BIG Mountain

The BIG "Mountain Dwellings" housing project is under construction apparently, right next to the VM house. It will be interesting to see the finished project, because the terraced housing layout does not seem to give you much privacy from the people above you. One of the interesting things about BIG is that they take these kinds of chances and re-invent typologies to test new ideas in built projects.

Manifesto!

Icon magazine has an interesting list of 50 manifestos, in honor of their 50th issue. The manifestos are from many different personalities in the architecture and design world, and range from FOA trying explain how a practice that is anti-manifesto can write a manifesto, to anti-icon manifestos to Valerio Oligati's "Objects are the only things in architecture that are worth something", to other interesting writings by Bjarke Ingels, Steven Holl, and a surprisingly satisfying entry by Bruce Mau. His entry lines up very well with the entry by Bjarke Ingels, and it's not surprising that they have collaborated together before. Other notable entries, Zaha had nothing but an old image, Thom Mayne advocates for a sneaky sort of optimism, and Stefan Sagmeister has some more general life recommendations. All the entries are very different, and some are funny if nothing else.

New Dean at the GSD

The new dean is going to be... Mohsen Mostafavi, the now former Dean of Cornell University (since 2004) . For me, this is good news. He's been associated with the GSD before, but he has left and worked at other schools (Cornell, AA). As reported by the Architect's Newspaper, Toshiko Mori seems to have been lobbying hard for the position, but given her current association with the GSD I think it's a good thing to go outside the school for new leadership. Toshiko has done very interesting things while at the GSD, but as a student I would have to say that a new direction is a good idea. In the current pedagogy at the GSD there is a strong focus on Celebrity Architecture, and given our current global situation, environmental uncertainty, and political strife, this position for "fashionable" architecture is less interesting than it was a decade ago. There are a good number of students at the GSD who are more interested in the core issues facing architects today, and weather or not Mostafavi will cultivate a different agenda remains to be seen. Competitions like the Gazprom Tower in St. Petersburg (shown below) seem instantly obsolete.

The formal exploration and formal explorations that seem to be completely self-fulfilling blur into the background of contemporary work. This must be why Rem's proposal is the only orthogonal one, and many of his other current projects have a similar language.

This project (above) is the "Dubai Renaissance" by OMA, and the collage explains about everything you need to know about why it is designed the way it is. Rem is back to the idea of a container, rather than overt formal experimentation. Here is a writeup about the project, and there is something nice about basic form, espically in Dubai, where people seem to be trying things just because they can. It seems like we need to be more responsible than that.

An alternative to MySpace

This is the my first post, for Indoor Kid/ Outdoor Kid. This blog is about me and my balance between wanting to be an outdoor kid going climbing and living a minimal lifestyle, and having indoor interests and goals that involve architecture and art.

Right Now I am going to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, working on my Masters Degree (MArch). As this blog goes on, I'll post pictures from school, work, traveling, climbing, things I like, whatever... We'll See how this goes.