Jørn Utzon, Can Lis

Majorca, 1972

Images from
John Pardy, Two Houses on Majorca, Hellerup, 2004

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Tugendhat House

Brno, Czech Republic, 1928-30

Images from
Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture, Cambridge & London, 1996
www.tugendhat.eu

Louis Kahn, Fisher House

Philadelphia, 1960-67

Images from
Rykwert, Louis Kahn, New York, 2001
Yutaka Saito, Louis I. Kahn, Houses, Tokyo, 2003

UN Studio / Galleria Department Store

Link to the Galleria Department Store by UN Studio
Seoul, South Korea, 2003-04
Provided by Dumun.

Aoki Jun

Louis Vuitton, Roppongi Hills
Louis Vuitton, Ginza Matsuya
Louis Vuitton, Nagoya

Alvaro Siza, Fundação Iberê Camargo

Siza's Fundação Iberê Camargo at Archdaily

Interactive virtual tour at museum homepage (bottom right)

Klein Dytham / Billboard Building

Celeste has also provided a link to work by Klein Dytham.

Tower House by Atelier Bow-Wow

Celeste has provided a link to an interview with Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow Wow. All their work is worth looking at, the Tower House (image below) especially so.

A few of you (Kimiya and Kalyna ....) might also find the House without Depth useful.

Vertical Omotesando / Wai Think Tank

From Archdaily

Herzog de Meuron in Miami

Trust you've all seen Herzog de Meuron's carpark in Miami. It includes some retail and, I think, an office.

Nelson Garrido has had some photographs published at Dezeen and Archdaily.

Project website is here.

The image below shows why your slab soffits and the oblique view down Sussex St are important considerations for your designs.

Note from Natalie Brcar (Part 2)

Natalie goes on to say:

.... and then there is a really nice project for facade idea. There were a couple of facade that were using 'blades' vertically or horizontally - I thought it might be nice to think of opportunities in different materials, in particular in this case being mirror/glass which refracts the light beautifully. There was a student (towards the end) where he had a facade based on the Surry Hills library and maybe he can think of his facade as the 'gem' of his design. ?!

This project, the Rainbow Church by Tokujin Yoshioka, can be seen at Dezeen

Note from Natalie Brcar (Part 1)

Natalie Brcar (another one of your jurors - again said just in case I didn't introduce you properly) has sent me the following note:

Phillip,

It was lovely to be a part of your design studio and see the design projects.

I have a few images that I thought may (or may not : ) be of use to some of your students.

I noticed a common thread in all projects, and that is how to address quality of 'space' and designing useable living spaces with small floor plates as a result of a small site and circulation constraints. It would be good to see the projects develop now from last nights concept ideas for form and circulation and turn these into useable, quirky and lovely spaces that grab any opportunity for daylight and ventilation. Find attached images of the Mineral House Project in Tokyo by Yasuhiro Yamashita - each use is on a separate floor and highlights that you actually don't need a lot of space for living and can be just clever joinery deign and detail.

.... [note continues]

Here are the links to the projects Natalie suggested (and below that one image of each project):

Mineral House Project in Tokyo by Yasuhiro Yamashita
MuSh Residence by Studio 0.10 Architects
House in Minamimachi by Suppose Design Office

56 Leonard - HdeM

A few of you have mentioned this project, so I presume most of you know it. If you don't, have a look at the site and the movie below (what a shame the building won't be actually constructed as shown in the movie :)

56 Leonard Website

A lovely project from Tehran

A gorgeous idea for a facade system by Arsh Design Group.

Link to project at Archdaily

Zaha

Personally not that big a fan of Zaha Hadid's, but I do like the Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (image below) and think many of you may find it useful.

(Kim, have a look at the way the circulation is organized)

Also, have a look at the recently completed MAXXI Museum in Rome. Good photos at Iwan Baan's site.

Note from Mark Gazy

Howdee people,

Trust you all had an enjoyable afternoon yesterday.

Mark Gazy (one of your jurors - in case I didn't introduce you properly) has sent me the following note:

Phillip, Thanks for the invite yesterday.

The dutch architects I was think of yesterday was http://www.neutelings-riedijk.com. They won a competition for the Museum Aan De Stroom in Antwerp, Netherlands. Images on their website aren't great [one image below - PA] but sure they can do there own search.

Anther project which might help some students is by Van Gameron Mastenbroek - Tea Pavilion in National Park Veluwe Zoom, Rheden, Netherlands. I think the company has split but this is a link I found http://www.zavodbig.com/2009/03/13/bjarne-mastenbroek-search-bv-netherlands/ Mastenbroek was a young gun that used to work for OMA.

