If you have a hard time differentiating your pop Christmas tunes from you shimmer psych jams, you’re in luck. This scatter graph will help you get a grip on pretty much any genre of music, including some you’ve likely never heard of.
In the hunt for best affordable vacuum, two options sucked up almost all of the support in the nomination round
, but they’re different enough that we feel we can recommend both.
Graduate shows 2016: Taiwanese designer Shawn Yang has created a giant version of a Spirograph toy that makes three-dimensional patterns on homeware (+ slideshow). (more…)
An MVRDV designed library in Tianjin has topped out as part of the city’s Binhai Cultural Centre. The 34,200 square meter (370,000 square foot) building will join four other cultural institutions designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects, Bing Thom Architects, HH Design, and GMP – creating “cultural corridors” – that are part of a GMP-designed masterplan. The library program includes educational facilities, service spaces, book storage, archives, computer rooms, audio rooms, an auditorium, lounge areas, meeting rooms, offices, general reading areas, and those designed specifically for children and the elderly. Tianjin Binhai Library has been designed by MVRDV in collaboration with the TIanjin Urban Planning and Design Institute (TUPDI).
The library’s rectilinear outer envelope gives way to a topographic interior atrium that is centered by a spherical, mirrored auditorium. MVRDV compares the effect to a giant “eye” granting panoramic views of the building’s interior. The sphere is surrounded by terraced bookshelves that also double as seating and extend around the building’s exterior in the form of horizontal louvers. As the library’s exterior volume was stipulated in the site masterplan, MVRDV calls the “eye” an “inverted icon” or “central point and folly for the building.”
“The Eye is the centre of the library. It ‘hollows out’ the building and creates, out of bookshelves, an environment to sit, to read, to hang out, to climb and to access, to create an organic social space,” says MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas. “In its heart is the auditorium which mirrors the environment, giving a 360 degree panorama of the space inside; a truly reflective and pensive environment.”
Outside of functioning as a typical library, the building is meant to be both an education center and a connector from the adjacent parkland into the cultural district. As part of the 120,000 square meter (1.3 million square foot) masterplan by GMP, the complex is intended to be a junction for Tianjin’s CBD, old town, residential districts, commercial areas, and the government quarter.
The library, MVRDV’s second project in Tianjin after TEDA Urban Fabric (completed in 2009), is anticipated to open in mid-2017.
It can be a bummer when gorgeous weather beckons you to go outside and you suddenly find your adventurous spirit hampered by your one true enemy: allergies. Why is it that harmless plants seem to attack our senses? And why are only some of us affected?
On November 8th, it will be time to decide a new President of the United States. If you’re not registered to vote, now’s the time to make sure you’re ready when it comes time to visit the polls. Here’s all the information you need to get it done.
From the architect. This peculiar and personal “loft” is located near Malvarrosa Beach, in the distinctive neighborhood of “El Cabañal” at Valencia City. The Origin house responded to the top floor of a very common type of town house between party walls. It’s accessed from the Street through a narrow staircase. The depth of plot required the existence of intermediate rooms that were illuminated and ventilated by a small courtyard; on the other hand, the kitchen and the “toilet” occupied the rear façade as attached parts, and connected through an ancient terrace that had been closed; Finally, throughout the house roof was a ceiling of plaster that hid the actual volume of the steep cover Gable.
Based on a program of basic needs that requires the existence of a single room and a terrace, the project arises as a “loft” in which the only closed part is the bath. In this way, the original volume is put in prospective value: all the interior partitions are deleted to create a unique space where everything happens.
The fundamental work was based, therefore, on removing and choosing what is going to stay. We only added a slight ‘platform’ that seems to float in the middle of space and contrasts in materiality with the rest of the original constructive elements.
Certain elements were preserved and brought to light, or even “reinterpreted” with another utility, so the past and the future of the house dialogue calmly:
-The anterior and posterior walls were left in the original brick wall, and the entire roof of wood beams was cleaned and restored.
-The old ceiling line was drawn in the space through various resources: with a few light volumetric changes, remaining the height of the original plaster cladding oh the pillars, and retaining the two main beams that supported it.
-This preserved wood substructure became the space limit of the attic which is the bedroom, as well as used as part of the new railing glass.
-The small and narrow courtyard became a skylight which illuminates the heart of the House. An old window was preserved as a decorative piece, at the time that brought light to the dining area.
-The ancient woodwork was restored and painted in white to bring more light into the space. An old cupboard became a key piece that serves as a shelf, wardrobe, pantry and warehouse.
-The new linear kitchen which was situated in one of the walls was designed by contrast in gray tones that highlights two volumes twinned with a modern and clean image which moves away from the textures, colors and shapes of the rest of preserved woodwork.
-In the bath a similar method was used: gray volumes and plains are opposed to the textured wall of the old restored window.
Sig Nordal 