A garden shed or a home away from home?

I came across these lovely photos over on Anthology and was totally surprised to find out that this is not a lovely bedroom, it’s actually a garden shed. The styling that was put into this, while minimal, made me think this was some sort of outdoor vacation lodge that you could camp out in during the warm summer months. And maybe you could? It would certainly be romantic and not entirely impractical. If you’re interested in learning more about this garden shed, you can click here.

Bobby

Architects Have Answers

The video above is made from snippets of 20 interviews with architectural luminaries. Conducted by Luca Farinelli, the interviews are published in the latest issue of Log, and it’s funny to see how the architects’ answers compare to each others… or maybe it’s not surprising that Peter Eisenman thinks that only architects make architecture. And then there are other kinds of surprising answers: When asked if he prefers a Mac or PC, Rober Stern (Dean, Yale School of Architecture) answers: “Never turned on a computer my entire life.” But maybe this just means that he has someone else to turn a computer on for him.

This issue of Log also has an article by Nicholas de Monchaux (remember him?) writing about the painted and unpainted fuel tanks of the space shuttle program. And much, much more.

Alex

‘Music Boxes’ by Luis Díaz Díaz

Luis Díaz Díaz is a Spanish photographer based in Madrid and the North-Western coast of the country. He does a lot of commissioned projects, but it was his personal project ‘Music Boxes’ which really caught my attention. The series of photographs looks at the open air stages used by orchestras and concerts during the yearly local festivals in Galicia in Northern Spain.

These ‘music boxes’ stand now as forgotten monuments to times past. Where once this structures were places of festivities and celebration, they have now been replaced by modern mobile stages. Luis Díaz Díaz rigidly documents them with a minimalist style that reminds me of the photographs of industrial buildings taken by the influential German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. These empty, abandoned spaces, now seem to haunt rural Galica; leaving only a hollow space where the viewer is left to imagine what celebrations may have once taken place in this part of the country.

Philip

A new pier for St. Petersburg (Florida), designed by Michael Maltzan

Los Angeles’ very own Michael Maltzan has beat out some architectural heavy weights to win a competition for the design of the St. Petersburg pier. The firm, based in Silver Lake, was unanimously chosen over the likes of BIG and West 8 to develop their scheme that reimagines the Florida city’s waterfront and might resemble a giant tiara from certain angles. The usual experience of a pier is to go all the way out to the end and turn back, retracing all of your steps; instead, the winning scheme proposes a series of interconnected loops. Like the mathematical representation of infinity (or the figure eight), tracks cross each other before arching over a series of programmed spaces both on land and over the water. I’m not entirely sure that I understand the crenelated edge, but my favorite detail from the renderings has to be the smaller balconies that punch through the curving wall at the distant end of the pier. The balconies are small and more intimate, which is a nice moment in large, public works like this one.

This is an excellent project for the firm and it will be exciting to see how the scheme evolves as it moves from design to construction to reality.

Alex

A beautiful rest stop lives in Norway, designed by Lars J burge

It would be easy to get the impression from perusing The Fox Is Black, that the entirety of Scandinavia is littered with small and delightful contemporary projects and not rainy parcels of land between aging modern housing plots. I’m happy to perpetuate the happier impression using the pubic toilets above as an example. The toilets in question live in Norway, along a road that snakes through scenic Aurlandsfjellet. Designed by Lars J Berge, the solar powered reststop, named Flotane, only looks like it’s falling over as it provides hikers with a place to park and start their hike into the mountains. Folks can even hike to the nearby Stegastein, a stunning overlook featured by Philip last year.

Found through Inhabitat

Alex