Any chance to be a part of the final crit, would like to see how some of the scheme turn out?

Mark

Streets in the Sky

What I am about to write is a massive simplification of a big issue. Nuance will be lost.

Streets in the Sky was an idea of reconstructing streets away from the noise, pollution and conflict of the vehicular street. It was recognized that streets are more than merely spaces for vehicles (an idea many motorists in Sydney would not agree with), but are also public spaces for social interaction. Assuming that vehicular traffic is a hinderance to social interaction - why not rebuild the street in the fresh air above the old, polluted, congested streets?

Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation projects have a shopping street midway up the building and a garden (and childcare centre?) on the roof. These are the earliest examples of this idea I can think of.

A number of housing projects were constructed in post-war Britain using this idea. A quick googlesearch will reveal alot of information (some dodgy, so use judgement). Projects included Park Hill in Sheffield and Robin Hood Gardens in London. The latter was by Alison and Peter Smithson whose Golden Lane Project is illustrated below.

In these projects apartments were accessed by open corridors down running the side of the building. Each corridor would often provide access to 3 levels of apartments, inspired by the organization strategy of Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation projects.

Ideally, these corridors would be well lit, well ventilated and wide enough that they would function as footpaths, front yards, play areas and social spaces.

They often did not work quite like this, becoming spaces for anti-social behavior (see almost any episode of The Bill).

They have been much criticized in the last 30 years.

Edna Walling

Late in the day on Wednesday (when discussing Catherine's scheme), I mentioned the wonderful Australian landscape designer Edna Walling.

The ABC has a nice site devoted to her that includes the following quote:

The little potatoes had been widely thrown from a bucket (by me) and the gardener told to plant a birch wherever he found one - even if sometimes two or even three were almost touching. ...Sure enough when returning to see later, the perfectly straight rows of silver birches, each meticulously spaced.

The context of the quote on the site relates to the difficulty that some (many?) men had in taking an instruction from a woman, but I like it for a different reasons: the difficulty of designing a random layout; the use of chance operations in design; and (not from this anecdote) the application of judgement.

My recollection is that Walling would often use potatoes thrown from a bucket to locate trees to achieve a random (naturalistic) arrangement. It is extremely difficult as designers to place things in a random way - one often finds the result contrived unless a chance operation is employed. What I like in my recollection of the expanded anecdote is that Walling would also use judgement - if she was not happy with the layout resulting from this operation she will quite happily throw the potatoes again.

Valerio Olgiati 2

Valerio Olgiati's Atelier Bardill has just landed at Archdaily.
Worth a look.

Achille Castiglioni 2

Another chair by the Castiglioni brothers (Achille and Pier Giacomo) mentioned in the lecture yesterday.

Valerio Olgiati

I mentioned Valerio Olgiati to Jordan and others yesterday.

His work is really good, his books are really expensive, but he used to have a little downloadable booklet of his work on his website. It isn't there anymore, but I can email a copy (its very small, c1.6Mb) to whomever puts their email address in the comments below. If you put your email address below and your in-box is full and my email bounces, I will be cross.

Jorge Oteiza

Jorge Oteiza is another artist I mentioned yesterday

Link to Google Image search for Jorge Oteiza

James Turrell

James Turrell is one of the artists I mentioned yesterday.

Link to Flickr photos tagged jamesturrell

Gary Cheng's apartment in HK

Catherine has provided a link to Gary Cheng's presentation of his apartment as part of the Tokyo Pecha Kucha. There is a Pecha Kucha group in Sydney too, largely organized by Marcus Trimble of Supercolossal (who isn't able to make your mid-semester juries next week, I'll ask again at the end of the semester).

I'd suggest you all register with Pecha Kucha Sydney so that you find out when their events are, and follow Marcus's blog (which is also in the column on the right).

Finally, a link to Gary Cheng's website.

NL Architects - TPAC Proposal

Celeste has provided a link to NL Architects proposal for the Taipai Performing Arts Centre

Anne Holtrop's Trail House

Gotta love this one. The entire project is inhabitable circulation. Perhaps the same idea as the Droog House by Atelier Bow Wow, but an entirely different way of resolving that idea.

Link to Anne Holtrop's website

Antón García- Abril

Casa Hemeroscopium by Antón García- Abril / Ensamble Studio
(from Plataforma Arquitectura)

Love it

Celeste has found a link to this video about a bike storage facility in (where else?) Japan:

Archigram

The Archigram Archival Project is online. Please have a look.

Herzog de Meuron

Good photos of more recent projects at Iwan Baan's site.

