Monday, April 12, 2010

12:15 AM
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Abu Dhabi Builds Its Architectural Cred
The building boom in the capital of the United Arab Emirates rivals that of Dubai. But Abu Dhabi hopes to distinguish itself with ambitious green architecture








Renzo Piano's Light Touch
The architect may be 70 years old, but he's having a good year. His firm is currently working on 20 high profile, global projects








Concert Halls Hit High Notes
Once merely built to house an orchestra and host events, halls are becoming social centers and tourist attractions. Still, architects keep acoustics in mind








Peter Marino's Wonders
The New York architect discusses his own store designs for such luxury names as Dior and Vuitton—and the work of those that have influenced him









  • Author: kelvin

Friday, April 9, 2010

8:19 AM
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Cubic Houses (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
The original idea of these cubic houses came about in the 1970s. Piet Blom has developed a couple of these cubic houses that were built in Helmond.
The city of Rotterdam asked him to design housing on top of a pedestrian bridge and he decided to use the cubic houses idea. The concept behind these houses is that he tries to create a forest by each cube representing an abstract tree; therefore the whole village becomes a forest.




Hang Nga Guesthouse a.k.a Crazy House (Vietnam)
The house is owned by the daughter of the ex-president of Vietnam, who studied architecture in Moscow.
It does not comply with any convention about house building, has unexpected twists and turns, roofs and rooms. It looks like a fairy tale castle, it has enormous “animals” like a giraffe and a spider, no window is rectangular or round, and it can be visited like a museum.


  • Author: kelvin

Thursday, April 8, 2010

4:15 AM
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Forest Spiral – Hundertwasser Building (Darmstadt, Germany)
The Hundertwasser house “Waldspirale” (”Forest Spiral”) was built in Darmstadt between 1998 and 2000. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the famous Austrian architect and painter, is widely renowned for his revolutionary, colourful architectural designs which incorporate irregular, organic forms, e.g. onion-shaped domes.
The structure with 105 apartments wraps around a landscaped courtyard with a running stream. Up in the turret at the southeast corner, there is a restaurant, including a cocktail bar.




Habitat 67 (Montreal, Canada)
Expo 67, one of the world’s largest universal expositions was held in Montreal. Housing was one of the main themes of Expo 67.
The cube is the base, the mean and the finality of Habitat 67. In its material sense, the cube is a symbol of stability. As for its mystic meaning, the cube is symbol of wisdom, truth, moral perfection, at the origin itself of our civilization.




354 cubes of a magnificent grey-beige build up one on the other to form 146 residences nestled between sky and earth, between city and river, between greenery and light.





  • Author: kelvin

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

5:44 PM
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Polish architect of the Crooked House, Szotynscy Zaleski, was inspired by the fairytale illustrations of Jan Marcin Szancer and the drawings of the Swedish artist and Sopot resident Per Dahlberg. The most photographed building in Poland, the 4,000 square meter house is located in Rezydent shopping center in Sopot , Poland .

The Sam Kee building is situated at 8 West Pender Street. It runs from the corner of Pender and Carral to the lane at the halfway point of the block. It is two storeys tall and 1.5 meters (six feet) deep. The story behind the building is as exotic as the structure with several intriguing twists and turns included in its telling. The City of Vancouver provided the original owner, Chang Toy, with a challenge when it expropriated all but two meters of his property as part of an expansion of Pender Street. No compensation was provided to its owner who was left with what most believed to be a useless property. In a creative turn of events fuelled by spite and some say a bet an architect was hired to design a building to fit the remaining property. The rest is history in more ways than one.

This building was home to 13 businesses at one time. It was the only place in Chinatown for residents to enjoy hot baths. There is a tunnel beneath the building that was used as an escape route from raids on Opium dens situated on neighboring Shanghai Alley. The building is also fronted by the only remaining glass sidewalk in Chinatown. As part of the ongoing history of this structure, issues still arise between the owners and the city with respect to encroachment and overhangs. In spite of each side having an element of right it seems to boil down to the proverbial 'tit for tat'. It makes for an interesting study in civics.


  • Author: kelvin

Sunday, April 4, 2010

9:29 AM
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The Robot Building (Thailand) The Robot Building, located in the Sathorn business district of Bangkok , Thailand , houses United Overseas Bank's Bangkok headquarters. It was designed for the Bank of Asia by Sumet Jumsai to reflect the computerization of banking; its architecture is a reaction against neoclassical and high-tech postmodern architecture.


Kansas City Library (United States) Kansas City Library has one seriously cool façade. Local residents were asked to nominate influential books that represent Kansas City, humungous versions of the winning nominations were then used as the exterior of the library car-park. The

Piano House ( China ) This unique piano house was built recently in An Hui Province, China. Inside of the violin is the escalator to the building. The building displays various city plans and development prospects in an effort to draw interest into the recently developed area.


  • Author: kelvin

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Basket building

10:18 AM
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Founder of the Longaberger company, Dave Longaberger has been built home office into a giant basket to house the entire corporate offices of the company. Dave believed the idea was one of his best and would draw attention to the company, while simultaneously helping to build their brand. However, when he started spreading the idea of building a home office that was notorious practical joker. Not only did the bankers, architects and construction companies not take Dave seriously, neither did many of the employees who worked for the Longaberger company, but Dave persevered. The dream was achieved on December 17, 1997 when the home office that is designed to resemble a basket finally opened for business.
Here's a building that should really get your attention when walking pass it. The Dancing House is considered as one of the more real controversial buildings in Prague. The DH was actually designed by a great architect from California, which only proves that he had done some type of hallucinogen while designing it. Source from http://www.wonderfulinfo.com/amazing/build/


  • Author: kelvin

Saturday, March 20, 2010

2:53 AM
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The borough of Delfshaven, Rotterdam, asked Schildersbedrijf N&F Hijnen to come up with a plan for a block of derelict buildings, which will eventually be demolished. The agreement with the neighbourhood is that the block will remain blue as long as there isn't a new plan for the area.



This was once one of the most unseen blocks of houses in Rotterdam, and by applying a layer of only 2 micron of blue paint onto it, it became Rotterdam 's most photographed one.





The strange building is actually a brewery in Hamburg, Germany. The floors can move up or down on it's skinny column core. As of now, the unique building has been destroyed. One of its more famous beer brands was recently bought by a big refreshment corporation. And that beer brand was called Astra.


  • Author: kelvin
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