London Metrospective

Not without a fight

2007-10-19T18:55:00.000+01:00

Goodbye England...

Doris Salcedo @ TaTe Modern

2007-10-15T16:15:00.000+01:00

Shibboleth is a Doris Salcedo's exhibition showcasing at the Tate Modern Gallery in London from 9/10/2007 until 06/04/2008.
"...Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth is the first work to intervene directly in the fabric of the Turbine Hall. Rather than fill this iconic space with a conventional sculpture or installation, Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall..." - (pics by Pier Andrea Notari, Txt: courtesy of www.tate.org.uk )

Back Home

2007-10-04T16:28:00.001+01:00

Well,

after weeks of thinking I've made my choice.

I'm going back home.

And this time I will be my boss.

First issue: find an office.

2007-08-25T19:58:00.000+01:00

iPhone? Not. Just AT&T.

2007-08-23T17:44:00.000+01:00

London Underground dinner party

2007-08-20T14:32:00.000+01:00

Sometimes happens..

Valentino Exhibition in Rome

2007-08-01T16:10:00.001+01:00

..ok, this is not London, right?
But few weeks ago i was in Rome and took those pics.
Amazing Exhibition.

Exhibition opened till October 2007

(Pics by Pier Andrea Notari)

Primrose Hill entertained people...

2007-07-27T13:16:00.000+01:00

This is London..

2007-07-26T09:07:00.000+01:00

My Lunch in Bloomsbury

2007-07-25T10:06:00.000+01:00

Stir fried noodles with egg, scallops and prawns, fish cakes, still water and Bret Easton Ellis..

Two old ladies at gare du Nord, Paris

2007-07-21T11:48:00.000+01:00

My visual DNA

2007-04-27T20:18:00.000+01:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

My English American Accent

2007-04-07T09:37:00.000+01:00

...must have been my little french-italian accent.

Dixie is from the south but don't think I am speaking like one of The Dukes of Hazard..

well in this case I'd rather be Bo or any Daisy's boyfriends.

Your Linguistic Profile:

30% Dixie

30% General American English

25% Yankee

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

http://www.blogthings.com/

2007-03-16T16:18:00.001Z

Metrospective Switched on London

2007-01-26T10:42:00.000Z

London's first festival of light, 'Switched On London', is to take place at the Pool of London from February 8th-16th in conjunction with ARC 07.

Members of the lighting design and architecture community from all over the world are being invited to attend the festival to examine the relationship between light, architecture and the city consisting of temporary lighting installations and a series of light related events with an overall concept theme of 'theatre'.

The Pool of London is a natural amphitheatre within the city, encompassing the River Thames, bordered by Tower Bridge and London Bridge and including many famous landmarks.
A number of iconic landmarks in the area including The Tower of London, HMS Belfast and City Hall will be temporarily and spectacularly lit from 4pm-12am every night.
Celebrating the future of lighting in an urban environment, Switched On London aims to raise the awareness of light and re-address the opinion that exterior lighting always leads to wasted energy and light pollution. An example of this is the Tower of London where the new lighting scheme will actually lead to a reduction in energy consumption. In addition, a number of the landmarks will be lit with energy efficient LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes).

The IALD (International Association of Lighting Designers) has involved some of the UK’s most celebrated Lighting Designers who, together with leading manufacturers including Philips Lighting, ERCO and Martin Architectural, will realise these stunning projects.
The Pool of London Partnership and The ARC Show are the event’s major sponsors. Whilst Visit London, the City of London, Southwark Council, More London, GLA, TfL, Port of London Authority, HMS Belfast, Tower of London, St Martins Property, Foster + Partners and New London Architecture support Switched On London.
All concepts, including those that have not come to fruition, will be part of an exhibition at ARC 07 and will also be given the chance of realisation at a future Switched On London event.

(Pics and txt courtesy of www.switchedonlondon.com)

Metrospective Winter Nights

2007-01-18T11:28:00.000Z

Wednesday 17 January
m2r-architecture
Founded in 2002, m2r-architecture recently completedits first large-scale and award-winning sports projectthe Vogtland Arena, a spectacular ski jump in Klingthal,Germany. m2r’s particular focus on constructionand self-proclaimed ‘German efficiency’ is indebtedto the three founding partners’ early experience inconstruction, an approach which now extends toall public, private, interior, commercial and urbanendeavours of the practice.

Wednesday 24 January
Universal Design Studio
Universal Design Studio is a multidisciplinary teamof architects, interior and industrial designers foundedin 2001 by its sister company, Barber Osgerby. Previousworks include Stella McCartney stores in Londonand New York, Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy restaurant;and more recently, the Lotte Department Store inSeoul and the Turbine Hall A and Boiler House of theBattersea Power Station.

