Junk Space

Below is a link to Rem Koolhaas' Junk Space aritcle that was discussed during last weeks tutorials.

www.johnstuartarchitecture.com/Spring_2009_Video_Readings_files/Koolhaas%20Junkspace.pdf

Office for Submissive Architecture

James i thought you may find this project useful,

www.osa-online.net/de/flavours/up/intact/a/index.htm

The project consisted of three interventions on an unused site in London, similar to the site you've been looking at.

Metacity Datatown

For anyone that might find it useful MVRDV's Metacity Datatown is available to view in its entirety on line within google books at http://books.google.com/books?id=I-DlCsZctYgC&dq=metacity+datatown&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=lua-nru6W_&sig=mkKKsFHmXRfKYzW9PAAYRHcA2hs&hl=en&

FIRST WORKS: EMERGING ARCHITECTURAL EXPERIMENTATION OF THE 1960s &1970s
Architectural Association Gallery & Front Members’ Room

34-36 Bedford Square

London WC1B 3ES
7 November–12 December 2009,

11 January–13 February 2010

'The mask one wears when entering a profession becomes one's authentic face'
Friedrich Nietzsche

'What is a beginning?'
Edward Said

During a tumultuous period in the 1960s and 70s, new generations of architects began careers amidst a period of profound social change, new conditions to architecture and the city, and lasting changes to popular and critical forms of culture and its production. FIRST WORKS tells the story of this period and re-assesses the conditions of architecture and the beginnings of architectural careers today through a selection of projects world-wide undertaken during the 60s and 70s. The exhibition presents a single key early project or other kind of architectural realisation by Archigram, Archizoom, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Peter Eisenman, Norman Foster + Richard Rogers, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Steven Holl, Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Rafael Moneo, Morphosis, Renzo Piano, Cedric Price, Aldo Rossi, Alvaro Siza, Bernard Tschumi, Robert Venturi and Paul Virilio + Claude Parent.

It seems clear today that in any discipline related to the production of culture the question of how one starts a career is absolutely central. Not by chance, successive generations of architects have found in their first works the basis for long-term interests, agendas and even obsessions. More interestingly, these beginnings often represent a kind of compressed architectural portfolio of an architects' career, marking key discoveries, breaks or shifts in how they think, work and learn architecture. FIRST WORKS offers a broad selection of this experience through the arrival of a generation that went on to, and continues to, profoundly influence architecture.

A key objective of this exhibition is to trace the origins of contemporary architecture through the formative projects of its most celebrated figures. The projects included will allow students and architects to reconsider practices now often better known through their current or later works. FIRST WORKS provides a timely opportunity to resituate the crucial role of these projects, and their various forms of realisation --built, and otherwise--through which critical forms of architectural practice can be seen to emerge and later influence architecture. At a time when the launching of an architectural career and the work of young architects is itself undergoing great change and experimentation, this exhibition provides the basis for re-assessing some of the world's most important and vital projects and personalities today. Exhibition materials include original architectural drawings, sketches, models, early publication materials and more. Accompany monograph published by AA Publications, 256 pp. full-colour.

This is a video of visualising the RFID field of the Oyster card and other technologies. It can be found on Dan Hill's website City of Sound leading architecture and urbanism website

http://www.cityofsound.com/

http://vimeo.com/7022707

Immaterials: the ghost in the field from timo on Vimeo.

Blue Brain Project

What we're doing is reverse-engineering the brain," says Henry Mackram , codirector of the Brain Mind Institute at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland and leader of the Blue Brain Project , which began in 2005. By mimicking the behavior of the brain down to the individual neuron, the researchers aim to create a modeling tool that can be used by neuroscientists to run experiments, test hypotheses, and analyze the effects of drugs more efficiently than they could using real brain tissue. The model of part of the brain was completed last year, says Markram. But now, after extensive testing comparing its behavior with results from biological experiments, he is satisfied that the simulation is accurate enough that the researchers can proceed with the rest of the brain."

Vaclav Cigler Light and Water

http://www.nationalglasscentre.com/exhibitiondetails.php?exid=63

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/crafts-magazine/news/view/2009/cigler-at-nationa-glass-centre?from=/crafts-magazine/news/

Thought this might be of use to Dimitrios as it features glass and water... Looks really interesting! Here's what the AJ says: Vaclav Cigler: Light and Water as a Principle "Vaclav Cigler receives his first solo exhibition in the UK at the age of 80. The National Glass Centre hosts the Czech artist's architectural works, with installations composed in glass, metal, light and water selected to suit the space. Outside the front door, as a sort of welcome sign, is Luminous Axis, a horizontal line of light enclosed between two steel elements, Inside, Spring is a large steel water tank with slanted mirrors that distorts reflections of the room and visitors."

Ione Braddick, Architect's Journal, 01.10.09

www.thecoolhunter.co.uk interesting website for various inspirations!

Ming-Kao, following on from the tutorial yesterday, I found some information on these cool temporary dance clubs designed by Modulorbeat in Germany. Link below

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/6184/modulorbeat-balestra-berlin-kubik-berlin.html#at

Steampunk Trip

Hi all,

I am interested in visiting this exhibition, which is on for the next few months, and would like to know if anyone else is interested in going? You can check out the link below for more information, thanks David

www.steampunkmuseumexhibition.blogspot.com

Thought u might find this interesting

http://www.yatzer.com/

Urban/Act

Hay all, the book a brought in last week was called
'A hand book for alternative practice - Urban act'
It's ISBN is 978-2-9530751-0-6

Rachel Whiteread's Holocaust memorial Vienna

http://www.notcot.org/

The Beauty Of Rotting Fruit And A Taxidermied Crow - Claire Morgan

"Claire Morgan originally from Belfast got a first class degree in Sculpture from Ulster and Northumbria University.

Claire has made her career as a visual artist, with exhibits across the UK as well as internationally. She developed an interest in the organic, in natural processes, and in the bodily connotations of natural materials.

It is this fascnination that makes the foundation for her sculptural taxidermy installations.

The following installation, fluid for Northumbria University in an exhibition called Building With Colour uses hundreds of strawberries and a taxidermied crow."

Robert Smithson

"The Spiral Jetty, considered to be the central work of American sculptor Robert Smithson, is an earthwork sculpture constructed in 1970.
Built of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks, earth, and water on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah[1], it forms a 1500-foot long,[2] 15-foot wide counterclockwise coil jutting from the shore of the lake which is only visible when the level of the Great Salt Lake falls below an elevation of 4,197.8 feet[3].
At the time of its construction, the water level of the lake was unusually low because of a drought. Within a few years, the water level returned to normal and submerged the jetty for the next three decades. Due to a drought, the jetty re-emerged in 2004 and was completely exposed for almost a year. The lake level rose again during the spring of 2005 due to a near record-setting snowpack in the mountains and partially submerged the Jetty again.
Originally black basalt rock against ruddy water, it is now largely white against pink due to salt encrustation and lower water levels."

Anya Gallaccio

"Because I Could Not Stop (2002) is a bronze cast of an apple tree, embellished with real apples which will inevitably rot over the duration of the show. The tree actually looks as if it is diseased with a cancer of fresh fruit!"