas apremiantes de la población con menos recursos

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”
—Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises

Reinterpretación de la arquitectura vernácula

2010-02-24T16:29:00.000-08:00

El estudio de Fernanda Vuilleumier hace con esta obra un interesante trabajo de reinterpretación de la arquitectura vernácula de la XII región chilena. Esta es una casa de bajo costo beneficiaria de un programa gubernamental de subsidios y fue construida con los materiales y métodos tradicionales de la zona.

de: Plataforma arquitectura

Escuela Nueva Esperanza, Ecuador

2010-01-07T06:46:00.000-08:00

Este proyecto es un ejemplo de correcta interpretación del sitio, asi como del entorno cultural y ambiental, en contraposición a la masiva construcción de edificios escolares estandarizados y descontextualizados.

al bordE arquitectos David Barragán & Pascual Gangotena

"La mayoría de las escuelas del sector son hechas de hormigón, de forma rectangular, con rejas en las ventanas que más tienen el aspecto de cárceles, el nivel de deserción escolar es sumamente alto. Es por esto que, el proyecto busca no solo resolver problemas inmediatos, sino generar soluciones a largo plazo."

Mas información

AR Emerging Architecture 2009

2009-11-24T12:36:00.000-08:00

"The Architectural Review’s Emerging Architecture Awards, sponspored by Ramboll and Austin-Smith:Lord, celebrates the best pieces of design by young architects from across the world. This year, one of the four principal winners is Li Xiaodong Atelier’s project for a school in a remote village in the Fujian Province of China"

via AR

The Real Tetris

2009-10-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

La estudiante de arte Sergej Hein construyó este ingenioso Tetris que resulta una muy creativa crítica a las insipidas soluciones masivas de vivienda

Berlin Block Tetris from Sergej Hein on Vimeo.

Via Illusion360

Junquillos chapel by Claudio Baladron and Diego Grass

2009-10-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

A new chapel for 100 people in the remote countryside of Southern Chile.

Via What we do is secret

BIDESHI, Estudio Fotográfico

2009-09-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

El fotografo austriaco Kurt Hoerbst construyo un estudio básico para hacer retratos de los habitantes de Rudrapur en Bangladesh y posteriormente dejarlo en manos de los pobladores como una oportunidad para que puedan obtener ingresos economicos.
El proyecto arquitectónico es de Anna Heringer y la construccion fue realizada por los habitantes de la aldea.

Mas informacion

Bookstore Selexyz Dominicanen

2009-09-18T17:50:00.000-07:00

Un antiguo templo medieval sirve de envoltorio arquitectónico para una librería...
El ábside del antiguo templo donde se ubicaba el altar, es ahora el espacio destinado a los amantes del café....

Los arquitectos Merkx+Girod realizaron la remodelación de un templo construido durante la Edad Media logrando crear una gran riqueza de espacios.

Este proyecto obtuvo el premio "Dutch Interior Design Prize" 2007

Mas información

Algo de Rural Studio

2009-07-12T08:56:00.001-07:00

Un documental acerca de Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee y el espiritu de Rural Studio.

Samuel Mockbee, Peter Eisenman, Richard Meier, Michael Rotondi, Steve Badanes, Hank Louis,Coleman Coker, Lory Ryker, William Christemberry, Chip Lord y otros....

Mas información

Loft House - 2007/2008 thesis class at Rural Studio

2009-06-23T06:45:00.000-07:00

The 20K project is a continuing project, now in its 6th year. It is a project based on trying to design|build|create alternative forms of housing on a very tight budget. The project was originally conceived on the 502 loan program from the United States Agriculture Program. The loan program was set into action through the works of HERO (Hale Empowerment Revitalization Organization) setting up persons with appropriate loans that they could be approved for, with loans starting at $20,000 for new housing. The concept of the 20K is to design and build a house for $10,000 in materials and $10,000 in proposed labor cost.

At the Rural Studio, the students are the designers and the contractors, acting out all manors of the project. For the 2007/2008 thesis class from Auburn University, the project for all was the $20K. Joining the thesis class for that year was the outreach class, students not from Auburn University, but from all across the globe....

