the progress of an architecture student through their final year
In Porto was a fantastic public house of another variety than those you drink in. Here is a sketch of Mercado de S. Sebastiao, which is a fresh produce market in between Sao Bento station and Porto Cathedral. Large shuttered concrete structures cover the market with ornate in-situ counter tops, all individual to the produce on sale. This space demands a beautiful drawing.
This is one of a selection of photographs online on Flickr, which you can look at here, that were taken in Porto, Portugal.
The city is incredibly beautiful and much more accessible with the insertion of a new public railway. It also boasts a large amount of Alvaro Siza buildings including the Serralves Museum, the Faculty of Architecture and Leca Swimming Pools, though try not to grab on to the hand rails. Despite an unbelievable talent in resolving junctions of geometries, for some reason sturdy balustrades escape him. Nobody’s perfect.
Caruso St John Architects have just unveiled the new Nottingham Contemporary Arts Centre, which takes inspirations from both the physical nature of the site and the architectural character of the warehouses in the lace market near to it. The most interesting feature though is the lace moulds for the external facade, which have taken original lace patterns and machine milled by computer control an original, from which a mould can be taken and then several concrete precast units can be formed. You can read The Architects Journal here.
Taken straight from the pages of L.W.A.P.D. this is a video by the Architect’s Journal showing their top five comic book cities. All are fantastic cityscapes but one of the complaints is that Gotham City (the skyline to Batman’s caped crusades) is destroyed to match Tim Burton’s description for his first two films. Films though can also be a fantastic source of beautiful cityscapes of the future such as Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or even animations like Sky Blue but also interpretations of what cities can become if the world goes horribly wrong such as Children of Men, is perhaps slightly more interesting, even if less spectacular.
The artist Shepard Fairey, otherwise known as OBEY (the giant), is most well known for his Obama print which was the iconic image of the current president of the United States’ election campaign. Some of his more decorative work feature very intricate wallpaper style patterns. Above is his Flower Vine print and a wallpaper print from The Grapes coloured the same way.
Beautiful.
You may remember the wallpaper from The Grapes that was drawn up. Well it is starting to take on a 3D form, not quite sure at what scale yet or for what exact purpose but I thought it would be good to show that there is initial workings and many investigations that may not lead to an answer but may still inform the final output.
The picture also seems reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin.
I stumbled across this blog and like it, so I thought I’d share.
Opened in February 2009, Raven Row is a new contemporary art exhibition centre by 6a Architects. It comprises of two 1754 grade 1 listed shop fronts restored and coupled together with newly designed excavated area and facade to the rear. The thoughtfulness of 6a throughout the project is stunning with every detail from facade to fitting carefully considered, the final result is a stunning building that allows transition between each original building and new additions to happen seamlessly. In their own words “We took the view that the pre-existing construction need not be consigned to history and framed by the new. We have aimed to make each piece of this evolving puzzle oscillate between past and present. Rather than fixing history in the past, we have allowed for contemporary narratives to be drawn across time and space”.
Pictured above is the cast iron facade, addressing Frying Pan Lane to the rear of the building. The mould, taken from charred timber, whilst also being very beautiful also considers the history of the building representing the fire that ravaged the building in 1972.
The new crossing at Oxford Circus has just been opened by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. It is apparently based on the Shibuya station crossing in Tokyo by Atkins. London is a very busy place and there aren’t many more places in the country, if any, that needed attention on its pedestrian usage but is the cultural difference between the two cities small enough for the new crossing to be a success in the west? Only time will tell.
Here is the Guardian article I read earlier and stole the photo from.
In Design for London’s own words “The vision for the East London Green Grid is to create a network of interlinked, multi-purpose open spaces with good connections to the areas where people live and work, public transport, the Green Belt and the Thames. This will be a richly varied landscape that will include diverse uses to appeal to all.”
As a very powerful project which hopefully will create balance to the large amount of development for the 2012 olympics this text gives an insight into the extent of the Green Grid, which is being earmarked as a strategy for the rest of London. It is also the basis for one of the modules this year.
