Maquettes in Architecture: The Forgotten Joys of Model-Making
Dec 22, 2020 · The instant physical exploration of ideas—with quick cutting and gluing of cardboard, paper, foamcore, and wood, spiced with plasticine clay, paint, or bits of clear plastic and metal—provided a primal joy that no screen can ever capture. Like a sculptor’s maquette, an architect’s model is simultaneously a search for and a test of ideas.
Juhani Pallasmaa: “Architecture is a Verb” - Common Edge
Jul 19, 2021 · Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa is the author of more than 300 essays in 30 languages as well as two dozen books. His landmark volume The Eyes of the Skin is one of the most-read texts in architecture schools worldwide. A former professor of architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology and former director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture, his design work has received numerous ...
The Legacy of Christopher Alexander: Form Language, Pattern …
Jun 4, 2018 · A Form language consists of a set of definitions and vocabulary of building and design components that can be combined coherently. These comprise specific geometries, shape and size of pieces, particular materials, etc. To most people, this is what characterizes architectural “style.”. Evolved form languages always adapt to locality ...
How Christopher Alexander Changed Architecture—and Much More
03.22.2022. By Duo Dickinson. Christopher Alexander, perhaps the single most effective polymath architect of his generation, has died at the age of 85. Through teaching, writing, building, inspiring technology, planning, and even delving into theology as well as pedagogy and aesthetic theory, Alexander created, over six decades of relentless ...
In Praise of 5-Over-1 Buildings - Common Edge
Mar 1, 2022 · Although it was originally published in 2019, this essay by Randy Nishimura, lightly updated, serves as a rebuttal of sorts to Duo Dickinson’s recent Common Edge piece,“ The Architectural Pandemic of the ‘Stick Frame Over Podium’ Building.”Dickinson likens the building type to a plague; Nishimura offers a contrarian’s perspective. A recent spate of …
Hidden Figures: The Historic Contributions of Black Architects
Oct 5, 2020 · Designer Paul Wellington, based in Milwaukee, is the author of Black Built: History and Architecture in the Black Community, a book that documents more than 40 works of architecture around the country by Black architects that have had a direct impact on communities or color.He’s now working on a new book that will focus on Black women architects in a field dominated by white males.
Making a Case for the Renaissance of Traditional African …
Feb 14, 2018 · Making a Case for the Renaissance of Traditional African Architecture. Last September, Nigerian Afrobeat musician Wizkid played to a sold-out house at the Royal Albert Hall in London, joining a growing list of illustrious African musicians, such as Selif Kaita, Youssou Ndour, Miriam Makeba and others, that have performed at that prestigious venue.
We Shape Buildings, But Do Buildings Really Shape Us?
Apr 13, 2017 · Echoing a similar ideal nearly 75 years ago, Winston Churchill said, “ We shape our buildings; afterwards our buildings shape us.”. Indeed, the belief that physical environments determine behavior has a long history, going back thousands of years. As an architect, I commend Borson, Goldhagen, and Churchill on their thinking, and can only ...
A General Agreement for the Practice of Contemporary Architecture
Nov 9, 2021 · Architecture defined solely by abstraction is intimidation made concrete. That each building should be coherently composed. The application of formal complexity is a false surrogate for an absent diversity. Authentic architectural variety results only when several architects design separate buildings in succession, responsive to the prior ones.
Laurel Canyon: The Classic California Urban Ecosystem
Aug 27, 2020 · The most arresting image, among many, in the documentary Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time, directed by Alison Ellwood, is a black-and-white photograph of Eric Clapton visiting Los Angeles for the first time on tour with Cream. He sits a few feet from Joni Mitche ll, who is playing guitar, with a visibly stoned David Crosby in the …