Geisel Library

The Geisel Library is the main library building on the University of California, San Diego campus and contains four of the five libraries located on campus. It is home to the Arts Library (newly merged in July 2008 from the Art & Architecture and Music, Film & Video Libraries) (ARTS), the Mandeville Special Collections Library (SPEC), the Science & Engineering Library (S&E), and the Social Sciences & Humanities Library (SSHL). The Biomedical Library is the other library building on campus. There are 3 off-site locations: The Scripps Archives and Library Annex (available by appointment), the Annex (collections available by request), and the UC Southern Regional Library Facility (collections available by request).

The building is named in honor of Audrey and Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) for the generous contributions they have made to the library and their devotion to improving literacy. The Geisels were long-time residents of La Jolla, where UC San Diego is located.

The building is featured in the UCSD logo and is the most recognizable building on campus. It is located in the center of the campus with Library Walk to its south, Thurgood Marshall College to its West and Earl Warren College to its East.

The library first opened in 1970. It was simply called the Central Library until a renovation was completed in 1993, when it was rededicated as the University Library Building. It was renamed "Geisel Library" in 1995.

The distinctive original building was designed in the late 1960s by William Pereira to sit at the head of a canyon. William Pereira & Associates prepared a detailed report in 1969. Considering the location, Pereira originally conceived of a spherical building resting atop a pedestal, with the structural elements on the inside. After several drafts of this ball-shaped design, the structural elements were deemed as being too space-consuming, and they were moved to the outside of the structure, essentially resulting in the current "lantern" design. Pereira envisioned that future additions to the original building would form terraced levels around the tower base descending into the canyon. The tower is a prime example of brutalist architecture. It rises 8 stories to a height of 110 ft (33.5 m). The four upper stories of the tower itself house the SSHL and East Asia collections.

A photo of the building taken by Julius Shulman was used as the cover image for James Steele's chronicle of Pereira's career, called simply William Pereira.

The Library Addition, designed by Gunnar Birkerts in the early 1990s, was "deliberately designed to be subordinated to the strong, geometrical form of the existing library." Within its two subterranean levels are the other library sections as well as study spaces and computer labs.

Source: Wikipedia.org

Transamerica Pyramid

The Transamerica Pyramid is the tallest skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline and one of its most iconic. Although the building no longer houses the headquarters of the Transamerica Corporation, it is still strongly associated with the company and is depicted in the company's logo. Designed by architect William Pereira and built by Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company, at 260 m (850 ft), upon completion in 1972 it was among the five tallest buildings in the world.

The tower has no public access except for the first floor lobby, thus visitors cannot ascend to the top for a panoramic view.

The land use and zoning restrictions for the parcel limited the number of square feet of office that could be built upon the lot, which sits at the northern boundary of the financial district.

The building is a tall, four-sided pyramid with two "wings" on either side to accommodate an elevator shaft on the east and a stairwell and a smoke tower on the west. The top 64.6 m (212 ft) of the building is the spire. There are four cameras pointed in the four cardinal directions at the top of this spire forming a virtual observation deck. Four monitors in the lobby, whose direction and zoom can be controlled by visitors, display the cameras' views 24 hours a day. An observation deck on the 27th floor was closed after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and replaced by the virtual observation deck. The top of the Transamerica Pyramid is covered with aluminum panels. During the holiday season of Thanksgiving, and Independence Day, a bright, white light is seen on top of the pyramid. The building was built on a special base platform that allows it to reduce shaking from earthquakes. While it gradually reduces shaking, some shaking still intrudes the building.

