January 2005
New Ash Green: 60's housing in the U.K.
Not all 60's housing experiments/designs were created equal, especially when it comes to large scale developments. But when it's good, it's good. We've previously featured some good stuff in California, and here is a tasty morsel in Great Britain.
This website (with small but enticing images) is a wealth of information about this "unique housing project in Kent, its original developer SPAN and their consultant architect Eric Lyons."
Link: Span Kent, New Ash Green
Via: Things
Books — January 30, 2005
Posted by James
Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape
Continuing in the vain of landscape architecture and reclaimed sites...
Around the world abandoned industrial sites, landfills, waterfronts and other tainted lands provide opportunities and challenges. Vancouver is seeking to turn an industrial waterfront into a residential district, Sydney transformed polluted wastelands into their Olympic Park, and outside of London Stockley Park reclaimed an ancient manufacturing site.
Manufactured Sites explores the "reclamation of land and the integration of innovative technologies and design strategies in their redevelopment and regeneration" from the perspective of landscape design professionals, including a chapter/project by Peter Latz. Editor Niall Kirkwood is an Associate professor of landscape architecture, Director of the Masters in Landscape Architecture degree programs, and founder and Director of the Center for Technology and Environment at Harvard GSD.
Editor: Niall Kirkwood
Link: Amazon
Related: Westergasfabriek (Land+Living)
Interventions on industrial sites and ill defined open spaces
Landscape architect Peter Latz, based in Kranzberg, Germany, practices what he preaches; defining and reclaiming the landscape with an eye on ecology and social needs.
The practice of Latz + Partner focuses on "the renewal of destroyed and often contaminated sites, - a new balance in the traffic infrastructures and - the spatial and material framework of ecological programmes." Their work tackles gritty urban and industrial sites with attention to expressing the history and character of the land.
The website may be a bit cumbersome to navigate and dense, but it is packed with information and images just waiting to reward the focused browser. Plus, you can take your pick of German, English or French text... In Ordnung; all right; bien.
Link: Latz + Partner
Public art is... apparently... private?
Related to our continuing concern with the privatization of public space, here is an interesting situation featuring Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago's Millennium Park.
According to a post at New (sub)Urbanism, photographer Warren Wimmer was prevented from photographing this piece of public art.
Fascinating.
Link: New (sub)Urbanism - Copyrighting of Public Space
Reference: Chicago's Millennium Park (Land+Living)
Reference: It's a Crocker etc. (Land+Living)
A Los Angeles architect who beat me down
Once upon a time at SCI-Arc, I encountered Barbara Bestor sitting on my jury for a crit while pursuing my Masters degree in Architecture. Crits are like defending yourself against a crime that you know you have committed, and I recall that Barbara found me to be particularly guilty. Well, she may not have been enamored of my design that day, but I am quite impressed with the work shown on her website.
In her 30's, Barbara Bestor has established herself in a profession that is hard to break into at a young age, especailly as a woman in a profession (even in 2005) skewed towards men. Based upon my experience with her and what I have seen of her work, I can see how she has done it... she is tough talking and opinionated but refined, talented, knowledgeable, and skilled at producing wonderful results with small budgets.
Link: Bestor Architecture
A rant about one of our favorite rags
Over in the Archinect forums, a member with the moniker Suture has written an interesting little rant about how Dwell is slowly changing from a magazine that once featured hand made coffee tables and stenciled walls to one that now features individuals tooling around in "mid 50's Mercedes" toting "$1000+ worth of luggage" and can afford "$20,000 plus worth of iconic Mies furnishings". I guess it's been a long transition because I never really noticed it, but now that he mentions it, it suddenly stands out so well.
"Where they once documented honest, affordable projects that did not strain to be trendy, they are now profiling unfinished projects (or was that a proposition for a new temporal plywood design) (p96) just so they can stuff crass advertising down peoples throat (back cover and 123), sell branded shoes (see p127), sell not very accessible or ecologically friendly cars (p 27 and they have had H2 ads before)...sadly the list goes on. I wont even touch the out of control and exponentially growing ad section in the back that is busting at the seams."
So, we pose the question: Should Dwell go back to leaning more to the Ready Made side of the fence or should they continue on their current path catering to the Elle Decor crowd? Comment below!
