Triangle Life Science Center
My first abandoned spaces expedition in RTP, NC landed me at the now demolished Triangle Life Science Center. These photos are from February 2010. The building was demolished shortly after. There are plenty more photos here. I hope you enjoy.
An Old Friend
For a while I had this project exploring abandoned buildings and public space in Wilmington, NC [34°13′24″N 77°54′44″W]. If you’re interested you can read about a couple of my experiences here. Since moving I haven’t really kept up with the picture taking/urban exploring activities but I’m still interested in these forgotten places. Just for kicks, I’ve decided to post some pictures of the building that first sparked my interests in abandoned buildings.
Imagine a building that could turn with the sun, maximizing on this energy source, not only in terms of the light it provides, but for air conditioning purposes as well, thus bringing innovation together with sustainability. This was the challenge presented to boolab by the agency Soon in Tokyo for its client, the Building Engineering Department of the Elisava design school. In reality, the commission corresponds to a communication strategy launched by the agency two years ago involving the concept of ‘impossible buildings’, which sought to show that behind any highly innovative architectural project, there must be a architectural engineer who can tackle the most mind-boggling ideas and make them a reality.
The delicate piece, brainchild of Martin Allais, portrays in 90” the construction of this ‘sunflower building’. The director challenged himself with depicting the story solely through the use of camera movements and frame changes over mock-ups and miniature characters, without relying on any animation technique. A poetic and suggestive tribute to a complex career that is often not given its due merit.
by Brett Fryzuk, New York.
Architecture & Spatial Inquiry
Non-Sign II by Lead Pencil Studio.
A new voice in the emerging field created from the interdisciplinary overlap of architecture and site specific art. Their creative output is informed by their dedication to independent research in structural typologies and the visual arts. The spaces, objects and buildings resulting from their studio process establish new territories that surprise and alter perceptions. Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo are professional architects and artists who utilize unconventional architectural systems and new media to explore issues of spatial perception. They are the principals and founders of the Seattle architectural and installation art firm Lead Pencil Studio and the 2008 recipients of the Prix de Rome in architecture.
Recently many bloggers have brought attention to the Tom Cordell documentary Utopia London. I would like to echo these nods of approval to what looks like a neat documentary. The idea of locating and connecting the original architects and designers to talk about a process reminds me of Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman, a fascinating documentary about the life and times of architectural photographer Julius Shulman.
Via the director Tom Cordell, news of his new documentary Utopia London:
“The film observes the method and practise of the Modernist architects who rebuilt London after World War Two. It shows how they revolutionized life in the city in the wake of destruction from war and the poor living conditions inherited from the Industrial Revolution. This film is their story. Utopia London travels through the recent history of the city where the film maker grew up. He finds the architects who designed it and reunites them with the buildings they created.
These young idealists were once united around a vision of using science and art to create a city of equal citizens. Their architecture fused William Morris with urban high-rise; ancient parkland with concrete.
Utopia London examines the, social and political agendas of the time in which the city was rebuilt. The story goes on to explore how the meaning of these transformative buildings has been radically manipulated over subsequent decades. Inspired by the optimism of the past it poses the question; where do we go from here and now?”
Party At The Moon Tower — The Pop-Up City
Austin, Texas is famous for breakfast tacos and Richard Linklater films. But it also home to a lesser known but equally great phenomenon known as the moonlight tower. Essentially an infrastructural anachronism, moonlight towers are 50-metre high lighting structures, designed to illuminate several blocks at a time. They were popular in North American cities at the end of the nineteenth century before ubiquitous street lighting existed, as a relatively cheap way of lighting a large city area. A single tower cast light from six carbon arc lamps, illuminating a 460 m radius circle bright enough to read a watch.
The initial construction of these towers was in part a reaction to a local serial killer dubbed the Servant Girl Annihilator, who terrorized Austin between 1885 and 1886. While every other city eventually dismantled their moonlight towers, Austin has made a concerted effort to preserve theirs. 17 of the original 31 still exist and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tent City
What does a temporary tent city for 3 million people look like? A recent visit to Expo 2010 in Shanghai clued me in to what is probably the largest ephemeral urban design in the world, the Mina Tent City in Saudi Arabia, erected each year to house Hajj pilgrims visiting Mecca during the last month of the lunar Islamic calendar.
— Via bricoleurbanism
Image and content credit: bricoleurbanism
Serious Antarctic Architecture
I’m not sure why but recently I’ve had a “thing” for that mass of ice, Antarctica. I think it started back in April when I read this great piece from Wired and shortly after watched Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World. Tonight I saw the Lee Hotz: Inside an Antarctic time machine TED Talk and decided it was time to revisit some beautiful Antarctic architecture.
Princess Elisabeth (Belgium)
Length: 72.2 feet
Width: 72.2 feet
Height: 27.9 feet
Halley VI (UK)
Length of module*: 64.6 feet
Width: 33 feet
Height: 33.1 feet
*This is the first of several modules of varying sizes that will be linked end-to-end.
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (USA)
Length: 407 feet
Width: 148 feet
Height: 39.4 feet
I urge you to check out the descriptions and details of these and many more Antarctic bases here. The common denominator to all of these great buildings is that they are seriously self-sustaining. In a land that has an involuted relationship with natural resources and energy consumption, these pragmatic buildings must be efficient and smart.
Architecture of Fear
The cities will be part of the country; I shall live 30 miles from my office in one direction, under a pine tree; my secretary will live 30 miles away from it too, in the other direction, under another pine tree. We shall both have our own car. We shall use up tires, wear out road surfaces and gears, consume oil and gasoline. All of which will necessitate a great deal of work … enough for all.
-Le Corbusier: The Radiant City
Seattle: Brought to you by TiltShift
The classic Seattle view. It makes the Space Needle look more impressive than it really is.
Vegetation on part of the Seattle Convention Center.
Piecing together the skyline
It’s been a long time since my last post. I was vacationing in the great northwest - Washington. I have hundreds of pictures, which will eventually end up here. Here are some collage-style panorama pictures of Seattle.
Paviljoen de Posbank | Rheden, Netherlands
The teahouse Pavilion attempts to meld into the landscape through the architectural and structural treatment of floors and walls. Floors appear to float in flowing, contiguous spaces. Walls disappear as the structure, tree trunks, resemble the surroundings. A glass skin lends an ambiguity between inside and outside. Here architecture and structure have a symbiotic relationship, to achieve a balance between the Pavilion and its surroundings. From the entrance the floor rises in a continuous spiral that wraps itself around a group of trees ending in a 14m cantilever. The necessary construction is made from steel, for tension, and unprocessed solid oak, for compression. A wood floor, made with cuts of tree trunk and embedded in epoxy, marks the dining area. The Pavilion provides visitors to the nature park a place to rest and eat or drink, offering splendid views of the IJssel and Rijn valleys.
When it was built in 1833 Colonnade Row was the biggest thing in New York since the British occupation, a 200-foot-long sweep of glistening white marble in the form of a Corinthian colonnade, nine houses combined into one great Greek revival statement on what is now Lafayette Street, opposite the Public Theater. But five of the houses were destroyed early in the last century, and their graceful fluted columns and Corinthian capitals were carted away, vanished from the city with the dust of demolition. Vanished, that is, until a garden designer and a Benedictine monk solved the decades-old puzzle of a mysterious Lost City in the woods of a New Jersey monastery.
Via The Mystery of the Lost City
