to Test the Plants

Nanjing Lab is a vegetation laboratory located in the historical district of Nanjing. Different from the traditional vegetation lab, which focuses on the attributes of the plants themselves, the purpose of the Nanjing lab is to test the plants’ behavior inside Nanjing city, for instance, the plants’ reaction to the the city’s polluted air and dust.

Therefore, the design focuses on being able to control the plant’s interaction with the outside. In order to do this, different plant species are put into separate containers which protrude from the main volume of the building to the outside environment. The containers provide the ability to let sun light come through and control the amount of air that passes through. At the same time, the form of the landscape around the building creates different levels humidity and solar conditions around the building, allowing the containers to interact with a diverse environment.
In the center of the lab, there is a central robot arm that is able to take out the core of the container and place them into storage for further research. The control room of the robot’s arm is located on the south side of the building.  The windows of the control room allow free view of the central robot room and the exterior.

The two big C channel steel beams are the main structure of the Nanjing lab. They lift the main body of the lab off of the ground to provide space for the underside plant containers. In between the C channel steel beams and the body of lab space is the hydraulic mechanical system that absorbs the impact of the structure from movement of the central robot arm.

Architect: Yaohua Wang Architecture
Location: Nanjing, China
Structural Engineer: Organization Group
Client: Nanjing Xiaguan district goverment
Program: Vegetation lab
Size: 200 m²
 

Archipelago

Acknowledging that the city is nothing but the product of a myriad network of interactions and emergent flows, re-organized and regulated by a highly evolved system of pattern recognition, the project designed by Gijo Paul George from Studio Toggle aims to find urban solutions for the city of Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy.

Taking fields, nodes and agents as the building blocks of urbanity, the relations and perturbations are mapped, giving rise to generative patterns. Based on this logic, the project strives to find a balance between adaptive non-programmed spaces and typological specificity. The site, SantÉlia has the notoriety for being the badlands of Cagliari. Often this image is exaggerated, contributing to the resident’s hostility to the city and vice versa. This spectacular stretch of waterfront land towards the southern tip of Cagliari happens to be disconnected from the rest of Cagliari due to massive infrastructural figures, which creates canyons in the urban fabric, also due to the negative ramifications arising from a dysfunctional social housing project, from 1970’s.

The project had specific goals including, reconnecting SantÉlia to the rest of Cagliari by colliding the island grids, bringing the city closer to the sea and thus developing the waterfront, revitalizing the social housing and improve conditions and to develop strategic nodes into multimodal urban ecologies. The focus was on de-canyonizing the fabric and overlaying the terrain with a new urban organism, which irrigates the territory and bridges the programmatic archipelago.

Rediscovering the spatial matrix of field conditions as described by Stan Allen, and further elaborated by Keiichi Matsuda in his ‘Cities for Cyborgs’, an emergent matrix of potential (pheromonal) fields acts as the substrate on which an agent-based system is populated. The constant material and information feedback between the to systems gives rise to generative patterns and densities which in turn mutate into inhabitable spaces and nested typologies, there by creating the fabric.

The project in itself becomes a discourse in how the intuitive and emergent processes can work together to produce an urban fabric, and occupy it at the same time, not losing the balance between adaptable emergent spaces, and the specific typologies which seed the territory.

The Beautiful and The Horrific

The Concert hall designed by Isaïe Bloch / Eragatory balances on a fine line between sculptural architectural objects and functional monuments, between meaning and use and between the beautiful and the horrific. While the architectonic aesthetic may seem to revolve around a straightforward gimmick, the work is much richer than that. The more you look, the more you realize how many levels it operates on, from its allusions of architectural ruïnification/collapse as in the romantic era to its connections to our current culture of remixes and mash-ups.

Each successive component of the design layers the pragmatic with an evocative spatial experience obtained by degeneration of architectural primitives in stead of the aggregation of complex freeform geometries, which would lead to very linear repetitive spatial experiences. It reorients the visitor toward a new architectural perspective and circulational/functional logics.

A way of entering into the subject of the exclusive high class Vieanese theatre spectator or his opposite looking for a free platform to spread his word. While this “fictional” concert hall is visually divorced from reality, it gives a sly commentary on the current state of architecture. After leaving this page and stepping back into the build environment, it shocks how much the building across from you, with its cheap-looking touches of faux masonry or abundant technical supplies, starts to evoke similarities with this so called “horrific, dystopian, retro past aesthetic” concert hall.

blue Curacao

Supported by the Curacao authorities nad their entrepreneurs, the project for a major touristic attractor was designed by Rotterdam-based ONL Studio. It is supposed to host the future operator for Galactic Travels and offer a venue for international scientific space ressearch. The landmark building will be built as a spaceship, applying maritime and aviation techniques on the building body.

The shape and material of the building evoke the power of rocket engines, along with lightness of the Spaceship glider swirling down to Earth. The visitor experience is articulated so it resembles the one of astronauts, making the 100 km trip into outer space. The public trajectory leads downwards, swirling down like the Spaceship glider does. The levels grow bigger each step, relating the Experience of space travels to always larger environmental and universal subjects: from the International Space Station to Spaceship II, from the Earth’s atmosphere and global climate change to the expanding Universe, and finally down to themes related to the deep sea space.

The Spaceport is designed to attract both the scientific community and tourists. The design and the styling of the SXC spaceship is intentionally related to state-of-the-art developments in automotive, naval, aerospace and environmental design.

a Silk Network

Italian architectural studio OFL architecture received the first prize in the international competition “New Silk Road Map” that aims for the recovery, reinterpretation, and reconfiguration of the Silk Road – a network of commercial, cultural, and religious paths that connected the Eastern and Western civilizations for more than 2000 years.