Centre Pompidou

I didn't know that Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners had such a comprehensive website. Thanks to a (perhaps misunderstood) comment from Catherine, I now do.

I think Catherine was looking for a floor plan of the Pompidou. If so, it is here.

Also, whilst I expect Catherine was raising the Pompidou in Paris, the Centre Pompidou in Metz by Shigeru Ban is very close to completion. There is info at Dezeen and Designboom.

Image of Centre Pompidou Metz from Dezeen below:

Javier Sáenz de Oiza's Torres Blancas

A photo and plan of Javier Sáenz de Oiza's extraordinary Torres Blancas
(Avenida de América, 37, Madrid, 1964-69).

Ugly furniture

If you want to look at some really bad and pretentious furniture, Daniel Libeskind is prepared to provide:

Link to Libeskind's ugly furniture

Read the comments too.

More Breuer

Marcel Breuer also built one building in Sydney!

26 Coombes Drive, Penrith.

[Photo below by Tim]

Tecta

Also, have a look at the German furniture company Tecta.

Amongst other things, they produce the folding version of the Breuer club chair and this other beautiful chaise also by Breuer.

Furniture

Link to Corporate Culture's website.

We mostly looked at furniture by the following companies:

Fritz Hansen
Carl Hansen & Søn
Louis Poulsen (lighting)
Cappellini
Cassina
Alias
Magis
Mater
Serge Mouille
Verpan
Extremis

Other furniture shops worth visiting in Sydney as part of your design education include:

DeDeCe
Living Edge
Spence & Lyda
Hub
Anibou
FY2K
Space
Unifor / Vitra

Living Edge, Spence & Lyda and Hub are all really close to one another in NW Surry Hills (near the Hollywood Hotel). Make sure you drop in at Published Art when you are in the area.

Designers we looked at yesterday include:

Arne Jacobsen
Hans Wegner
Verner Panton
Gerrit Rietveld
Gio Ponti
Enzo Mari, do watch at least some of this interview
Vico Magistretti
the Bouroullec brothers
Konstantin Grcic
Marc Newson
David Trubridge
Marcel Wanders
Shiro Kuramata
Tom Dixon
Alberto Meda
Franco Albini
Le Corbusier
Charlotte Perriand
Gaetano Pesce
Paolo Deganello
Toshiyuki Kita

Other designers worth looking at include:

Eileen Gray
Achille Castiglioni
the Campana brothers
Joe Colombo
Jasper Morrison
Droog
Maarten van Severen

Finally, a special link for Ms Zhuang
(because I expect she won't approve of my taste):

Kram/Weisshaar

CaixaForum Madrid

My photos of the CaixaForum in Madrid by Herzog de Meuron. Some images shown by Joanne yesterday.

How thick are walls?

Please don't draw plans with walls that are a single line thick. It looks stupid.

Find out how thick something is, and if you don't know and can't find out quickly, assume the following:

Most external walls are a minimum of 300mm thick.
Most walls separating different dwellings or tenancies (those requiring acoustic attenuation) are about 200mm thick.
Most internal walls inside a dwelling are approximately 100mm thick.

How big are things?

If you don't know how big something is (furniture and the like) and how much room is required, find out, don't stop work. Don't just guess. Please don't draw beds that are 4x4m, toilets that are 1.5m long or doors that are 400mm wide and 1500mm high.

You could:

1. Measure one
2. Google (Google is quite difficult to use to find appropriate info)
3. Refer to a book with anthropometric data

Good books with anthropometric data include:

Ernst Neufert, Architects' data
the Metric Handbook
Julius Panero's Human dimension & interior space

A quick note on Lifts

If you are thinking about lifts as part of your circulation system, its worth knowing where the Building Code of Australia stands on this matter.

Clause EF3.1 of Volume 1 of the BCA says that

Where a passenger lift is provided, it is to facilitate safe and easy—
(a) movement for occupants with disabilities; and
(b) evacuation of occupants, who due to illness or injury need stretcher assistance.

EF3.1(b) only applies to a building with an effective height of more than 12 m.

[italics mine]

Clause EF3.2 of Volume 1 of the BCA says that

A building is to be provided with one or more passenger lifts to facilitate—
(a) the safe access for emergency services personnel; and
(b) safe and easy evacuation of occupants who due to illness, injury or disability cannot use stairways in the event of an emergency.

