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Design Biennial Boston 2010

Our ninjas over at the PINKCOMMAGALLERY are looking for entries of “design works that represent creative approaches and solutions to issues in contemporary design” for the first ever Design Biennial Boston 2010 exhibit.

A jury will be selecting works that they feel represent “the most significant emerging voices among Greater Boston’s early- career design talent (including practices working in architecture, landscape architecture, graphic design, industrial design, and interior design)” for an exhibition opening late this Spring.

Applicants must practice in Greater Boston [so non-Beantown ninjas need not apply, sorry], must have graduated from a design or architecture program, must be presenting work that was completed independently, and must have been independently practicing for fewer than 10 years or 45 years old or younger. Applicants can be a team if they all meet these requirements.

The jury will include:

Mark Pasnik, Chris Grimley and Michael Kubo, pinkcomma gallery

Stefane Barbeau, Vessel Inc.

Beate Becker, DIGMA

Eric Höweler, Höweler + Yoon Architecture

Fritz Klatke, Visual Dialogue

Dennis Kois, Director, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

Amanda Lawrence, PRAXIS and Northeastern

Beth Whittaker, MERGE Architects

Submissions must be received by 4 p.m. at the gallery on 12 March 2010.

If you think you’ve got the stuff, get some work together and submit [download PDF of guidelines and submittal forms here]! I look forward to seeing the results – and hope to feature some examples of the works chosen here on AMNP later this Spring.

.:Design Biennial Boston 2010->

Posted: February 26th, 2010
at 1:36pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture, competitions, design

Comments: No comments


Imrey Culbert + SANAA: Louvre-LENS

“The design is said to be reminiscent of the Louvre in Paris with its two outstretched wings. We conceived this new Louvre to be everything the Palais Louvre is not, and sought to create transparency both literally and figuratively.”

~ Imrey

AMNP recently received these images of the new Musee Louvre-LENS, which had its groundbreaking ceremony this past December. Co-designed by Imrey Culbert and SANAA, the new Louvre expansion will be located in the city of Lille in Northern France, and will include about 300,000 SF of new construction – roughly 75,000 SF of which will be devoted to new galleries and visitable storage spaces. The Louvre is apparently in desperate need of new space to store its ever-expanding collection, which seems to be one of the primary goals of this project.

Situated on a 153 acre site that sits at a slightly higher elevation than the surrounding areas, the museum will consist of a series of 5 single-storey, interconnected pavilions. Essentially simple boxes, the volumes play with transparency in a way familiar to SANAA’s previous work – creating a lightness and transparency that almost gives the effect of a single plane suspended over the landscape, as opposed to an actual volume.

Not all of the project is so open / transparent, however. Those spaces that need to be enclosed are to be clad in a highly polished anodized aluminum paneling, which will create a slightly distored reflection of the surroundings – making for a slightly surreal connection to the landscape.

“The two easternmost pavilions are the principal exhibition halls, one being the opaque Galerie du Temps (Gallery of Time) – a semi-permanent exhibition of artworks regardless of styles and places of origin and arranged in chronological order, which is a striking departure from the way art is exhibited in the Paris Louvre. The center pavilion, a square glass volume will serve as the main reception area and a public space for the local population and will house a multimedia library, museum store and cafeteria. An Introductory Gallery, accessible via a large staircase, is a place where visitors can peer down onto the museum’s reserves and the studios where artworks are prepared for display. The main storage area will be visitable by small groups of 15 people per tour. The next pavilion will house temporary exhibitions, and the final will house a 300-seat auditorium.”

You’ve got to love SANAA’s willingness and ability to push Modernism to the extreme – creating a building that is nothing but roof + glass. That, and this reflective aluminum cladding seems like it could be quite interesting, especially as seen from afar. I wonder if it will actually achieve a kind of dissolving-into-the-landscape effect – or if it will just look like a low-lying shiny metal box? We’ll see – but as its SANAA, I have high hopes that it will come out looking pretty dope.

::info+images provided by Susan Grant Lewin Associates::

Posted: January 11th, 2010
at 4:30pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture, museum

Comments: 1 comment


EASTERNdesign

For this installment of AMNP’s Ninja of the Month feature we looked at the work of EASTERNdesign. The following articles were featured on AMNP on a weekly basis, and have been assembled here so as to make them more easily accessible / navigable as a group.

_______________________________________________________________________

nakamurajinno02

AMNP is happy to announce the newest edition of the Ninja(s) of the Month feature – where a firm / designer is selected for an extended look at their work over the course of several weeks – EASTERN design office.

EASTERN design office has its base in Kyoto and acts in Japan and China. The name of EASTERN implies “architects from the east”.

Founded in 2003 by Anna Nakamura and Taiyo Jinno, EASTERN is a Kyoto-based 4 person firm [currently]. You may have seen their work elsewhere on the web, as their home designs are pretty incredible and make for great eye-candy. In particular, their work is based on an exploration of an architectural element they call the ‘Slit’ – which is basically exactly what it sounds like, a break of some sort in the form being created. These ’slits’ make for interesting and dynamic forms/volumes and create some incredible lighting/shadow conditions.

