Check out these amazing sculpture installations by Phillip K. Smith of The Art Office.

http://www.theartoffice.com

The elevated views really take advantage of the expansive surroundings. It seems like the main level is an elongated balcony and rests on the elements below. Extra points for the reflection pool.

http://www.jcba.com.au

From Jaime Rendon Architects comes this modern masterpiece. Surrounded by lush nature located at the Medellin’s suburbs, this glass/stone/concrete really surprises on the warm interior and the uncomplicated layout.

http://www.jaimerendonarquitectos.com

A design for a brand new Cultural Centre and Opera House are being commissioned by Zaha Hadid Architects and Patrick Schumacher. The landmark will be erected in the new Seven Pearls district of Dubai and will accommodate an opera house, playhouse, arts gallery, performing arts school and a themed hotel. The opera house will be able to seat 2,500, the playhouse will seat 800, and the arts gallery’s exhibition space will be comparable to the size of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. This exquisite and gentle, winding design evokes the thought of mountains or sand dunes, that will both be a part of the landscape yet a distinct element in the skyline.

ChiaroScuro - Sunset Hill, Seattle, WA By Studio Ectypos

chi • a • ro • scu • ro , n., pl. -ros
2. Painting. the use of deep variations in and subtle gradations of light and shade, esp. to enhance the delineation of character and for general dramatic effect. from Webster’s College Dictionary

A live-work residence designed for an interior designer and a modern abstract painter. The pictorial name of the project was dictated by the orientation of the house and the way it modulates, softens and fragments the intense western light. The view toward Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula is free from structural impediments with dramatic openings while the east side is more solid and private. A system of exposed concrete mass walls and steel frames constitute the bones of the project. The massing is composed of volumes stepping down from north to south in terraces. Trellises and green roofs cradle the upper floor and master suite in a private and dramatic setting. From the structural skeleton to the smallest detail everything is a clear continuity between idea and material.

The house is an extension of the desert garden conceived as an architecture that is in and of the greater landscape. Its rooms edit the surrounding context in such a way that connections are explicitly made to the sensory experiences of our natural world. An unapologetic from extends an existing ubiquitous road scar as a man-made canyon, touching only the site that was previously disturbed. The entry space extends beyond the visual, it is a series of moments and experiences that slow down time.

Source: Design - Milk (http://design-milk.com/burnette-residence-phoenix-az-by-wendell-burnette-architects/) by Design - Milk - The house is an extension of the desert garden conceived as an architecture that is in and of the greater landscape. Its rooms edit the surrounding context in such a way that connections are explicitly made to the sensory experiences of our natural world. An unapologetic from extends an existing ubiquitous road scar as a man-made canyon, touching only the site that was previously disturbed. The entry space extends beyond the visual, it is a series of moments and experiences that slow down time.

1. vitra fire station, germany

architects: zaha hadid
completed: 1993
current status: inactive

this aesthetically stunning fire station was designed in order to serve the vitra furniture manufacturing complex in weil am rhein due to all surrounding fire stations being out of range. this was rectified years later, disappointingly resulting in the station being used to showcase the company’s chair collection.

photo credit: danrocha

photo credit: nickehret

]]>http://www.sweerisat.com/architecture/rss-comments-entry-1865791.xmlSweerisat FolkThu, 15 May 2008 12:57:20 +0000http://www.sweerisat.com/architecture/2008/5/15/house-at-further-lane.html194288:1937677:1839361When you’re in the thick of a New York City summer, where, as somebody once said, the asphalt becomes like molten tar and the walls themselves seem to sweat, there’s nothing better than getting away. For one family, a secluded 12-acre site on eastern Long Island set the stage for their ideal retreat from Manhattan’s merciless heat—a compound with three houses, one for the parents and one each for their grown daughter and son.

For better or worse, Los Angeles invented car culture. For the late academic Reyner Banham and his continuing, devoted band of theory-mongers, ostensibly every building, public space, and fragment of architecture in Los Angeles is really about the car. Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners' new parking structure for Santa Monica's civic center is but the latest shout-out to Banham's influential thesis, set forth in 1971 in the book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. There is always a new example to reaffirm Banham-his book is now unanimously understood as the first honest (and perhaps most gushing) critique of Southern California's freeway culture-because the trashy, flashy, global architecture culture that has emerged in Los Angeles from the late 1960s onward took the critic seriously.

The zeroHouse by Specht Harpman, a New York City-based firm, is deliberately placeless. It could be erected in Vermont or in Texas, where its unbuilt design won the 2007 Studio Award from the Texas Society for Architects. A slew of high-efficiency techniques afford the house its full energy independence: solar panels store and produce power, allowing a fully charged zeroHouse to operate continuously for up to one week with no sunlight; a rainwater collection plane gathers and diverts water into an elevated 2200-gallon cistern; gravity-fed plumbing fixtures eliminate the need for power-consuming pumps; a compost unit beneath the house processes organic waste and converts it into clean, dry fertilizer that needs to be removed only twice a year; and a high-efficiency heating and air-conditioning system is separately zoned for sleeping and living areas.

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