HAPPY FALL FROM RANDY FRANKS STUDIO
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
They walk
American firm Choi + Shine Architects designed these conceptual electricity pylons shaped like human figures to march across the Icelandic landscape.
The 30-metre tall statues would be supported on concrete footings and are an alteration of the steel frame used by existing pylons.
This design transforms mundane electrical pylons into statues on the Icelandic landscape.
Making only minor alterations to well established steel-framed tower design, we have created a series of towers that are powerful, solemn and variable. These iconic pylon-figures will become monuments in the landscape. Seeing the pylon- figures will become an unforgettable experience, elevating the towers to something more than merely a functional design of necessity.
The pylon-figures can be configured to respond to their environment with appropriate gestures. As the carried electrical lines ascend a hill, the pylon-figures change posture, imitating a climbing person. Over long spans, the pylon-figure stretches to gain increased height, crouches for increased strength or strains under the weight of the wires.
In addition, the pylon-figures can also be arranged to create a sense of place through deliberate expression. Subtle alterations in the hands and head combined with repositioning of the main body parts in the x, y and z-axis, allow for a rich variety of expressions. The pylon-figures can be placed in pairs, walking in the same direction or opposite directions, glancing at each other as they pass by or kneeling respectively, head bowed at a town.
Despite the large number of possible forms, each pylon-figure is made from the same major assembled parts (torso, fore arm, upper leg, hand etc.) and uses a library of pre-assembled joints between these parts to create the pylon-figures’ appearance. This design allows for many variations in form and height while the pylon-figures’ cost is kept low through identical production, simple assembly and construction.
The pylon-figures are designed to provide supports for the conductors, ground wires and other cables all within required clearances. These clearances are maintained in the various shown positions. The towers are largely self-supporting, sitting on concrete footings, perhaps with the addition of guy wires, depending on requirements of the loading wires.
Like the statues of Easter Island, it is envisioned that these one hundred and fifty foot tall, modern caryatids will take on a quiet authority, belonging to their landscape yet serving the people, silently transporting electricity across all terrain, day and night, sunshine or snow.
Emergency Exit
Venice Architecture Biennale 2010: visitors to the Polish pavilion at this year’s Venice Architectural Biennale launch themselves off a pile of birdcages into a sea of artificial clouds. Hot!
Called Emergency Exit, the installation by Agnieszka Kurant and Aleksandra Wasilkowska consists of empty metal cages stacked up to form the jumping platform, smoke machines and a neon sign spelling out ‘Emergency Exit’.
Here’s some more information from the designers:
Emergency Exit.
Agnieszka Kurant and Aleksandra Wasilkowska
Polish Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice
‘A neon Emergency Exit sign hangs on the facade of the Polish Pavilion. Inside, a surreal structure made of hundreds of reclaimed bird cages hides a path to its summit.
It is lit from within, suggesting a night landscape, a fantastical de-materialized world containing an object and an action. You climb the seemingly precarious structure. At the height of the summit you look down into a churning sea of clouds. Your breath catches, your pulse quickens; you look down, then out, and then leap blindly into the void. . .
The installation Emergency Exit by artist Agnieszka Kurant and architect Aleksandra Wasilkowska seeks to go beyond the logic of urban reality through the creation of ‘urban portable holes’: in-between spaces, places of uncertainty and doubt, of time-space discontinuity, such as abandoned or unfinished buildings, sites of catastrophe or accidents, illegal markets, rooftops and tunnels. The title refers ironically to the health and safety regulations in buildings and urban space that seek to plan, control risk and eliminate the accidental and unexpected.
The installation is constructed from an aggregate of metal cages, more commonly used to contain birds and prevent flight, to create a new fictional sport within the urban context. The design makes reference to the forms of decaying sports monuments, such as the ski jump in Mokotów, Warsaw—a surrealistic icon of socialist era architecture thatis now in ruins. During a test phase, visitors will be able to climb to the top of the structure and jump out into artificially generated clouds, representing ultimate freedom and urban escapism. The Polish Pavilion acts as a laboratory within which Emergency Exit engages with the public directly to provoke, inspire and excite the collective body. These actions will be documented and then presented within the Pavilion.
Kurant and Wasilkowska interpret the city as an unpredictable, complex system whose collective understanding is composed of intersecting real and imaginary spaces changed through extremely rare events. Nine out of ten things that influence our behaviour and thinking are invisible or intangible. Factors such as myths, rumours and legends overlay themselves onto the physical environment to create an urban morphology of augmented landscapes. At the same time, spontaneity and risk exist as human characteristics that can work against a rational layer of control within the urban fabric. Both invisible phenomena and social actions can change the dynamic of a street, borough, or even the entire city. Architects and planners are therefore unable to precisely anticipate all the needs and transformations of the city. If a rigid and deterministic master plan is unable to integrate emergent needs and changes then the whole city looses its equilibrium.
Emergency Exit is conceived as a hybrid machine for the transfer to other realities, perforating the system of the city. It is a portable hole to the unknown; a catalyst for different, contradictory emotions and needs. Through the transfer, people fill in the gaps with their own emotions, ideas and desires. Kurant and Wasilkowska see the moment of jumping as an exit from the modernist paradigm in architecture where emotional, affective space was ignored and considered an obsolete ornament. The activity materialises the need and desire to lose control, to free oneself both physically and metaphorically from the current system; from a dominant paradigm, logic or state. To get out of here.
