glass

glass is heralded as one of the most important materials in modern architecture and can be found in almost every building. but in these trying times (i.e. deadlines) let us not forget why we put windows in our buildings.

http://vimeo.com/16611269

dimensions

cool site from the BBC

http://www.howbigreally.com/

Union Tank Car Dome

Pretty interesting story of an impressive industrial relic.

 

http://vimeo.com/13966041

for future reference

http://www.archive.org/details/maps_usgs

USGS Maps of all 50 states. I believe most are 1:24,000 with 10′ contours.

Chicago Site Photos

Hey everyone,

Figured it would make sense to share site photos on the server. I created a folder called “Project 3 Site Photos” in the “48-205” folder under “Studios” which will be organized by where the photo is taken from. This should make it easy for us to find the views we need. You may want to put photos into a folder with your name on it (or otherwise tag them) so that you can be credited when someone uses your photo (is this important to people?).

Feel free to create new folders for other vantage points.

Thanks!

Talking Head

Cool!

New Development Planned for Mt. Washington

Just saw some drawings for a new development at the top of the incline. Check it:

Brief project description:

“The proposed mixed-use development includes a world-class, 110 room hotel, 55-unit condominium, spa and fitness center, and fine-dining restaurant. The site will also feature a grand public terrace that will extend the Grandview promenade and offer unparalleled views of Pittsburgh and the Three Rivers. Recognizing the importance of sustainable design, the entire project will strive to obtain a LEED Silver rating.”

And here is the architecture firm.

-Liam

videos

two cool architecture-related videos i recently found on vimeo.com. the first is a short documentary about two men and their quest to BASE jump from the Burj Dubai. the second is ALL rendered. think about that while you watch.

liam

portfolio help

Was working on my portfolio today and found this e-book. Hope it helps those of you putting together your work.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/11317175/Architecture-eBook-the-Portfolio-An-Architecture-Students-Handbook

Happy New Year!

Liam

structural glass dome

Found this interesting project by a PhD student from the University of Stuttgart in collaboration with Werner Sobek (designer of R128 and some other glass structures Kai showed). It’s a glass dome 8.5 m across made up of nothing other than custom glass panels adhered together along the edges. No structural system (besides the glass and the ring that lifts it off the ground) holds this thing up! The glass is 10-mm thick, an 8-mm layer of float glass and a 2-mm layer of chemically strengthened glass.

For more info go here.

Enjoy!

Cool.

http://www.lightlanebike.com/

bikes.

This is sort of a response to Matt’s post about how people get around in the city and concerns my experiences with bikes. I live in a pretty rural place, I’m an avid mountain biker and have ridden on the road a certain amount. However, Pittsburgh was my first experience riding in a big city. I only started riding my bike around the end of the semester, but loved it. It really is a fantastic way to get around in an urban environment. 

When I came home, I brought my bike, an older but well maintained Schwinn, back with me. I started riding it to work, 10 or so miles away in Ithaca. This ride takes me by fields and past many country homes. The roads are fairly empty, and I only see a few cars in the first 25 minutes of my ride. After crossing Route 13, I drop into town through Cayuga Heights, a neighborhood consisting primarily of Cornell professors and their families. The decent is steep and fast, and I end up downtown in about 10 minutes. Once there, I ride across downtown through traffic. The terrain here is perfectly flat and I can often keep up with cars. The whole ride takes me about 40 minutes.

Sometimes I’ll ride up the hill to home, but this is a grueling hour-plus adventure. Recently, I’ve started taking the bus up the hill. The buses here have bike racks on the front which make this kind of commuting easy.

I’m of the attitude that I need to fend for myself on the road. Many drivers don’t know how to share the road with bikers, and some are even strongly anti-cyclist. I’ve even encountered some vehement anger towards cyclists on the roads, and many bikers have similar stories of verbal and physical attacks.