We create the architecture with “Slit”. We seek a design possibility of “Slit”. It is an architectural technique since ancient times. But “Slit” is now our design method to change an aspect of contemporary architecture.

Six projects in total will be featured over the next few weeks – giving you a better idea of this ‘Slit’ idea that they use as a major design element throughout their projects, and hopefully some insight into the work of this young and talented firm.

_______________________________________________________________________

Slit House

slit021

The Slit House is a 210 square meter reinforced concrete home in Japan. Created for an 80 year old woman, the home is essentially defined by a concrete wall that has been segmented by 60 140mm ’slits’ – which do away with the traditional window.

slit018

EASTERN sees the ’slit’ as a reaction to ‘glass heavy’ contemporary architecture, and possibly a return to more ancient/traditional forms of architecture which were more concerned with bringing light into a space in more controlled/specific ways. Having no windows, this house uses the ’slits’ to bring light into the interior – the ’slits’ contain glass set into grooves in the concrete, so there are no visible frames – allowing for natural lighting while maintaining privacy. The ’slits’ have been conceived particularly for urban uses, providing homes on tight lots or directly on the street [or both] with natural lighting while de-emphasizing the importance of ‘looking out’.

slit019

While the ’slits’ dominate impressions of the house from the exterior, the interior has been kept simple. Wooden walls have bee used throughout, allowing for the space to be reorganized over time – as either uses or occupant(s) change over time. This simplicity also brings more attention to the interior effects of the ’slits’, crisscrossing the internal spaces with lines of light.

slit008

This spacing of he concrete panels also turns the home into one giant timepiece, to some extent – tracking light and shadows throughout the day.

At the dawn, watery light comes into the house through the slits. That makes the entire room bright faintly.

At 9:30AM,sequence of the feeble light that reflects to header of slits appears.

At 10:30AM, the sunlight pierces through angled slits at first. At 11:00AM,the sunlight pierces through all slits. The sunlight through the slit and the reflected light on the header of the slit project the stripe of V type to the long corridor. If you saw the repetition of this edgy light, you might feel as if time of 11:00AM has stopped. In as much as ten minutes, the reflected light on the header disappears. The shape of the light that the slit makes changes from V type into one stripe. The moments that the sun pierces through the angled slits and through the straight slits are different.

The angled slits get a little earlier. The momentary time lag let us feel a running of the sun and makes us forefeel the upcoming time of the dusk. And it shortens little by little. And watery light fills the house again with soft brightness.

Then the night comes before long.

slit007

slit000

slit010

slit015

Eghk_plan_v12

::photographs by Kouichi Torimura::

_______________________________________________________________________

MON Factory

39EI7211

[click images for larger view]

“House with Crest”

The holes are lined up on a cross shape. The hole is made on the architecture like the perforated line. This architecture is “House with Crest”. A light that penetrates into the architecture always moves and never stays. It is a symbolic spectacle. A light that goes through the hole is projected in a circle shape, moves unlimitedly, and never stays. Occasionally, it disappears, and it appears.

For our second installment of Ninjas of the Month: Eastern Design we have the MON Factory/House 8 in Kyoto, Japan. Completed in 2007, the 260 m2 project houses both a workshop of a traditional craftsman and his family home.

39EI7207

The owner wanted a home that could accommodate his business – creating crests for traditional Japanese clothing – while keeping the living and work spaces distinct and separate. EASTERN’s solution was to raise the majority of the project off of street level, creating a parking area beneath the main structure of the building, with a storefront for the craftsman’s business on the street. The workspace is then directly above the shop, connecting the two spaces while making the actual workshop more private.

39EI3129

The second level – with the workshop and living spaces – is divided by two courtyards into it’s primary parts, namely the workshop, the living room / kitchen area, and the bedroom, by two small courtyard spaces. Essentially, hallways run along both sides of the house [around these courtyards, which don't reach the perimeter of the building], connecting the various spaces. Get a better look at the plan in larger detail, here.

We “lift the one-storied house to the sky” to create calm interior space. It is lifted to 3m in the sky. The space under that is lent as a parking lot. The one-storied house lifted to the sky makes “two outside spaces placed among three inside spaces”. The wind and the light of nature gather from the sky into two outside void spaces. And that extends to three inside spaces.

39EI7298

The only break in the exterior concrete walls of the building come in the form of a series of circular ‘holes’ – which speak directly to the circular shape of the tradition crests being made in the workshop.

Two street side walls overlap on “Mise (show/shop)” space from right and left as like the breast of the Kimono. The “breast” interior becomes the shop space. The circular holes made for a cross shape becomes a pattern that decorates the wall as a crest. The kinds of crests reaches 7000. Any complicated crest pattern is formed from circle.

