The Noun Project

The Noun Project collects, organizes and adds to the highly recognizable symbols that form the world's visual language, so they may share them in a fun and meaningful way. They have symbols for everything you can imagine. It is definitely worthy of a careful look! 

The Art of Clean Up

I am completely fascinated by The Art of Clean Up: Sorting and Stacking Everyday Objects, by Swiss artist Ursus Wehrli. It is also borderline OCD... 

Sugru Hacking Putty

I don’t know about your iPhone cables but mine break, right where the cable attaches to the connector. The guys over at  Holstee found a perfect hack: SUGRU PUTTY.

Team SUGRU (gaelic for play) was tired of not being able to fix broken gadgets, so they developed SUGRU, a moldable silicone that is sticky like Super-Glue and fun to use like Play-Doh:

1) Roll it to warm it up
2) Mold it the way you want it
3) Let it cure for 24 hours

Stoppy Doorstop

Stoppy is such a cool-looking doorstop that it will stop doors dead in their tracks. Oh, wait…
Available at The Container Store or Amazon.

Email Closing Lines

This blog post is a few years old but still timely: Liz Danzico makes us think about our Email Closing Lines.

King’s Cross Station by John McAslan + Partners

“It’s incredible to watch the reinvention of the station taking shape into a compelling piece of place-making for London. You can already see how the Western Concourse – Europe’s largest single span station structure and the heart of the development – reconnects this much-loved Victorian terminus to its context. It’s immensely satisfying to see the project move forward at such pace and we look forward to celebrating the project’s completion in 2012 for the LondonOlympics.”-John McAslan, Chairman John McAslan + Partners

With multi-phased, major works to Kings Cross station well advanced and the dramatic new Western Concourse in the process of being completed, the significance of the King’s Cross Station redevelopment is becoming increasingly apparent day by day.

As lead architects and masterplanners, John McAslan + Partners’ (JMP’s) transformation of King’s Cross Station for Network Rail is an object lesson in the fusion of three very different styles of architecture: re-use, restoration and new build. The train shed and range buildings have been adapted and re-used, the station’s obscured Grade I listed façade has been very precisely restored, and a new, highly expressive Western Concourse has been designed as a centrepiece and the beating heart of the project. When the works to the station are complete and it opens to the public in March 2012, the transformed station and its memorable new Western Concourse will take on the role of a new, iconic architectural gateway to the city in time for the 2012 London Olympics. This structure re-orientates the station to the west, creating significant operational improvements and revealing the main south façade of Lewis Cubitt’s original 1852 station, a masterpiece that has been hidden behind a canopy since 1972.

What about platform 9-3/4?

Video: AECOM 2016 Olympic Park Masterplan Rio de Janeiro

AECOM will be designing the Olympic Park Masterplan for the 2016 Olympics that will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The international competition winning entry’s concept of operation, separate access for athletes and the audience, logistics for the transport system, the viability of implementation and unique access for parking, made it stand out amongst the other submissions.

Busan Opera House by Nabito Arquitectura

The new Busan Opera House, designed by Nabito Arquitectura, will put the city on the international map, allowing it to become part of the network of world renowned opera houses. As another node in the network, the I-Opera, the title of their project, will not only be integrated on an international level, but it will also serve as a landmark on the local level. It will be present in the collective memory of the people of Busan and also be a part of their daily life experience.

How to Work Better

It’s the »How to Work Better« Mural is by Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss and covers an office building in Zurich-Oerlikon. You can prominently see it from the train when you get into Zurich station.

Kitchenware

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of these Kitchen Utensils over at Fab.comdesigned by Raia Studio. From left to right: Sud Green Dish Brush, Gaby Green Cheese Grater and Marshall Green Potato Masher. Really cute, mostly since I don´t have to worry about kids playing with them. 

Pasarela del Arganzuela by Dominique Perrault

Ribbons of mesh spiral around two conical bridges by French architectDominique Perrault that cross a river and park in Madrid. One part of the 278-metre-long footbridge crosses the Manzaranes River, whilst the second bridges the Arganzuela Park, beneath which the city ring road is buried. The two steel-framed cones meet at the peak of a hill inside the park but are separated by a snaking footpath. The footbridge connects two residential neighbourhoods and provides a route for both pedestrians and cyclists.Lights hanging from the branches of tree-like lamp posts illuminate the bridge after dark. The Pasarela del Arganzuela opened to the public in April, as did the park designed by landscape architects West 8 and other architects.