OFL’s project description:

Silk Road Map Evolution (SRME) is a project born out of the will to revive and regenerate the current layout of the silk road. This is to be accomplished by means of a social, economic, political and architectonic redevelopment of the historic stretch of the road that once belonged to Marco Polo.

The project deeply integrates infrastructure with architecture and by means of a new railway system functioning on gravitational platforms follows the trail from Venice to Xian, Shanghai and Tokyo, extending its “arms” to create new infrastructures, commercial services and residences. A wiry MOTOR CITY extends itself to help out urban realities and struggling economies. The (linearly) diffused city runs into other micro-cities in such a way that the greater entity hooks onto the smaller ones to help them survive and, like an economic pump, extends life from the greater nodes to the smaller and poorer extremities. The 15,000 km of the silk road shall be broken up by bionic towers which will represent the centers of new urban sprawls. The new silk road line will also serve as the GENERATOR of other paths that will branch off of the main course of the road to develop a larger economic armature.

a Fantasy Mermaid

A young girl learns she’s half mermaid and plunges into a scheme to reunite with her father in this entrancing, satisfying tale that beckons readers far below the waves.

For as long as she can remember, twelve-year-old Emily Windsnap has lived on a boat. And, oddly enough, for just as long, her mother has seemed anxious to keep Emily away from the water. But when Mom finally agrees to let her take swimming lessons, Emily makes a startling discovery — about her own identity, the mysterious father she’s never met, and the thrilling possibilities and perils shimmering deep below the water’s surface. With a sure sense of suspense and richly imaginative details, first-time author Liz Kessler lures us into a glorious undersea world where mermaids study shipwrecks at school and Neptune rules with an iron trident — an enchanting fantasy about family secrets, loyal friendship, and the convention-defying power of love.

Annotation
After finally convincing her mother that she should take swimming lessons, twelve-year-old Emily discovers a terrible and wonderful secret about herself that opens up a whole new world. .

the MIT is the Passageway

VoltaDom is an installation created for MIT’s 150th Anniversary Celebration and FAST Arts Festival. It populates the passageway between Buildings 56 and 66 on MIT’s campus. Designed by a multidisciplinary research based practice SJET, founded by Skylar Tibbits in 2007, the project is one of the firm’s recent experiments in computational design. The project revisits a historically paramount structural element-the vault, attempting to find its contemporary equivalent through various assembly and fabrication techniques. This reference allows one to appreciate the installation both as a sculpture and a research in materiality and digital fabrication.

The installation lines the concrete and glass hallway with hundreds of vaults, reminiscent of the great vaulted ceilings of historical cathedrals.It can be seen from inside and outside, creating spectacular views. The vaults provide a thickened surface articulation and a spectrum of oculi that penetrate the hallway and surrounding area with views and light. VoltaDom attempts to expand the notion of the architectural “surface panel,” by intensifying the depth of a doubly-curved vaulted surface, while maintaining relative ease in assembly and fabrication.  This is made possible by transforming complex curved vaults to developable strips, one that likens the assembly to that of simply rolling a strip of material.

 

memorabilia Generation

Designed by Fletcher Priest Architects, the tower is intended to celebrate the cosmopolitan, urban and global character of New York City. It is a high-rise monument located at the tip of Manhattan on a pier projecting from Battery Park. While revitalizing the immediate surrounding and integrating it with the existing urban tissue, the Tower Museum also functions as an architectural landmark, terminating the north-south axis that extends to uptown Manhattan. The building would facilitate various exhibitions, with the emphasis on the 1970’s memorabilia: personal effects, souvenirs and photos of a new generation of immigrants who arrived after 1960.

“The Tower rises at an incline towards the Statue of Liberty, the symbolic gateway to New York, gesturing as an outstretched arm and welcoming hand about one hundred meter high. The external structure reads as a complex layering of muscle with a layered sinuous form. Internally, a central spine rises as a vast spiral stair through a void and is approached through a fluid entry sequence to a glazed wall facing the water. Lifts and stairs climb through this vertical void to the museum, library and rooftop restaurant that has a panoramic view over the city and the outlying boroughs.”

emergent Porosity

This project by Joseph A. Sarafian from the University of Southern California imagines a future in which billions of genetic algorithms act not only as the mediator between man and reality, but shape his existence through their very interactions. It explores a functionality beyond the carrying out of human desires, but of the prediction of human behavior. These ideas manifest in the design of the Bach Multidisciplinary Research Institute. Derived from notions of how Johann Sebastian Bach wove together voices in his fugues, this design is a synthesis of various flows of information, creating an effect larger than the sum of its parts. To achieve this goal, the building acts as an organism, reacting to its environment in such a way that it automatically controls its porosity through a network of advanced algorithms. Thus the facade is a continually fluctuating network of openings.

Instead of merely controlling the light conditions of the interiors, the aperture system is designed to close off and filter pollution from the adjacent freeway as part of the research of the facility. Thus by engaging with its environment the building acts as a testing instrument as much as an enclosure. Acoustical considerations are addressed on a local level as spaces that require varying levels of insulation are opened or closed automatically and in relation to human occupancy.

The research institute is designed to engage various fields of study, from music and the visual arts to biology and mathematics. This diversity promotes a common wealth of knowledge and facilitates interdisciplinary learning. Advancements in one field will have ripple effects in others and this synergy will promote a culture of recombinatory knowledge.
Flanked by Grand Avenue and an off-ramp of the 101 Freeway in Downtown Los Angeles, this site poses a unique set of challenges. Noise and car pollution are controlled through the pyramidal apertures that can close off sound, light, air, or all three depending on which layer of the double skin system is closed. This building envelope is comprised of carbon-fiber panels that enclose a shell of glass apertures. The glass is actually an assembly of two thin glass sheets with a membrane of translucent Aerogel insulation that adds to its acoustical and thermal insulation abilities. This enclosure system functions as the mediator between interior and exterior, and is controlled by an individual, agent based system. Each occupant has his own algorithm of light preferences and thus controls the system locally, contributing to the movement of the array as a whole when the needs of many are seen acting as an amalgamation.