39EI7162

The workshop area and the living area are separated and also connected. The client and his daughter have such living style. The crest making is a delicate work and also a business work. It is quiet, and also busy. The drifting cloud is seen, and they finish working, and relax in the living room at the middle space.

The reflected light becomes an infinite line of light and extends into the darkness of twilight on both side window of the living room. And the dark becomes deeper. In this one-storied house lifted to the sky a night goes on like that.

39EI7324

39EI3096

?Xficfi@ ???C?A?E?g-1.ai

?Xficfi@ ???C?A?E?g-2.ai

::photographs by Kouichi Torimura::

_______________________________________________________________________

villa_saitan-14

The architecture is covered with a wall in which holes are cut. The shape of the holes resembles a trunk, leaves, a root and bulbs. It also can be seen as clouds floating over the trees. The concrete shape which is based on nature turns into a hollow cave: light, and sunbeams filtered through trees.

It’s been a minute now since our last post on our current featured ‘Ninjas of the Month’ – EASERNdesign. Keeping the series alive, here is their Villa Saitan project – an 11 unit studio-apartment complex in Kyoto, Japan.

One of the major factors driving the project was EASTERNdesign’s desire to create a structure that was different from the repetitive, impersonal nature of a ‘typical’ apartment building. The goal was to wrap the units with a continuous facade that would give the appearance of one unified home. This was achieved by cutting through the concrete walls in a nature-inspired root/trunk/leaf pattern. Behind this think wall the units are enclosed by simple glass walls on the exterior – with the concrete walls serving as sun-shading and privacy device.

This concrete shell is then covered in some kind of OSB or fiberboard, softening the forms by giving them an almost fabric-like aesthetic.

villa_saitan-10

Another noteworthy aspect of the project’s layout is the public open space carved out of the ground floor of the building – linking the two sides of the site with a covered/protected external passageway. This inner pathway also connects to the owner’s yard, allowing him direct access to the apartment building’s facilities [which he manages himself].

villa_saitan-7

What does the name Saitan mean? Tan is the color of the shrine gates, vermilion. It is also the color of pale red granite stone. Vermilion will not be weathered. It is said that vermillion is a sacred color and it used to be applied on serving dishes and bow and arrow to make them holy ones. Sai means variety of beautiful colors that make something more attractive.

villa_saitan-9

What I really don’t understand is what exactly is going on with the facade shown above. I kind of like it for whatever reason, so it isn’t that – I just don’t see how it ties in to the curvy, nature-inspired front. It makes for an odd dichotomy that seems to give the building a kind of multiple personality disorder.

nil

EASTERN gives additional reason for the plant-like design of the concrete facade:

This land was once the site of NIshihachijo-palace, which was the residence of a hero of the Japanese classical tragedy, ‘Tale of Heike‘. It was a stage of rise and fall of a clan in the 12th century. Such an old and sad memory is cherished and still told among the people of this neighborhood.

The collective housing that is built on such a historical place should not be seen as an average apartment house. Such notion occurred to us, which might have led us to the idea of an ‘immortal tree.’

We, therefore, designed a building which does not take vaguely a shape of a tree, but rather an intense and massive form with a tint of movement.

saitan6

villa_saitan-4

villa_saitan-12

More images of this project can be viewed here, at AMNP’s Flickr page.

::photographs by Kouichi Torimura::

::images, info + quoted text courtesy of EASTERN design office, Inc::

Posted: December 16th, 2009
at 5:03pm by orangemenace


Categories: architecture

Comments: 1 comment


NotM EASTERN design: Villa Saitan

villa_saitan-14

The architecture is covered with a wall in which holes are cut. The shape of the holes resembles a trunk, leaves, a root and bulbs. It also can be seen as clouds floating over the trees. The concrete shape which is based on nature turns into a hollow cave: light, and sunbeams filtered through trees.

It’s been a minute now since our last post on our current featured ‘Ninjas of the Month’ – EASERNdesign. Keeping the series alive, here is their Villa Saitan project – an 11 unit studio-apartment complex in Kyoto, Japan.

One of the major factors driving the project was EASTERNdesign’s desire to create a structure that was different from the repetitive, impersonal nature of a ‘typical’ apartment building. The goal was to wrap the units with a continuous facade that would give the appearance of one unified home. This was achieved by cutting through the concrete walls in a nature-inspired root/trunk/leaf pattern. Behind this think wall the units are enclosed by simple glass walls on the exterior – with the concrete walls serving as sun-shading and privacy device.