EF3.2 only applies to— (a) a building with an effective height of more than 25 m

[italics mine]

Refer either to the BCA or to my post titled Some info on Planning & Building regulations for the definition of Effective Height

Therefore, if the floor level of your topmost storey is more than 25m above the floor of the lowest storey providing direct egress to a road or open space, you must have an accessible lift able to accommodate a stretcher. If the floor level of your topmost storey is more than 12m and less than 25m above the floor of the lowest storey providing direct egress to a road or open space, you are not required to have a lift, but if you do have a lift, it must be accessible and able to accommodate a stretcher.

If you need to know how big a lift, its shaft and equipment is, Kone have a handy online toolbox that will tell you.

[George has also suggested that Imem Lifts may be of interest]

Some info on Planning & Building regulations

A bit of info on planning controls:

If you have a look at the Central Sydney Floor Space Ratio Map, you will discover the area around our site has a Floor Space Ratio of 7.5:1. To find out what this means look for the definition of Floor Space Ratio in the Schedules and dictionary section of the Local Environmental Plan to which this map is attached. Essentially it means the maximum internal floor space you can propose is 7.5 times the site area, but do read the definition.

If you look at the Central Sydney Height Map you will discover that the maximum height on your site is 50 meters. You will also need to look at the definitions again to find out how to measure this height (from what, too what, and what exclusions there might be). 50m is tall. If you were to allow for ceiling heights of 2.7m, ceiling space of 300-400mm for services and say 200mm floor thickness (lets assume beams can intrude into the ceiling space), then you could fit a building that is 15 stories high! For comparison purposes, the building to the North is supposed to be 43.7m high (or 45.7, my info is blurry) and the ridge height of the building to the south is supposed to be 24.5m (this is much taller than this building looks to me. I hope someone is obtain an elevation of Sussex St, and the side elevations of neighboring buildings facing the site.

I think its unlikely any of you will propose a building of this height. One very good reason is the Building Code of Australia, which you can access online at the UTS library (login required)

Here are some important bits:

Clause D1.2 of Volume 1 of the BCA

D1.2 Number of exits required
(a) All buildings — Every building must have at least one exit from each storey.
(b) Class 2 to 8 buildings — In addition to any horizontal exit, not less than 2 exits must be provided from the following:
(i) Each storey if the building has an effective height of more than 25 m.

You will find it very difficult to fit 2 exits on your site, therefore, I think its likely you'll need to keep your building to the Effective Height of 25m. You need to go to the definitions part of the BCA to understand what an Effective Height is, because it is not the height of the building. To quote:

Effective height means the height to the floor of the topmost storey (excluding the topmost storey if it contains only heating, ventilating, lift or other equipment, water tanks or similar service units) from the floor of the lowest storey providing direct egress to a road or open space.

To understand the dimensional requirements of stairs, look at your helpful BCA again, Clause D2.13. I'd suggest you read it cause you'll need to just know this stuff for the rest of your career.

Achille Castiglioni

The Museo Achille Castiglioni has launched a website

AEO chair by Paolo Deganello (Archizoom), 1973

Cassina catalogue link

Building Code of Australia (BCA)

Online at UTS Library (login required)

Planning Controls

A few links to relevant planning controls:

Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2005
Central Sydney Floor Space Ratio Map (Sheet 1) (PDF 821Kb)
Central Sydney Height Map (Sheet 1) (PDF 836Kb)

Central Sydney Development Control Plan 1996

Villa Tugendhat, Mies van der Rohe

Villa Tugendhat website

Double House / Villa KBWW, Utrecht

Bjarne Mastenbroek & Winy Maas (de architectengroep rijnboutt ruijssenaars hendriks van gameren mastenbroek bv in collaboration with MVRDV)
1994-98

Bjarne Mastenbroek's website > Projects > Housing > Villa KBWW
Winy Maas, now of MVRDV, doesn't seem to have this project on his website

El Croquis, Madrid, 1997, Issue 86.

Adolf Loos, Villa Müller, Prague

1928-30

Villa Müller homepage

Ralf Bock, Adolf Loos, Works and Projects, Milan, Skira Editore, 2007.
Leslie van Duzer & Kent Kleinman, Villa Müller: a work of Adolf Loos, New York, Princeton Architectural Press, 1994.
Max Risselada (ed), Raumplan versus Plan Libre, Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier, 1919-1930, New York, Rizzoli, 1989, reprinted Rotterdam, 010, 2008.
Beatriz Colomina, "Interior" in Privacy and Publicity, Modern Architecture as Mass Media, Cambridge, Massachussetts & London, The MIT Press, 1994.

and lots of other things at the library

Flickr's Adolf Loos pool

Alejandro De La Sota, Gobierno Civil, Tarragona

Civil Government building, Tarragona, c1954-61

Alejandro de la Sota, An Architecture of Imperfection, London, 1997. Looks like its back in print!
Alejandro de la Sota, Alejandro de la Sota, Arquitecto, Madrid, Ediciones Pronaos, 1997.