Wednesday 31 January
Gianni Botsford Architects
Gianni Botsford aims to create an architecture of‘local adaptation’, which it considers to be as a directresponse to climactic, environmental and culturaldemands of individual briefs. A recent manifestationof this approach is the Light House in West London,competition entry for the Estonian National Museumand a masterplan in the South of France.

Wednesday 7 February
Carmody Groarke
The practice was established in 2006, followingits competition-winning entry for the ParachutePavilion in Coney Island, New York. Current projectsinclude houses for artists Julian Opie and FionaRae in London; a collaboration between New Yorkphotographer Maripol and Comme Des Garconsin London; a refurbishment of the Electric Ballroomnightclub in London; an entrance pavilion for a filmstudios in Australia; and an office and subterraneanspa in Ireland.

Winter Nights takes place at:
Building Design Partnership16 Brewhouse YardClerkenwellLondon EC1V 9HXDoors open at 6.30pm, talks start at 7pmAdmission £3 full priceFree for members of The Architecture FoundationLimited capacity, pay on the door.

(pics and txt courtesy of http://www.architecturefoundation.org.uk/ )

Metrospective Office Design

2007-01-04T12:27:00.000Z

Dutch Courage

Live to work or work to live? Dutch insurance company Interpolis tried to resolve the conundrum with a headquarters that dissolves the line between work and fun. Three years on, architect Nel Verschuuren of Kho Liang Ie Associates revisits the office

In 1995 Interpolis came to me with new ideas for the interior of its new headquarters in Tilburg. Three thousand people would work together to share facilities and no one would have their own desk. Giving up personal space, that was quite something. The Dutch, that’s what we live for — having a desk, having one, or two, or three windows. Even, if you are very successful, you have your own bathroom!
Then in 1998, Interpolis started teleworking, people could now work at home. A year later, we started to design the Tivoli area on the first floor, where the concept was something between working in a flexible office and working at home. We finished it in 2003.
In our concept, living and working should not be two different things. You can mix them together: you can work at home, and live in the office. In the office floors, the design follows from that idea. You have open working spaces where you can work individually, a lounge area for meetings with colleagues, a more formal “dining table” for a group and concentration areas called “cockpits”.
But on this revisit, I notice there’s a lot more open working spaces, and fewer cockpits. The company says it’s because there are IT people on this particular floor, and they tend to work together on projects. On the 15th floor, you have the legal and audit people, and they very much like the concentration spaces. The building was planned on a grid so it is very flexible, you can easily rearrange the partitions.

In the Tivoli area, we had to make a restaurant for 3,000 people — that means 3,000 seats. I don’t know if you ever saw a restaurant with 3,000 seats, but it’s difficult to make that space nicely. So we thought it would be better to make a place not only for eating, but to combine it with working, meetings, all kinds of functions.
We have 10 different places in the Tivoli area, each with their own serving points for different foods. There are 300-400 places more or less specially for eating, and the other places can be for eating or working. Five hundred people can work here at one time. In the flexible offices you can choose the working space that best fits the work you have to do, and in the Tivoli area you not only choose the working space, but the atmosphere you want.
We didn’t do all the designs ourselves, we had about other eight designers helping us.
I had the initiative, and I selected the people I liked. None of them are directly colleagues of mine, they are artists, theatre designers or architects. Marcel Wanders designed the Stone House, and Joep van Lieshout designed the Garden House. For all of them it was their first experience of designing an office.
Interpolis calls each area a clubhouse. Each clubhouse has places with screens for conferencing, and places for working, meetings, and lunch. You can’t say one clubhouse is more or less popular than another: some people always go to the same place, because they like the food there, or they like the atmosphere.
“In our concept, living and working should not be two different things”
The only space that has drastically changed is the area by Piet Hein Eek. I think he focused a little bit too much on products without getting the space right. Also, it was a little bit far from the products people know in their own houses. But I think with some effort we could have made it work, because the products were really great. I think now Interpolis is missing a real piece of art.
We asked Ellen Sander to design three meeting rooms, and to think of new ways of having meetings. In this room it’s a little bit of a hi-tech solution, and the carpet on the table makes it a little bit softer. You don’t have a screen on a wall where everyone is looking in one direction; everyone has his own screen, which you can look over, so you have a round-table effect for better communication.
The Railway House by Irene Fortuyn was a difficult space, very long and narrow, so she chose to concentrate the desks by the window where you see the trains and the traffic coming by. It might look a little bit more conventional, but when you have a good look, it isn’t. The ceiling is like the interior of a train, the open desks are separated but connected to each other like the form of a train.
These chairs by Jurgen Bey are very popular from the start. You can have a private conversation, but you are not separated from all the people. What is nice is that these chairs are originally designed for Interpolis, but they are now in production, because there were a lot of people who were interested in having them.
The Light House is designed by theatre designer Mark Warning, so the lights above the tables are a little bit like in a theatre. The work tables are concrete with rubber on top. You think people are drawn here because of the daylight? It’s hard to say — we have a few thousand different people working here, so we have a few thousand different tastes and preferences.
The Interpolis people have developed together with the concept. I remember the first lounge seats we had in the office floors weren’t used very much, so I’m very surprised to see people here relaxed with their feet on the couches ... in their bosses’ time!
After Interpolis a lot of companies asked me to do something similar, but no one wanted to be so complete. They always wanted it a little bit in-between, on the safe side, and then it doesn’t work at all. The combination of personal rooms and flexible rooms doesn’t work. It’s for sure that after a few weeks, everyone has found his own place. And then you have a problem, because you don’t have enough places.
It is the first time I have been here for two years, and it is good to see it is being used in the way it was designed. If I could do it again, I would not make changes concerning the main items. What I think still is very strong is that when you walk around, you never see the end or the beginning, you just have an environment.