This concrete shell is then covered in some kind of OSB or fiberboard, softening the forms by giving them an almost fabric-like aesthetic.

villa_saitan-10

Another noteworthy aspect of the project’s layout is the public open space carved out of the ground floor of the building – linking the two sides of the site with a covered/protected external passageway. This inner pathway also connects to the owner’s yard, allowing him direct access to the apartment building’s facilities [which he manages himself].

villa_saitan-7

What does the name Saitan mean? Tan is the color of the shrine gates, vermilion. It is also the color of pale red granite stone. Vermilion will not be weathered. It is said that vermillion is a sacred color and it used to be applied on serving dishes and bow and arrow to make them holy ones. Sai means variety of beautiful colors that make something more attractive.

villa_saitan-9

What I really don’t understand is what exactly is going on with the facade shown above. I kind of like it for whatever reason, so it isn’t that – I just don’t see how it ties in to the curvy, nature-inspired front. It makes for an odd dichotomy that seems to give the building a kind of multiple personality disorder.

nil

EASTERN gives additional reason for the plant-like design of the concrete facade:

This land was once the site of NIshihachijo-palace, which was the residence of a hero of the Japanese classical tragedy, ‘Tale of Heike‘. It was a stage of rise and fall of a clan in the 12th century. Such an old and sad memory is cherished and still told among the people of this neighborhood.

The collective housing that is built on such a historical place should not be seen as an average apartment house. Such notion occurred to us, which might have led us to the idea of an ‘immortal tree.’

We, therefore, designed a building which does not take vaguely a shape of a tree, but rather an intense and massive form with a tint of movement.

saitan6

villa_saitan-4

villa_saitan-12

More images of this project can be viewed here, at AMNP’s Flickr page.

.:previous firm profile of EASTERN design office->

.:Slit House->

.:MON Factory->

::photographs by Kouichi Torimura::

::images, info + quoted text courtesy of EASTERN design office, Inc::

Posted: December 16th, 2009
at 4:44pm by orangemenace

Tagged with , , , ,


Categories: Ninjas of the Month, architecture, featured ninjas, housing

Comments: 3 comments


NotM EASTERN design: MON Factory

39EI7211

[click images for larger view]

“House with Crest”

The holes are lined up on a cross shape. The hole is made on the architecture like the perforated line. This architecture is “House with Crest”. A light that penetrates into the architecture always moves and never stays. It is a symbolic spectacle. A light that goes through the hole is projected in a circle shape, moves unlimitedly, and never stays. Occasionally, it disappears, and it appears.

For our second installment of Ninjas of the Month: Eastern Design we have the MON Factory/House 8 in Kyoto, Japan. Completed in 2007, the 260 m2 project houses both a workshop of a traditional craftsman and his family home.

39EI7207

The owner wanted a home that could accommodate his business – creating crests for traditional Japanese clothing – while keeping the living and work spaces distinct and separate. EASTERN’s solution was to raise the majority of the project off of street level, creating a parking area beneath the main structure of the building, with a storefront for the craftsman’s business on the street. The workspace is then directly above the shop, connecting the two spaces while making the actual workshop more private.

39EI3129

The second level – with the workshop and living spaces – is divided by two courtyards into it’s primary parts, namely the workshop, the living room / kitchen area, and the bedroom, by two small courtyard spaces. Essentially, hallways run along both sides of the house [around these courtyards, which don't reach the perimeter of the building], connecting the various spaces. Get a better look at the plan in larger detail, here.

We “lift the one-storied house to the sky” to create calm interior space. It is lifted to 3m in the sky. The space under that is lent as a parking lot. The one-storied house lifted to the sky makes “two outside spaces placed among three inside spaces”. The wind and the light of nature gather from the sky into two outside void spaces. And that extends to three inside spaces.

39EI7298

The only break in the exterior concrete walls of the building come in the form of a series of circular ‘holes’ – which speak directly to the circular shape of the tradition crests being made in the workshop.

Two street side walls overlap on “Mise (show/shop)” space from right and left as like the breast of the Kimono. The “breast” interior becomes the shop space. The circular holes made for a cross shape becomes a pattern that decorates the wall as a crest. The kinds of crests reaches 7000. Any complicated crest pattern is formed from circle.

39EI7162

The workshop area and the living area are separated and also connected. The client and his daughter have such living style. The crest making is a delicate work and also a business work. It is quiet, and also busy. The drifting cloud is seen, and they finish working, and relax in the living room at the middle space.

The reflected light becomes an infinite line of light and extends into the darkness of twilight on both side window of the living room. And the dark becomes deeper. In this one-storied house lifted to the sky a night goes on like that.

39EI7324

39EI3096

?Xficfi@ ???C?A?E?g-1.ai

?Xficfi@ ???C?A?E?g-2.ai

Next week we’ll be back with the next installment of this current ‘Ninja(s) of the Month’ feature, looking into the work of EASTERN design.