Fondaco dei Tedeschi restoration by OMA
Venice Architecture Biennale 2010: Dutch firm OMA have unveiled their design for the renovation of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice.
Located by the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal, the building dates from 1506 and has been used as a trading post and customs house.
OMA’s restoration will convert the building into a department store with a cultural program.
Two sides of the roof will be removed to create a public terrace with views over the Grand Canal that can be used for events and screenings.
The scheme was unveiled at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where Rem Koolhaas has been awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement
Here’s some more information from OMA:
OMA to restore Fondaco dei Tedeschi, landmark building in Venice
OMA today unveils its design for the major restoration and redefinition of one of Venice’s largest and most iconic buildings: the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a property owned by the Benetton family, adjacent to the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal.
First constructed in 1228, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi began as a trading post for German merchants and became a customs house under Napoleon in 1806. Its use as a post office has diminished in recent years, leaving much of the building unused and inaccessible for the first time in centuries. The latest evolution of the Fondaco will create a thriving contemporary trading post in the form of a culturally-programmed department store.
The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, twice rebuilt completely, with its current configuration dating from 1506, has undergone many radical transformations since then. To accommodate new uses, its towers have been removed, courtyard covered with glass, structure rebuilt, façade restored, and new windows added, among many other interventions. For the Fondaco, preservation is a history of change.
Commissioned by the Benetton family’s property group, OMA has designed a range of architectural modifications and developed a cultural program to reactivate the building as a vital public space, from top to bottom. A terrace with rare views of the Grand Canal will be created by removing two sides of the existing roof, leaving the building’s profile intact while unlocking exciting potential for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi as a major destination and vantage point for tourists and Venetians alike. The rooftop, together with the courtyard below, will become a public venue for events including exhibitions and film screenings. A year-round cultural program will be aimed at locals and tourists – the 20 million who visit the city each year, as well as the 900,000 who come specifically for the Biennales and festivals.
The new Fondaco dei Tedeschi, as both prestige department store and public event space, aims to reestablish the historic Venetian connection between culture and commerce. The Benetton family has always demonstrated this twin spirit, uniting the innovative and international with profoundly local, Venetian roots.
New entrances to the Fondaco will be created from the Campo San Bartolomeo and the Rialto to encourage circulation, escalators will be added to create a new public route through the building, rooms will be consolidated in a way that respects the Fondaco’s structure, while crucial historic elements like the corner rooms will remain untouched. Historic aspects of the building, lost for centuries, will be resurrected: the walls of the gallerias will once again become a surface for frescoes, reappearing in a contemporary form.
OMA’s renovation scheme – both ambitious and subtle – continues the Fondaco dei Tedeschi’s tradition of vitality and adaptation. Venice will acquire a landmark department store that will become a shared civic facility and a crucial element in the cultural fabric of the city.
Located by the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal, the building dates from 1506 and has been used as a trading post and customs house.
OMA’s restoration will convert the building into a department store with a cultural program.
Two sides of the roof will be removed to create a public terrace with views over the Grand Canal that can be used for events and screenings.
The scheme was unveiled at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where Rem Koolhaas has been awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement
Here’s some more information from OMA:
OMA to restore Fondaco dei Tedeschi, landmark building in Venice
OMA today unveils its design for the major restoration and redefinition of one of Venice’s largest and most iconic buildings: the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a property owned by the Benetton family, adjacent to the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal.
First constructed in 1228, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi began as a trading post for German merchants and became a customs house under Napoleon in 1806. Its use as a post office has diminished in recent years, leaving much of the building unused and inaccessible for the first time in centuries. The latest evolution of the Fondaco will create a thriving contemporary trading post in the form of a culturally-programmed department store.
The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, twice rebuilt completely, with its current configuration dating from 1506, has undergone many radical transformations since then. To accommodate new uses, its towers have been removed, courtyard covered with glass, structure rebuilt, façade restored, and new windows added, among many other interventions. For the Fondaco, preservation is a history of change.
Commissioned by the Benetton family’s property group, OMA has designed a range of architectural modifications and developed a cultural program to reactivate the building as a vital public space, from top to bottom. A terrace with rare views of the Grand Canal will be created by removing two sides of the existing roof, leaving the building’s profile intact while unlocking exciting potential for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi as a major destination and vantage point for tourists and Venetians alike. The rooftop, together with the courtyard below, will become a public venue for events including exhibitions and film screenings. A year-round cultural program will be aimed at locals and tourists – the 20 million who visit the city each year, as well as the 900,000 who come specifically for the Biennales and festivals.
The new Fondaco dei Tedeschi, as both prestige department store and public event space, aims to reestablish the historic Venetian connection between culture and commerce. The Benetton family has always demonstrated this twin spirit, uniting the innovative and international with profoundly local, Venetian roots.
New entrances to the Fondaco will be created from the Campo San Bartolomeo and the Rialto to encourage circulation, escalators will be added to create a new public route through the building, rooms will be consolidated in a way that respects the Fondaco’s structure, while crucial historic elements like the corner rooms will remain untouched. Historic aspects of the building, lost for centuries, will be resurrected: the walls of the gallerias will once again become a surface for frescoes, reappearing in a contemporary form.
OMA’s renovation scheme – both ambitious and subtle – continues the Fondaco dei Tedeschi’s tradition of vitality and adaptation. Venice will acquire a landmark department store that will become a shared civic facility and a crucial element in the cultural fabric of the city.
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