Villa Nm in NYC.

light sweet light

Steven Holl munipulates light in many ways. He redirects light to go into the darkest of halls. He puts mirrors in places where no one else would put it. He uses the walls as an intake to light. He uses the walls as reflection mirrors. White walls reflect the light so it goes into the dark places.

Steven Holl uses leverage with some of his mirrors. He has to have a counter part to hold some of the his windows. He also shapes his windows oddly. The different mirror shapes lets light in at different places.

Ma Yonsong

Ma Yonsong is the Principal of MAD, a firm he put together based in Beijing. Ma has done while a lot being an architect during his career before being with MAD, putting together MAD, and his artwork. All of these things make up his career and what he's done for China. In the beginning of his career is one of the more interesting parts.

Most of Ma's more famous works are done with MAD, but he also did a few things with other firms.Ma was an undergraduate in Beijing, but he got his Master's in America at Yale. After he Graduated he started work with Zaha Hadid's firm in London. Rebuilt WTC is another one of his projects that he made in the US while studying at Yale. Ma made a couple designs before he was with MAD. but his best are with MAD.

In 2004 Ma put together MAD with Yosuke Hayano and Qun Dang. MAD stands for Ma-Design. MAD does not only design building's, but also houses, furniture, and even a fish tank. MAD has designed all over the world, in Denmark, Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and even in Costa Rica. With MAD Ma has made China even more connected to the outside world.

Most of Ma's Designs are the same as how they where when he began his career. He wanted buildings to float, bend, twist. He would look in to the history of the surrounding area to help with designs of every building. One critic said that Ma's Designs where like floating castles in the sky, but not all his designs are in the sky. He has a couple of designs that are almost perfectly attuned to nature.











Hongluo Clubhouse

X-House

Living tomorow

UN sudios living tomorow

Method to the madness

At first glance, you would assume this building looks like a completely random array of metal and glass. Well if you did, you would be completely right. As Gehry said himself "The randomness of the curves are designed to catch the light".

This building is in Bilbao, Spain; a port town. The natural contures and curves are also designed to look like a ship. This is an example of how Gehry builds to fit the environment.

Major projects- Will Alsop

One of Will's major projects was the Yonkers power plant. Alsop has a foothold in the USA with a major commission from the REMI Corporation to design a residential and museum development overlooking the Hudson River in Yonkers , New York. Located behind the Glenwood station, only a couple minutes from Manhattan’s Grand Central Station, this project will rejuvenate an undervalued area of the river front representing the major focus for a new waterfront masterplan authorise by the City of Yonkers. The project will pioneer various innovations in prefabricated construction, with self-supplying energy , including a wind turbine on the tower roof.

Never a Detail Too Many

Peter Zumthor has a very unique way of looking at details and how each one interacts specially with the building and the other details around it. When starting a project, Zumthor likes to think of how the building will be used in the future, and who all will be using it. Along this same line of thought, Zumthor likes creating spaces that don't necessarily create direction, but let people wonder freely throughout the building. Peter Zumthor has very beautiful buildings, and known of which are overly flashy, but they have an over all simple style about them that makes the building need no artistic additions.

In Peter Zumthor's mind, details are not just decoration, they lead to the understanding of a whole. With that thought, Zumthor adds so many details to his buildings, details that no one besides a skilled designer would notice, that the seemly over bearing quality of those details blend together to create absolute simplicity. Zumthor has come to know, that "At the point in time when concrete materials are assembled and erected, the architecture we have been looking for becomes part of the real world." This line is a perfect example of Zumthor's work, having so much hard work and demanding the best materials, that in the end it all evens out and one doesn't really notice the minuscule details anymore.

For example, the time it must have taken to get the light right in the thermal baths in Vals must have taken a back breaking long time, just to add mood lighting. But it was all worth it for Zumthor, because artificial lighting wouldn't do for the aura that he was trying to create. In fact, lighting is a huge factor in almost all the buildings Zumthor designs. Even if he is just refurbishing an old house/building, which he does alot, it has to feel right.

Connecting With the Environment

One great example of De Scmedt connecting with the environment, and of how he interprets the environment is the Stockholm library. While it has a very new, modern era design, but at the same time is a garden library with a very green, lush hill above it. It shows how you can designs new things to fit in to the environment very well.

The Trumpet Tower is another example. In this building there many issues to overcome such a

• How do we- "deal with a site whose footprint is not efficient for office space


• How do we- "deal with a landmark site?" (the building was in Berlin, Germany)


• How do we- "deal with a building of high capacity in s dense area?"


• and lastly: How do we- "innovate upon current office space typologies?"

In the end it had new design where the top moves outward (see picture) and had a mix of residential, commercial, and office spaces.

Will Alsop's life

Will Alsop was born in 1947 in Northhampton. His father died in 1964 when he was 16. He later took job for local architecture practice before going to art school. Later on he, Coha, lyall, and Murano formed an architecture practice called Multi Match. One of his mottoes is "No style/No beauty"

Norms

Steven Holl questions every norm he comes across. He bends a building to curving a building to building buildings underground. One of his most famous buildings is the Bloch Building in Kansas. Most of the building is underground. The Bloch is all connected even if parts of the building is over the surface of the ground.

Steven creates diverse ways of making space. He uses his environment around him to accomplish his task. He shapes the building to make the building look at a particular object. He creates space by using walls and different kinds of material. Steven Holl's buildings are really unique.

space

my firm Nox uses light to make spaces look bigger than they really are. they use mirrors to make space look bigger it makes the room look twice as big.

my firm uses a lot of windows on their buildings. some times they make buildings small and cramped. it is supposed to make u feel larger than life. and put u out of your comfort zone.

the reason they do this is so that water is kept in their water filled buildings. which they use lots of. the water is only knee high u don't live here its just for fun the water is mostly cold but if u manage to climb a wall u can sit in a hot tub.