More Info

Cardboard Cloud

2009-06-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

The “Cardboard Cloud”, an exhibit design by Fantastic Norway, opened this weekend in Oslo to the public. The exhibit was designed for the Center for Design and Architecture (DogA, previously featured on AD) and will display the works of Norwegian design students.

More info

Soe Ker Tie House - Thailand

2009-06-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

TYIN Tegnestue is a non-profit organization working humanitarian through architecture. TYIN is run by five architect students from NTNU and the projects are financed by more than 60 Norwegian companies, as well as private contributions....

More info

The Idea of A Tree

2009-06-19T02:20:00.000-07:00

Viennese designers Mischer’Traxler have created a solar-powered machine that makes furniture, with the shape and colour of each product determined by the amount of sunlight available during manufacture.

"The idea of a tree
This concept was inspired by a certain fascination for machines and nature. A tree is a product of its specific time and place. It reacts and develops according to its surrounding and constantly records various environmental impacts in its growth process. Each single tree tells its own story of development.
The goal of ‘the idea of a tree’- project was to bring the recording qualities of a tree and its dependence on natural cycles into products.
“The idea of a tree” is an autonomous production process which combines natural input with a mechanical process. It is driven by solar energy and translates the intensity of the sun through a mechanical apparatus into one object a day.
The outcome reflects the various sunshine conditions that occur during this day. Like a tree the object becomes a three dimensional recording of its process and time of creation.
The machine starts producing when the sun rises and stops when the sun settles down. After sunset, the finished object can be ‘harvested’.
It slowly grows the object, by pulling threads through a colouring device, a glue basin and finally winding them around a mould. The length/height of the resulting object depends on the sunhours of the day. The thickness of the layer and the colour is depending on the amount of sun-energy. (more sun = thicker layer and paler colour; less sun=thinner layer and darker colour)
This correlation between input and output makes the changes visual and readable. The product becomes a three-dimensional ‘photograph’ of the time and the space where it is produced and communicates certain characteristics of locality. The process is not just reacting on different weather situations, but also on shadows happening in the machine’s direct surrounding.
Each object represents one day at one spot where it was produced. The concept of introducing natural input into a serial production process suggests a new way of looking at locality. What I would like to call industrialized locality, is not so much about local culture, craftsmanship or resources, instead it deals with the climatic and environmental factors of the process surrounding.
Various shapes and various colours are possible"

WABI SABI

2009-03-18T03:24:00.000-07:00

Hurry quickly to see this programme by novelist Marcel Theroux on 'Wabi Sabi', a japanese theory on aesthetics that classes itself as undefinable. It's only available online until MONDAY and evokes such tranquility in design and philosophy that it's worth taking time out for.

Raw.

2009-03-18T03:16:00.000-07:00

Though a large architectural firm, Marcio Kogan aspire to bring us back to basics. With the use of untreated, raw concrete blocks juxtaposing the sleek San Paolo designer furniture, they give off such a humble-yet-striking image. Definitely a technique to embrace, albeit better with more environmental consideration...

"We used the materials in their extreme condition, such as visible concrete executed without any concern about precision or finishing, or the skin of the back volume where we used various layers of a steel frame which is usually used on the inside of the concrete slabs and were found at the site. Likewise, the interior walls did not get any special finishing and still have the original chalk markings left by the workers during the construction, almost an archeological discovery. The external floor is made of pebbles which are also used to mix concrete.
Almost an x-ray of the materials."

"Back to the Drawing Board"

2009-02-28T07:24:00.000-08:00

"Louis Kahn: The making of a room" Es una exhibición enfocada en los dibujos realizados por el arquitecto donde se evidencia su sensibilidad para comprender el espiritu de los espacios internos a partir de las vivencias de quienes los habitan. Esta muestra se realiza en la Galeria Arthur Ross de la Universidad de Pennsylvania.

Aqui se pueden ver algunas imágenes

Louis Kahn: The making of a room Brochure de la exhibición y catálogo de imágenes

Ilustración y gráfica para Arquitectura

2009-02-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

Sabine Heine produce estas impresionantes ilustraciones para proyectos urbanísticos y arquitectónicos.

