Archive for November, 2007

Build Boston 2007

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[Image: Map of Boston, 1842]

Build Boston 2007 begins today! Running from Tuesday November 13th through Thursday November 15th, Build Boston ‘is the premier regional tradeshow and convention for the design and construction industry’. If you’re in the Bean head on over to the Seaport World Trade Center for seminars, lectures, workshops, and a giant exhibition hall full of people trying to sell products and giving out free shit. Sounds great – I’ll be there handing out myninjaplease business cards and doing my best to act professional [meaning no katana or shurikens, unfortunately – besides, I think world trade center + ninja weaponry = Guantanamo and waterboarding].

Posted: November 13th, 2007
at 2:00am by orangemenace


Categories: architecture,events

Comments: No comments


LTL Architects : Building 82%

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So for the first time ever on architecture.MNP an architecte de la semaine is spilling over to a second week. Oddly enough, we’ve really only featured one project by LTL Architects [hence the feature carrying over]. So enjoy a few more projects by Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis – and check in with us on Thursday for a review of their new book.

Here we have Building 82% [or, the West Avenue Lofts] a feasibility study that LTL took through SD‘s [presumably for some developer] for a mixed-use development in Miami Beach. The project gets its name from the local zoning requirements, which states that no more than 82% of the available volume on the site could be built, per the site’s FAR requirements. This project serves as a good example of the firm’s playful + accepting approach to design, utilizing the ‘limiting’ conditions found in a project to their advantage – designing ‘opportunistically‘.

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First a plinth is created to contain retail + parking [remind you of anything?], and provide a streetscape appropriately scaled to the area. This plinth is then used as a new landscape, upon which live/work units are created that are both raised off the street, yet connected to the groundplane through a number of public staircases and open public terraces created around the perimeter of the plinth level.

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As shown in the plan below,the open spaces created on the perimeter also serve to separate/delineate the individual interior areas. The vertical courts [seen in the axon above and the plans below] separate the individual units from one another [both on the interior + exterior] and distinguish between live + work spaces within each unit – effectively slicing up the block to form each separate programmatic element.
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As you can see in the axon below, these vertical slices through the block even serve to bring natural light deeper into the building, and down into the parking areas below. Interesting, elegant, efficient. Sick.
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Previous posts featuring LTL Architects on architecture.MNP:

LTL Architects : New Suburbanism

Mies-on-a-Beam

ADLS 05.11.2007 : LTL Architects

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards

Eye Candy : LTL’s Architectural Illustrations

Posted: November 12th, 2007
at 11:34pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture,housing,featured ninjas,architecte de la semaine

Comments: 2 comments


Ninjas on the ‘net

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[image : mapping the internet – MNP is in that yellow-ish zone nearing the center. look for us right at the core sometime next year]

Even the most skilled of ninjas can feel overwhelmed while trying to navigate these internets and stay up on their game – but that’s what MNP is here for, to help you white belts hold your own with all the 9th dans out here.

-First off, for my favorite post from last week [on a non-MNP site, of course]: Architecture + Morality‘s The Patriots: Ayn Rand’s Football Team.

-Secondly, let’s address last week’s big news: MIT is suing Frank Gehry for that Stata Center project’s leaky-ass roof. This news didn’t appear here sooner for the simple reason that I found out when I woke up [saw it on the news first thing] and was sick of the story by the end of the day. Now normally I’d be all about the irony here, that Gehry is one of the biggest starchitects in the world yet his building is leaking – but the media here in Boston was just so ridiculous with it, talking about how ‘of course it leaked – look at the roof line’. My ninjas, PLEASE. The whole thing just turned into people who know nothing about architecture/construction talking out-their-asses about proper roof construction. I was hoping for more ‘famous architects are egotistical know-it-all buffoons’ type commentary – maybe next time.

-more on the Arctic post-apocalyptic seed vault on BLDGBLOG.

-‘design research project on generative, computational form finding‘ on archidose.

-found this link while over at archidose – Human-Assisted Design. Great stuff.

-The Guardian asks : Is Modernism Dead? Will the new Olympic Stadium live on after the games? And does this thing at Traflagar Square make any sense?

And on our very own MNP Network…

Green.MNP has published its first interview, featuring a discussion Jessie had with the ninjas from Bikes Not Bombs, a Boston based bike shop/global activist. Pretty ill – definitely a must-read.

-the myninjaplease mainsite brings us another solid installment of ‘Art Day’, featuring art depicting natural disasters/catastrophes [interesting stuff] – amongst other ridiculousness to help you procrastinate all day.