Link: Archinect Forums
Link: Dwell
Link: Fruit Bowl Manifesto (Dwell)
Events — January 28, 2005
Posted by James
Grab your pruning shears and get ready to party in April 2005
The American Society of Landscape Architects has declared April 2005 as National Landscape Architecture Month. The theme will be Design for Active Living, highlighting ways landscape architecture and community design affect daily activity levels, and, in turn, overall health.
Link: ASLA - Landscape Architecture Month
Outdoor — January 27, 2005
Posted by Anthony
Cast concrete amenities
Kornegay Design is an Arizona based company that specializes in cast concrete planters, benches, and receptacles. Their products are cast from a proprietary concrete mix which is extremely durable in cold weather environments.
I've been looking for landscape elements for my garden and must say, the Nutshell design and the Mex Bold (featured at right) are two of my favorites.
Link: Kornegay Design [Thanks, Paula!]
Home decor and accessories from Rios Clementi Hale Studios
notNeutral is... well... not neutral. And not ashamed of it. A division of Los Angeles multi-disciplinary design firm Rios Clementi Hale Studios, notNeutral offers "confident, hip and streetwise products that express individuality and choice." It's kind of like the anti-Pottery Barn.
Their products offer a broad range of dinnerware, pillows, vases, children’s furniture, and home accessories of all kinds. It's funky groovy stuff, as if four decades of design and style have collided... and it works.
They have their own retail store on Melrose in Los Angeles, a web store, and are carried by specialty retailers.
Link: notNeutral
An courtyard garden space for a Boston condominium complex
This garden occupies the inner court space of an old printing house in Boston that has been converted into residential condominium units. The design solution, by Salem, Massachusetts based Landworks Studio, creates usable communal space while at the same time providing privacy and varied views for the inner condo units.
In contrast to the regularity of the existing structure, the landscape architects employed a concept of fragmentation; in the plantings, pathways, materials, topographic undulation, etc. Groovy lighting elements transform the space at night with a yellow green glow emanating from the benches and a fiber optic web amongst the bamboo. The design provides an stylish contemporary foil to the historic building.
Link: Landworks Studio
Land+Living in the New York Times
We've hit the big time now. Will you still love us when we're in our "carbohydrate, sequined-jumpsuit, young-girls-in-white-cotton-panties, waking-up-in-a-pool-of-your-own-vomit, bloated-purple-dead-on-a-toilet phase?" Because, you know, it's all just a matter of time now.
Land+Living gets a quick mention in an article by Lockhart Steele about design blogs in the New York Times Home & Garden section. And it has already gone to our heads. So, what are you waiting for? Go read it already!
EDIT - Oh, and we should mention, while the article implies that our focus is landscape design, you can see that we cover a wide range of topics. That said, we are dedicated to covering landscape design, objects and ideas.
Article: NY Times - Hot Off the Web: Gossip and Guidance (alternate link)
Events — January 25, 2005
Posted by James
Constructing the Contemporary Landscape
Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City running February 25 through May 16, 2005.
Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape presents twenty-three landscape-design projects that reveal the surge of creativity and critical debate in the design of public spaces, from small urban plazas to large parks for post-industrial sites to long-range plans for entire urban sectors. In the last twenty years, the most significant new landscapes have been designed for sites that were reclaimed from conflict, degradation, or abandonment. The projects, located throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, were selected for their outstanding design and to show a variety of scales, contexts, materials, and types of spaces found in the contemporary landscape.
Link: MoMA - Groundswell
Up to our ankles in brown stuff and white stuff
Sorry for the unannounced sabbatical. So, we have some catching up to do here at L+L... and one of us has some plumbing to replace. Ah, the joys of home ownership.
The other of us has no such excuse... just snow blind from snowboarding in the Eastern Sierra... and now drawn to Snow Design and all things frozen and icy. Hmmm... Julie Snow Architects...
Well, at least one excuse makes for better images than the other.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming soon... after we shake the brown and white stuff.
Modern design meets New Urbanist living
While I appreciate the concept of the tower in the park, the reality of many modernist urban developments can be quite dismal. And while I agree with the principles of the New Urbanism, I feel that many New Urbanists are too hung up on the "white picket fence" trappings of traditional style.
