Happy Fathers Day! A father’s love runs as deep as the Grand Canyon. Thanks to all the dads for being such great teachers, providers and comedians. Enjoy your day (and if you’re heading outdoors, be sure to bring plenty of water – it’s going to be HOT)! Photo of Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona by W. Tyson Joye, National Park Service.
There’s nothing like a crisp, delicious, fresh pickle, whether you prefer yours kosher, half-sour, or sweet. But making sure yours are crisp and crunchy starts with the cucumber—a crisp pickle demands a crisp cucumber, and nothing less will do. Here’s how to make sure you get the best ones.
David Adjaye is set to release a vinyl record with his brother Peter, a composer and musician with whom David has been formally collaborating for over a decade, reports The Spaces. The record, Dialogues, presents a collection of 10 of Peter’s sonic responses to David’s architectural projects. “When I see architecture I hear sounds – I respond to the visual. David responds to sound – he creates with a soundtrack in his mind,” Peter said of their creative dynamic.
The brothers collaboration formally began in 2003 with a soundscape Peter designed for David’s Asymmetric Chamber at the Cubeg gallery in Manchester. The relationship between the design of the chamber and the sound that filled it focused on reciprocity, with one “imprinting” the other. Peter said of their working process that David “drew a picture for what the sound would look like. I came back with a soundtrack the next day.” The piece, titled Echoes, made it onto the record alongside nine other responses.
Some of these compositions include “Dirty House Music” for Dirty House, “PeaceSphere” for the Nobel Peace Center, and “3 Views of Light” for the Genesis Pavilion. Along with the videos of each track posted to YouTube, Peter has provided descriptive explanations of the ways in which he translated each piece of built architecture into sound, with some “directly echoing the structure into music” and some recreating a feeling or sensation.
The record is due for release on vinyl on July 8, and in the meantime you can listen to the 10 tracks here.
News via The Spaces.
Perched above the beach at the edge of the tree line, this vacation home allows the dramatic Oregon Coast to take center stage. The design maintains sightlines from the sheltered forest to the open coastline with a minimal structure of glass and steel. Atop the two-story, transparent box, the copper-clad green roof is an elevated slab of native ferns and grasses.
Only the upper floor is visible from the forested driveway. Accessible via a catwalk and oversized glass pivot door, the upper level contains the main living spaces – living room, kitchen, dining room – and offers views in every direction. Cabinetry is pulled to the center of the space to free the exterior walls from obstruction. A small gap between the basalt flooring and the curtain wall creates an “infinity” effect along the perimeter.
A sheltered deck is punched into the west façade, protected from the wind and connected to the living spaces by wide sliding doors.
From the beach, the full height of the house is exposed, although it’s placement on the bluff and the sloped site to the east adds a sense of intimacy to the lower level. A custom desk cantilevers from the steel columns on the protected eastern side of the downstairs. The family room and two bedrooms open directly to the patio and beach access.
A sophisticated “home brain” allows the owners to remotely control all aspects of the house via their ipad or touchscreens on each floor: lights, shades, thermostats and audio systems. Mechanized curtains can be lowered in individual sections throughout the house as needed to allow for privacy or to control light levels. Hot water, radiant floor heat and air-conditioning is provided from a ground source heat pump.
Finishes and furnishings were chosen for their textural quality and subtlety. Floors and kitchen counters are made from the same dark grey basalt. Walls, ceiling and built-in cabinetry were crafted from white oak with accents of hot-rolled blackened steel. To maintain flow and consistency, beds, desk and cabinetry were custom made. A single piece steel frame supports the floating white oak staircase.
Regardless of the unpredictable Oregon Coast weather, the house is filled with natural light. At night, the light levels are kept low to create a cocoon-like, intimate effect.
Zaha Hadid 1950-2016: Danish architect Bjarke Ingels reflects on the huge impact visiting Zaha Hadid‘s Vitra Fire Station had on him as a student in the next movie from our exclusive video series. (more…)
Beginning this week, and lasting for only sixteen days, visitors to the Italian Lake Iseo can “walk on water.” The Floating Piers is the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, based on an idea first conceived in 1970. Built using 100,000 square meters of shimmering yellow fabric, carried by a modular floating dock system of 220,000 high-density polyethylene cubes, the installation—which sits just above water level—undulates with the movement of the lake.
According to Italian news source, Leggo, two people were “seriously injured” and the installation was “evacuated” on its opening day due to the quantity of visitors and inclement weather conditions.
Those who experience The Floating Piers will feel like they are walking on water – or perhaps the back of a whale.
For the first time visitors can walk from Sulzano to Monte Isola and onto the island of San Paolo, which is framed by The Floating Piers. “Like all of our projects, The Floating Piers is absolutely free and accessible 24 hours a day – weather permitting,” said Christo. “There are no tickets, no openings, no reservations and no owners. [They] are an extension of the street and belong to everyone.”
A three kilometer-long walkway was created as The Floating Piers extend across the water of Lake Iseo. The piers are sixteen meters wide and approximately thirty-five centimeters high, with sloping sides. The fabric continues along over two kilometers of pedestrian streets in the towns of Sulzano and Peschiera Maraglio. The prokect represents Christo’s first large-scale project, and has been funded entirely by his original works of art.
The Floating Piers is available to visit from June 18th through July 3rd 2016 (weather permitting).
An aspect of this article references news from Leggo.
Studioninedots have designed a new pavilion, “The TrueTalker,” to generate a space for open communication and storytelling. The pavilion is one of approximately fifty at Amsterdam‘s temporary Fab City, an initiative organised by Europe by People to promote self-sustaining, innovative cities. The project also comes as a reaction to Amsterdam hosting the European Union this spring, where rigid and official conversation will be scrutinised and recorded from every angle. In contrast, Studioninedots said that “The TrueTalker” creates a space where “everyone is invited to sit down, relax and share warming, unreasonable, crazy, unimaginable and hilarious ideas.”
Evolving from the concept of Fab Lab, where cutting edge fabrication techniques and machinery are made available in an open source way, the Fab City provides a space where innovators come together and present ideas about shaping the future of their own city. The unifying goal of the Fab City is to become “locally productive and globally connected.”
Europe by People instigated the exhibition, with the vision of creating a “green, self-sustaining city” within which contributors from a broad range of artistic and technological backgrounds “work, create, explore and present their solutions for current urban issues.” Studioninedots‘ pavilion provides a space for these innovative people to come together and share their thoughts.
As well as creating a communal centerpiece, “The TrueTalker” pavilion also provides a literal beacon within the Fab City. The fire at the center of the cone-shaped structure not only acts to draw people in but reminds them of sitting around a campfire, and encourages everyone to tell stories and engage with their neighbors.
The pavilion’s skin is one continuous wall which curves around on itself, creating a singular opening that visitors are invited to investigate and explore. The skin is assembled in an open brick pattern, allowing passers-by to glimpse inside the pavilion and the light from within to spill outwards. Once inside, ideas on “the future of Europe, the world, mankind or anything else” are exchanged openly around the fire.
Studioninedots emphasise the “need for personal contact and collectivity” not only through their design but their process. Studioninedots and collaborator StoneCycling both operate from the North Amsterdam-based Creative Workspace 1-1-1, which allowed them to combine their fields of expertise into what they refer to as an “attractive and technically challenging design.” StoneCycling’s WasteBasedBricks are a semi-opaque, circular brick made almost entirely from a locally sourced waste product. The material adds another element of sustainable future planning to the design.
“The TrueTalker” pavilion at Fab City Amsterdam is open until the 26th of June, and you can view the program of the pavilions program of organised events here.
News Via Studioninedots
Sig Nordal 