Journal: Alvar Aalto through the eyes of Shigeru Ban, Barbican, London
Don't get me wrong. 'Alvar Aalto through the eyes of Shigeru Ban' is definitely worth seeing. How could it not be? Aalto, one of the truly great architects, responsible for an almost untouchable legacy of fantastic, rewarding buildings. More than mere buildings, too. Responsible also for a body of thinking which ranges from the inherent […]
101 Spring St.
Chanced across this great excerpt from the artist Donald Judd, writing about a beautiful New York cast-iron building he bought in 1968. It was built in 1870, when Soho was known as the Cast-Iron District, or Hell’s Hundred Acres, rather than the home to chic, repurposed Prada and Apple stores and million dollar rents of […]
Sketchbook: Movements in Modern Media
I recently attended the Aula 2006 event in Helsinki, and as promised, as well as the slides-as-PDF to download, see below and you’ll find the fully written-up and illustrated version of the 8-minute talk that I gave. The talk offered me a chance to road-test an unformed idea, growing out of previous writing here but […]
‘Future City: Experiment and Utopia in Architecture 1956-2006’ exhibition, The Barbican, London
As noted here a while ago, the Barbican has an exhibition detailing various visions of future cities and utopian urban architecture. I finally went to see it today, and can report that it’s absolutely fantastic. The Barbican’s been on a bit of a roll recently, with the excellent Araki exhibition followed by the almost-fantastic Tropicalia […]
Chipperfield on building for regeneration
David Chipperfield, fresh from a successful and rapid – building plus masterplan in 11 months – in Valencia recently, lays into the "events culture" around British architecture: "The big difference between working in Britain and Europe," Chipperfield tells me, "is that here, you are not really expected to debate ideas. Money and marketing are what […]
Local repair cultures
Jan Chipchase has posted a fantastic summary of what he calls local repair cultures, as seen on his research travels across Chengdu, Delhi, Ulan Bataar, Ho Chi Minh, Lhasa, Kampala and Soweto. Jan describes the highly innovative practices involved in acquiring, modifying and repairing mobile phones in the bustling street markets of these cities. The […]
Starflyer (and service), Schiphol (and soccer), Stansted (and signage)
In the last six months, I’ve clocked up more air miles than usual, for work and play, and so the endless fascination with airports and airlines continues. If ever experience design made any sense as a concept, it’s here; this kind of service design has been a part of thinking around airlines for years. Hence […]
Journal: Design. Architecture. Football.
The World Cup is everywhere, so what better time to thread a series of theoretical passes together into a sinuously flowing move? On why football is so compelling for so many people, and what can that tell us about the practice of design and architecture. (I'm thinking of playing John Cage in the hole behind […]
Aula 2006: Movement
In a couple of days, I’m off to Helsinki to attend Aula 2006, discussing various topics unified by the theme of ‘movement’. Here’s the spiel: "Aula 2006 is an event about the direction of society, culture and technology … The theme Movement points to mobile 2.0 (mobility meets web 2.0), the overlapping of the physical […]
Essay: Architecture and interaction design, via adaptation and hackability
Dan Saffer recently asked me to contribute some thoughts on adaptation, hackability and architecture to his forthcoming book Designing for Interaction (New Riders, 2006), alongside 10 other ‘interviewees’ such as Marc Rettig, Larry Tesler, Hugh Dubberly, Brenda Laurel etc. Dan’s been posting their various responses up at the official book site (see also UXMatters) yet […]