The building form and structure is generated by an agent-based flocking algorithm in which agents from various locations on the site create paths following those of structural loads, determining the location of primary and secondary structural members. Special thanks to my instructor, Roland Wahlroos-Ritter and friends Erick Prins and Michael Sun for their help.

a Complex Landscape

The project is located in Xiaguan District, Nanjing, China. The site is on the south side of Jianning Road, in this urban area which is traditional and historical. The architects are required to design a big complexity including entertaining, sport, commercial and administration offices. Hence the major concern of the design is how to merge this “huge complex” into the existing beautiful nature landscape scenery and get a brilliantly transitional connection with the landscape there.

The distribution of architectural volumes in this design follows the idea of traditional Chinese Gardens, which transforming the elements of water, stones, hills, bridges and flowers into significant urban shapes animating and vitalizing the daily life of the entire district. As the site is in the traditional area, which is very sensitive to avant-garde architecture, this drives us to control the upground mass of the highrise. The proposal therefore lifts up the ground surface and transforms it into a flexible and lively vertical highrise with landscape integrating all the service and leisure facilities to provide an attractive and continuously active support for this traditional and cultural site.

To the open space, the idea is through “bottom elevated” to broaden the horizons, enhance ventilation, expand public space, and promote community interaction. Meanwhile by setting up “roof garden” to increase the accessibility and integration between the inner and outer space. Thus, an outstanding public space which allows citizens to have an unique and great spatial experience can be realized.

Besides, considering the different climate in Nanjing, this requires to pay a special attention on the facade during design period. In the podium part, the façade is in form of compound “green skin“. The continuity of the urban environment is a necessary urban ecological factor.

Team Members: Xinyu Wan, Dingliang Yang, Keming Wang, Jialong Lai, Jie Li

minority Women

Over the past two years, Lili Almog has photographed minority women in the countryside, small cities, and villages of China. In her second powerHouse monograph, The Other Half of the Sky, Almog examines these women at a time when the demands of rapid growth and a sweeping desire for modernity is encroaching upon the traditions and values that have sustained their cultures as intact microcosms in the larger picture of China for centuries. Almog focuses on minority women, with an emphasis on the extraordinary situation of Muslim women in China, as well as the Mosuo women, a unique ethnic minority living within the boundaries of western China and one of the last matriarchal societies existing in the world.

The images in The Other Half of the Sky reflect how the communist revolution, with its vision of the nobility of physical labor and emphasis on gender equality, left its mark on women's and personal identity in a changing China. The book tells the story of the women of today’s China, of their individualism in their domestic and work environments, and of minority women that have only recently been exposed to modernity. Given the nature of today's Chinese society and the conflict between the private self and society, The Other Half of the Sky presents a portrait of the public female representation as a challenge to express the dignity and heroism of the private, intimate female self.

at Bosphorus Valley

An interesting Studio Project program was introduced for the spring semester 2011 at University of Applied Arts Vienna, titled-Vertical Mass, Neither One nor Many. The idea was to propose large scale urban developments as an alternative to a collection of towers resting on a retail and public plinth.  The designs would have to reinterpret notions of skyline voids and spaces within masses, putting the emphasis on the urban void instead of a tower of any kind.

Designed by Joseph Hofmarcher, Rangel Karaivanov, Jürgen Strohmayer and Siim Tuksam, the Levent Vertical Mass sits at a high point of the Bosphorus Valley, integrating the high velocity axes of the highways and contextualizing views of the old city towards the southwest. The building is a commercial high-rise facilitating hotels, offices, condominiums and public plazas and gardens. The vertical garden occupies one of the landed masses and spills into the plaza meeting semi-programmed surfaces (open air theatres, parks) triggered by the civic program in the two other masses that touch the ground. The structure is made of a torus-shaped voids and supple forms, with the adjacent program and circulation pulled around the torus into the central mixed space. Multiplicity is created by organizing program and surfaces into irreducible forms negotiating organic internal logics with the urban concept of the project.

Natural Habitats

Pupa is a habitat by Liam Hopkins of Lazerian within Bloomberg’s London headquarters made from reclaimed cardboard and pallets.

The form and aesthetics are inspired by natural habitats – cocoons, bee hives, spiders nests and weaver birds nests. The ceiling assumes the appearance of a shelter; snug and cave like, but also references the vaulted ceilings of church naves.

The numbers which can be extrapolated from Pupa reflect the almost Sisyphean task faced, whether by human, bird or insect, to create these sort of  structures:


•3,972 triangular cardboard borders make up frame
•3,972 triangle inners fill the exoskeleton providing the cover
•180 wooden pallets taken apart for chair frame and legs
•11,000 nails removed from wooden pallets
•252 leather offcuts from make up the chair seats

Constructed in triangular sections Pupa utilises the structural and acoustic properties of cardboard. Computer design techniques were used to generate the form and the individual components were then extracted from the virtual model to create flat layouts that are glued together by hand.The original Bloomberg cardboard arrived in damp bales so was pulped and re-constituted at a John Hargreaves factory in Stalybridge using machinery originally installed in 1910.