• The building's façade is covered in crushed quartz, giving the building its pure white color.
• The four-storey base of the building contains a total of 16,000 cu yd (12,000 m³) of concrete and over 300 mi (480 km) of steel rebar.
• It has 3,678 windows.
• The building's foundation is 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and was the result of a 3 day, 24-hour continuous concrete pour. Several thousand dollars in quarters and change were thrown into the pit by observers surrounding the site at street level during the pouring process, for good luck.
• Only two of the building's 18 elevators reach the top floor.
• The original proposal called for a 1,150 ft (350 m) building, which would have been for one year the second-tallest completed building in the world. The proposal was rejected by the city planning commission on the grounds that it would have interfered with views of San Francisco Bay from Nob Hill.
• The building occupies the site that was the temporary home of A.P. Giannini's Bank of Italy after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed its office. Giannini founded Transamerica in 1928 as a holding company for his financial empire. Bank of Italy later became Bank of America.
• There is a plaque commemorating two famous dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, at the base of the building.
• The hull of the whaling vessel Niantic, an artifact of the 1849 California Gold Rush, lay almost exactly beneath the Transamerica Pyramid, and the location is marked by a historical plaque outside the building (California Historical Landmark #88).
• The aluminum cap is indirectly illuminated from within to balance the appearance at night.
• The two vertical external extensions allow preservation of useful interior space at the upper levels. One extension is the top of elevator shafts while the other is a smoke evacuation tower for fire-fighting.
• A glass pyramid cap sits at the top and encloses both aircraft warning light and a seasonal white beacon.
• At certain times of the year the glass cap will briefly cast a reflected sunlight gleam onto traffic crossing the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge

Source: Wikipedia.org

Castles in Europe

 This old continent has witnessed thousands of years of battles, wars, building and destroying. So, what really remains after such a tremendous historical journey, it's the strong architecture, designed to stand tall against the enemy's attacks, or just to stand like a proof of the military and economical power of the state. Built in various architectural styles, the castles are an example of design and engineering at high levels, in times when the available "technology" was represented by the human sense for architecture, beauty and engineering.
 Here are my favorites:

1.Neuschwanstein Castle - a Romanesque-revival palace located in southwest Bavaria,Germany

2. Peles Castle - Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania

3.Huniazilor Castle -  Gothic-Renaissance castle in Hunedoara (Transylvania), Romania.

4. Leeds Caste - situated in Kent, England

5.Chambord Castle - a very distinct French Renaissance castle in located in  Chambord, France

 

6. Häme Castle - a medieval castle in Finland

7.Trakošćan Castle - a castle that dates back to the 13th century located in northern Croatia

Gemini Residence

Gemini Residence is a residential building on the Islands Brygge waterfront in Copenhagen, Denmark. Built to the design of MVRDV, the building has been created by converting two former seed silos. It is located at the end of Bryggebroen, connecting Amager-side Islands Brygge to Zealand-sideVesterbro across the harbour, and close to the southern end of Havneparken.

With a reference to the twin silos that have given the building its shape, Gemini Residence takes its name from the Astrological sign Gemini, the Latinname of the Zodiac sign The Twins.

The converted twin silos were raw concrete cylinders, standing 42 metres tall and 25 metres wide. The hollow cores of the silos are used for the infrastructure of the building, stairs, elevators and hallways. The two silos are connected on each floor, giving the building a basic layout resemblying the infinity symbol, ∞. The two rotundas are capped with a Texlon roof for natural light, creating a lobby area as tall as the building itself, within which residents and visitors can move up and down.

The apartments have been clipped to the exterior of the silos. The apartments have floor to ceiling windows and balconies along their entire length. At the foot of the silos, the raw concrete has been left uncovered to highlight the origin and history of the structure. This creates a marked horizontal overhang above the quayside esplenade passing below, while the narrow chasm it leaves at ground level creates a passage between dockside and streetside.

Source: Wikipedia.org

PIXEL

PIXEL in Beijing by SAKO Architects.

This complex is composed of 10,000 units of commercial units, residential units, and office units placed on an area of about 210,000 square meters. 19 residential towers are placed uniquely on the site in order to meet the demand for its privacy and hours of sunlight as the residential units.
Twelve numbers of plate-shaped buildings are placed along the outline of the site. The other eight numbers of plate-shaped buildings are placed along the lines in which were led by a slant line running along Chaoyang North Road and the two right-angled lines of the slant line. Therefore, each building has a certain distance to the others by virtue of its “windmill-shaped master plan”.
The elevation design of the buildings is another unique part of this project. Each tower is composed of piled-up units with eight different tones of color of gray. This strategy gives one continuous flowing pattern for the facade of the twelve buildings along the outline of the site. In addition, different tones of one additional color for each building create ten different gradient colors for the buildings, and this gives the sense of coherence to the whole site.