.:previous firm profile of EASTERN design office->

.:Slit House->

::photographs by Kouichi Torimura::

::images, info + quoted text courtesy of EASTERN design office, Inc::

Posted: November 17th, 2009
at 8:53am by orangemenace

Tagged with , , ,


Categories: Ninjas of the Month, architecture, housing, interiors

Comments: 1 comment


NotM EASTERN design: Slit House

slit021

Designed by AMNP’s current ‘Ninja(s) of the Month‘, EASTERN design office, the Slit House is a 210 square meter reinforced concrete home in Japan. Created for an 80 year old woman, the home is essentially defined by a concrete wall that has been segmented by 60 140mm ’slits’ – which do away with the traditional window.

slit018

EASTERN sees the ’slit’ as a reaction to ‘glass heavy’ contemporary architecture, and possibly a return to more ancient/traditional forms of architecture which were more concerned with bringing light into a space in more controlled/specific ways. Having no windows, this house uses the ’slits’ to bring light into the interior – the ’slits’ contain glass set into grooves in the concrete, so there are no visible frames – allowing for natural lighting while maintaining privacy. The ’slits’ have been conceived particularly for urban uses, providing homes on tight lots or directly on the street [or both] with natural lighting while de-emphasizing the importance of ‘looking out’.

slit019

While the ’slits’ dominate impressions of the house from the exterior, the interior has been kept simple. Wooden walls have bee used throughout, allowing for the space to be reorganized over time – as either uses or occupant(s) change over time. This simplicity also brings more attention to the interior effects of the ’slits’, crisscrossing the internal spaces with lines of light.

slit008

This spacing of he concrete panels also turns the home into one giant timepiece, to some extent – tracking light and shadows throughout the day.

At the dawn, watery light comes into the house through the slits. That makes the entire room bright faintly.

At 9:30AM,sequence of the feeble light that reflects to header of slits appears.

At 10:30AM, the sunlight pierces through angled slits at first. At 11:00AM,the sunlight pierces through all slits. The sunlight through the slit and the reflected light on the header of the slit project the stripe of V type to the long corridor. If you saw the repetition of this edgy light, you might feel as if time of 11:00AM has stopped. In as much as ten minutes, the reflected light on the header disappears. The shape of the light that the slit makes changes from V type into one stripe. The moments that the sun pierces through the angled slits and through the straight slits are different.

The angled slits get a little earlier. The momentary time lag let us feel a running of the sun and makes us forefeel the upcoming time of the dusk. And it shortens little by little. And watery light fills the house again with soft brightness.

Then the night comes before long.

slit007

slit000

slit010

slit015

Eghk_plan_v12

Next we’ll be back with the next installment of this current ‘Ninja(s) of the Month’ feature – Horizontal House.

.:previous firm profile of EASTERN design office->

::photographs by Kouichi Torimura::

::images, info + quoted text courtesy of EASTERN design office, Inc::

Posted: November 10th, 2009
at 8:18am by orangemenace

Tagged with , , , , ,


Categories: Ninjas of the Month, architecture, featured ninjas, housing

Comments: No comments


Ninjas of the Month: EASTERN design office

nakamurajinno02

AMNP is happy to announce the newest edition of the Ninja(s) of the Month feature – where a firm / designer is selected for an extended look at their work over the course of several weeks – EASTERN design office.

EASTERN design office has its base in Kyoto and acts in Japan and China. The name of EASTERN implies “architects from the east”.

Founded in 2003 by Anna Nakamura and Taiyo Jinno, EASTERN is a Kyoto-based 4 person firm [currently]. You may have seen their work elsewhere on the web, as their home designs are pretty incredible and make for great eye-candy. In particular, their work is based on an exploration of an architectural element they call the ‘Slit’ – which is basically exactly what it sounds like, a break of some sort in the form being created. These ’slits’ make for interesting and dynamic forms/volumes and create some incredible lighting/shadow conditions.

We create the architecture with “Slit”. We seek a design possibility of “Slit”. It is an architectural technique since ancient times. But “Slit” is now our design method to change an aspect of contemporary architecture.

Six projects in total will be featured over the next few weeks – giving you a better idea of this ‘Slit’ idea that they use as a major design element throughout their projects, and hopefully some insight into the work of this young and talented firm.

Come through next week for the first project we’ll feature by EASTERN, Slit House.

Posted: October 30th, 2009
at 7:17am by orangemenace

Tagged with , ,


Categories: Ninjas of the Month, architecture, featured ninjas, firm profile

Comments: 3 comments


SPLITTERWERK: Frog Queen

SPLITTERWERK - Frog Queen

[image: exterior view]

A pixelated cube seemingly dropped onto a site in Austria? Say it with me now … my ninja, please! Too too sick…

Designed by Graz-based SPLTTERWERK, the ‘Frog Queen’ [yes, that's the building's name] was completed in 2007 in Graz, Styria, Austria – and serves as the headquarters of Prima Engineering. A machine and motor technology company, Prima Engineering needed a new building to house high-end testing facilities, the company’s various research and development programs, and serve as a location to showcase their work to clients.

03_Frog_Queen

[image: exterior view]

The building is damn-near cube shaped, and is clad in square powder-coated aluminum panels which, from a distance, appear to be painted in a range of grey tones – but in reality are screen-printed with a grid of abstract figures, which can be interpreted as flowers [speaking to the building's natural surroundings] or as gears [hinting at the work being done within the structure]. Check out the images below.