 

Somewhat related is a recent surge in interest surrounding biking in cities. Bike companies now market bikes specifically for urban riders, especially single-speed and fixed-gear models. A fixed gear bike has no freewheel, meaning the chain directly links the front chainring to the rear wheel. Thus, a fixie rider can pedal backwards to go backwards or lock the rear wheel with their legs to skid to a stop. Riding a fixie is hard because the rider must pedal the whole time and stopping takes longer than with a conventional bike. Because of this, fixie riders develop an ability to navigate through a city making fewer stops and maintaining a cruising speed longer. I find it interesting that this small difference in design influences the way the rider views and experiences the city.

Fixies were made popular by bike messengers riding in large cities such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Here, skilled riders can get around the city much faster than someone on foot or in a car. Riders take great pride in their bikes, which can be built with a wide range of options and custom fittings. Some riders are also adapting their bikes to more freestyle ends, adopting moves from BMX and developing some of their own.

Finally, some links:

http://bike-pgh.org/

http://freeridepgh.org/

http://www.brakeless.ca/index2.html

 

So what are YOUR experiences with bikes like? Commuting? For fun? In the city? Any negative experiences with drivers? Let’s hear it!

your summer and the future of the world.

I hope everyone’s summer is treating them well. If anyone has found work in the field of architecture, congratulations! Hopefully we’ll get some more accounts of those experiences on the blog soon.

I’m very impressed with the range of stuff being posted here, some really fantastic writing and ideas. I’ll do my best to add to it, over a range of pretty much unrelated topics. 

First, I spent the first few weeks of summer trying to find an internship here in Ithaca, NY. Didn’t get any work, but did find a bunch of interesting local firms. After being introduced to some of the top international firms over this year, it was cool to see architects working on a much smaller scale. Links:

http://www.twla.com/

 (personal favorite)

http://www.holt.com/

 

http://barradasandpartners.com/

http://js-architects.com/home.htm

 

http://jkdarchitect.com/

 

http://www.leathersassociates.com/index.php

 (playground designers)

Second, I really enjoyed the 50 Manifestos from Icon Magazine. I especially liked Geoff Manaugh’s writing (he is BLDGBLOG)

Everything is relevant to architecture – from plate tectonics to urban warfare to astronomy and the melting point of steel. There is architecture lining the streets of New York and Paris, sure – but there is architecture in the novels of Franz Kafka and WG Sebald and in The Odyssey. There is architecture on stage at the Old Vic each night, and in the paintings of de Chirico, and in the secret prisons of military superpowers. There is architecture in our dreams, poems, TV shows, ads and videogames – as well as in the toy sets of children. The suburbs are architecture; bonded warehouses are architecture; slums are architecture; NASA’s lunar base plans are architecture – as are the space stations in orbit about us.

Stop limiting the conversation.

This is intriguing to me because inspiration for our creativity can come from anywhere. I believe channeling the underlying organization and beauty from seemingly unrelated fields can lead to incredible work, and work that has the potential to change our world. 

On that note, the third piece I want to share is the Architecture 2030 Challenge. I recently stumbled upon this initiative (led by Santa Fe architect Edward Mazria) to make all new buildings carbon-neutral by 2030, meaning they would require no greenhouse gas-emitting power to operate. A first step towards this is the 2010 Imperative which asks design schools to adopt a curriculum which teaches students to eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels. It also asks schools to work towards becoming carbon-neutral by 2010. The exciting piece of all this is the way Mazria wants us to accomplish these goals. He proposes a “14x Stimulus” plan, whereby state and local governments use stimulus money to provide incentives to people to make their homes and buildings easier on the environment. It’s pretty complicated (the whole system is laid out on the website) but basically the money would go towards providing lower interest rates on mortgages for people building or renovating their homes. If Mazria’s math is correct, this will create 14 times the amount of spending due to stimulus money, as well as create 14 times the number of jobs that would have been created by a single stimulus dollar (convenient that both work out to an even 14, right?). Mazria recently presented his plan in Washington, to what seems to be quite a lot of support. Hopefully this will work and be a step in the right direction.

And now I’ve run out of steam. Thoughts?