“Commissioned for Bloomberg Philanthropy by art and design agency Arts Co, ‘Waste Not, Want It’ is a series of specially commissioned art and design projects made almost entirely out of Bloomberg’s waste.”

a HogManay

Scotland - Christmas traditions & customs

The Scottish people have their big celebrations on New Year's Day, called Hogmanay. A long time ago There is a superstition that it is bad luck for the fire to go out on Christmas Eve, since it is at this time that the elves are abroad and only a raging fire will keep them from coming down the chimney.

On Christmas day, people sometimes make big bonfires and dance around them to the playing of bagpipes. Bannock cakes made of oatmeal are traditionally eaten at Christmas.

In Scotland, Christmas had traditionally been celebrated very quietly, because the Church of Scotland - the Presbyterian Church - has never placed any great emphasis on the Christmas festival, However, the Scots are members of the Church of England or other churches generally celebrate Christmas in the same way as the English people disapproved of Christmas for they believed that there was too much riotous festivity that went on. Nowadays these things are held at Hogmanay, but they do celebrate Christmas with some very interesting customs.

in Sardinia's Sea and Art

The ecclesiastical architecture
In the main towns and in the greatest centres of Sardinia it is possible to visit ancient churches and
basilicas, prevalent in Romanesque style. The ecclesiastical architecture expresses also in little country Churches and sanctuaries whose artistic value is emphasized by their isolated position and their surroundings.

Civil and military architecture
Among the most significant traces of medieval fortifications we mention the ruins of the Castle of Goceano (1129), the Castle of Serravalle, erected in 3 112 by the Malaspina near Bosa, and the Castle of Acquafredda near Siliqua (13th century). Important, are also the town-walls of Iglesias Sassari, Oristano and above all of Cagliari. In the chief town there are moreover the Castle of San Michele and the Pisan towers of the Elephant (1307) and of San Pancrazio (1305).
The most significant examples of the Catalan -, Aragon's architecture is no doubt the town of Alghero, with many monuments which are very interesting from a civil and military point of view. Among the buildings with a defence and military character we suggest the Castle of Laconi, the Casa-forte in Villasor, the Tower of Ghilarza and the 16th century bastions of Cagliari. Further examples of the civil architecture of this period are the House of Eleonora in Oristano and the Bishop's Palace of Iglesias.

Sassari (1577).
In the 18th century were built various military works especially in Alghero and Cagliari. Among the
examples of the civil building the Palace of the University, the Theatre and the Seminary Tridentino in Cagliari are to be mentioned, as well as the Palace of the Duke of the Asinara in Sassari.

The Palaeo-Christian art

The architectural history in Sardinia goes back to the Palaeo-Christian age. The most important churches are those of San Saturnine in Cagliari (5th century, one of the most interesting early Christian monuments in Italy) and of San Giovanni of Sinis, near Cabras, which goes back to the 6th century.


The Romanesque

From an architectural point of view the Romanesque age is the most significant, various and richest. To the first Romanesque period (11 th century) belong the church of Santa Sabina in Silanus and the middle part of San Pietro in Bosa. To a next Romanesque current date back, on the contrary, the parish church of Sant'Antioco (1102) and the characteristic little churches of Santa Maria of Sibiola, near Serdiana and of San Platano in Villaspeciosa.
Of Tuscan derivation is the third Romanesque current, which the first construction of the church of San Gavino in Porto Torres, very impressive, Basilica Della SS. Trinità di Saccargia (SS) belongs to. The architects of the church of San Leonardo in Santulussurgiu and of the cathedral of Santa Giusta near Oristano follow that model. Of the same current we find different examples in the province of Oristano, with the cathedral of Terralba. The first construction of Santa Maria of Bonarcado (1147). San Paolo in Milis and San Palmerio in Ghilarza (12th century). The most representative building of the local architectonical style is the cathedral of Ottana, made of black and violet trachyte. To a later Romanesque period (12th - 13th century), in which are mixed Tuscan and Lombard influences belong some of the most important medieval monuments of the island and of Italy. We mention among them:

- The basilica of SS. Trinità in Saccargia, in the countryside surrounding Codrongianus;
- The Romanesque - Pisan church of Nostra Signora of Tergu, which rises solitary on a plateau near the village;
- The basilica of Sant'Antioco of Bisarcio, one of the most important monuments in Sardinia, erected on a hill near Ozieri, not so far from the road Sassari - Olbia from where you can see it;
- The imposing basilica of San Pietro of Sorres, one of the most important Italian Romanesque buildings, finished at the end of the 12th century.
The cathedral of San Pantaleo in Dolianova (1261) the church of San Gemiliano in Sestu and that of Santa Maria of Betlehem in Sassari testify the vitality of the late Romanesque in Sardinia. Of Gothic style is the church of San Pietro in Zuri planned by Anselmo of Como, the only church in Sardinia whose architect is known.

in Ethnic Romania

Into Music...

BanatIn Banat, the violin is the most common folk instrument, now played alongside imported woodwind instruments; other instruments include the taragot (today often the saxophone plays the taragot role in bands), which was imported in the 1920s from Hungary. Efta Botoca is among the most renowned violinists from Banat.

BucovinaBucovina is a remote province, and its traditions include some of the most ancient Romanian instruments, including the ţilincă and the cobza. Pipes (fluieraş or fluier mare) are also played, usually with accompaniment by a cobza (more recently, the accordion). Violins and brass instruments have been imported in modern times.

CrişanaCrişana has an ancient tradition of using violins, often in duos. This format is also found in Transylvania but is an older tradition. Petrică Paşca has recently helped popularize the taragot in the region.

DobrogeaDobrogea's population is especially diverse, and there exist elements of traditional Tartar, Ukrainian, Turkish and Bulgarian music among those populations. The most popular dance from Dobrogea is the geamparale, which is very different from the other traditional dances of Romania. In fact, Dobrujan music is characterized by Balkan and Turkish rhythms.

