v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

Elliott Ripper House

From Christopher Polly site:

The project presents an appropriately simple and direct extrapolation of an existing archetypal form within a sustainably modest footprint. It provides a significantly expanded series of connected interior volumes that harness access to sunlight, ventilation and strengthened links to tree canopies and sky, with extension of key existing materials and finishes to retain some memory of its previous incarnation.

An inserted ground floor open living volume is generated by extension of the original envelope and internal levels to an averaged plan footprint of former lean-to’s, followed by a rear first floor addition that extrudes the previous floor plate and gable-ended roof form over the new ground floor. The cathedral volume is retained within the new first floor room arrangement and an extrapolated ceiling-to-wall junction scribes the wrapped alignment of all element heights, lightly bridged to raked ceiling planes by opalescent polycarbonate - while a generous carved void and open stair vertically expands the relationship between two previously unrelated floors.

Fine steel plate elements contrast rusticated weatherboards and expanses of fixed glass and western red cedar external-face sliding doors & pivot windows offer varying degrees of openness and enclosure to temper light and air, strengthening connections to its setting. Two living spaces reflect contemporary patterns of use to enable separation of adult and children functions when required. The ground floor area provides a ‘day’ space for meals preparation, dining and expansive enjoyment of rear gardens, while the upper living room provides an ‘evening’ space for relaxation, separation from utilities and enjoyment of district views - with an adaptable third bedroom providing flexibility for future use as a study.

Cosgriff House by Christopher Polly Architect

Architect Christopher Polly

Last Monday in Brussels

Vallejo Nocturno 2013-  Square X 3

Sub Atomic Visual Structural Paranoia in the 21st Century

Vallejo Nocturno 2013 - in Brussels

From Wikepedia:

The Atomium is an iconic building in Brussels originally constructed for Expo '58, the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Designed by the engineer André Waterkeyn with interiors by architects André and Jean Polak,^[1] it stands 102 m (335 ft) tall. Its nine 18 m (59 ft) diameter stainless steel clad spheres are connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.

Tubes connect the spheres along the 12 edges of the cube and all eight vertices to the centre. They enclose escalators and a lift to allow access to the five habitable spheres which contain exhibit halls and other public spaces. The top sphere provides a panoramic view of Brussels. CNN named it Europe's most bizarre building.^[2]

And the strange case for worldwide copyright rights:

AM, Belgium's society for collecting copyrights, has claimed worldwide intellectual property rights on all reproductions of the image via the United States Artists Rights Society (ARS).^[4] For example SABAM issued a demand that a United States website remove all images of them from its pages.^[5] The website responded by replacing all such images with a warning not to take photographs of the Atomium, and that Asbl Atomium will sue if you show them to anyone.^[5][6] Sabam confirmed that permission is required.^[5]

Ralf Ziegermann remarked^[7] on the complicated copyright instructions on Atomium's website specific to "private pictures".^[8] The organisers of Belgian heritage, Anno Expo^[9] (planning the 50th anniversary celebrations of Expo '58), in the city of Mechelen announced a "cultural guerrilla strike" by asking people to send in their old photographs of the Atomium and requested 100 photoshoppers to paint over the balls.^[10][11] SABAM responded that they would make an exception for 2008 and that people could publish private photographs for one year only on condition they were for non-commercial purposes.^[10]

Anno Expo later announced they had censored part of their own report due to "complications" and referred to a meeting they had with SABAM.^[12] Mechelen's Mayor, Bart Somers, called the Atomium copyright rules absurd.^[13]

On February 23, 2009 Axel Addington, Web Content Manager for Atomium, e-mailed a clarification to the Glass Steel and Stone web site, which some years earlier redacted its photographs of the Atomium after being threatened. He stated, "The royalties are perceived (sic) by the descendants of André Waterkeyn, the engineer who conceived Atomium in 1955, and not by the A.S.B.L Atomium. So, you've probably been sued by the SABAM (Belgian Copyright Company) because of the Waterkeyn Family."

From the Atomium's website, the current copyright restrictions exempt private individuals under the following conditions,^[14]

    >>> This is the case where photographs are taken by private individuals and shown on private websites for no commercial purpose (the current trend for photo albums). In accordance with legislation, usage rights for the image of the Atomium would naturally extend to 4th October 2075, in other words, the seventieth anniversary of André Waterkeyn's death.

Learning from Las Vegas

From Frieze:

In 1968, architects Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi took a class of Yale students to Las Vegas. There, amongst the casinos and car parks of unbridled capitalist consumption, they closely studied the city’s forms and iconography. Signs and buildings on the strip were examined with the care previously afforded only to high-cultural urbanism. The resulting study, co-authored by Steven Izenour, was published in 1972 as Learning from Las Vegas, and it turned architecture upside down.

What it radically proposed was that architects and planners might learn from the bottom-up, vulgar and extreme phenomenon of Las Vegas. And that by so doing, they might understand the ways in which contemporary architecture and urbanism actually worked – rather than the ways they would like it to work.

Learning from Las Vegas was a serious, stunning, esoteric yet accessible project that drove a Pop sensibility deep into the heart of architecture. As well as redefining what we might look at, it redefined how we might look. Scott Brown and Venturi used photography and film not as illustrations of ideas but as fundamental tools to reach a new understanding of urbanism.

It’s this material that forms the basis of Las Vegas Studio and its accompanying exhibition at the Museum im Bellpark, Kriens and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt, assembled from the archives of the students’ unaffectedly deadpan photographs. Here they are presented beautifully and so assume a rarified status – no longer are they documentation, but super-sexy images of mid-century Americana. Their casual framing becomes artful. Through this process, the content of the images is transformed. While the book celebrates the earlier project, it ironically has the strange effect of defusing its architectural argument, delaminating the images from their original polemic.

The value of Learning From Las Vegas is not only its own particular conclusion but also its implications for architecture and research in general. In Las Vegas Studio this is touched on briefly during a meandering discussion between Rem Koolhaas, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Peter Fischli. Elsewhere, editor and curator Martino Stierli sets out the context of the studio’s activities and Stanislaus Von Moos, a critic with a long relationship with the work of Venturi Scott Brown Associates, discusses the firm’s built projects. Most striking however is the absence of the voices of Scott Brown and Venturi themselves to illuminate what they were doing and how they were doing it.

Their reputation is currently undergoing re-evaluation after years of banishment from the architectural establishment for crimes against good taste. This book is part of that process. It’s only a partial rehabilitation however, as though contemporary architectural culture was picking off the bits that it can digest while leaving the more difficult whole to one side.

The selected images give us a glimpse behind the curtain of a significant moment in architectural history, before the studio’s work became a fixed cultural point and was still thrilled with discovery and pregnant with possibilities. It suggests we might be able to rewind and replay history in order to speculate on alternative presents, liberated from the partisan debates of previous generations.

Martino Stierli

Nele Azevedo

Nele Azevedo, Melting Man Berlin

Escif

Escif Valencia

Warehouse Transformation

From Spoon & Tamago:

Keiichi Kiriyama is a young architect who worked under Makoto Tanijiri and went on to establish his own studio – aptly titled Airhouse – in 2009. In 2012 he renovated a warehouse in the suburban district of Yoro (Gifu prefecture), not too far from the industrial city of Nagoya. Previously used to house farming equipment, Kiriyama injected a dose of calm by inserting a large loft that houses a bedroom and 2 bathrooms.

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