double happiness

Architect Didier Fiuza Faustino converted a billboard into swing set.

left behind

 Maybe it's because "Hoarders" has me fantasizing about tearing the garage down rather than cleaning it out (yup, I'm still traumatized) but I can't stop looking at German photographer, Marcus Buck's images of architectural remains.  

They're so beautiful, the scars left behind when a building is torn down, the peeling paint in what used to be a living room, the ladder rungs going from the absent roof to the remaining one.

More here. 

even better than gingerbread

Architects Marijke Bruinsma, Marjan Van Capelle and Arjen de Groot created Eathouse, a shelter to grow food to eat! Made of a modular system using scaffolding and plastic crates, Eathouse makes it possible for you to grow fruit vegetables on the walls and roof of a backyard garden shed.

As much as I love the whole idea, and even though I can't stop fantasizing about putting an Eathouse in my own backyard, I think the model might be my favorite part.

more images and info here.

ghosts

I absolutely love this project by the British architecture firm, Haworth Tompkins.  They said, "the result is a building that from a distance evokes the ghost of the original structure, but, seen from close to, reveals itself as entirely new."

Read more about it and see lots more photos, here.  

prefab

There's a lot of interest in prefab houses lately, but they are nothing new.  From 1908 until the Depression, Sears sold wood framed, prefab homes and shipped them all across the country.  The houses were remarkably well built, many are still standing, and remarkably inexpensive.  

Even adjusted for inflation, this one would cost just $35,000! 

Doesn't a 2 car garage cost like 20 grand?  

check out more at the Sears Archives.

Art Prize

Check out this really great piece by Mike Leonard about Art Prize on the Today Show.

My favorite part is when one of the artists says that the real prize is getting to show her work in a great venue and have it seen by so many people.

Well that, and the part around 1:05 in where they show Steven, Josh and Matthew's piece.  :)

neighbors

Beautiful, and kind of depressing, Bill Rankin's map of Chicago shows the racial and ethnic divides in the city. Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Gray is Other, and each dot is 25 people. Data from Census 2000.



Eric Fischer was so struck by the image, he made maps of other cities the same way. Check the rest out here.

prize worthy

Steven, Josh and Matthew are headed to Grand Rapids to install their piece for ArtPrize this afternoon.

I am so excited to see it finished and in place at the park.  As they work on it inside it looks HUGE!

If you are in the area, go see it and vote!  Top prize is $250,000 (no typo) and if you vote for them and they win I will bake each and every one of you a cake.

bragging rights

Forgive me for bragging about my husband, but I am so excited I can't help myself.  Steven and his colleagues Josh Bard and Matthew Shulte won an R+D Award from Architect Magazine for their project, Digital Steam-Bending: Developing a Parametrically Adaptable Wishbone Structural System!

Inspired by Thonet furniture and canoe construction, combining 21st and 19th century technology, and using only natural materials, they created a system that can be to create moveable or temporary structures.

They are going use the system to build one such structure at the Frederick Meijer Garden and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids as a part of Art Prize this September.  (Vote early, vote often!)

But the best part (to me anyway) is that their work is on the COVER of this months Architect Magazine!

Sorry this last image is so ridiculous, we haven't received our copy yet!

Archi-tourism

Whenever we go anywhere we spend a whole lot of time looking at buildings.

And details of buildings.

Buildings of famous architects, buildings by not so famous architects, it doesn't much matter, we go see 'em.

And take pictures of them.

It is the blessing, and the curse, of having married an architect.

These are just a few of the hundreds Steven took over 4 days.

A good friend of mine says that art is like vitamins. You take in too much at one time and you just start peeing it out.

Same goes for architecture.

The Netherlands is pretty amazing though.

It's an incredible mix of gorgeous old buildings and gorgeous (and sometimes crazy) new buildings.

Freer house

Last night we went to a lecture about Iranian and Turkish Falnama (book of Omens) in Detroit. The lecture was just ok, but it was held at the Charles Lang Freer House (71 E. Ferry) which is amazing.

Charles Lang Freer was an industrialist and art collector and when he died he gave his collection of East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian and American art to the nation creating the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian.  He left his house to Wayne State University where it now houses the Merrill Palmer Institute of Human Development and Family Life.

Built in 1892, the house is beautiful. On the exterior the first floor is blue limestone and the upper floors are made out of oak shingles. Maybe there are lots of houses like that in the world, but I can't remember seeing one.

The interior was designed to house Mr Freer's extensive art collection and it has 22 rooms with 12 fireplaces. The collection is now at the Smithsonian and the rooms are used as offices and lecture halls, but the wood work, fixtures and other details are meticulously maintained and lovely. My favorite part was that each room that had a fireplace also had a little, built-in, wooden bench next to it, which seems to me to be a brilliant way to survive a long Detroit winter. I wish I'd brought a camera so I could show you a picture.

(the peacock room at the Smithsonian is from the Freer House.)

photos from wikipedia, wayne state and flickr