Maramureş and OaşThe typical folk ensemble from Maramureş is zongora and violin, often with drums. Taragot, saxophone and accordion have more recently been introduced.

In Oaş, a violin adapted to be shriller is used, accompanied by the zongora. The singing in this region is also unique, shrill with archaic melodic elements.
 

music Theme Liesma

The project is designed by Boston based PRAUD Studio as a competition proposal for the music-themed hotel in Jurmala, Latvia. The main idea was to take a more aggressive stand and focus on creating a unique experience of a “music park”. Creating an urban landscape, equivalent to the hotel’s natural surroundings resulted in an architecturally strong statement. An elevated structure  facilitating the new hotel was introduced to the site, achieving widely open public space on the ground level, and a better view of the Baltic Sea from the hotel rooms. Every room in the new mass has direct view towards the sea and has access to the balcony on the roof.

The structure is supported by multiple cones that contain public programs such as music café, restaurants, etc. By freeing up the ground level, and having hotel rooms separated from the public programs, the architects transformed the patio into a versatile, polyvalent public space, with a strong social connection to the city. The music park thus becomes a new venue for concerts, festivals, public performances in general. Because of its somewhat segregated treatment of different content, the hotel can run on different operational levels, depending on the season and activating specific parts of the new structure

libri, Libro, books...

Νέα - Ειδήσεις
Διεθνής έκθεση του βιβλίου "Umbria libri 2011" (10-13/11/2011)
Ξεχωριστή θέση θα έχουν φέτος τα ελληνικά γράμματα, στην ετήσια έκθεση του βιβλίου "Umbria libri 2011", η οποία θα διεξαχεί στην Περούτζια της Ιταλίας ( 10 με 13 Νοεμβρίου) καθώς θα εκπροσωπηθούν με το βιβλίο "Η Γυναίκα των Δελφών" της συγγραφέας κ Ελένη Στασινού, που εξέδωσε ο οίκος "Ωκεανός".
Βραβείο Αναγνωστών 2011
Για 7η χρονιά οι αναγνώστες παίρνουν τον λόγο και ψηφίζουν το αγαπημένο τους μυθιστόρημα. Ο νικητής θα ανακοινωθεί στις 7 Δεκεμβρίου.
Αφιέρωμα στη δημιουργική γραφή (12/11/2011)
Το Σάββατο 12 Νοεμβρίου 2011 και ώρα 18:00, θα γίνει το αφιέρωμα στη δημιουργική γραφή. Ο Ανδρέας Καρακίτσιος, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής στο Τμήμα Επιστημών Προσχολικής Αγωγής & Εκπαίδευσης στο Α.Π.Θ., θα μυήσει τους παρισταμένους στα μυστικά της δημιουργικής γραφής, της συγγραφής άρθρων κ.ά. Η εκδήλωση θα πραγματοποιηθεί στην Αίθουσα Εκδηλώσεων της Κεντρικής Δημοτικής Βιβλιοθήκης Θεσσαλονίκης (Εθνικής Αμύνης 27 & Αλεξ. Σβώλου), στο πλαίσιο των εκδηλώσεων "Ημέρες Βιβλιοθηκών". Η είσοδος είναι ελεύθερη.

Αφιέρωμα στον ποιητή Γιώργο Μαρκόπουλο (12/11/2011)
Ο κύκλος "Ημέρες ποίησης-Ημέρες γνωριμίας με την πρόσφατη δημιουργία παλαιότερων και νεότερων ποιητών" συνεχίζεται στο Πολύεδρο (Κανακάρη 147, Πάτρα), το Σάββατο 12 Νοεμβρίου (ώρα 13.00.), με αφιέρωμα στον ποιητή Γιώργο Μαρκόπουλο.
Αφιέρωμα στον ποιητή Dylan Thomas (14/11/2011)
Τα σεμινάρια ποίησης στον χώρο του Πολύεδρου (Κανακάρη 147, Πάτρα) συνεχίζονται αυτή τη Δευτέρα 14 Νοεμβρίου (ώρα 8:30 μ.μ.) με αφιέρωμα στον ποιητή Dylan Thomas και ομιλήτρια τη Λύντια Στεφάνου, ποιήτρια και μεταφράστρια.

Εκδήλωση: "Οι συγγραφείς και οι μεταφραστές τους" (16/11/2011)
Το ΕΚΕΜΕΛ προσκαλεί γνωστούς λογοτέχνες και μεταφραστές να παρουσιάσουν έναν συγγραφέα το έργο του οποίου απέδωσαν στα ελληνικά, καθώς και την ιδιαίτερη σχέση που διαμόρφωσαν μαζί του μεταφράζοντάς τον. Πρώτη προσκεκλημένη, η Κλ. Σωτηριάδου θα μιλήσει την Τετάρτη 16 Νοεμβρίου 2011 (6-8 μ.μ.) για τον Γκ. Γκ. Μάρκες.

Έκθεση Αρχειακού Υλικού από το Αρχείο του Μ. Τριανταφυλλίδη και του Ινστιτούτου Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (11-27/11/2011)
Το Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) του Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης, η Ελληνική Εταιρεία Ορολογίας και το Ίδρυμα Ευγενίδου διοργανώνουν Έκθεση Αρχειακού Υλικού από το Αρχείο του Μ. Τριανταφυλλίδη και του Ινστιτούτου, η οποία θα πραγματοποιηθεί με την ευκαιρία του 8ου Συνεδρίου (10-12 Νοεμβρίου 2011) της ΕΛΕΤΟ, που είναι αφιερωμένο στον Μ. Τριανταφυλλίδη. Η Έκθεση θα πραγματοποιηθεί στη Βιβλιοθήκη του Ιδρύματος Ευγενίδου (Λεωφόρος Συγγρού 387, 175 64, Παλαιό Φάληρο) από τις 11 έως τις 27 Νοεμβρίου 2011 και θα είναι ανοιχτή τις ώρες λειτουργίας της Βιβλιοθήκης (Δευτέρα έως Πέμπτη 8.30-20.00, Παρασκευή 8.30-15.00, Σάββατο 8.30-14.00).

to Hang a Hotel. Such a Fun!

