Voices of the Past

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IF YOU HAVE EVER WALKED THROUGH an abandoned building, you know it can be a very unsettling experience. Voices of the past, long stilled by neglect and abandonment, can still be heard if your imagination is sharp. Natural creeks and groans of the building itself, the aggregated debris from decay, barrage your senses. The sound you make is amplified, echoing down the halls and announcing your arrival to God knows what or who. Nature, or it’s omnipotent power for change, is ever present, doing its job, taking its time—for nature has all the time in the world. You feel like an intruder. You will never “belong” to an abandoned building, you are always a trespasser even if you have permission (which you rarely are granted). Yes, abandoned buildings are simply repositories for the ghosts of another time. And if you enter one, you’ll probably already know that the only ones comfortable there are the bugs and mice and the voices of the past.

All images are © from various Flickr sites and were found via Pixcetera.

Apartment Living in Singapore

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(Above) An aerial rendering. Click any image for larger view.

The landscaping takes up eight-hectares, with the arrangement of the buildings maximizing the presence of the surrounding tropical floral by introducing extensive roof gardens, landscaped sky terraces, cascading balconies and lush green areas. The continuous landscape is also projected vertically, from the planting of green areas in open-air basement voids, through balconies and rooftop gardens. The private balconies give apartments large outdoor space and personal planting areas. Cascading gardens spill over the facades of the buildings drawing a visual connection between the elevated green refuges and expansive tropical landscape on the ground.


WHEN I FIRST SPOTTED THESE SINGAPORE APARTMENT TOWERS ON A WEB SITE ABOUT ARCHITECTURE, I WAS IMPRESSED AT THE ORIGINALITY. Then, the more I looked and thought about it, I began to imagine what these might be like to live in such a place in 30 to 50 years. Slowly, I began to see something that reminded me of a gigantic and dismal living environment—low-income high rise projects stacked one on top of the other. It is a bit scary, actually—like multi-unit mobile homes arranged by a giant. In the next paragraph you can read a description of the place by the builders.

“Designed by Ole Scheeren, partner of OMA, the interlace adopts a new residential typology which breaks away from the standard isolated, vertical apartment towers of Singapore. The large-scale complex takes a more expansive and interconnected approach to living through communal spaces which are integrated into its lush surrounding greenbelt.

Thirty-one apartment blocks, each standing at six-story’s tall and identical in length, are stacked in a hexagonal arrangement to form eight large open and permeable courtyards. The stacked formations allow light and air to flow through the architecture and surrounding landscape. Developed by Capital and Hotel Properties LTD., the interlace covers 170,000 sq. feet of gross floor area and will house 1,040 apartment units of varying sizes.”

Via Design Boom.

Architecture That Inspires

(Above) CSET Building, Ningbo, China: This is the new research center for Nottingham University (click for larger view)(Above) CSET Building, Ningbo, China (click for larger view)

(Above) CSET Building night view, Ningbo, China (click for larger view)

The building you see here is the new campus of Nottingham University in Ningbo in the heart of the Zhijiang district of China. The Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies (CSET) will focus on the diffusion of sustainable technologies such as solar power, photovoltaic energy, wind power and so forth. The building will accommodate a visitors centre, research laboratories and classrooms for masters courses. The pavilion stands in a large meadow alongside a stream that runs through the campus. It’s design is inspired by Chinese lanterns and traditional wooden screens.

The facade folds dramatically to create a dynamic shape. The building is entirely clad with a double skin of glass with screen printed patterns evoking historical buildings of the area. The appearance of the building changes from day to night.

The design employs various environmental strategies. A large rooftop opening brings natural light to all floors of the building simultaneously creating a flue effect to allow efficient natural ventilation and geothermal energy is used to cool and heat the floor slabs. The building has won numerous design awards.

Mario Cucinella Architects design architecture that, through research, the use of innovative technologies, and professional skill, embodies an ideal of architectural quality integrating environmental sustainability, ethics and a positive social impact.

MCA was founded in 1992 in Paris and in Bologna in 1999 and is a company with solid experience at the forefront of contemporary design and research. Partners Mario Cucinella, and Elizabeth Francis lead an international team of architects, engineers and designers.

Sustainable building design and the rational use of energy is one of the central concerns in MCA’s work and research. The environmental quality of designs is analyzed and developed using specialized software and model testing in order to produce buildings of architectural quality with state of the art energy performance.

A Crooked Little House

I PASS THIS HOUSE every few weeks or so in St. Louis. So, one day last week, I stopped and walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. No one answered. So, I took a couple of pictures to share with you. I think the house is Art Deco style, but it is really plain and boxy. I am torn as to whether this is sorta cool, or a real affront to an original example of Deco-style architecture. It sure catches one’s attention.

I remember this house as far back as the late 1970s, and to my memory, it did not have the tilted addition. This “add-on” was built, to my memory, in the 1980’s. It’s too bad no one was at home, because I wanted more information and really wanted to see inside. If I get more information, I’ll report back.