Finalists in NMAAHC Museum Competition, Washington DC

Six finalists were named for their designs of the National Museum of African American History and Culture to be built in Washington DC. The 5 acre site is on the southwest corner of Constitution Ave & 14th St. NW. It will be 300,000 to 350,000 sq ft in size, and requires a 50 foot setback due to post 9/11 restrictions. The cost is estimated at $500,000,000 with half of that coming from the government.

Site (click to enlarge):

The finalists are:

-Devrouax & Purnell Architects/Planners, P.C, and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects, LLP

-Diller Scofidio + Renfro in association with Kling Stubbins

-Foster + Partners and URS

-Freelon Adjaye Bond in association with Smith Group

-Moody Nolan Inc. in association with Antoine Predock Architect PC

-Moshe Safdie and Associates Inc. in association with Sultan Campbell Britt & Associates

Each team received a $50,000 stipend for their competition design. The winner will be announced in mid-April, and they have 3 years to complete the design, as construction starts in 2012 and the museum will open in 2015.

No renderings or images were released with the announcement, so it appears the designs will be under wrap until the winner is announced.

via Bustler / Washington Post

An Easy Case for Public Transportation

Delugan Meissl - Porsche Museum Stuttgart

On January 31 the new Porsche Museum by Delugan Meissl Architects (Vienna, Austria) opens in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart. The 60,300 sq. ft. building came in at around $100million euros, almost twice the original budget. More than 200,000 visitors are expected per year.


via der Spiegel

Museum wikipedia page

Monday, Bloody Monday

Today, 71,400 people across the US were told they were losing their job.

The breakdown:
-Caterpiller - 20,000 jobs cut
-Pfizer - 26,000 jobs cut
-Sprint Nextel - 8,000 jobs cut
-Home Depot - 7,000 jobs cut
-Texas Instruments - 8,400 jobs cut
-ING Financial - 7,000 jobs cut
-Deere & Co. 700 jobs cut

A more detailed look at corporate layoffs across in January 2009 already (from cnn.com) click to enlarge:


via cnn.com

Humberto Hermeto - Casa BF

Humberto Hermeto Architects completed their Casa BF in 2005. The main feature of the home is an elevated, cantilevered viewpoint room with a 180 degree view of the surrounding hillside.

via platform arquitectura

Mario Botta - Tschuggen Bergoase Spa

I ran across this project while searching for the wall sections of Peter Zumthor's Vals Baths. Mario Botta, whose projects I've covered before, completed a the Tschuggen Bergoase Spa in Arosa, Switzerland in 2006. The 57,000 sq. ft, $30.3 million USD building was meant to hide is mass in the hillside, showing itself to the outside mostly in the form of light 'trees', the large glass leaf looking structures that let in light during the day and glow at night.
Botta is very good at quiet, intimate space, and looks like he's scored another home run here. I'll have to swing by on my next trip to Switzerland.

Sections and Elevations:

Design Model:

Photos:
Spa Website

Where in the World - Arosa, Switzerland

What a Difference a Setting Makes

In 2007 a test was done at the L'Enfant DC Metro stop. World renown violinist Joshua Bell walked in with a $3.5million, Stradivarius made in 1713 and began playing. From the 1,097 people who walked by that morning, only 7 stopped to listen. One passerby recognized him and put $20 in his collection case, other than that he received $32.17. Three days prior he played in Boston's Symphony Hall, where merely OK seats sell for $100 each.



See the article here.

via Tim Ferriss' twitter

dRMM - Sliding House

dRMM has completed a house in Suffolk, England that has a massive 84 foot long sliding roof/wall element. Very cool, a convertible house!

via dezeen

AR-Media Plugin for Sketchup - Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is a field of research where computer graphic objects are blended into real footage in real-time.

The AR-Media Sketchup plugin allows you to place your sketchup models into a video. All that is required is a webcam and the printed code. Very, very cool!

Inglobe Technologies AR-Media Website

See videos below from their youtube channel:






Here is a trevel guide called Wikitude that uses a similar technology.

Denver, Colorado

I also stopped in Denver, Colorado on my trip. Everything in downtown Denver is modern, with tons of buildings under construction or upcoming. I had an absolute archigasm as I wondered around the downtown. Below are some of the projects I visited.

The Denver Art Museum extension completed in 2006 by Daniel Libeskind, at a cost of around $20m.

A design elevation I found online:


And 2 night shots I took while there:


The Museum of Contemporary Art by David Adjaye, which opened in October 2007.
A very cool black paneled building, but I found a corten-steel paneled building right behind it that I found much more interesting.


The Sugarcube building on Blake St. is a luxury apartment building, deisgned by KBMP Architects from Toronto. 37 Units, great location, fantastic looking building.

Photo from website:


Millenium Bridge by ArchitectureDenver and Ove Arup. A very cool cable-stayed pedestrian bridge over the train tracks.


The driving east into Denver from Vail is unbelievable, the mountain passes are breathtaking. The drive east out of Denver into Kansas, however, was one of the most boring things I've ever subjected myself to. I'll be returning to Denver very soon!!

Steven Holl - Nelson Atkins Museum

Another stop on my roadtrip was Kansas City. I only had an evening to spend there, but it provided the perfect setting for photographing Steven Holl's 1-1/2 year old Bloch Building (named after H&R Block founder Henry Bloch) addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum. Holl's idea was to place 5 glass 'lenses' on top of a submerged 165,000 square foot building. At $95million it came in at around $575/sq. ft.

All of the competition design entries called for the addition to be on the North side of the existing building (left on image below), but Holl's called for it to me on the east side, a much less aggressive location with response to the existing building, completed in 1933.

Site Plan:

Photo of the design model:
I arrived after the museum had closed so I didn't even get a chance to wander around inside, but the glowing buildings were interesting enough to spend an hour taking pictures. I love how the landscape intersects the building at such sharp angles and clean lines.

Some photos I took on my visit (click to enlarge):

Museum website
My Flickr Page!

Olafur Eliasson - Your House

Olafur Eliasson has made a book that is comprised of 454 pages of laser cut sections of his house. Badass.
Produced by Kremo (German)
via Spaceinvading

Arches National Park

I've been roadtripping this past week and decided to spend the night in Moab, Utah. Being that it's January, this little mountain biking/tourist driven town of 4,800 people was quiet and cold, but the locals I did run into at Woody's Tavern were friendly and laid back. Growing beards and playing pool seemed to be the popular pastimes during winter there, I had a great time. They told me to come back in April during the Jeep Safari, when several thousand jeep owners descend upon the town to go offroading.

(click to enlarge)

I got up before dawn the next morning and headed into Arches National Park, about a mile from downtown Moab. The visitor's center wasn't open yet so I headed up the 2 lane road into the park. The landscape there is absolutely unreal, and being able to snap some photos just before and after sunrise was a treat. Next time I visit I'll make sure to do it in the warmer months, but I did enjoy having the park pretty much to myself. Well worth a visit if you're ever on I-70 out that way!

Below are some photos I took while there:

David Gonçalves - Grasshopper & Scarab

I'm back after a holiday vacation! Hope your holidays went well.


David Gonçalves has recently shown us 2 outstanding projects.
The Grasshopper is a foldable city bike that stores the energy of the rider's pedaling for later use. It looks a little like a circus bike, but I'd still probably get one. It appears to only be in the conceptual phase, keep an eye out for production model if/when they come.


The Scarab is an electric concept vehicle that folds into a vertical position for compact storage. I love the chrome body rendering, this would be an aggressive looking little street ride.