Commissioned by FOCUS Gallery Cape Town, the project reevaluates our perception of immediate spatial contexts by heightening the experience of being in a natural environment. According to the architect, Margot Krasojevic, the reinforced glass pods offer resting areas for climbers, but also prevent and contain anomalous perceptual experiences during mountain climbing. The spaces within the hotel can either enhance the perception of the surrounding area or block it to aid recovery and overexposure, depending on the desired effect. It is a hanging hotel with viewing platform, providing structural security for climbers and a rest stop to enjoy the view.

The glass spaces protect the climber form glare reflecting light in an uniform direction, creating an illusion that the sun at in a lower position than it is. The high tech prism louver system alters the views, controlling and editing mirages and illusions by using the prismatic optical elements which divide color with changing viewing points. The glass also filters the number and types of wavelengths entering the spaces, reducing the harmful UVB rays.

The main shell structures are made from carbon fiber reinforced polymer which is flexible yet strong. The whole structure is attached to the granite cliffs by the walkway, columns and horizontal foundations. The majority of the load is carried by columns, which sit into the rock and strengthen under load. Timber cross beams have triangular wedges attached to edge so when they are driven into trapezoidal holes in the cliff the wedges are pushed into the timber beams creating a very tight fit into the rock itself. The main body of the structure is partly supported by existing rock, it’s centre of gravity is positioned on the ledge allowing the structure to lean back into the granite cliff face making it easier to clip into the horizontal foundations.
 

a Chernobyl Frame

The proposed design is intended to become a framework for development of Chernobyl’s exclusion zone through the introduction of modular infrastructural facilities. The idea uses several datascapes, all revealing an increase in plant and animal activity in the area around the nuclear power plant. Paradoxically, the absence of human activity created favorable conditions for several animal and plant species. The proposal focuses on the Ukranian part of the exclusion zone and attempts to reactivate the territory by developing safe infrastructure systems. The structures are intended to straighten scientific activity in the area, along with environment protection and tourism.

The stations are made of modular, interchangeable units. Entering the station, trains are washed and dried in the decontamination zone. The space between platforms accommodates vertical communications and interactive touch-boxes for booking guided tours. Emergency shower cabins are situated on the first level, along with the decontamination zone. The third level facilitates entertainment and catering services, leaving the fourth level free for housing offices.

Along with the stations, the area is populated with several scattered housing units. Hexagonal modules are assembled in numbers of five, equipped with a kitchen and bathroom. The fifth cell is usually organized as a common area. The hall is used as a decontamination zone.

The project aims to draw attention to the Chernobyl exclusion zone by transforming it into a tourist destination.

opposite Geometries

The project was designed and produced by Matt Miller, Dale Fenton, Emau Vega, Aubrie Damron, and Adrian Cortez, all students at the Texas A&M University. Developing the idea of two opposite spatial and symbolic conditions, the team decided to emphasize the difference between them, instead of trying to blend them together. The resulting structure was marked by two polar personalities that defined exteriority and interiority. The Bi-Polar Project comprises three systems: the tessellated parametric logic performative exterior, the free-flowing sensual interior, and the in-between bladder system acting as a mediator between the two extremes.

“Bi-Polar is a project like many others emerging from the discussion of performance and sensation through an architectural skin. While there are projects addressing similar discussions, Bi-Polar embraces an emphasis on the distinction between two competing directions. Just like bipolar disorder this prototype is argued in two different moods, different personalities, you can psychotically switch from one to the other. One personality, the exterior side, is about performance whose surface logic is resolved parametrically, as a rain water collecting instrument that takes the water into bladders integrated between the two skins. These bladders also serve as heating and cooling devices producing light and temperature affects. The other personality, the interior surface, is emotionally designed and more interested in matters of sensation whose surface logic is created by a sensual pleated skin, silk and/or leather, producing nuances and affordances that become ornament, pattern and furniture.”

 

in MoMa's ART

In the late 1920s, three progressive and influential patrons of the arts, Miss Lillie P. Bliss, Mrs. Cornelius J. Sullivan, and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., perceived a need to challenge the conservative policies of traditional museums and to establish an institution devoted exclusively to modern art. When The Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1929, its founding Director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., intended the Museum to be dedicated to helping people understand and enjoy the visual arts of our time, and that it might provide New York with "the greatest museum of modern art in the world."

The public's response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and over the course of the next ten years, the Museum moved three times into progressively larger temporary quarters, and in 1939 finally opened the doors of the building it still occupies in midtown Manhattan. Upon his appointment as the first Director, Barr submitted a plan for the conception and organization of the Museum that would result in the Museum's multi-departmental structure with departments devoted for the first time to Architecture and Design, Film and Video, and Photography, in addition to Painting and Sculpture, Drawings, and Prints and Illustrated Books. Subsequent expansions took place during the 1950s and 1960s planned by the architect Philip Johnson, who also designed The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden. In 1984, a major renovation designed by Cesar Pelli doubled the Museum's gallery space and enhanced visitor facilities.