The building form approximates a cube, measuring 18.125 x 18.125 x 17m, wrapped on all four elevations with a pixilated pattern of square panels. From a distance, these panels appear to be painted in a range of ten values of grey tone, together dematerializing the volume of the building against both the trees of the surrounding site and the clouds and sky. Thus the cubic building is at once monumental in its objecthood in the open landscape – scale-less and immaterial – and yet utterly non-iconographic in its overall form.

FQ_panels

[image: exterior panels]

Moving inside the building, things stay aesthetically interesting/fun. The first floor is mostly lobby/reception space, mostly finished with a brushed aluminum look – but with a reception area covered in a giant image of a green, lush, wooded-area. The upper floors are organized around an atrium space open to the reception area below, with the office and meeting room walls treated with large scale images of a variety of natural landscapes.

FQ_plans

[image: plans]

At the interior, individual office spaces are wallpapered with images of the surrounding Eastern Styrian landscape, creating a conceptual tension between the interior of the building envelope (narrative and pictorial) and the visual effects of its exterior panels (abstract and spatial). In this sense, the decorative strategy for both interior and exterior is conceived with certain landscape sensibilities in mind; a visual context which is simultaneously pictorial in its framed references and affective in the atmosphere it produces.

27_interior_elevation

[image: section/interior elevation]

The dichotomy expressed here between the simple, plain aluminum atrium space and these colorful, photographic offices and meeting rooms is pretty dynamic. Looking straight up the atrium space you see nothing but the aluminum paneling used throughout the interior, and the openings of the skylights – but then looking in any direction from this central space a visitor gets glimpses of bright, picturesque landscapes from areas surrounding the building.

Pretty sick – and slightly ridiculous.

17_atrium

[image: reception+atrium]

29_atrium

[image: atrium, looking up]

SPLITTERWERK - Frog Queen

[image: reception area+desk]

13_meeting_room

[image: meeting room]

SPLITTERWERK - Frog Queen

[image: office]

.:more images + info->via SPLITTERWERK

Posted: October 21st, 2009
at 11:57am by orangemenace

Tagged with , , , , , ,


Categories: architecture, graphic design, interiors, my ninja, please, office

Comments: No comments


Eye Candy: Frank Watson Photography

3_main.jpg

Head on over to Frank Watson’s site to view some photos from his book The Hush House: Cold War Sites in England.

The concept behind the work is an examination of the relationship between the English landscape and the architectural structures that remain from the Cold War. Military interests at the time re-shaped and re-appropriated large areas of land in the backwaters of the English countryside. These military interventions, many of which now lie abandoned can be seen in terms of ‘the modern ruin.’

5_main.jpg

Also, there’s an interesting essay written by Watson – I assume an excerpt from the book?

Between the 1950s and the 1990s large areas of Eastern England became occupied by the Americans – Yankee culture was literally installed. As these airbases became decommissioned in the 1990’s, it was possible to get a more intimate view of these alien landscapes. Architectural structures that seemed both awesome and sublime. Bunkers and bomb storage areas, hangars and other strange outbuildings featured among manicured lawns. These landscapes were flat and the horizon emphasized the strangeness of these sites hidden within the English countryside…

…What these sites evoke, if nothing else, is a sheer sense of overwhelming power that post-war military technology was capable of unleashing. Among the trees in deepest rural England lay a totally unnerving presence of might. What remains of this presence is still palpable. Many of the structures that remain have become modern ruins, overgrown and camouflaged once again, only this time naturally.

Full essay here.

powerstation.jpg

Also, check our Frank’s latest project: Soundings from the Estuary -

an ongoing project that is inspired by the [Thames] Estuary’s industrial, architectural, and maritime traces as well as the present threat to the existing terrain that is both diverse and eccentric. The work incorporates the collecting of sound using ambient and spoken word pieces, photographs and video to consider the relationship between the aural and the visual.

::all images and quoted text from Frank Watson:

::Eye Candy is a weekly post on exactly what it sounds like – something cool to look at, whether because the project is ill or simply because it warrants a ‘my ninjas, please‘. If you come across something in these here internets that you think should be featured here as ‘Eye Candy’, hit us up! architecture AT myninjaplease dot com::

Posted: July 30th, 2008
at 7:00am by orangemenace


Categories: architecture, books, eye candy, featured ninjas, photographie

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Third Ward TX [part 2]

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[Image: Third Ward's Project Row Houses]

Art is life; Life is art…People are looking at themselves, really.

Now, as someone who has jumped on the Project Row Houses [PRH]/ Third Ward TX bandwagon only some time ago, I have to say that I didn’t know much about what was trying to be accomplished and what has become/ progressed from their initial beginnings in the early 90’s. This is what i did know.