(Source: europaconcorsi.com)

The Village Museum (Muzeul Satului)

The Village Museum, is located in Bucharest,Romania. Despite his lack of celebrity, it's one of the biggest and the oldest outdoors museum in Europe.
The creation of the National Village Museum was a goal for an intensive and sustained research coordinated by Dimitrie Gusti .
Between 1936-1940,the museum had a surface of 6.5 ha, and 33 of the sites were authentic,transferred from different  villages located all over the country.
The surface tends to reproduce the map of Romania, by grouping the monuments of architecture and popular technique on the criterion of geographical proximity of villages of origin, in areas representing major historical provinces of the country. The museum has today over 100,000 m2, and contains 272 authentic peasant farms and houses from all over Romania.
If you ever visit Bucharest, this museum should be on your map. It's an excellent location for taking photographs, make some sketches or just walking on the Herastrau lake shore while finding out something more about the traditional architecture.

Frank W. Thomas House

Frank W. Thomas House, 210 Forest Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois, USA

The Frank W. Thomas House was commissioned by James C. Rogers for his daughter and her husband, Frank Wright Thomas. In some ways, it resembles the Heurtley House: both homes have leaded glass windows, an arched entryway, and a low, long profile. The Thomas house is widely considered Wright's first Prairie Style home in Oak Park. It is also his first all stuccohome in Oak Park. Using stucco instead of wood meant that Wright could design clear, geometric forms.

The main rooms of the Thomas House are raised a full story above a high basement. The L-shaped floor plan of the house gives it an open view to the north and west, while obscuring a brick wall located on the south side. A "false door" is located just above the arched entryway.

Source: architecture.about.com

Drawing of the day - 02

Here's another one for your viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXt3slWL-KU

Hope you like it!

You can also subscribe to this channel because more cool and nice stuff are on their way. :)

See you again soon!

Drawing of the day 01

Hi again!
I decided to upload my drawing videos on my new channel.

So here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpT7VEAQf4A

Hope you like it :)

House Holman

House Holman by Durbach Block Architects

Durbach Block Architects designed the award winning House Holman in 2004.

The single-family residence is sited on the edge of a 230-foot high cliff flying over the ocean in the town of Dover Heights, west of the city of Sydney in Australia.

The House Holman offers a complex series of spaces to be fluid, enrolled in a perimeter formed by a series of curves and contracurvas that stretch in response to the landscape and the sun.

Living and dining areas cantilever out over the ocean, allowing dramatic views up and down the coast.

The lower floor forms a base that is built from rough stone walls like an extension of the cliff below.

These walls continue along the cliff edge to form a series of eccentric terraced gardens and a vase-shaped rock pool.

Photos by: Neil Durbach, Brett Boardman, Chris Cole, Anthony Browell

Kettle Hole House

Kettle Hole House by Robert Young

Architects: Robert Young
Location: East Hampton, New York, USA
Architect In Charge: Robert Young
Design Team: Mara Indra, Marlene Toerper, Shea Murdock
Project Architect: Kiyomi Troemner
Year: 2008
Photographs: Frank Oudeman