(pics and tx by www.bdonline.co.uk)

Metrospective Bob Dylan

2006-12-20T11:12:00.000Z

"..
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
.."

Happy Christmas un cazzo!

Metrospective One New Change Part II

2006-12-14T09:32:00.000Z

Yesterday I went out for an on-site visit on the project I am working in (One New Change) just opposite St. Paul's Cathedral.
It was a night tour with all contractors followed by usual Xmas drinks.
Took some very interesting pictures from the top of the building which will be demolished in two months to leave place for the new one from Jean Nouvel.
Have a look:

(Pics: Pier Andrea Notari)

Metrospective Alison Brooks Architects

2006-12-08T15:20:00.000Z

Wrap House, London W4
Architect: Alison Brooks Architects Client: Private The idea of a dining room extension has been broadened to create a complex series of spaces that colonises the garden. It is separated from the Edwardian house by a glazed link, giving the impression that it is a pavilion in its own right. The design is exquisite and inspiring, making complexity out of a simple proposition. Shortlisted for the 2006 Manser Medal Winner of the 2006 Stephen Lawrence Prize

(txt and pics courtesy of: www.architecture.com)

Metrospective Olympic Games 2012

2006-12-05T15:53:00.000Z

The Olympic Delivery Authority has also confirmed that legendary architect Peter Cook is spearheading HOK Sport’s design of the stadium, the centrepiece of the Olympics. Cook promised a “chirpy solution”.
The twin revelations, exclusive to BD this week, should help ease fears that design and architecture are off the games’ agenda as the ODA struggles to keep construction budgets under control amid spiralling overall costs.
A design director has long been missing from the ODA’s line-up, but the omission has become more glaring in recent weeks following Richard Rogers’ threat to boycott the Olympics in protest at how the contracts are being awarded.
Developer Roger Zogolovitch welcomed Burdett’s appointment, saying he was perfect for the job. “It looked as though contractors were going to run the show but this appointment gives clear independence to designers,” he added.
Olympics minister Tessa Jowell was made acutely aware of the mounting concern over the design of the Olympic venues at the RIBA conference in Venice earlier this year, which is thought to have prompted her support for the appointment. Unveiling Zaha Hadid’s drastically scaled back Aquatics Centre this week, ODA chief executive David Higgins claimed: “Design is at the heart of what we are doing here.”
However, behind the scenes there have been concerns that the body lacks architectural and design expertise. With no architect on the ODA board, it has given the role of design champion to Tate director Nick Serota, but he is understood to have felt isolated in trying to push design up the agenda and lobbied for the appointment of a design director.
Burdett, whose official title is principal design adviser, will work three days a week at the ODA, and is likely to be seconded from the GLA’s Architecture & Urbanism Unit, directly advising Higgins and Olympics minister Tessa Jowell. But he admitted that the scale of the challenge meant he was unlikely to be effective on his own.
“The Olympics is a vast stage show and it needs to be thought of like that”
“There is a huge amount of work to be done but whatever happens it isn’t going to be solved by one person part-time,” he said. “I expect there’ll be many more people involved a year from now.”
David Higgins said Burdett’s role would be “preparing competition briefs, advising on the competition process including the setting up of juries, and monitoring the quality of design.” A number of competitions are to be launched early next year for venues including the Velodrome and temporary structures.
Higgins said Burdett would also help deliver “the look of the games”, adding: “The Olympics is a vast stage show and it needs to be thought of like that. It’s about the temporary structures, what they’ll look like and their colour and how they’re branded. There’s also the sculpture, temporary bridges and landscaping. That’s what we’ve got to get right.”
Higgins also told BD of Cook’s involvement with the stadium. The Royal Gold Medallist, one quarter of the iconic collective Archigram, is working on the stadium two days a week with HOK Sport’s Rod Sheard.
Cook said: “It is an exciting time, so many amazing ideas being generated by a dynamic team, this will be like no other stadium in the world. Although the brief is a real challenge, it has allowed us to come up with some great concepts, we are going to do a building that is really cheerful, creates a responsive environment, a really chirpy solution.”
Cook may find his Archigram experience useful as he searches for a solution to the stadium brief, which requires a facility to hold 80,000 people. Archigram made its name with groundbreaking designs for temporary and moveable structures, such as Walking City and Plug In City.
Hadid has reduced the Aquatics Centre’s sweeping sculptural roof by one third and simplified the structure, it was announced this week. Higgins said that changes were not about saving money but “reducing risk”.
(Txt by Amanda Baillieu; Courtesy of www.bdonline.co.uk)