First of all, go and buy the film. Throw in on the film with a friend or group of friends and hold a movie night. Whatever you do, just try and catch it. Third Ward TX is flat out a good film. The humor is light, often subdued by the seriousness of the situation, but ever apparent as the life force of the film grows throughout. Local third ward artists like Bert Long [quoted at top] and Jesse Lott [who have lived in the community their whole lives] grin and smile warmly as they invite the viewer into the area, its back stories, gains and downfalls, all while providing their own incites and perspectives on what PRH had truly done to save the community. For those of you who are still in school…maybe struggling with ideas for your thesis proposals, why not tackle the subject of community developments in low income areas? It’s a terrific model for what smart planning and what a little vision can do for any place in a similar condition. The uniqueness of the situation as compared to similar places in the United States is that the members of the community actively saved themselves in the long run.

I hesitantly used the word dilapidated to describe my first impressions of the homes of third ward [prior to PRH]. What I didn’t know until seeing the film is that my same POV of the homes could be used to describe the ever slighting community at the time as well. Drugs, prostitution and negativity were taking the pride of third ward’s citizens and it wasn’t until a group of artists [led by Rick Lowe] came in, bought the 20+ shotgun homes and began rebuilding them to provided the first stages of change, that ultimately helped restore the faith in the community and then the community itself.

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[Image: Jesse Lott & Rick Lowe]

However, it took more than just painting a portrait or taking a picture of a neglected area to bring about necessary change [even though that is where it evolved from]. As described in the film, the people could see the problems in third ward [they were living amongst it]. What they needed was someone or a group of someones to come in and physically start the evolutionary process. It was surprising that within a place where that sense of community is so highly held, that it took the initiative of someone outside the community [ingrained with the same beliefs as its residents] to start the ball rolling. In Third Ward, Rick felt the same feeling of community he was used to seeing growing up in the south with his own family of 12, and the community in turn saw another active family member who everyone connected to on some level.

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[Image: Director, 'Third Ward TX', Andy Garrison]

For myself and others who felt out of the loop and want more information on Houston’s third ward, there are those who have more knowledge of what PRH has represented to that community – like Mr. Andrew Garrison, director/ photographer of Third Ward TX:

…[migrating] between documentary and narrative filmmaking…[Garrison's] films have been featured on PBS and in festivals worldwide, including the New York Film Festival, Sundance, Berlin, South by SouthWest, Rotterdam, Goteburg, Sydney and Atlanta. Garrison worked at Appalshop, the multi-disciplinary arts and education center in Kentucky for more than a dozen years, making his own films and shooting for other filmmakers. He also actively promotes media education and youth production. Garrison’s films have won several awards and earned him fellowships from the NEA, the AFI, and the Guggenheim Foundation…

Third Ward TX – a documentary that projects the hopes, flaws, learnings, teachings, and ultimate rebirth of a primarily black community in Houston – tells the story of how rebuilding shotgun houses in the third ward helped a community reclaim its sense of pride in itself again. I was contacted by Andy after my purchase of the film, thanking me for my interest and if i had any comments to fell free to leave them. I later asked him if AMNP could do a quick interview with him on TWTx – which he kindly agreed to [even though, my ninjas and ninjettes, the man was teaching study abroad in Prague and is now in Sardinia. Andy's very much the man for finding any time in his busy schedule to hit me back]. So here is an interview with Third Ward TX director/ photographer Andrew Garrison:

ArchitectureMNP : Who is Andy Garrison? How long have you been creating documentaries & films?

Andrew Garrison : I started making documentary films with a group of friends right out of college that included two-time Academy Award nominees Jim Klein and Julia Reichert. We supported ourselves with various odd jobs and contributed resources to make films, videos, radio, photography, local and national audio-slide shows and other documentary media in Dayton, OH, calling ourselves the Dayton Community Media Workshop. This eventually lead me to work with the documentary film group, Appalshop, in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. I have always been interested in documentary and particularly in how art and media can help build community. I also like making fiction films. I often freelance as a D.P. or as a sound recordist for other documentary makers. I started teaching film and media production at The University of Texas at Austin in 1997.

AMNP : How did you become involved in filming the Third Ward/ Project RowHouses documentary?

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AG : My good friend Nancy Bless, whom I had known in the Ohio, now lives in Austin. She had written several articles for international art magazines about Project Row Houses. She felt a film needed to be made and she told me about it. Much as I trust her, I am always skeptical when someone says “You should make a film about ‘X.’” But I visited with Nancy one weekend and shot several hours of DV tape. I was knocked out by the work Project Row Houses was doing and the people I met. Nancy agreed to co-produce the film, and we started. Shortly after I invited another good friend, Noland Walker, with whom I had crewed on other projects. Noland and I had been talking about working together for years and this was a good opportunity.

AMNP : Do you remember being emotionally moved at all to act upon helping to show the state of the Third Ward through film?

AG : I have seen a lot of community organizing and a lot of art used toward social change goals. Usually the art is poor or not really connected to the community in which it is being made, or there is some fracture between the art and the other goals. Project Row Houses was the most moving, true, and exciting vision of art functioning as art AND as an engine for change that I have ever seen, with concrete outcomes and an amazing aesthetic.

AMNP : Did you develop closeness to the residents of Third Ward as shooting developed, or do you [while filming documentaries] have to keep your own emotions distant?