This project developed organically to respond to our client’s seven acre site, which was sheltered by white pines, offered unobstructed views of the water, and housed a beautiful kettle pond. The property contained an existing house, c 1982, which was in need of a major renovation. Because of serious rot and the low quality of the initial construction, it was not clear that a restoration would cost less than a new house. Our instinct is always to save and reuse things rather than throw them away, so we were keen to find ways to keep the house economically. Surveys of the property indicated that the house was closer to the kettle pond than current town setbacks would allow; if we were to build a new house rather than renovate, it would have to be pushed back closer to the property line, compromising the privacy and water views that made this parcel so appealing.
While the existing house was full of quirky layout moments, such as dark narrow halls and high windows facing the view, the basic parti of the house worked quite well — living spaces bookended by the master suite and guest bedrooms. By filling in a windowless courtyard and carport, we were able to enlarge the kitchen and dining areas, and add a den and a screened porch without extending the actual footprint of the house. This not only allowed for extra space, but also dramatically improved the awkward flow between the existing spaces. Without moving load-bearing walls, we merged the kitchen, living and dining areas into an open, flowing plan.
We transformed the appearance of the house with an economy of means using new siding and windows with accenting cement panels. The windowless ‘silo’ stairwell was replaced with a rectangular stair tower with a simple but delicate stair of blackened steel. Wide expanses of glass and exterior materials that cross over into the interiors, such as the cedar siding and cement panels, blur the line between inside and out. The interior palette of natural materials, colors, and fabrics is juxtaposed with occasional strong contrasting elements, complementing the surrounding woodlands.

Source: archdaily.com

Under Pohutukawa Beach House

Under Pohutukawa Beach House by Herbst Architects

The site with which we were presented was extremely challenging in that it was 90% covered in mature pohutukawa trees, the site being a part of a continuous belt of forest that edges the road along the beach front.

The circumstances not so much allowed, but dictated a sensitive poetic response to a building that, in order to exist would require the destruction of a large number of mature trees. To do this we looked to the trees themselves to give us the cues that we needed.

We separated the brief loosely into private and “public” components, giving us smaller individual masses with which to articulate the forms. The private functions of bedrooms and garage are housed in two towers which are construed as freshly sawn stumps of the trees that were removed.

To allude to the bark of the stumps the skins of the towers are clad in black/brown stained rough sawn irregular battens. The interior spaces are then seen as carved out of the freshly cut wood, achieved by detailing all the wall / ceiling and cabinetry elements in the same light timber.

The public space connects the two towers and attempts to engage with the surrounding pohutukawa forest by defining a crossover space between the powerful natural environment and the built form. The plane of the roof form pins off the towers to engage with the continuous tree canopy, disintegrating from a rigid plane to a frayed edge which filters light in a similar way to the leaf canopy.

The primary structure holding up the roof is a series of treeelements which allude to the trunks and branches of trees but are detailed in a rigorous geometric arrangement which suggests an ordering of nature as it enters and forms the building.

The height of the public space with its light glass division responds to the height of the surrounding trees, the roof planeis partially glass to allow the full extent of the trees to be felt as they lean over the building. A walkway links the towers at the upper level allowing engagement with both the natural and man made canopies.

MDT house

 MDT house by Jacobsen Arquitetura.
(Source: knstrct.com)

São Paulo’s Fazenda Boa Vista development is a massive 1,800 acre residential and hospitality complex rolling with perfectly trimmed hills, deep blue lakes, and untouched landscapes. The property features an array of amenities such a clubhouses, an equestrian center, golf course, tennis courts, five star hotel, and a spa. Also within the complex is a collective of newly built residences designed by Brazil’s architectural headliners, Isay Weinfeld, Arthur Casas, and Paulo Jacobsen and Bernardo Jacobsen of Jacobsen Arquitetura.

Jacobsen’s new MDT house is in the well designed company of Fazenda Boa Vista’s newly built residences. The home is sectioned into three rectangular volumes that are juxtaposed together to create three full patios, a gourmet kitchen, home theater, large entertaining areas, a kids room, library, and a swimming pool.
The outside of the MDT home is outfitted with a stone wall covered in vertical wood panels ranging in hues of brown, orange, and yellow. The stone and wood wall constitutes most of the exterior walls, except for the areas that overlook the pool and courtyard. Here, the bedroom suites fit straight into one of the rectangular volume, each bedroom has a glass wall so guests have a view of the swimming pool through the wood panels.
One feature not to be missed is the large wood covered patio that overlooks the pool. On the patio, modern furniture pieces create unique conversation areas, and the gourmet kitchen is only steps away to feed the need for serving and entertaining.
The architects took a topographical approach to develop to sculpt the land of the MDT House. Variations in floor and ceiling create different ceiling heights and different relationships with the garden,
sometimes enabling direct access to the gardens and pool.

Source: knstrct.com