At University of Toronto at Mississagua, replacing a “Dungeon” library with beacon
The new library at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, a suburban campus of the Canadian flagship university, clad in an unusual wood veneer, is a warm and inviting place, unlike its predecessor. Mississauga’s old library was so awful that the head librarian, Mary Ann Mavrinac, actually considered turning down the job. It was designed by Andrew Frontini of Shore, Tilbe, Irwin & Partners.
Desert city house by Marwan Al-Sayed Architects
Located on a relatively flat one-acre parcel in Paradise Valley, Arizona, within the Phoenix metropolitan area, the site is opposite the Arizona Canal with panoramic views to the Squaw Peak Mountain reserve to the north and Camelback Mountain to the east. Urban desert living made simple, graced by strong apertures in thick walls, slightly inflected and with proportions more commonly found in ancient cities than the cities and homes that surround us today.
Vital building - Mozas Aguirre Arquitectos
This is the headquarters for the local savings bank in Madrid by Mozas Aguirre arquitectos. The building reproduces the scale of the surrounding small woods, a park of the Natura 2000 networking programme. The structural concept is based on pairs of exterior metal supports, clad in stainless steel composite panels.The idea is to identify the building as a live organism in motion. A black skin made of glass protects the inhabited spaces behind the stainless steel pairs.
Asadov floating aerohotel - The future of hotels?
Due to the shadows of global warming and induced population displacement, aquatecture is becoming more and more attractive. Russian architect Alexander Asadov, famous for his deconstructivist designs which counter the structured monolithic opulence typified in Russia, takes aquatecture to a new level by offering the Aerohotel Concept.
Christ the King & Ceri Richards
The Historic Churches Commission has refused to authorise the reordering of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool. The change would have involved siting a new, smaller altar at a lower level.It is difficult to say whether Frederick Gibberd had an underlying geometrical plan for the Blessed Sacrament Chapel that might explain the proportions and position of individual elements. Unity is provided by the combination of colour, line, light and relief in Ceri Richards’ great painted reredos, tabernacle doors and stained-glass windows. The original intention was that Richards would produce an altar frontal as part of the scheme. This was never executed.
Ceiling painting
Spanish abstract artist Miquel Barcelo spent more than a year creating the 16,000-square-foot elliptical painting for the dome of ‘Hall XX’ that houses the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. It is featuring hundreds of hanging stalactite shapes in colored shades - a ’sculptural’ painting, invading the space of the council.The Spanish government has sponsored Barcelo to do this painting with funds of teh FAD (fondos de Auyuda al desarrollo - funds to help development) FAD is part of the Spanish budget that is suposed to go to help developing countries. That sponsosrchip was of about 500.000 Euros of the total cost of the work of around 20 million.
Lighting design
Former entertainment lawyer-turned-lighting designer Michael McHale creates chandeliers that are as much about structure as they are shimmering crystal.Born from the seeds of a DIY project, Michael McHale Designs is drafting a new vision for the chandelier, utilizing such rough and ready materials as patinated brass pipes and fittings, refrigerator bulbs, and appliance tubing in concert with the finest crystal available. The effect is at once jarring and oddly beautiful.
Architecture in shadows
The Kimbell Art Museum unveiled Renzo Piano’s design for its new building opposite Louis I. Kahn’s 1972 landmark. While the site plan and section don’t reveal a heck of a lot about the design, it made me wonder why Piano is chosen not only for every other museum design (it seems) but for additions to important, and in some case iconic, pieces of Modern architecture.
Bianna House / Hidalgo Hartmann
Located in an agricultural valley surrounded by mountains, the house submits to the protagonism of the landscape with respect. It is perfectly integrated in the ground and views are oriented through precise openings that frame the nature.The house is composed by two concrete volumes that are inserted in the territory getting used to it. Both volumes of diferent sizes are set firmly to the ground by the enlargement of the containing walls that define them.
Frank Lloyd Wright´s house, renovation
In 1988, Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino bought a run-down house in the Millstone borough of New Jersey. A house that was designed by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright. Turns out, that Wright had been thinking of the environment back then. The home, along with about 100 others, was designed in his “Usonian” style– a style that utilized admirable green building principles, including smaller footprints, lower cost, passive solar and radiant heating. The couple, principals of architecture and design firm, Tarantino Studio, renovated it, which won an award from the New Jersey chapter of the American Institute of Architecture.
