It was only December last year when I first learned about Tōgō Murano’s Yahata Library (1955-2014) in Kitakyushu, Japan. Tōgō Murano is mostly unknown outside of Japan but he had some useful ideas about how buildings should be so I expect that’s why. [c.f. Architecture Misfit #21: Togo Murano (村野藤吾)] In the post The Floating […]
As a follow-on from past posts on the subject of architectural reductions and the gradual lessening of the number of avenues open to architects to create architecture, the placement of windows may well be one of the last to go. I say this because walls and openings in them are a natural and essential pairing […]
Japan’s first high-speed rail link known to English speakers as the “Bullet Train” but to Japanese as the (Tokaido) Shinkansen [東海道新幹線, lit. New Arterial Line], began operating between Tokyo and Osaka almost sixty years ago on October 1, 1964, the same year as the Tokyo Olympic Games. It was the realization of a 1940 proposal for […]
Now, when energy is either scarce or expensive, it’s worth remembering that air conditioning accounts for one fifth of all electricity used by buildings. It’s also worth remembering that air conditioning really only means heating air or cooling air because, if you want your air filtered, purified, humidified or dehumidified, then what you need is […]
The Chinese language is the world’s only language that doesn’t have an alphabet. Each of its 3,000 essential characters has a pronunciation, intonation, meaning and writing stroke order that must be learned and remembered. It’s a lot. So I’ve used the English alphabet to organize some examples of Chinese fit-for-purpose and make it easier to […]
You know how it is when you rearrange bookshelves. You pick up something and open it and before you know it, the morning is gone. The other day, I picked up Issue #46 of Log magazine from 2019. I remember skimming through it and the following Issue #47 about carbon form. I thought I’d revisit […]
The French left Shanghai with the former French Concession streets lined with plane trees. Many more trees were planted across the city in the 1950s and they continue to provide shade and coolth today. Streets like the one below are attractive and also very welcome on hot days. We now know that the bark and […]
