Since I first saw a photo of it, this particular building has had a certain fascination for me. It’s called La Pyramide, by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Architectura. It’s on the French-Spanish border and dates from 1976. Here’s an historic scan. Only relatively recently did I learn the building’s name and where it was, etc. I learned that […]
The title of a recent article in architectureau was “Doing less is more.” The gist was that the drive to make every centimetre of a project sustainable can cause us to overlook the fact that the strategy of designing less can achieve more. The article draws upon Venturi/Scott Brown’s celebrated Duck vs. Decorated Shed categorisation […]
Misfit friends! It’s been more than a year now so here’s an “all-time” progress report on what’s been going on, based on statistics from those nice folks at WordPress. Most people who find this blog find it via a search engine, and search engines, as you know, only give back what you put into them. […]
To fill in those long midsummer (or, for our southern hemisphere friends, mid-winter) nights, here’s some quick brainteasers. The answers are at the bottom – no cheating! QUESTION 1: Which is older? A: Villa Savoye? or B: Joan Collins … QUESTION 2: What did Frank Lloyd Wright’s mother give him to play with? A. LEGO? B. SUPERCITY? C. Froebel […]
The Misfits’ “English for Architects” Awards are designed to highlight groundbreaking examples of the English language being used to make shitty buildings and ideas seem not only better than they are, but fucking amazing! The Rem Koolhaas Prize: This prize is awarded as a tribute to Rem Koolhaas when he hasn’t had time to prepare […]
Go here for more details and a pic.
Today’s Guardian newspaper had images of the shortlist for the pylon competition I wrote about in an earlier post. Here are the six shortlisted entries. 1) T-Pylon by Bystrup Architecture, Design & Engineering Materials: Hot dip galvanized steel with a paint finish and as alternatives Cor-Ten steel, stainless steel, and hot dip galvanized without paint. What […]
Hello again! Check this out! http://www.ribapylondesign.com/ Yes, it’s an RIBA-approved competition to re-design electricity pylons. Here’s all the good bits from the competition brief, deconstructed. Competition Objective The challenging target of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, means substantial change in our energy infrastructure with electricity becoming an increasingly important part of our […]
