The US embassy proposal has become the online architecture subject of the week, with countless (or probably very countable, if you know what you're doing) virtual column inches devoted to the competition, the controversy, the winning scheme, the design, the constraints, the problems, the impossibility, etc.
Will Wiles goes a little more in-depth in
Why Ambassador, With This Perimeter You Are Really Spoiling Us, exploring the brave new world of
Hostile Vehicle Mitigation ('there are such things, for instance, as armoured trees; a growing tree can absorb steel bars that will help it stop or slow a rogue vehicle' - at what point will this kind of subject stop being 'Ballardian' and start being 'BLDG BLOGian'?), and how this has resulted in 'a building designed with explosions in mind. A shape formed by the manipulation of spheres of destruction.' Just wait until the pigeons get into that funny plastic facade.
*In and Out of History, on Tintin, banality, collaboration and imagination /
Tintin drives a car / from the film
Tintin and I /
Notes + Links by Casey A.Gollan /
New British Comedy Relationship Chart /
Of paper and things, more indications of the tangible interacting with the digital. Their sidebar offers a huge collection of illustration, craft, design and ephemera blogs, e.g.
Bold on Grey.
*Film grabs of
London in the 1960s, via
The Cartoonist (a car that's
still alive). Good then and now comparison to be made with
this shot from 35 years ago. Also,
Alexandra Road under construction / thanks to
Yes We Work for suggestions.
*What Am I Doing Here? Tall Buildings and High Anxiety in Las Vegas, a piece by
Mark Lamster.
Accompanying images / a fun piece of
fantasy urbanism / all about the mellifluous '
cellar door', which always makes us think of the
Lemonheads / beautiful infographic on
Snake Oil Supplements.
*Become a
werewolf icecream man / far more about
Survival in the City, with scans aplenty at
David Galletly's great site /
Leeds: the human expectoration is black here, a photo essay of staggering bleakness /
Ampere's And, a tumblr.
*A quick trawl through the latest in urban presentation and 3D tech. It's early days at the
Day Trail Pool (via
Digital Urban) / also via DU, the work of
Rob Carter - animated cityscapes and buildings, especially the fabulous modernism-to-gothic transformations of
Stone on Stone / the
Martin Jetpack.
*Android entertainment:
ULoops /
Music 4.5, a conference /
Thounds, 'a recorder for your music thoughts', smoky ears and all /
time-lapse movie of home-working by
Dorian Moore / related, a quote from Geoff Dyer, '
Writers always envy artists, would trade places with them in a moment if they could... In the age of the computer the writer's office or study will increasingly resemble the customer service desk of an ailing small business.'
*House life in a Koolhaas: 'Characteristically, Koolhaas — whose projects are always radical and frequently perverse — flouted received wisdom about architecture for the handicapped with his House in Bordeaux, which American building inspectors would deem a potential death trap.' (
clip) /
Lewis's Fifth Floor: A Department Story (via
the Guardian).
Inside an abandoned department store in Leeds, photography by
Stephen King.
Labels: architecture, photography, things
posted by things at 21:25 /
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