Metrospective Zaha Hadid - Part II

2006-11-29T09:26:00.000Z

Architecture Foundation HQ gets green light from planners

A striking new building for Southwark Street designed by Zaha Hadid has been granted planning permission by Southwark Council.

The Architecture Foundation's new architecture centre will be located on the corner of Southwark Street and Great Guildford Street as part of Land Securities' Bankside 123 development.
"I am absolutely delighted that the designs for the new Architecture Foundation headquarters have secured planning permission," says Zaha Hadid.
"The centre will be my first public building in London and is therefore an especially important project for my practice."
Scheduled to open in autumn 2008, the design of the landmark building has evolved since Hadid won the international design competition run by Land Securities in January 2005.
The Architecture Foundation will be organised over four levels united by a vertical glass-walled space. It will provide exhibition space on the ground, mezzanine and first floors, an events space on the first floor, and offices and a boardroom on the top floor. There is also provision for a café/bar on the ground floor.
The new home for British architecture will double as the charity's headquarters and a purpose built public venue for exhibitions and events on architecture.

"Zaha Hadid's new building will be both a venue for communicating architecture to the public, and a powerful expression of architectural imagination," says Rowan Moore, director of the Architecture Foundation.
"We are delighted with and grateful for the London Borough of Southwark's support for the project." Welcoming the decision, Mike Hussey, managing director of Land Securities' London Portfolio, says: "The cutting-edge new design highlights our commitment to great architecture and will contribute to the regeneration of Southwark, putting the area on the map. Southwark is fast becoming a cultural hub with Tate Modern, The Globe Theatre, and now the Architecture Foundation, at its heart."
Last week Land Securities celebrated the topping out of Bankside 2 & 3 which are due for completion next June.
Next summer the Design Museum will stage a major exhibition of Hadid's work.

(Courtesy of www.london-se1.co.uk)

Metrospective Goldschmied vs Rogers

2006-11-21T09:29:00.000Z

Marco eyes up his former office for redevelopment which could leave RRP homeless

Architect Marco Goldschmied has launched a £10 million-plus legal challenge against his former partner Richard Rogers which could see the award-winning Richard Rogers Partnership having to leave its flagship riverside offices, and the River Cafe. In the culmination of a long-running feud, Goldschmied, who left the practice in 2004, has entered a High Court claim against Rogers and the third founding partner of RRP, John Young, now retired. One former staffer described at as “just like a high level divorce. They are now trying to decide how to split the proceeds”. The two-pronged claim centres on Thames Wharf Studios, the mixed-use Hammersmith development that incorporates RRP’s offices — known affectionately as the “bread bin” — and property owned by the RRP pension trust, which includes the River Cafe. Goldschmied, who was the brains behind buying and developing the land in the 1980s, which made the three into millionaires overnight, is believed to want to realise its now far increased value by selling

it on for redevelopment. Its value is believed to be around £30 million and, according

to a source, there is a “huge and significant area of undeveloped land [that] must be worth a bomb”.