But even Andres Duany provides a retort to this perception, and has designed a project that (at least partially) proves it. "Aqua breaks the mold of what many people perceive TND to be, but that’s a misconception. New Urbanism is not style-based. Aqua makes that clear."
Aqua is mid-sized infill project (8.5 acres) on Allison Island in Miami Beach. It is the site of a former hospital and the project reuses an existing parking garage/office building.
Orginally posted 1/17/2005
New article: Slatin Report - Chilly Design, Hot Aqua
Link: Aqua | Allison Island - hehe... aqua.net ;-)
Article: The Next American City - New Urban Meets Modern in South Florida
Article: HousingZone.com - Andres Duany & Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk: Home/Work (2002)
Firm: Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company
Via: Planetizen
Australian landscape firm
Staying Down Under for the moment, we move from lamps to landscapes.
We ran across this site for landscape designer Kristen Martin of Erskineville, New South Wales some time back. Unfortunately there is not much on the website... but we keep coming back to it.
Though the website may not be very informative or well designed and the images are few and mostly small, something in those little images speaks to us. It doesn't blow your socks off, there is just some nice understated, yet high quality design work shining through.
So please, pay a visit, won't you?
Link: Kristen Martin Landscape Architects
Lighting — January 17, 2005
Posted by James
A lamp from Down Under
Lamp shades are often kind of an afterthought. Well, what we mean is that they just sort of hover there with out any attention to the connection between the shade and the rest of the fixture. There is the kind where you screw on the little decorative doohickey to hold the shade on the bracket, and then there is the kind that clips directly on to the light bulb. These are just simple, yet not interesting, solutions to a "problem."
Now, we like simple solutions, and here's one by Melbourne designers Marcel Sigel and Alana di Giacomo. The blown glass shade is formed to the shape of the light bulb, and it simply sits on the bulb... it traces the bulb... and it also seems to poke a little bit of fun at the traditional lamp shade. The base of the lamp is nice as well, but in our opinion, the shade is quite elegant and is really the ticket here.
Designer: Zuii
Contemporary public spaces; innovative architecture, landscape, and urban design
Exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC running January 15 through May 15, 2005.
If a democracy is defined by the character of its discourse and public debate, the success of that democracy must be measured by the quantity and quality of its public spaces, the venues where citizens gather for cultural and civic interaction... a range of projects from memorials to new types of urban plazas and parks, from Macon, Georgia, to Melbourne, Australia, to Johannesburg, South Africa.
Featured designers include: Will Alsop, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, Craig Dykers, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Walter Hood, Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, Peter Walker, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Rafael Viñoly and Norman Foster.
Originally posted 1/9/2005
Link: National Building Museum
An efficient bathroom remodel
Red glass tile wraps from floor to wall to ceiling in this efficient bathroom by husband and wife design team Adam and Lisa Christie of Portland, Oregon based Prototype Architects. The side walls are covered in waterproof cement plaster, and the fourth wall features a floor to ceiling mirror.
The entire bathroom is conceived as one continuous space, rather than little compartments. The floor surface is open and uninterrupted thanks to the wall mounted sink and toilet. Custom designed stainless steel fixtures include towel bars and shelves, and the large trough sink which is hung in front of the mirror wall and features two double-jointed kitchen faucets.
A stunningly clean and efficient space.
Firm: Prototype Architecture
News, Urban — January 14, 2005
Posted by James
"Not a mall, it's a lifestyle center"
In twenty years they won't want you to say "lifestyle center." Anyway, more about the lifestyle center trend in the news.
The number of lifestyle centers has quickly accelerated, from just 30 in 2002 to 120 at the end of 2004. Between 10 to 20 new centers are slated to open each year for the next two years. By contrast, only eight new regional malls are expected to open by 2006, according to ICSC.
Link: CNNmoney - Not a mall, it's a lifestyle center
Reference: It's a Crocker (L+L)
Reference: "Lunching With the Caruso of Retail" (L+L)
Off-the-shelf glass and aluminum structure kit house
We've had a little dryspell in our prefab news, but the drought is over... more prefab for you junkies.
Designed by Los Angeles area architects Linda Taalman and Alan Koch, the concept is a high design, customized (with funky outFiTs) 1000 square foot kit house that takes only 8 weeks to construct. "The iT house is made up of a series of off-the-shelf parts which are internationally distributed by industry partners or locally available as typical standard construction." Two houses have been commissioned and will be build this year.
