An ingenuitive city house featuring decent privacy from the street-level but allowing light and an organic feel through the use of light wells and trees. Alittle too bunkerish for my tastes but interesting nonetheless.

(via Dezeen » Blog Archive » House in Saka by Suppose Design Office)

Who doesn’t love a beautiful staircase? You can’t help but admire it when, what stands in for a mundane detail of most buildings, get’s represented as something newly thought through and exciting.

(via Inside award winner: St Barbara Bastions by Architecture Project)

I love seeing architecture that challenges. This proposed design for Wadi resort is breathtaking, incorporating the local geography but creating something spectacularly human-made. Click through the link below to see all of the images. Beautiful, isn't it?

(via Dezeen » Blog Archive » Wadi Resort by Oppenheim Architecture Design)

Amazing Building Mapping – Vimeo Festival from Dan Ilic on Vimeo.

[Hat tip to kottke.org]

Shigeru Ban focuses on architecture that is created from re-used material such as shipping containers and paper tubes.

So imagine that you’re the city of Chicago, home to famous architects Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. You are widely respected for having the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), a school whose architecture was designed by Mies and houses the masterpiece known as Crown Hall. Given other options, why would you destroy one of Mies’ buildings, even this minor one (which, it should be noted, is outside the Mies master-planned area of IIT)? Well that is what’s happening with the “Test Cell” later this week as it is demolished to make room for a new commuter line.

“If you had even a minor doodle by Rembrandt, and you weren’t forced to throw it in a fire, why would you?” another proponent of saving the building, Chicago architecture critic Edward Lifson, wrote on his “Hello Beautiful!” blog.

Given what Edward Lifson has posted on the subject, I don’t understand why they couldn’t redirect the line a bit to go around this site. I was there last year and there’s quite a bit of open space around IIT and the “Test Cell.” It seems a pretty intentional move to obliterate this structure. I agree with Lifson, the line would be much more interesting if it passed next to the work of Mies van der Rohe instead of through where it used to be.

I also know that Chicago is a big city and is going to have to increasingly balance the new with the old. In cases like this, the new just better improve upon the old. It’s hard to say that the new Metra station design is better than even a minor work of Mies. To read a thoughtful piece on why they are moving forward with the demolition, you should read the Chicago Tribune piece by Blair Kamin. The postscript at the end of the article makes some salient points on behalf of Mies’ grandson.

No matter what, a small piece of Mies’ history will be removed this week. If you live in Chicago and are a fan of Mies van der Rohe, get your photos now.

• Picture of the “Test Cell” on flickr

As some of you know, I own a piece of mountain property in the hills above Walla Walla that we use for camping. The property overlooks the Walla Walla valley and consists of an excavated flat spot, driveway, shed and fire pit – that’s it. The remoteness of the property and the fact that we don’t live there, has us constantly discussing what we’d eventually like to build out there as a recreational property. We don’t want to put up something that gaudy or out of place as most of the neighbors live in simple cabins or manufactured homes, but we don’t exactly love the idea of owning an uninspired manufactured home either. This has us searching out alternatives that don’t beg to be broken into when we’re not there, that can hold up to some of the extreme weather that rips through the area, and that still offers us our own little slice of heaven when we’re out in the area wine tasting, enjoying the local restaurants, etc.

I love the unassuming exterior of this cabin and how it doesn’t hint at the modern enhancements that have been made to the interior. The cabin is over 200 years old but was remodeled in 1997 by Andreas Fuhrimann Gabrielle Hächler.

A week or so ago, Jan and I went and visited an architect over at Hybrid Architecture to discuss a possible cargo container solution for our property. We came away pretty interested in something resembling the c320 Studio model (you’ll have to click through to see the images since they’re all glommed together into one image for the page). Again, we love that the exterior is non-descript (in this case, rather industrial) but that the interior is nice, allowing us to open up to outdoor living most of the time that we’re out in Walla Walla. We also like the idea of sealing the place up to become two impervious shipping containers when we leave.

[Cabin via Treehugger]

Lately, in strident conversations with friends, I’ve noticed myself returning to a particular viewpoint. For ease of use, let’s call it the “imagine everyone lived that way” view. When my friends discuss locavorism or transportation one of the first things I try to do do is scale the conversation to infinite participants and see where it breaks; not so that I can pooh-pooh the idea, mind you, but so that we can actually scratch below the surface and have a meaningful engagement around the topic. How do people in arid landscapes practice locavorism when their climates are being impacted by industrialized nations, their people are being starved by oppressive regimes, and there’s no reliable water? What do they do? Sounds like a job for “evil agribusiness” to me.

These types of conversations make many of my friends uncomfortable. That’s understandable considering that most of them live pretty well with generally high-paying jobs. They are perfectly content to spout the newest buzzword, beatifically discuss the merits of said newest trend, and go about their latte-hazed days. Many I know suffer from a self-centered knee-jerk liberalism. They really feel for the plight of everybody, but they do so in a way that’s skewed towards their own self-interest. Hey, I love locavorism because I live in Seattle and have access to some of the most outstanding produce and seafood on the planet. I wouldn’t feel the same way if I lived in Sudan.

I love my friends, I do. This isn’t about them, per se, but more about what see when I look at my observable universe and I expand outward from there. No prescription, just observation.

How’s all that for a really discursive means of getting to the fact that I really love this rehabilitated house project in Normandy, France? Franklin Azzi architects took a broken down old farmhouse and renovated it, largely in its existing footprint. Isn’t it refreshing when people who can afford to live large, don’t?

Before

After

For more on this project (including interior shots), see the following posts:

• Tiny House Design
• Franklin Azzi Architecture
• MoCo Loco

• Two new Roberto Bolaño novels (as well as a piece believed to be the 6th section of the 5-part “2666″) have been discovered
  “2666″ is one of the most anticipated books I have on my “to read” shelf at home. Based on the reviews, I know it’s going to be right up my alley. With that in mind, the news of new books excites me. The quote below shows the level of commitment Bolaño exhibited for his craft.

  Bolano died in Spain after spending the last part of his life in the Costa Brava region, where he worked a series of menial jobs including washing dishes, selling jewellery to tourists and as a night watchman at a campsite in order to support himself, a wife and young family while he pursued his literary ambitions.

• Exclusive Crank 2 Trailer on io9
  I didn’t see the first one but apparently people loved it. As a fan of “Death Race,” I ‘ll probably like it too. It looks nutty.
• Tor’s got a nifty post on Ryunosuke Akutugawa and how the visions that formulated stories such as Rashomon may have eventually killed him
  

  Akutagawa committed suicide by poisoning at 35, following a rapid descent into mental illness that in many ways resembled the madness of his mother. I suspect that a lifelong obsession about becoming insane creates a self-fulfilling prophesy.

• Yes, 32,000 square feet is a bit excessive, even when it’s as stunning as this Kuala Lumpur residence