-the music site is hitting us with constant freshness – old school rap videos, new reggae, MF Grimm on NPR [yeah – you should listen to that], Shoalin vs Wu Tang [shit is crazy] and more.

-and last, but not least, we have politricks.MNP, which has been poppin’ off since the edition of Brendan to the shogunate head on over there for insightful political commentary on everything you need to know [but wish you didn’t] about these politricks and their BS.

Posted: November 12th, 2007
at 3:39pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture,Ninjas on the 'net

Comments: 1 comment


Video Sundays 11.11.2007 : Think Green

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[click image to be taken to video]

This week’s Video Sundays is posting late, as I spent half the time I had set aside to post on trying to embed these videos on architecture.MNP so that you could view them here on the site. No success. Nonetheless, we’ve got two videos that you should go check out.

First we’ve got High Performance Building: Perspectives and Practice [click image above] – a video from Greenbuild (365) [which we’ll be talking about more in our Green Tuesday feature].

Next is Design Leaders: The ReBuilding Center [click image below] – a featured video from DWELL’s new series Design Leaders, which we hope to have embedded + working here on architecture.MNP sometime this week.

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::Video Sundays is a weekly feature here on architecture.MNP – for more videos, click on any Sunday in the calender in our sidebar, or visit the ‘YouTube‘ category in the sidebar under ‘archjutsu’::

Posted: November 11th, 2007
at 10:06pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture,videos

Comments: No comments


LTL Architects : New Suburbanism

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[Ed. Note: As I’ve already mentioned on the page, LTL has me straight geeked off their illustrations, so there are more images shown in this article than I would normally throw up in a single post – they’re ill though, so you shouldn’t have a problem with it]

This is an older project by LTL Architects [we’ll be getting to current work, don’t worry] entitled New Suburbanism : Prototypical American Suburb [one of the firm’s ‘speculations‘, the project was part of the 2000 National Design Triennial exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum – and was updated for the 2004 Venice Architecture Biennale]. The project is a proposal for a new approach to the idea of the ‘suburb’ and how it should be planned/laid out/experienced, responding to [basically] the failure of the American suburb to live up to the hype – and the subsequent failures of newer movements [such as New Urbanism].

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From the designers:

In New Suburbanism individual houses reformat existing desires, creatively reclaiming the normative suburban spatial logic determined by commodified rooms and features. In the New Suburbanism proposal, the house arrangements are made through exploiting the reciprocal relationship between the figural commodity rooms and the free space of the public programs, initiating a spatial play not achieved in the stilted plans of typical homes and setting the stage for unprecedented mass customization. In New Suburbanism, latent desires of suburbia are exploited, lamentable redundancies are absolved, and new sectional matings are established in continued pursuit of the American Dream [via LTL Architects].

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[Image: section perspective showing the sloping roadway that connects the big box retail to the housing – and a drive-through waterfall to wash cars, created by the overflow water from a community pool above]

My initial reaction to the project was two-fold: first off, this was the first to grab my attention while fingering through LTL’s new book, simply because of the illustrations. After drooling for a minute I read the description of the project [which is more substantial and thought provoking than the simple quote above, found on their webpage] – and while it’s a stretch [I mean, it is ‘speculation’], the firm makes some interesting points. LTL attempts to confront the continued ‘success’ of the McMansions + Big Box retailer = great suburban life equation that still appears to be the norm in so much of the U.S by fusing the two into a much more ‘urban’ hybrid.

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In essence, the Big Box retailers are turned into a plinth on which the suburbs are developed – which is a fascinating concept for a number of reasons. First, it combats sprawl – which is a real problem in the U.S., and no solution seems to be coming – by combining the two major building types in the suburbs; the buildings in which you live, and the buildings in which you shop [read: buy all that crap to fill your mini-mansion], creating a much denser site. By doing so it is also a ‘greener’ solution to typicaldevelopment, as it drastically reduces building footprints. You’ll notice in the images [in particular the plan below] that there are no sprawling parking lots, effectively killing large swaths of land. That’s because parking for the retail is tucked beneath all those homes – brilliant.

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[Image: section perspective showing the relationship between the retailers below and the housing units above]

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[Image: I love this drawing where this ninja is mowing his lawn while there’s a guy 15 feet below him buying a lawn mower. Great stuff.]