Link: iT House
Firm: TK Architecture
Green, News — January 12, 2005
Posted by James
Could "sustainability planning" actually harm long term sustainability?
A paper by Peter Gordon of the University of Southern California takes an interesting look at sustainable planning and policy and suggests that long term sustainability may be hampered by some current "solutions."
Perhaps a bit academic for L+L? Nah... it pays to be informed. Take a break from the eye candy and read up.
Link: Sustainability Planning: First, Do No Harm (500k PDF file)
Link: USC Urban Initiative
Via: Planetizen
Go on, put your feet up
We've picked up a bit of a Scandanavian theme in 5 out of our last 8 blogs... hmmm... what's up with that?
Anyway, who says built in footrests are only for recliners? And who says a modern chair can't be comfortable? I don't know, did somebody say that? Why are we asking so many questions?
This comfy yet modern armchair by Swedish designer Thomas Bernstrand (who has incidentally designed items for the big stupid blue place too) features a nifty slide out foot stool and head rest. Also available in a three seater sofa model. Pretty cool, huh?
Designer: Thomas Bernstrand
Manufacturer: Söderbergs Möbler AB
A modern wood cabin in the forest
This "young firm" based is Bergen, Norway is producing some interesting work that is both experimental and ecologically responsible.
For this summer house, the architects have conceived a wood structure defined by a continuous, folded plane forming interior and exterior spaces.
Firm: Saunders & Wilhelmsen Architecture
UPDATE: Mr. Saunders and Mr. Wilhelmsen have now moved on to individual practices.
Link: Saunders Architecture
Link: Wilhelmsen Arkitektur
Books — January 8, 2005
Posted by James
A balanced and self-renewing environment
"With a distinct emphasis on human cooperation and biological partnership in design, the author explores the relationship between the built environment and nature to illustrate how both can be used to their full potential without being detrimental or destructive to each other. Provides a combination of scientific insight and constructive design, and shows how to employ what nature offers to the fullest extent without imposing limitations or design constraints to create a balanced and self-renewing environment."
Author: Ian L. McHarg
Link: Amazon
Student exhibition in Iceland
Our attempt at ironic humor didn't quite register in our post about Ikea's destructive habits earlier this week... OK, so comedians we are not.
But these third year product design students at the Academy of Arts in Iceland were charged with transforming Ikea products into something that Ikea would not represent. And some were successful in adding humor and
irony into their designs. ;-)
Link: Icelandic National Team
Via: Designboom
Reference: Bad, Ikea, bad! Very bad Ikea! (Land+Living)
Graphic landscapes
We have seen the work of this seven person San Francisco based landscape firm before in publications, but somehow just happened to stumble across the website today. The bold and graphic qualities of their designs have beautifully textural and architectural qualities.
While their website is really just an online CV, it does feature photo layouts of three residential projects. Wonderful work, we suggest that you take a gander.
Firm: Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture
Destroying design to sell design
Ikea is at it again. Knocking down the past to build a big-box emporium to hock their mass produced modern design wares. Here is a company that takes advantage of their Scandinavian design heritage to sell inexpensive, yet "well designed" products to the masses. But, in the process, they have now displayed two blatant instances of their disregard for design legacy. First, they defaced a Marcel Breuer building in New Haven, Connecticut. Now the wrecking ball has turned to Civil War era structures in Brooklyn.
Nice work, Ikea. Class act all the way.
Via: Curbed
Link: New York Daily News - Ikea targets buildings
Link: Metropolis - Disposable Architecture
The bad guy: Ikea
Swedish apartment interior - not Ikea
The Stockholm apartment of director Jonas Åkerlund is a cool, eclectic, contemporary space. Åkerlund magages to pack in lots of stuff... and we all have "stuff" don't we... and work within an existing structure to create a very interesting "lived-in" modern dwelling.
Other than the page of photos featuring Åkerlund's apartment, we aren't exactly sure this website is about... real estate, or something. The only Swedish we know, sadly, we learned from Ikea and the Swedish Chef. :-T
Link: Lagerling - Åkerlund apartment
Via: Newstoday
