Rock and Roll culture has always had an uncanny relationship with death. The death of a rock star creates a cult(ure), marking an unyielding mnemonic point where personality, musical genre and event combine to produce myth. (Think of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain to name a few; their individuality, unique musical contributions and the particular way in which each died are forever fused together in our collective memory). If Rock and Roll culture is exclusively within the domain of youth, a premature death is the event that insures it will always remain so. (Pete Townsend never got his wish)

The death of a rock star is culturally transformative, creating the moment for a larger, shared and collective experience. It is almost as if the death-story competes with the life-story, eventually to become one story. This phenomenon is unique to Western Culture; like a war hero, the way one died is forever bound to the one who died. From purple hearts to purple haze, the iconic rock star lives like a character within a Greek myth. Taken down by the iconoclastic forces of Rock and Roll, our hero re-emerges larger than life within the pantheon of dead rock stars, forever eternal.

Death by Rock and Roll is an opportunity to reconceive the crematory urn on terms gleaned from the cultural practice of Rock and Roll. In this case, the urn takes on the role of noting the particular rituals of these heroes, (always stranger than fiction) and leverages them as drivers for a new expression altogether different from the conventional urn typology and practice.

This urn for Kurt Cobain is not a singular vessel, nor will it simply hold his ashes in the conventional sense. Instead, a retroactive urn for Kurt Cobain will be made in multiple pieces, as a family of parts, and will be synthesized from his ashes. Composed as a series of geometric figures and made from his ashes suspended in a substrate, we imagine they will inspire new forms of sharing and distribution rituals enabled by their multiplicity. Read the rest of this entry »

Metropolitan Magazine’s The Next Generation 2011 Design Competition winner is a team of emerging architects and engineers who propose bringing an existing GSA building office building in downtown Los Angeles to net-zero energy. The design team, consisting of members from Vanderweil and HOK, used the design principles of the Living Building Challenge 2.0 to radically modify the building’s infrastructure and program.

Process Zero: Retrofit Resolution uses bio-engineering processes to create energy onsite, process all waste water and clean polluted air. The southern façade is retrofitted with tubes to farm algae which will be feed carbon rich air from the freeway. The algae will then be feed into a bio-reactor to create lipids than can be stored and burned in a combined cycle generator. Much of the building’s waste water will be used in the process and finally filtered in ponds adjacent to the office.

A full arsenal of technologies are proposed to reduce the building’s energy needs including ground source heat pump powered chillers connected to chilled beams, Energy Recovery Ventilation, waste heat coils, natural ventilation and radiant floors along with energy producing and harvesting solar technologies. The technologies are highly organized to use natural energy and systems before relying on conventional means. Read the rest of this entry »

Beton Hala is today an open and spontaneous cultural hub. The new building designed by Erik Giudice Architects assumes this identity and provides more space for spontaneity and creativity.

The layout for the Waterfront Center takes it’s departing point from the linear structure of the existing Beton Hala. By concentrating the program on a linear strip, a park is created towards the Castle and a large multi activity promenade along the river.

The new structure is highly transparent, letting through views from the river towards the Castel and from the Castel towards the river. The structure becomes a transparent filter between two complementary urban public spaces: the park and the river promenade. On ground level several outdoor pedestrian passages connect the park and the promenade. The building adds a vertical dimension to the horizontality of the site, reflecting the multifaceted and diverse identity of Belgrad and its cultural life. The building becomes a stage for multiple expressions.

Through its linear layout the building leaves a generous space for open-air activities in particular for exhibitions, concerts, events. The buildings elevations become the visual and acoustical backdrop for the open-air stages that can be located on its two sides. The building is designed as a vertical public space, with large open air ramps that makes it possible to reach the top level, the viewing platforms and the connecting bridge to the castle without entering the commercial functions.

Two outdoor promenades goes through the building, while the urban landscape progressively unveils. The promenades culminates on the top terrace with a spectacular view on the river and the Belgrade skyline. Read the rest of this entry »

“…We’re not tourists. We’re travelers. A tourist is someone who thinks about going home the moment they arrive…Whereas a traveler might not come back at all…”

Whether in search of escapist traveling experiences or simply looking for luxurious accommodation with a breathtaking view, the primal qualities of a stone carved retreat present the opportunity to explore both.

Carved into the sandstone cliffs of  southern Jordan, an hour and a half outside of Petra, The Wadi Resort is a design of powerful architectural gestures. The 80,000 square foot form is a winning competition entry by Oppenheim Architects. It is comprised of 47 desert lodges, accompanied by assorted pools and hammams littered around the site.

The walls are to be built from rammed earth and cement mixed with local red sand. Energy consumption is meant to be minimized by utilizing the natural cooling effect of the rocks. Various conservation measures establish a closed system of harvesting rain water. Using subterranean cisterns and re-harvesting gray water should contribute to low environmental impact. Read the rest of this entry »

The business residential building designed by two joint Slovenian offices- Arhimetrics and Enota is located in an important but degraded part of Celje, Slovenia. Even though the area is considered part of the city center, there are no historical or municipal building in its immediate vicinity.  The location is surrounded by modern city blocks, residential villas and freestanding multi-residential buildings. West of the site a large park connects it to the Savinja River.