AG : With several people in the film in particular I felt very close. And it was reciprocated. But then there is also this other thing that happens where you get to know a film character so well in the editing room and you think you are close to them, but really you have been looking at the same material for weeks or months or years and only think you know them. And they have not been looking at you. That also happened.

AMNP : I [like most architects] am a visual person. So I enjoyed the terrific match of commentary overdubbed with film/photography. It makes it easy for viewers to understand what it’s like being in the third ward and downtown Houston without physically being there. Not having prior knowledge of your other work, did the architecture of third ward & Houston guide your filming & photographing?

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[Image: John Bigger's 'Four Seasons']

AG : The little house, and the aesthetic of the row houses was always very very present–guiding our thinking and visual understanding. We interviewed historians, architects, and arts studies people about that style of house and its place in the U.S., the South, and Texas. [the late] John Biggers was definitely a guiding light for us.

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[Image: John Biggers]

The opening was always a problem to be solved for us. Editor Sandra Guardado and I, and my co-producers Nancy and Noland went round and round on this. How can we succinctly set up the place, the history, the relationship to downtown Houston and not lose everybody before the story starts? I was also trying not to use narration. We had decided from the beginning that we could always use narration if we needed to, so I always felt like we had a fall-back position. But that opening really evolved between a trailer I had cut early on, and a ton of work by Sandra. What you see took a lot of different tries. I have at least six other openings in my files.

The opening is a kind of foundation for the rest of the movie, but you don’t want it to be all exposition. It has to lead you in and give you enough to understand what is unfolding in front of you, but also tell you this is going to be good, a movie. We settled on a film structure that unfolded much the same way we felt we discovered aspects of Project Row Houses.

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[Image: Entry to Houston's Third Ward]

AMNP : In chapters 10 & 11, there is this sort of irony that is created between Veralisa Hunter and Larry Davis. The first values the row house community and how the community is ‘not locked or has a boxed’ atmosphere. And though she describes the difficulties of not having much [monetarily] she still has beauty around her [and recognizes how fortunate she is to be able to wake up everyday and see that beauty]. Larry’s segment comes in and explains his views on loft-style housing [and later around the 40 to 41 minute mark we get a chance to see big metal boxes that seem a bit out of place for a residential area with brick and vinyl siding homes] and they’re targeting of single mothers to live there. Then I was like ‘whoa, wait a minute,’ and caught myself laughing at the irony – while constructing more ‘affordable’ housing units for women, Urban Lofts would also be extracting a very similar demographic group from houses they are already comfortable in. Was that juxtaposition thought out during filming or in editing? Or was it a happy mistake that came about through your process of interviewing different individuals on the same or similar subjects?

AG : It was very much a conscious choice. Larry Davis’ lofts are actually very interesting homes and buildings. And in reclaimed land without an existing neighborhood around them, they make sense. Particularly for people who are not looking for a neighborhood but only for the convenience of being central and having access to the city. The design of the lofts tends to isolate the residents. They drive in through a gate directly into their garage, enter the living area upstairs from the garage, and then look out from a picture window at the scene below them. They have no reason to interact with their next door neighbors or anyone outside of their space, unlike the little row houses with porches front and back and street level activities.

So when Mr. Davis talks about appealing to single women, he means single working women who can feel safe by driving into their property and having walls and locks between them and the street. Feeling safe is extremely important of course, but one design is based on a community of people interacting–safety created by the existence of the community– and the other design is about the feeling of safety through isolation. His prices are not what the single mothers going to college, living at PRH were looking for or could afford, even though they are a reasonable rate, based solely on the market.

We did not interview a lot of developers. In fact, when we started the film it was not about housing and development. But that is what was happening in front of us as we shot.

AMNP : My final question is an easier one. What’s next up for you, Andy?

AG : I have a feature fiction film that takes place on the Texas-Mexico border a screenwriter friend is writing now and I am trying to raise money to edit a film about a musician in the mountains of Virginia that I shot about 20 years ago.

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[Image: Lowe fronts new two-story row houses]

Okay, so as Andy has told me in emails we exchanged previous to the interview, PRH has undergone substantial growth since its early beginnings [despite the push of developments] and the community is bigger than ever before [he was back in Houston visiting in May, and a whole new row of new two-story row houses [seen above] had been completed and were already occupied, on PRH”s original campus block]. That friends, is what community action can translate into as long as there is enough support in it.

A very special Architecture.MNP thanks to Andy Garrison taking some time out of his teaching schedule abroad to talk with us [watch out for two new works - one feature a fiction film in writing stages at the moment; the other a documentary on a musician from Virginia]. All the best to him in the future. And watch out for another post on Andy’s work with Nancy Bless – a one-day conference in Austin, Texas in September on Art and community development and design

Previous post: Third Ward, TX [part 1]
::Article by Dubs::

Posted: July 17th, 2008
at 9:00am by Dubs


Categories: architecture, featured ninjas, film, housing, interview, urban/master planning

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