In the short term, Goldschmied is thought to be demanding higher rents from RRP, the River Cafe and other occupiers. RRP is understood

to pay £1 million a year in rent for its eight-storey offices. Rogers, Young and Goldschmied are sole beneficiaries of the pension trust, which owns the River Cafe but not RRP’s offices. The High Court claim has reopened the old wound of Goldschmied’s departure just as Rogers was focusing on the future, with his first win of the Stirling Prize and a bold attempt to secure the future of his practice by pro-moting two of the brightest young directors, Graham Stirck and Ivan Harbour (News October 20). The claim was registered with the court at the end of September and has been acknowledged by all parties. A preliminary hearing on an ex parte matter was held in private on Monday. Goldschmied left the practice in 2004 following a dispute over its future leadership. The pair are known to be no longer on speaking terms, although neither has ever gone public with their grievances. Both declined to comment, but a former staffer said: “It’s a terribly bitter end to that bit of the practice.”

(Txt: by Ellen Bennett, txt and pics courtesy of http://www.bdonline.co.uk/ )

Italy: Mafia Pizza and bloody Mandolino...

2006-11-10T10:06:00.000Z

After years far from my homecountry I started feeling a bit homesick.
What am I doing here? Is it all about work? and it worth it?
Question questions.
What answer can I get?
I have been contacted by an italian online architecture magazine few weeks ago. They have read my blogs, articles I wrote on another web magazine (www.professionearchitetto.it ) and proposed me to join them in their fantastic adventure!
I am always keen on doing something new but, have to say, I learned that in every country if you are doing something you've been paid for it.
I asked some clarification about salary and retribution and, surprise surprise, had no answer at all.
They vanished in the fog.
That is what happens in Italy, folks.
People, especially architects, are always complaining about bad habits of being not paid for their work, about their boss' unpolite and rude behaviour but, when they become boss they have same rude and unpolite behaviour.
Come on Italians WAKE fuckin' UP!
You always complain about what other people do and then you are doing the same?
It's not fair, isn't it?!
To have a better idea about what I am saying just have a look to job offers on Italian Chartered Architects' website ( http://www.architettiroma.it/lavoro/offerte.asp ); the average salary offered is 700 euros per month but you need your own VAT (TAV in france, IVA in Italy) so 700 euros become 550 and you are requested to work 9AM to 8PM.
It is not all.
You are supposed to be 3 years experienced and have a knowledge in every kind of existing office, cad, 3D, Image editing software.
What's for?
To do crappy low quality projects which are everything but Architecture and deal with people who disappear when they have to pay you?
Not fair lads, not fair at all.
My advice is, go to Italy, people are friendly, food is great and cities are amazing, but don't think about working for them, it would be a nightmare.
My homesick is getting better now...

(pics: Internet)

Metrospective Battersea Power Station

2006-11-07T17:12:00.000Z

Battersea power station opens doors to become art gallery.

Its four chimneys provide one of the boldest landmarks on the London skyline and its industrial ugliness was made iconic when it appeared on a Pink Floyd album cover in 1977. Now, Battersea Power Station has invited the public to judge it not on its exterior but to have a look inside.
The power station in south London has reinvented itself as a centre for the arts as it opens its doors to visitors for the first time in its 67-year history.
While the crumbling, disused power station is in the process of redevelopment, its interior has been adapted to accommodate a contemporary Chinese art exhibition organised by the Serpentine Gallery, entitled China Power Station: Part 1.
From tomorrow, visitors will encounter an intriguing sound installation as they walk into the main room, Turbine Hall B - or cycle in on rented bikes available on site. The piece features among a series of large-scale videos and installations on three floors of the building to showcase some of China's leading artists.
Julia Peyton-Jones, director of the Serpentine Gallery and co-curator of the exhibition, said the "glorious ruin" of a site provided the perfect space to exhibit the works, including a top-floor installation comprising a wall of apples across the length of the building. She added that this was the first of many off-site exhibition projects.
Visitors will be led by guides into the station, where they can view the art amid gaping, roofless spaces, crumbling walls and rusting metalwork. The work is displayed in long, dark rooms in what used to be turbine halls, including a film installation by the independent film director Jia Zhang-Ke, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, which depicts everyday life for ordinary Chinese people.
Another work on the same floor by Zhang Pei Li evokes the propaganda films of Communist China, while a third is a carefully choreographed martial arts fight.
On the next of three exhibition levels, Cao Fei's video Whose Utopia? explores the automation of Chinese society by filming the seemingly endless repetition of machines and workers in a light bulb plant.
The renovation of the power station, expected to cost £1.5bn, is due to start next year. The abandoned area will be turned into apartments, shops and hotels as well as a cultural centre.

(TXT By Arifa Akbar Published: 07 October 2006 - Pictures by Federica Barbera)