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30 Sept 2010

6 Sept 2010

strange shape


I still see houses by chance that makes me surprised and a little bit happy. Like this. Even tough if feels like I've seen this before.

5 Sept 2010

tokyo apartments

Tokyo Apartments, Sou Fujimoto, 2010. The stacking of boxes of house type presents problems both with structure and logic. The structural problems are overcome by accepting the structure as part of the architecture, however the way the structure makes itself visible here is fundamentally different from the full frontal assault of Shinohara's House in Uehara or some of Sakamoto's houses were the the structure is left exposed in unexpected places because the absence of a will to resolve the problem, different layers of default interacting. Here the structure is exposed trough the default placement of the windows.

The rotations in plan but not in section expose something different. The series of house type boxes are only manipulated in height, houses without a plot. Is this a series of stacked plots in Delirious Tokyo? It is definitely contextual in a way that makes the word lose its meaning.

The house is default white and gives an answer to the question of how the bottom of a house looks. It is white too. 
It is still a very fun project to visit. To me it is neither beautiful nor ugly. But also not very resolved or critical.  

Note Casa Brutus in the window and the sign proclaiming the name.

4 Sept 2010

vegetation


Bench beneath a tree. A effective, simple and nice configuration.

However it is the tree and the effect is has on the street that is really worth noticing. It leans out and provides shade, it transforms this short stretch of the street into something calmer and more welcoming.
It also reminds me of a paper architecture proposal by the Russian (ex paper-) architect Alexander Brodsky suggesting a retirement home for football players. A courtyard building surround a football field , with a tree placed asymmetrically to provide shade from the sun so the old players could rest.

This one tree suggests to me a manifest of a city consisting of a series of smaller interventions.