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Tag: New typologies for new circumstances

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Architecture Myths #33: Flexibile Space

Architecture Myths #33: Flexibile Space
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The theory is that being able to reconfigure or otherwise allocate a space in different ways enables that space to be used for a greater variety of activities. This seems simple and obvious enough but still needs untangling. First, it assumes that different activities require different spatial configurations and this isn’t necessarily true because most […]

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Greenhouse Effect

Greenhouse Effect
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Ralph Rapson’s Case Study House #4 was the only Case Study House that promoted a different, less glamorous kind of lifestyle. It was also the only one that didn’t get built. A large skylight covers an indoor garden cultivated for what looks like food. It’s a good idea even if it’s not clear what’s supposed […]

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The Household and Community (2/2)

The Household and Community (2/2)
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At the end of the first part of this two-part post, I noted that I don’t know of any other architect, housing association or housing provider who’s keen to incorporate Yamamoto’s recommendation that all dwellings have some kind of threshold space, physical or visual, connecting and at the same time separating the public realm and […]

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The Household and Community (1/2)

The Household and Community (1/2)
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I’ve been posting these Riken Yamamoto “The Space of Power vs. The Power of Space” posts more or less regularly since Mach last year so I thought it’d be a good idea to summarize everything so far just in case anybody comes across the blog and is wondering what’s going on. My summary quickly grew […]

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Ch. 3, pp.120–128

Ch. 3, pp.120–128
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• • •  4 Labourers as Free as BirdsLabourers trespassing in the city After the Industrial Revolution, there was soot and smoke from furnaces, and industrial and domestic waste flowing into rivers, there was the movement of people made possible by railways, and a process of local societies being destroyed by the large influx of labourers. “The […]

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Ch. 1, pp.46–55

Ch. 1, pp.46–55
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* * * 1.4 Settlements Survey II – Houses with “thresholds” “Thresholds” are in the gap between two realms ”Thresholds” are in-between the large community that is the polis and the small community that is the house (oikos), and have the role of mediating between the two so the community that is the house (oikos) is […]

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The Space of Power vs. The Power of Space

The Space of Power vs. The Power of Space
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Soon after it was announced that Riken Yamamoto had been awarded the 2024 Pritzker Prize, V asked me if I’d read the book of the title. I said I hadn’t but, a few days later, I came across a copy of the book in the university library and knew I had to give it a […]

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More of the same

More of the same
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Mario Chiattone was a Swiss architect who fell in with The Futurists. This is his 1914 Futurist City. He’s showing it’s the future by going for mixed-use superblocks linked by elevated pedestrian walkways on perimeter buildings bordering ground level roads futuristically congested with automobiles. This unit is then repeated X-Y. A decade later was Ludwig […]

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The Cost of Space

The Cost of Space
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I know it’s common practice in Western Europe, Japan and China, for residential unit listings to include not only the price but also the floor area of the dwelling. Some agents will even provide the cost per square metre so you can make your own judgment about the effects of factors such as location, view […]

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Headroom

Headroom
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Buildings with double height spaces have existed for as long as there have been haylofts, minstrels’ galleries and artist’s studios, but the history of making more efficient use of the height inside residential space is about a hundred years. Many of the first proposals were entries to the 1926 Comradely Competition for Communal Housing organized […]

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Holes in Buildings

Holes in Buildings
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Holes in buildings have been around for a while – at least since 1982 when Arquitectonica’s The Atlantis was completed and most definitely since 1984 when the building was featured in the opening credits of Miami Vice that ran for five seasons from 1984. I just read that one of the five founding members in 1977 […]

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Freedom

Freedom
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This is another of those posts from misfits’ prehistory, this time from August 1999. The description on the site https://www.tomorrow.city/a/freedom-ship says: “Designed by the engineer Norman Nixon at the end of the ’90s, the “Freedom Ship is a 25-story high megaship that is 1,371.6 meters long, 228 meters wide and 106.68 meters high. The vessel is too […]

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