To each his own design

Frank Gehry's designs range from fish and snake lamps to a building that looks like a pile of steel and wood. They are all different, yet the same as most don't follow other architect's prerequisites. Frank Gehry strives to be different in his designs. Another one of his designs is cardboard furniture. Gehry found that by putting two inches of cardboard together, he could support himself atop it.

Projects

Un studio has great communication. They all have a certain skill that they can contribute to bring together a project. When they do this they can speed up the amount of time it takes to complete a project.
When beginning a project they use a lot of planning. The easiest way for them is to use diagrams. When they diagram, they use topics like time and space. They also show diagrams of the routes in the area so that they know whats around them.
UN studio does more than just buildings. They also design many products. When designing a building they look to these products for inspiration. Some of their buildings like living tomorrow are a combination of many products they have created. Some of there products are also based off of buildings that they have created.

One with her surroundings

Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad, Iran in 1950. She studied at the Architectural Association in London where she then received her Diploma in Architecture with Merit in 1977. Zaha opened her own architectural studio in 1979, and has taken first prize in at least four major competitions. She taught at the AA in London. She has then taught at universities all around the world, and is currently teaching at the University of Applied Arts of Vienna and in Yale University, Connecticut.

She has received the Mies Vander Rohe Prize for European Architecture in 2003. Zaha has also received the Pritzker Prize in 2004, and was the first woman to ever receive this award. She is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (in 2000). She has also designed a vast variety of things, such as restaurants, fire stations, a BMW Plant, furniture, appliances, and a model of a car called a "Z-car."

Zaha really seems to work with and around the environment. One example is in her piece "Ice Storm" she asks the owners of the building to ask that the visitors live and use the structure- to explore and to rethink all that you know. Although they ask that you mainly " rethink our ideas of posture, demeanour, and lifestyle." "Ice Storm" is also a latent instead of an manifested environment.

-----"In hope that outdated planning restraints might be abandoned, we presented a proposal that celebrated the dynamic possibilities of the urban landscape by extending the public realm into professional offices, thereby pushing forward the frontier where modern architecture can contribute to the quality of city life."

Peter Zumthor's Inspiration as a Builder

Many people are influenced by past experiences and memories, including Peter Zumthor. His life as a child growing up in Switzerland has had a very big impact on the way Zumthor creates and designs his building projects. In some of his books Zumthor mentions how he can still feel the shape of his aunt's doorhandle into the house, and how it led to a wonderfully farmiliar world of the kitchen, an image still circulating in Zumthor's mind. This permanent image of the old kitchen still has Peter in a trance at times, and when he comes out of that trance, new, fresh ideas rush to mind for a whole new project.

Another affect of Zumthor's style was growing up with a carpenter father and learning the trade as well. Before Zumthor settled as an architect, he apprenticed as a cabinetmaker, like his father, then a designer, then finally an architect at Kunstergawerbeschule Basel and Pratt Institute , New York. As a student at Pratt, Peter and his classmates took architectural history, and reguarded it as part of their general education, but Zumthor said the class didn't really affect how he creates as a designer. I believe that Zumthor learned the basics of architecture while at school, but he really taught himself how to design once he got into the real buisness.

Many of Zumthor's memories come from subjective expereinces and or childhood moments. In one of his books, Zumthor wonders that if he had stayed living in Basel, would his style be different from how it is today, but eventually comes to the conclusion that yes his surroundings have an influence on his designs, but its more memories and past experiences than anything else.

Simplicity and Sustainibility

If Renzo Piano could change the way the George Pompidou Center looked, he would. The cultures center was his first design, and it is very unlike any of his other designs. His later designs are simple, yet sustainable. In the pictures above is George Pompidou Center. A culture center but also a good viewing place of Paris, it has attracted many people from the start.

The picture above is the Brancusi gallery Piano reconstructed. Believe it or not, it is right next to the George Pompidou Center. The contrast between the two designs is great, even from the outside.
In this photos above is Kansai International Airport. The airport was constructed on a 1-mile artificial island off of Osaka, Japan. It was built to sustain earthquakes and tycoons but Piano also made it simple and beautiful.

Biography of Thom Mayne

Thom Mayne was raised and lives in Los Angeles, CA. For college he went to University of Southern California and Harverd University graduate school of design. After college he joined a firm called Morphosis.


At Morphosis he has done a lot of projects including schools, houses, and museums. His first buildings ,which were on the east coast, had a more of an anti-historical theme. later on in his career he had more of an anti-aesthetic theme.Which means more of a modern tone.

Bridges, buildings, and an Olympic Stadium.

One of Santiago Calatrava's bridges is the Bac de Roda Felipe II Bridge, located at Barcelona. It has two arches on either side of the roads. The arches closer to the roads are upright, while the farther arches lean on them. Below each pair of arches, there is a sidewalk.
In 2004, he designed a sports complex for the Athens Olympics.

Beijing International Airport

Beijing International Airport
The Beijing International Airport was designed for many things. It is supposed to represent a traditional Chinese dragon. This airport was designed to accommodate 43 million passengers! With few level changes, and short walking distances, this airport is very easy to get around in.

Bringing People Together

Julian De Smedt has a way of designing buildings with the idea of social interaction in mind. In one instance he was designing an apartment complex where each appartment was self-dependent, each one had a kitchen, laundry room, and full bath. so the challenge was to have interaction. In this case he designed the rooms, and balconies to stack at angles so that one could talk to his or her neighbors easily versus a conventional appartment where they are stacked straight up and you don't see anybody around you. In this design was also a main hallway that also served as a lounge lobby area. thus bringing people together.

see picture below

the VM building balconies