Corporate office buildings used to offer architects the chance to tap into fat construction budgets and make serious design statements. Today, only a few U.S. corporations are investing in significant architecture, and some (such as the New York Times) have been criticized for spending too much on it, while others (such as Bank of America) have kept quiet about their new buildings for fear of being criticized. Corporate China, though, is starting to flex its muscle and many of the new office buildings scream wildly for attention.

Yuzhu Shi, the chairman and founder of Giant Interactive Group, represents a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs, he had no interest in commissioning dull architecture. So he hired Thom Mayne from Morphosis to design a headquarters for the interactive, online games division of his fast-growing group of companies

When Mayne and his team first visited the site, they found farms and a flat landscape. Other architects might have seen a featureless setting, but Mayne envisioned the land playing an active role in the project. Working with the landscape architecture firm SWA, which had master-planned the 44.5-acre site as a parklike setting, Morphosis designed the building as a series of snaking forms burrowing under and through the land.

“When we showed the client the design for the cantilever, he asked, ‘Is it big enough?’ ” marvels Mayne, contrasting this bravado with the risk-averse approach of most American companies. “We couldn’t do anything like this in the U.S. today.”

The goal, says Mayne, was to “attack singularity” and echo “the messiness, the ad-hoc-ness that we love in cities.” Finding the right balance between “coherence and chance” was critical to during the design process. Mayne says he didn’t want to design “a perfume bottle,” a building as icon. Instead, he created a sprawling complex that captures the restless energy of 21st-century China.

View the full slideshow here:

Great words to remember, just wanted to repost and share.

Image Spark – Chihab.

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So I passed my 4th Architectural Registration Exam of 7. I was in a bit of a rut since I had failed two in a row recently. But now that I’ve been through all of the tests, I will focus on the three retakes more diligently. After all, I don’t want to repeat failing (I’d like to be finished with these tests someday soon).

Wish me luck!

In order to define habitable space in a two-dimensional membrane my proposal incorporates rigid wires that act as a “movable force” on the intervened membrane. These forces are applied in three phases indicated on the diagrams below. The membrane was subsequently put under pressure by the wires and transformed the membrane into an apparatus (in a manner unique to the data I collected), whereby the forces could then be manipulated.

The notion of force being applied to an object was translated throughout this project. Forces were realized in the creation of the diagram, seeded into the apparatus, and later interpolated from the data mining from my site visits. The final model is the product of assembling three of the apparatuses with additional forces determined from the site in order to form an continuity between the parts.

An active design which was genuinely a product of its environment. Ecological data was re-represented by line-work which was then deformed by measured site data in the form of rigid wires.

Year: 2005
Semester: Summer
Class: Design
Professor: Philip Parker
Size: unknown
Program: This design project seeks to redefine conventional methods of construction as well as the process of thinking that leads to designing. Students were encouraged create a membrane by analyzing and reconfiguring the data found in researching a type of ecology into a composite lined diagram. This drawing was to be cut, scored, perforated, or dissected in any number of ways.

image: thomas jantscher

FOVEA Architects designed this small (sharply-angled) dwelling in the Swiss Countryside. The southern facade boasts an upward 40-degree angled volume which balances the need for privacy and light inside, while creating a faux-canopy for the outdoor patio. From the northern facade it appears as though the architects played upon the idea of an “upside-down” house

image: thomas jantscher


image: thomas jantscher


image: thomas jantscher


image: thomas jantscher


image: thomas jantscher


image: thomas jantscher

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Autodesk is expected to announce the release of AutoCAD for the Mac, iPad and iPhone today! This represents the return of AutoCAD to the Mac platform after nearly 20 years.

MacRumors first revealed screenshots of the beta version of AutoCAD back in May which had undergone early testing.

Meanwhile a mobile version called AutoCAD WS will be available free on Apple‘s App Store for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The free version is said to allow users to view CAD designs but only make minor changes.

Hopefully the Mac OS X version of AutoCAD will be released by the end of October. Exciting news for all those Mac fan-boys wishing for years, our dreams are finally coming true!

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The MTA, in my opinion, should be one of the most lucrative “businesses” in the world rather than be in debt and sacrificing and/or cutting service that millions of people depend on everyday.

In a recent article by the New York Times it was stated that: “…subway riders will most likely notice leakier, dirtier stations. Part of the authority’s savings will be achieved at the expense of cleaning crews who fix water leaks and clean the steps of escalators. Automated MetroCard readers at the turnstiles will be inspected less often, and hundreds of the system’s oldest subway cars will stay in service longer.” This is completely unacceptable, and what’s worse is this attitude could lead to dangerous and hazardous health or physical risks to the riders.

My Two Ideas How to Save the MTA.

Selling Ads (better)

flickr photo credit: oblaat
For a moment, let’s consider that according to the MTA website there are 5.1 million people who use the system everyday as of 2009. Now let’s think of that in terms of internet traffic, which is equivalent to Google’s daily traffic (calculated from monthly average). I don’t know many people who thought of our subway in these terms, each day New Yorkers and tourists use our subway just as much as the entire world uses google.com!  The subway is unavoidable  for the majority of commuters and the amount of opportunities for advertisement placement is unlimited. With the “guaranteed” volume several millions travelers, selling ads should be lucrative since it’s one of the biggest businesses in the world. After all how do you think Google got all its money (become the #1 used service and sell ads). Now I understand the MTA already sells ads but it could be better, and I also understand that Google’s type of service doesn’t require nearly as many people as the MTA does to operate, which leads me to my next step to save the MTA.

Stop Charging “per Ride”

flickr photo credit: jasonstaten
This may be a long shot because I don’t believe it’s ever been attempted, but what if the MTA stopped charging New Yorkers on a daily or monthly basis and instead taxed the 8.3 million residents of the five boroughs. This would allow the MTA to collect money from people who don’t even ride the subway/bus system as a result dispersing the burden more evenly across the local public. This would also allow New Yorkers to ride the subway/bus systems without concern of individual or monthly payments or yearly fare hikes. Furthermore, the 45.6 million tourists or non-New York residents would pay an elevated fare rate to boost improvements and maintenance of the system instead of permitting widespread degradation.

The MTA is the 4th most traveled mass transit system in the world, how do you want our subways to look?

flickr photo credit: bnz506

flickr photo credit: michelle_wright

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Hot Puppy/Wet Puppy, originally uploaded by tscibilia.

Just hanging out at my girlfriend’s house with our dog and decided to let him go for a swim. Since he hates rain I would never have guessed him to enjoy laying in a pool!

I guess when the temperature is 105 degrees +, you’ll do pretty much anything to stay cool. And I’ll admit, he’s a pretty cool looking pup.

French architect Jean Nouvel recently unveiled a shining new LEED Certified skyscraper on 11th avenue in New York City. The building features a stunning facade composed of 1,700 different panes of glass and is described by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect as a “vision machine”. With apartments reaching from $1.6 million to $22 million, one wonders if New York really needs another green luxury building when there’s so much need for affordable housing. But nonetheless, 100 Eleventh Avenue is a stunning portrayal of what modern design can accomplish in a city like the Big Apple.

Read the rest of Jean Nouvel Unveils Reflective LEED Certified Skyscraper in NYC

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