Now, I know what many of you viewing this are thinking: who the hell wants to live on top of a Home Depot? And why would I want to be able to walk downstairs to Bed, Bath & Beyond? Well for starters, all that dirt and grass and whatnot would effectively shield you from being constantly aware of the fact that people are buying new lawn chairs 20 feet below your kitchen. The desired [one assumes its desired] insular quality of the suburb is also achieved by not allowing that many vertical connections between the commercial zone below and the homes above – it actually encourages inhabitants to get in their car and drive to the store that might in actuality be underneath their neighbor’s house. These types of design elements in this project show how LTL is really taking suburban living to task, making a political statement about the incredibly popular ‘American Dream’ home with a two car garage located so far from everything one needs to sustain life that a car is absolutely necessary.
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[Image: typical housing plan – the project has all the qualities typically found in suburban life: homes that are similar in shape and design but just different enough to feign individuality, complete with ample parking and seas of green lawn to ensure that the separation between houses/property can’t be mistaken]

Previous posts featuring LTL Architects on architecture.MNP:

Mies-on-a-Beam

ADLS 05.11.2007 : LTL Architects

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards

Eye Candy : LTL’s Architectural Illustrations

Posted: November 10th, 2007
at 3:20pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture,housing,urban/master planning,featured ninjas,architecte de la semaine

Comments: 1 comment


STOOSarchitekten : House Kern

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STOOSarchitekten designed this home [House Kern], which was built in Switzerland – you can head on over to WAN to read more. I just wanted to throw this image up here alongside the one below of the Casa Poli [by Pezo von Ellrichshausen Arquitectos] that we featured on MNP a while back now [They were one of the first architecte de la semaine features]. Similar? Just a little bit. But I’m cool with that – I’m feelin’ the boxy house with square openings bunched in/through it.
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::House Kern via WANCasa Poli via MNP::

Posted: November 8th, 2007
at 8:11am by orangemenace


Categories: architecture,housing,featured ninjas

Comments: No comments


modern design mag

http://www.d-earle.com/magazinedownload.html

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What’s better than finding a cool new design magazine? Finding a FREE + available for download cool new design magazine. Click the title of this post to head on over to Modern Design Magazine and download a PDF copy today.

Posted: November 8th, 2007
at 5:40am by orangemenace


Categories: sidenote

Comments: 1 comment


Mies-on-a-Beam

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While our Wednesday posts tend to be a little lax [read: lazy – just throwing up an image ain’t that hard], this week’s architecte de la semaine [ADLS] LTL Architects has some visual gems worth dropping. In particular I like the top image – but I’m pretty sure they were intended as a sequence.

What is it you ask? Pure speculative ridiculousness [making it perfect for MNP] : Mies-on-a-Beam [first published in Pamphlet Architecture 21: Situation Normal]. Here’s the firm’s brief description, as found in their book Opportunistic Architecture:

What if the cleaning system for the windows of the Seagram building was considered a landscape supplement, returning function to the two anomalous, nonfunctional aspects of the building: the I-beams and the tree plaza? How can one do more with less-is-more?

For a more in-depth discussion, head on over to archidose where our ninja John aparently posted on this last spring.
Other posts on LTL Architects here on architecture.MNP:

ADLS 05.11.2007 : LTL Architects

Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards

Eye Candy : LTL’s Architectural Illustrations

Posted: November 7th, 2007
at 9:21pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture,my ninja, please,featured ninjas,architecte de la semaine,eye candy

Comments: 4 comments


Eye Candy : ‘Wind Dam’

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Chetwood Associates, a firm out of London [with offices in Leeds and Birmingham] is proposing a £2.5 million “wind dam”, over a lake in Russia.

The dam, which would be located over a gorge at Lake Lagoda in north-west Russia, includes a cup-shaped spinnaker sail, believed to be the first of its kind, which will generate renewable energy by funnelling the wind through an attached turbine.

…it is also highly effective at capturing the wind because it replicates the work of a dam and doesn’t let the wind escape in the way it does using traditional propellers.

My ninjas, please.

::via bdonline, The Architectss Website::

Posted: November 7th, 2007
at 3:44pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture,my ninja, please,green arch,tech,eye candy

Comments: 3 comments


Ninja arithmetic XIII

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[It’s probably becoming clear to you readers who have been following the ‘ninja arithmetic‘ feature that we think Rem  is a closet star wars geek. Here’s a question for you though: what do these emulations of the empire’s war machines say about Rem’s views on architecture?]

Posted: November 7th, 2007
at 12:01pm by orangemenace


Categories: ninja arithmetic

Comments: No comments