The uniformity and repetitiveness of the building elements are intentional, derived from the need to reconnect exceptionally  heterogeneous surroundings into a logical whole. The starting volume of the new building is determined in three steps. The lower floors, set up along the edges of the lot, epitomize the height of the freestanding residential buildings in the south. Together with the public program of the existing city block buildings they embrace the central area and form a new city square. The tallest point of the new building in Herman’s square relates to the height of the existing residential high-rise, which is located along the road in the north-western edge of the lot. The number of floors of the building softly traverses between the heights adjusted according to surrounding buildings. Equal opening of the facades are enabled by positioning the building near an open public park. Read the rest of this entry »

Quito, Ecuador.January 14th, 2121 – More than a century after the initial dream of MIT architect Mitchell Joachim and his team at Media Lab’s Smart Cities group; the EIT (Ecuador Institute of Technology) discovered the secret for a perfect balance between nature and the built environment.

Three decades of experiments in the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest and 420 billion in governmental funds were spent to arrive to this sensational discovery.

Biodynamic structures can now be grafted onto genetically engineered trees to create the NBH (Nature-Building-Hybrid) Species. After the final breakthrough in the understanding of photosynthesis inner dynamics, buildings are now able to use the energy stored in trees and output refined waste products that are used by the tree to sustain its growth.

New composite materials developed by the Oxman Foundation perfectly integrate with the trees living cells and gradually fade into bio strengthened alloys to form the basic structural substrate for the grafted building units. Read the rest of this entry »

JDS Architects have unveiled the design of a sustainable zoo they’re proposing to be built on the South Korean island of Dochodo. The architecture would serve as a tourist region where nature and structures function in equilibrium. The landscape is ideal for such a development, as it features natural peaks and valleys that could house animals and be treated as nature reserves. The proposed development would have a low ecological impact. The development will be based on zero-emission transport systems and harvest renewable energy for other power needs. Rainwater will be collected and all waste would either be reused or composted for use as biofuel and fertilizer. Read the rest of this entry »

Located on the Venice Canals of Los Angeles, Hover House 3 represents the third iteration in architect Glen Irani’s Hover House series. Conceived as a reinterpretation of interior and exterior space, the series sets a standard in temperate regions for eliminating significant portions of the interior floor by ‘hovering’ the building envelope above the grade level. The design increases the overall square footage afforded by the lot, while also decreasing the more costly and resource-intensive interior floor. The exchange of built volumes for exterior living equivalents, a wind tower that extends nine feet above the roof (eliminates air conditioning), and other significant system integrations aid in greatly reducing the overall carbon footprint. Read the rest of this entry »

Inspiration came from approaching a “skyscraper” as the achievement of resource densification. Humans are a resource as much as water and energy are, so should the program of a building be designed in a way to densify the resources that are in the greatest demand for its environment.

Using Detroit, Michigan for context, Riparian Urbanism is part of the solution for breathing new life into the starving urban environment. It introduces new opportunity, concentrates and mobilizes existing industries, connects the community in new provocative ways and improves overall quality of life. It cultivates algae for bio-fuel and fertilizer, provides conditioned spaced for urban farming, incubates technology start-ups and is a home to cutting edge research and development. Algae cultivation and urban farming naturally treats and filters wastewater as well as sequesters carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. The program of the building provides innovative space and location attracting human capital to develop and mature ideas into market changing products, catalyzing new industries that will re-use the expanse of abandoned infrastructure. With new technology and design capacity this urban infrastructure emerges not only as a functional necessity but as a formal icon, creating a connection by engaging population through multiple sensory channels. Through that engagement, the structure communicates its purpose and becomes an influential piece of urban evolution – culturally, economically and socially. Similar to the local riparian ecosystems in Michigan national parks the building houses zones or microclimates regulated by their programmatic thermal requirements. Farmland, Biomass, Research Labs, and Office Space come together in a symbiotic building regulating its heat based on the needs of its specific program. The building swells and billows at times of climatic extremes, indicating that its ecosystem is in-fact alive. Read the rest of this entry »

The aim of  the TRESTLES FOOTBRIDGE – International Design Competition was to deliver a safe and compliant route between the existing parking lot and the surf beach, while preserving and enhancing the co-existence of coastal ecology and recreational activities. Organized by Architecture for Humanity, the competition would provide a design to be implemented in repairing the San Onofre wetlands, damaged by excessive foot traffic.  The proposal by Dan Brill Architects was not selected as one of the 5 finalist. However, the design was ranked 5^th on Dezeen’s  “most-viewed” page of 2010. The competition entry received great number of public votes, earning the People’s Choice Award and an honorable mention.

Exceeding the actual distance between two points by 300 feet, the 1,100 feet long bridge incorporates elements of necessary infrastructure: toilets, outside showers, drinking fountains, a lifeguard tower etc. Its 11 feet width is sporadically increased to accommodate informal seating areas, positioned to enjoy dramatic vistas along the coastline. Educational content is distributed along the structure, informing visitors of local history and habitats of endangered species. Read the rest of this entry »