The rich and varied collection of The Museum of Modern Art constitutes one of the most comprehensive and panoramic views into modern art. From an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing, The Museum of Modern Art's collection has grown to include over 150,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, architectural models and drawings, and design objects. MoMA also owns approximately 22,000 films and four million film stills, and MoMA's Library and Archives, the premier research facilities of their kind in the world, hold over 300,000 books, artist books, and periodicals, and extensive individual files on more than 70,000 artists. The Museum Archives contains primary source material related to the history of MoMA and modern and contemporary art.

The Museum maintains an active schedule of modern and contemporary art exhibitions addressing a wide range of subject matter, mediums, and time periods, highlighting significant recent developments in the visual arts and new interpretations of major artists and art historical movements. Works of art from its collection are displayed in rotating installations so that the public may regularly expect to find new works on display. Ongoing programs of classic and contemporary films range from retrospectives and historical surveys to introductions of the work of independent and experimental film- and videomakers. Visitors also enjoy access to a bookstore offering an assortment of publications and reproductions, and a design store offering objects related to modern and contemporary art and design.

The Museum is dedicated to its role as an educational institution and provides a complete program of activities intended to assist both the general public and special segments of the community in approaching and understanding the world of modern and contemporary art. In addition to gallery talks, lectures, and symposia, the Museum offers special activities for parents, teachers, families, students, preschoolers, bilingual visitors, and people with special needs. The Museum's Library and Archives contain the leading concentration of research material on modern art in the world, and each of the curatorial departments maintains a study center available to students, scholars and researchers. In addition, the Museum has one of the most active publishing programs of any art museum and has published more than 1,200 editions appearing in twenty languages.

In January 2000, the Museum and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center exercised a Memorandum of Understanding formalizing their affiliation. The final arrangement results in an affiliation in which the Museum becomes the sole corporate member of P.S.1 and P.S.1 maintains its artistic and corporate independence. This innovative partnership expands outreach for both institutions, and offers a broad range of collaborative opportunities in collections, exhibitions, educational programs, and administration.

MoMA has just completed the largest and most ambitious building project in its history. This project nearly doubled the space for MoMA's exhibitions and programs. Designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, the new MoMA features 630,000 square feet of new and redesigned space. The Peggy and David Rockefeller Building on the western portion of the site houses the main exhibition galleries, and The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building—the Museum's first building devoted solely to these activities—on the eastern portion of the site provides over five times more space for classrooms, auditoriums, teacher training workshops, and the Museum's expanded Library and Archives. These two buildings frame the enlarged Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. The new Museum opened to the public on November 20, 2004, and the Cullman Building opened in November 2006.

To make way for its renovation and rebuilding, MoMA closed on Fifty-third Street in Manhattan on May 21, 2002, and opened MoMA QNS in Long Island City, Queens, on June 29, 2002. MoMA QNS served as the base of the Museum's exhibition program and operations through September 27, 2004, when the facility was closed in preparation for The Museum of Modern Art's reopening in Manhattan. This building now provides state-of-the-art storage spaces for the Museum.

Today, the Museum and P.S.1 welcome thousands of visitors every year. A still larger public is served by the Museum's national and international programs of circulating exhibitions, loan programs, circulating film and video library, publications, Library and Archives holdings, Web site, educational activities, special events, and retail sales.

on La Dame...

La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman Who Goes Astray. It was originally entitled Violetta, after the main character.

Piave and Verdi wanted to follow Dumas in giving the opera a contemporary setting, but the authorities at La Fenice insisted that it be set in the past, "c. 1700". It was not until the 1880s that the composer and librettist's original wishes were carried out and "realistic" productions were staged

The first performance of the opera was on 6 March 1853 at the La Fenice opera house in Venice. The performance was jeered at times by the audience, who directed some of their scorn at the casting of soprano Fanny Salvini-Donatelli in the lead role of Violetta. Salvini-Donatelli, though an acclaimed singer, was considered too old (at 38) and overweight by the audience to credibly play a young woman dying of consumption. (Verdi had previously attempted to convince the manager of La Fenice to re-cast the role with a younger woman, but with no success.) Nevertheless, the first act was met with applause and cheering at the end; but in the second act, the audience began to turn against the performance, especially after the singing of the baritone (Felice Varesi) and the tenor (Lodovico Graziani). The day after, Verdi wrote to his friend Muzio in what has now become perhaps his most famous letter: "La Traviata last night a failure. My fault or the singers'? Time will tell."

After some revisions between 1853 and May 1854, mostly affecting acts 2 and 3, the opera was presented again in Venice, this time at the Teatro San Benedetto. This performance was a critical success, largely due to Maria Spezia-Aldighieri's portrayal of Violetta.

On 24 May 1856 the revised version was presented at Her Majesty's Theatre in London followed on 3 December of that year by its premiere in New York.

Today, the opera has become immensely popular and it is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire. It is second on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide, behind only The Magic Flute.
 

strip Morphologies

As a continuation of the Strip Morphologies workshop held in June 2010, Strip Morphologies II is a two-day intensive design, prototyping, and fabrication workshop to be held in New York City during the weekend of November 12-13, 2011. In a fast-paced and hands-on learning environment, this workshop will investigate the morphology of the ’strip’ by cross-linking developable surfaces and joining strategies. We will identify and exploit the constraints inherent in sheet material and CNC laser-cutting technology to explore and construct highly articulated material assemblies. Furthermore, the workshop will provide participants with instruction in digital fabrication techniques and direct access to CNC equipment.
This workshop will consist of a series of instructional lectures, open work sessions, and guided exercises, beginning with an introduction to Computational Geometry and Grid-Based Modeling. The workshop is structured to allow each participant time to iteratively develop design prototypes, moving quickly from digital design environments to material artifacts and back again throughout the weekend.