Fundación Alejandro de la Sota

Caruso St John, New Art Gallery, Walsall

Caruso St John, 1995-2000
Gallery site

Adam Caruso, "Shell, Cladding, Lining" in OASE, Amsterdam, 1997, Issue 47, pp54-55.
Rowan Moore, "A Pebble on the Water" in New Art Gallery Walsall, London, 2002.
Philip Ursprung, Almost Everything, Barcelona, 2008.
Aurora Fernandez (ed), As Built - Caruso St John Architects (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2005.

Joanne's precedents at 0300TV

Sadly, 0300TV now requires a subscription. Perhaps you should bother the school to obtain an institutional subscription.

Toyo Ito's Sendai Mediatheque
Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano's Pompidou Centre
Herzog de Meuron's de Young Museum

Furthering your own Architectural education - TV

I know from other years that many of you will want to watch Grand Designs (UK or Australian editions). Don't. It's crap.

Furthering your own Architectural education - blogs

Lots of links to blogs in the Misc column on the right. Follow them. Many of them will send you emails. Subscribe, they cost nothing.

Chile publishes some fantastic blogs: Plataforma Arquitectura (Spanish only) and it's English companion ArchDaily. If i discover any of you speak or read Spanish and have not subscribed to Plataforma Arquitectura's email list, i'll be very disappointed.

Studio Banana TV has interviews which are often good, though sometimes not in English (then usually Spanish).

0300TV (again from Chile!) has good interviews (usually in Spanish) and video visits to wonderful, often difficult to get to, buildings, including Atelier Bow-Wow's Tower House, Ryue Nishizawa's Moriyama House, Frohn & Rojas' Wall House, and Lina Bo Bardi's SESC Pompéia.
Disappointingly, 0300TV have decided to start charging for subscriptions. Given these subscriptions expire, I think they are quite expensive. Oh well.

Some of the links in the Misc column on the right aren't blogs, but are links to photographer's websites, including Iwan Baan, Fernando Guerra and Cristóbal Palma.

Furthering your own Architectural education - magazines

When you go to the shops, drop in at your local newsagent and look at the following magazines (and others):

Abitare
Architecture Australia
Architecture Review
Australian Architecture Review
Belle
Case da Abitare
Dwell
Domus, this italian magazine is not as good as it used to be (they change editors relatively often). I think Mendini is taking over again shortly and this is a good thing. Domus is dumped here and costs about the same here as in Milan (about AUS$22), i've seen it for sale at 4 times the price in Amsterdam and Malmö.
Frame
Habitus
Houses
Icon
Indesign
Mark
Monument
Vogue Living
Wallpaper*
World of Interiors, not as bad as it sounds from the title. They often visit older buildings that no-one else publishes (Gio Ponti hotels and Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera's Studio/Houses are examples from recent years)

Not all of the above are the same quality and some are very expensive. Many of them will not be available at many newsagents, but almost all are available at the big newsagent at Taylor Square. It's open almost all the time. Whenever you go past, drop in for a look.

If you like what you see and have some spare cash, buy one!

Examples / Precedents

Abalos Herreros, Mora House, Cádiz
Atelier Bow Wow, Droog House (+ movie)
Atelier Bow Wow, House & Atelier
Angelo Bucci & Alvao Puntoni (SPBR?), Carapicuíba house
Caruso St John, North London Studio House
Graça Correia e Roberto Ragazzi, House in Gerês
Frohn & Rojas, Wall House
Sou Fujimoto, House N
Sou Fujimoto, T House
Toyo Ito, White U
Lacaton & Vassal, Latapie House, Floirac
Lacaton & Vassal, House, Cap Ferret
Lacaton & Vassal, House, Bordeaux
Lacaton & Vassal, House, Coutras
Lazzarini Pickering, apartment in Rome
Adolf Loos, Villa Müller, Prague
Dorte Mandrup, Read-Nest
MMBB, residência na vila romana
MMBB, residência no city boaçava
MMBB, residência em aldeia da serra
Daniel Moreno, The Workshop
MVRDV, Didden Village
Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Cien House
Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Fosc House
Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Poli House
Gerrit Rietveld, Schröder House
Sami Rintala, Element House
Javier Saenz de Oiza, Torres Blancas, Madrid
Tezuka Architects, Wall-less House
Tezuka Architects, Balcony House

Tadao Ando's narrow houses
Shigeru Ban
Ryue Nishizawa, Moriyama House