Universiade 2011 Sports Centre by GMP Architekten

Faceted glass triangles create glowing crowns around a trio of stadiums for the World University Games currently taking place in Shenzhen. The three Universiade stadiums were designed by German studio GMP Architekten and surround an artificial lake. The largest of the three buildings is the main events arena, which seats up to 60,000 spectators in three tiered stands. The second stadium hosts indoor activities including ice skating and the third houses a swimming pool for aquatic events. The closing ceremony for the games takes place on 23 August.

Martin Luther Church by Coop Himmelb(l)au

Steel whirlpools spiral into skylights in the roof of a church in Austria by architects Coop Himmelb(l)au.

The swirling roof, which was manufactured in a shipyard, rests like a table-top upon four steel columns over the prayer room of the Martin Luther Church.

Daylight penetrates the room’s stucco-covered ceiling through the circular voids, as well as through a street-facing facade of projecting glass triangles.

Through glass doors at the rear of the prayer room is a church hall used by the local community, while a sacristy, pastor’s office and toilets are situated alongside both spaces. A 20 metre-high steel bell-tower soars up into the sky in front of the building’s entrance.

House in Yotsukaido / Studio NOA

Architects: Studio NOA Architect & Associates
Location: Chiba, JapanProject Year: 2011
Project Area: 160 sqm
Photographs: Courtesy of Studio NOA

Located in suburb area, House in Yotsukaido is a residence that looks to merge the boundaries between the private interior space and the context, a non transference glass terrace connected to the home.
Thick walls surround the outdoor area, shielding the residents from outside eyes, while maintaining a sense of openness and exposure to nature. A single square opening cuts through the enclosure, framing a nearby retention basin and the neighborhood beyond. A solid black form cantilevers over a semi-opaque volume, inverting the traditional structural orientation.
Enclosing the ground floor, thin walls with a cloudy surface provides an area of transition between the contrasting atmospheres. At night, interior lights radiate through the translucent skin, illuminating the solid black mass, which appears to float in the sky.

World’s Tallest Skyscraper

Over 1,000 meters (that’s 3,280 feet!) with a total construction area of 530,000 sqm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture are currently in design development phase for Kingdom Tower. Slated to surpass Burj Khalifa by 173 meters (coincidently which Adrian Smith also designed while at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) Kingdom Tower is the centerpiece of the $20 billion dollar Kingdom City Development, with the tower itself expected to cost $1.2 billion dollars. Featuring a luxury hotel, office space, serviced apartments, luxury condominiums and the world’s highest observatory the tower’s foundation drawings are complete with the piling currently being tendered.

The world’s largest tower which will be located near the Red Sea in Jeddah,Saudi Arabia.

09FDIP / Spaceworkers

Architects: Spaceworkers
Location: Lordelo, Paredes, Portugal
Principals in Charge: Henrique Marques and Rui Dinis
Project Team: Rui Rodrigues, Sergio Rocha, Pedro Silva, Vasco Giesta
Finance Director: Carla Duarte
Engineering: Stru Concept
Project Area: 4,000 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Images: Courtesy of Spaceworkers

A “factory”for the city … A space to do things …. anything! Simply do things … Communicate. Communicate with the World … Know … Learn in a fun way!
A building that needs to dialogue with the city. An organic block, which gently lands on a square … A kind of constant sensory challenge that appeals to the discovery, experimentation, to a new way of experiencing this amazing city!
A space where the physical boundaries of the site are diluted in the geometry of the shape and permeability zones created by the balance sheet, reinforcing the desired fluidity of the surrounding urban space.

The building looks like a massive form, modeled on the basis of foreign relations to enhance, easily seized at car speed and able to stimulate the curiosity of passersby, in a constant game of seduction between “show” and “hide”.

The interior is thought of as a kind of continuous functional spiral around a huge central void, exploring an idea of ​​transparency, diluted in a lacy structure (suggesting the branches of trees in a dense forest), making the perception of different spaces possible and be a constant invitation to the movement and the discovery of spaces that are visible.