Architecture: Shiseikan's

Architects: Kengo Kuma & Associates

Location: Sakyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan

Completion: 2008

Site area: 65,892.34 sqm

Total floor area: 5,002.529 sqm

Our principle for the design of art schools was that the architecture must lift up the students’ spirits. Nowadays, we see lots of dry, dispiriting school buildings perhaps because there were requests for the buildings that are easy for maintenance. In order to counter such tendency, the new building for Kyoto University of Art and Design must have shown something new.

However, the project turned out to be extremely difficult. The first challenge was its site, which was almost a cliff. To build a big-scale building in this environment seemed technically impossible. The architecture came into being with the idea from our structural engineer, Mr Norihide Imamura, that the 67-strong earth anchors would link the cliff and the building. The second task was that since this new building stands at the core of all activities in the campus, it had to be a place to smoothen the flow of various logistics in and around. Rather than designing a new solid object, which is a commonly-observed method in such project, our concept was that the architecture itself could be made flexible to play different roles, such as a bridge, slope or a hole. Same approach was applied for the façade of the building.

Our neighboring building, Ningenkan, was a massive stone-clad building. If we had repeated the same pattern for Shiseikan, the impact of our neighbor’s colonnade would have been ruined. So while avoiding colonnades, we attempted to preserve the force and coarseness of the stone. Triple-stacking of pure granite (25cm×60cm×4.5m) at the south and was an unprecedented detail, but responded well to the colonnade of Ningenkan, and the stone pillars to the west, with the passages in between, became visually effective as the view from Shirakawa-Dori, strong enough to be the symbol of the university yet delicate as if it could naturally fuse into its landscape, which is designated as a scenic preservation area. Students tend to vacillate between opting for ‘heaviness’ or ‘lightness’ in architecture. We wanted to encourage them by taking the third way.

In this way, we abandoned the style of ‘wholeness’ of classical architecture by proposing a design that thoroughly ‘compromises’ with our neighboring environment.

Architecture: Riverside Clubhouse

Riverside Clubhouse / TAO

Architects: TAO  (Trace Architecture Office)
Location: Yancheng, Jiangsu, China
Design Team: HUA Li, Zhang Feng
Floor area: 500 sqm.
Completion: 2010
Client: Zhongti Corp.
Photographs: Yao Li

The clubhouse is located on one side of a river in Yancheng, surrounded by a park and sports field. The extended horizon, sky, water, island in river, and reed, these elements of the site define a tranquil, pure and poetic atmosphere. In such an environment, we think architecture must be a careful intervention to the site, to avoid ruining the original sense of place and meanwhile create the close contact with nature. Thus a glass building on riverside and in trees naturally comes to mind as beginning idea, to integrate visitor, architecture and landscape.

The design therefore takes Mies’ Farnsworth as a prototype concept and creates a new form through a series of actions on it: stretch, loop, and fold. These actions lead to following results: smaller building depth with better views, introversive courtyard space offering more privacy, getting closer to water and accessible roof as extension of landscape. The transparency dematerializes architecture. The concern to physical form of building is replaced by desire to create flowing and see-through space to maximize visitors’ experience of natural environment outside.

Responding to the horizontal feature of surrounding landscape and trees in site, the building is made into a linear and folded form. It zigzags and flows, sometimes approaching the ground, sometimes floating in the air. While inside it provides to visitors various views at different level and angle, it also gives an impression that architecture is touching the site in a very “light” form, thus creating a subtlety. The soft soil geo-condition of the site also makes this floating form structurally reasonable since slim columns on pile foundations support the building.

The floor thickness and column size are made to their minimum dimensions to emphasize the “light” character of building and feeling of floating. The materials such as low iron glass, white aluminum panel, travertine floor, precast concrete panel and translucent glass partition are used to gain formal abstraction and to create the atmosphere of simplicity and purity. In the context of lacking local materials and craftsmanship, an abstract form becomes a natural choice aesthetically.

Give Me All Your Luvin' (Feat. M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj)

SHE IS BACK! long live the queen!

HOPE YOU LIKED IT GUYS!

Peter Zumthor

Just a Hobby pt.7

DAVID

Yellow

Heart for lunch

A cup of blood

Holes

Holes 2

Best Music Videos of 2011

10 - DR. DRE "i need a doctor"

I actually dont like this genre, but this video deserves at least the last position on here! amazing picture!

9 - RIHANNA "s&m"

Rihanna once again... amazing video art, nice song and picture... if you like the S&M this is for you!

8 - SKRILLEX "first of the year"

A reaper always gets his payback! amazing effects and of course SKRILLEX

7 - CULTS "go outside"

Featuring Emma Roberts and Dave Franco, after living a love affair, she gets scared of all the 'scary' things in real life. She doesn't like it...she's used to being in the movie so she goes back at the end.. GREAT VIDEO!

6 - LADY GAGA "born this way"

Just like Katy Perry's E.T. video, may be named after Steven Spielberg's adorable Eighties space alien. Amazing video, picture and song!

5 - MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA "simple math"

As Andy Hull’s pick-up truck flips over and over, so does the life flashing before his eyes.

4 - KATY PERRY "E.T."

Katy Perry's latest hit "E.T."  may be named after Steven Spielberg's adorable Eighties space alien, but its video has more to do with grim modern sci-fi. In fact, the clip looks as though it could be the trailer for either a sequel to Avatar or a Katy Perry video game. It's a bold move away from Perry's usual silliness and sexuality, but the song itself is too – it sounds more like Evanescence's hard rock balladry than her cheerful radio hits "California Gurls" and "Teenage Dream."

3 - RIHANNA "we found love"

The video for "We Found Love," the first single from Rihanna's album, Talk That Talk, matches its thumping rave beat to footage that often looks like a remake of Trainspotting. The singer and some hot dude squabble, get high, make out, goof off and look strung out and lovesick in a filthy council flat. Oh, and Rihanna gets a homemade tattoo on her ass. Enjoy the video on the internet now, since there's no way it will be shown on television without extensive censoring

2 - LANA DEL REY "born to die"

Lana Del Rey broke big on the internet with lo-fi clips for her songs "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans," but the video for "Born to Die," the title track from her forthcoming major label debut, is as glossy and professional as it gets. It features shots of the singer making out with a hot tattooed dude in a glamorous hotel suite and lounging in an ornate throne room with a pair of tigers. Just like the song itself, it's bleakly romantic and majestic in its scope.

1 - WOODKID "iron"

Evan as music-video budgets shrink, their scope hasn’t grown any less grand, as Woodkid’s birds of prey and war horses attest. A MASTER PIECE!

_stereolove's photostream

_stereolove's photostream on Flickr.