Mesa Studio

MATSYS

Freaky Freitag

Freitag is a Swiss company run by namesake brothers, using recycled truck tarpaulins and other automotive materials to make bags. The bags are subsequently durable, individual and ‘green’, although veer dangerously close to high school tech class. Reflecting their re-use mantra, their flagship store in Zurich West is made from used shipping containers. Designed by Annette Spillmann and Harald Echsle, the boxes were Gutted, reinforced, piled-up 26 meters high and braced, ranking as Zurich’s tallest structure.

"Optimum use had to be made of the small plot of land right next to Gerold-strasse. The standard 20-foot shipping container was chosen as the basic building block for the construction of an asymmetric tower of 9 containers rising from a 4 x 2 base. Set back from the road, the structural shell of the building emphasizes the size of the adjacent brownfield site. The base is used as a sales outlet, while the tower has become a striking landmark. The circle, from product to building to product, is complete."

Container architecture has a fairly polar spectrum of really bad to pretty good, and I’d ike to vote for this in the latter. Also interesting are LOT-EK and NL Architects efforts.

La Lumière de l'Amour

Ab DFab

Modular Mission

[Top to bottom: Zvi Hecker's Dubiner House, Ramat Gan 1960; Detail of a second housing complex in Ramat Gan, 1972; Moshe Safdie's Habitat 67 for the 1967 Montreal World Expo]

Zvi Hecker , born May 31, 1931 in Krakow, Poland is an Israeli architect currently working in Berlin. Enjoying success around the 70’s, a subsequent slowdown has seen him largely overlooked. He accumulated an eclectic portfolio of built and unbuilt work, using a formula of geometry and chaos.

His studies in crystallography in particular generated some interesting results, as manifested in the Ramat Gan residential complex in Jesusalem, 1979 – 1985. Using the crystalline analogy he was able to generate flexible and perpetual forms. Unfortunately this proved a constructional nightmare, and threw architectural values to the wind. Sharply sloping walls also somewhat affected the functionality of the internal spaces.

His creative use of modularity has been significant for modern architecture, and his 1960 Dubiner house was a precursor to Moshe Safdie ’s Ubiquitous Habitat 67, at the Montreal World Expo in 1967. Moreover his intricacy is a pleasure to behold at an architectural scale. His website is impressively bad on all fronts, but if you brave it you will find more of his work.

RealU Sunset-Series_01

Beyond Architecture

I recently acquired this book and attended the lecture and discussion for the launch. Architecture needs some invigorating PR to help it move away from its perception as society's tyrannical (or failling that, disrespectful) overlord, and this is an asset to its accessibility. The theme is heavy, and from a superlekker German publisher 'Gestalten', which has published a range of tangental themes. Check out the thumbnailed spreads on the site, and other titles.

Publisher's web-blurb:

'Beyond Architecture' is the first publication of its kind to document the creative exploration of architecture and urban propositions in the contemporary arts. The projects collected in this book demonstrate how not only architects and designers, but also artists are taking architecture as a starting point for experimentation. They range from performance, installation art and crafted sculptures to architectural models, alternative ideas for living spaces and furniture, as well as illustration, painting, collage and photography. Through stunning photography, visuals and complementary texts, these visionary concepts reveal the hidden creative potential for architecture and urban environments in inventive ways.'

Light Architecture

Pyramid or Cube?

[Above: Daft Punk’s Pyramid set: crowd shot merged with pyramid interior detail, revealing analog synths, light boards, Ableton, moogs and laser consoles; Video stills from De Crecy's live 'Beats and Cubes' performance]

Everyone will be familiar with Daft Punk 's Pyramid (above), which set a precedent for performance architecture. Reevaluating the genre and straying from surface-mounted installations, Etienne de Crecy 's 'Cube' uses 3d camera mapping and 3 high-powered projectors that project onto a 2oft., 3x3x3 frame, covered in a fine net, creating ethereal, beat-matched light volumes in the dark. The lightweight construction is a refreshing innovation and is moreover cheaper and more transportable. De Crecy plays perched smugly in the midddle cube.


Cube Video