The workshop will progress through the following subtopics:
Computational Geometry :: Introduction to Curves, Surfaces, Meshes in Rhinoceros
Grid-Based Modeling + Implicit History :: Introduction to Paneling Tools
Articulation + Influencers :: Proximity, Image Mapping, Curvature Strategies
Detailing + Fabrication :: Prototyping Workflows with an 80W CNC Laser

As part of a larger online infrastructure, modeLab, this workshop provides participants with continued support and knowledge to draw upon for future learning. Attendance will be limited to provide each participant maximum dedicated time with instructors.
 

nach Berlin

The Bjarke Ingels Group has had an extraordinary year in which they claimed multiple competitions with what seemed progressively more radical design schemes. Their losing proposal for the German Freedom and Unity Memorial though is decidedly utilitarian and minimalist in scope with a symbolic gesture that is purposely understated.

The memorial site at the Schloßplatz on the Museum Island in Berlin Germany is to commemorate the falling of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the reuniting of East and West Germany. The peaceful transition of Germany after the cold war was most powerfully felt in the city of Berlin where neighborhoods and families were literally separated for a generation. BIG’s proposal using a circle to act a bridge and sculpture is a deliberate attempt to commemorate the event as not just the reunion of a nation by crossing the water channel but as a personal experience of individuals. The act of a bridge is a gesture of the reuniting the cleaved nation. The symbol of a circle is the gentle outcome of the event, a traditional sign of wholeness and strength.

While the symbolic value of the design is clear the effect is also personal as the plaza becomes a united pedestrian mall in the process, further enhanced by the amphitheater on one end. By allowing the public to utilize the space more freely rather than ogle at an object or pile into a pavilion the gesture of the design becomes one of a normalized existence.
 

a Reconfigurable Museum

Filippo Innocenti, co-founder of the UK-based architecture firm Spin+ and an associate architect at Zaha Hadid Architects, was selected by Adobe for the design of an entirely digital museum. Adobe wanted more than a website designer; they were looking for a way to make the space feel “physical’. While Innocenti designed the Museum as a real architectural project, the website design was left to the London-based digital production company Unit9.

The Adobe Museum of Digital Media was designed without concerns such as technical constrains, budget, or natural forces. Innocenti collaborated closely with award-winning designer Piero Frescobaldi, who served as the “building contractor” for construction of the virtual space. Initial design ideas, revolving around spaces devoid of gravity, were too far from the real feel of a building. However, the final design is far from conventional. In real life, the Museum would span over 620, 000 square feet. The visitor first encounters a podium structure resembling a nest of swirled ribbons, which holds the main exhibition spaces and an auditorium for web meetings. The open atrium is home to the exhibitions, which will include works that examine broadcast communications and product development in addition to art. A fluidly shaped set of towers house the archives rise from the base. The entire museum is reconfigurable, so galleries can be adapted to each artist’s vision, and the archives can grow.

In Opera's Music

Saint-Saëns' concertos and many of his chamber music works are both technically difficult and transparent, requiring the skills of a virtuoso. The later chamber music pieces, such as the second violin sonata, the second cello sonata, and the second piano trio, are less accessible to a listener than earlier pieces in the same form. They were composed and performed when Saint-Saëns was already slipping out of popularity and, as a result, they are little known. They show a willingness to experiment with more progressive musical language and to abandon lyricism and charm for more profound expression.

The piano music, while not as deep or as challenging as that of some of his contemporaries, occupies the stylistic ground between Liszt and Ravel. At times brilliant, transparent and idiomatic, the music for two pianos includes the Variations on a Theme by Beethoven, the Scherzo, a palindromic piece that uses a blend of modern tonalities and conventional gestures, and the Caprice arabe, a rhythmically inventive fantasy that pays homage to the music of northern Africa. Although Saint-Saëns was considered old-fashioned in later life, he explored many new forms and reinvigorated some older ones. His compositional approach was inspired by French classicism, which makes him an important forerunner of the neoclassicism of Ravel and others.

In performance, Saint-Saëns is said to have been "unequalled on the organ", and rivaled by only a few on the piano. However, Saint-Saëns's concert style was restrained, subtle, and cool; he sat unmoving at the piano. His playing was marked by extraordinarily even scales and passagework, great speed, and aristocratic refinement. The recordings he left at the end of his life give glimpses of these traits. He was often charged with being unemotional and business-like, less memorable than other more charismatic performers. He was probably the first pianist to publicly perform a cycle of all the Mozart piano concertos. In some cases these influenced his own piano concertos; for example, the first movement of his 4th Piano Concerto in C minor strongly resembles the last movement of Mozart's 24th Concerto, which is in the same key. In turn, his own concertos appear to have influenced those of Sergei Rachmaninoff and other later Romantic composers. Throughout his life, Saint-Saëns continued to play with the technique taught to him by Stamaty, using the strength of the hand rather than the arm. Claudio Arrau never forgot the ease with which Saint-Saëns played (he cites Chopin's fourth scherzo as an example).

Saint-Saëns wrote five symphonies, although only three of these are numbered. He withdrew the first, written for a Mozartian-scale orchestra, and the third, a competition piece. His symphonies are a significant contribution to the genre during a period when the French symphonic tradition was otherwise in decline. Saint-Saëns also contributed voluminously to the French concertante literature; he wrote five piano concertos, three violin concertos, two cello concertos, and about twenty smaller concertante works for soloist and orchestra, including a colorfully orchestrated piano fantasy, Africa; the Havanaise and the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso for violin and orchestra; and the Morceau de concert for harp and orchestra. Of the concertos, the Second Piano concerto is one of the most popular of virtuoso piano concertos, and the Third Violin Concerto and First Cello Concerto also remain popular.