Mas de sus trabajos pueden ser vistos aqui

The Vignelli Canon

2009-02-11T05:38:00.000-08:00

Interesante libro de Massimo Vignelli sobre algunos temas de Diseño Gráfico.
Lo mas significativo para quienes no nos dedicamos especificamente al Diseño Gráfico es el primer capitulo sobre el Diseño como disciplina integral que cubre un amplio espectro de actividades desde la concepción de una taza de café hasta un distrito urbano...

"The final look of anything is the by-product of the clarity (or lack of it) during its design phase. It is important to understand the starting point and all assumptions of any project to fully comprehend the final result and measure its efficiency.
Clarity of intent will translate in to clarity of result and that is of paramount importance in Design. Confused, complicated designs reveal an equally confused and complicated mind.
We love complexities but hate complications! ..."

"The notion of appropriateness is consequent to what I have expressed. Once we search the roots of whatever we have to design we are also defining the area of possible solutions that are appropriate -
specific to that particular problem. Actually, we can say that appropriateness is the search for the specific of any given problem. To define that prevents us from taking wrong directions, or alternative routes that lead to nowhere or even worse, to wrong solutions..."

El libro puede ser descargado gratis en formato PDF

Quinta Monroy de Alejandro Aravena

2008-12-02T07:42:00.000-08:00

Imágenes de la vida en Quinta Monroy el proyecto emblemático del arquitecto chileno Alejandro Aravena que se ha convertido en modelo para responder al problema de la vivienda de interés social en paises de economias limitadas.
Fotografías de Cristobal Palma.

dezeen

Rural Studio

2008-12-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

The rural studio is different from other university
architecture programs. instead of sitting in a classroom, students gain first hand experience by designing and constructing buildings in rural alabama. these buildings
are the result of collaborating with the clients and
community directly. students in the rural studio actually
live in the same community they are working with, understanding the context first hand. the mission of the
rural studio is to ‘enable each participating student to
cross the threshold of misconceived opinions by
putting their educational values to work as citizens
of a community’. their belief is that architecture should
be created from within, not from outside.

from designboom

ELMS LESTERS LATEST PROJECT

2008-11-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

The newest project from Elms Lesters Gallery in Soho, London is an event:

As dusk falls on Friday 14th November, Adam Neate will be claiming the streets of London as his gallery by leaving 1000 artworks scattered across the city.

In a one-off art happening of characteristic generosity, one thousand hand screenprinted paintings by Adam Neate will be left on the streets of London through the night of 14th November 2008. Teams of distributors will begin under cover of darkness at the furthest edges of the capital, working their way towards the centre by day break randomly distributing individually numbered ‘unique’ multiples.

For one night only, The London Show adopts the whole capital as its gallery space and rethinks the idea of the ‘private view’. There won’t be any queues to see the work, no chilled wine, the artist himself won’t necessarily be present - just one thousand chance encounters that make up a conceptually pre-meditated potlatch.

ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL.

'Architecture is an event.'

The unfinished swan

2008-10-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

Swan es un videojuego en proceso de desarrollo por Ian Dallas, en el que se transita por espacios completamente blancos y aparentemente vacios que se van revelando a medida que el jugador lanza bombas de tinta.
Me parece una interesante metáfora del proceso de diseño de espacios arquitectónicos

The Unfinished Swan - Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.

2008-10-18T00:36:00.000-07:00

JR has been covering Parisian walls and causing controversy for a while, but I really feel the London episode of this has blown the others out of the Seine. Currently centralised around the Lazerides Gallery, where there lies a monumental and moving film of the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, a stop-animated masterpiee to lead you through the favelas' inhabitants' faces. In real-life is the only real appreciative medium to view these wonders by; as the paper peels and wrinkles to these women are added to by crinckled paper, the real idea of fleeting problems, viewed only when they make the news for a day, then retracting into their own void, is highly apparent.
Potentially country-changing stuff.

Watchhouse, Brinta 2008, Vijversburg VI

2008-10-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

"The Watchhouse designed by Studio Makkink & Bey (Architect Rianne Makkink and Designer Jurgen Bey) has been made of straw, the residue of wheat, that was stored in crates, which were then piled up to make the house..."

from designws

David Choe

2008-10-09T03:54:00.000-07:00

Purely for this little sculpture I like his site, and his work has caused quite a stir amongst the advertising and hollywood industry.
Not keen on all his stuff, but i like the texturisation of Silent Dance in the 'Oils' link.