The Architectural Review articles from July 2002

The Architectural Review archives from July 2002

UN demobilised. (View).(architecture exhibition)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Having achieved an international reputation with the 1996 Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam the office of van Berkel & Bos has morphed in recent years into UN Studio. UN stands for United Network, their evolving interdisciplinary matrix of design...

Outrage: one of only three Neutra dwellings in Palm Springs, the Maslon House was recently demolished in an inexplicable act of architectural and cultural vandalism. (View).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... After the 28 February sale of the house, a contractor walked into the City of Rancho Mirage next to Palm Springs on 19 March and paid $45 for a demolition permit. Nine days later, all that remained of Richard Neutra's Maslon House, a palazzo...

Browser: Sutherland Lyall continues to explore world architecture, peering through the great electronic forest. (View).(web sites)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Electronically graven images At http://architecture.about.com/ you can find About Architecture, a division of the vast About website. When it described Antoni Gaudi as Dada Surrealist I thought life would be much gentler if I simply gave up...

Letters.
July 1, 2002... PROPAGANDA SIR: Reading through your May issue, I was surprised to find out that your magazine now covers world politics as well as architecture. Unfortunately the level of the first is embarrassingly shallow. Your article 'View from...

Addendum.(Illustration)
July 1, 2002... Photographs of the Mediatheque, Vaise, France in AR June, pp64-67 were taken by Gilles Aymard.

View from Dallas: Susan Lasdun responds to Dallas with typical European horror - but close examination gives grounds for hope. (View).(architecture)
July 1, 2002... As my plane touched down at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, I wondered how closely this oil-rich city would match my preconceptions -- would it be as over the top as I expected? Learning from my driver that the airport was larger than the whole of...

August. (View).
July 1, 2002... One of the most difficult problems of contemporary architecture is size. Architects are asked to design bigger and bigger buildings, and many who have made brilliant small works are unable to cope. The problems are not to do with marshalling...

Request stop: this new bus shelter design programme challenges the economic and creative limits associated with bust travel. (Design Review).(Bradford, England)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Waiting for a bus is rarely time spent in civilized or stimulating conditions. Bus travel is regarded as the cheapest and most marginalized form of transport, and structures and interchanges associated with it tend to be designed with an...

Space and identity. (Comment).(International Union of Architects conference)
July 1, 2002... The UIA congress in Berlin offers opportunities, which must be seized, to reconsider the priorities of architecture by focusing on space and identity, the built and the natural, urban societies, and innovation and tradition. Every three...

Battle lines: creating a memorial to a battle of mythical importance with no obvious surface traces necessitated architectural imagination of great sensitivity which has overlaid past with present, place with narrative, time with space.(Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer)
July 1, 2002... The battle of the Teutoburger Wald changed the world. In AD 9, the Roman general Publius Quintilius Varus lost three legions and six supporting regiments of auxiliaries. He had marched over the Rhine and into the German forest to try to bring...

Elevating the everyday.(social housing architecture)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Social housing is one of the hardest building types to elevate above the dreary norms of programme and budget, but through its calculated formal and material ingenuity, this Parisian scheme triumphantly transcends such limitations. Despite...

Women's rights: intimate knowledge of the culture and technology of Senegal has enabled young Finnish architects to create a centre intended to empower women in a society where they are normally suppressed.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Rufisque is a port just to the east of Dakar, the capital of Senegal. Like most other cities in Africa, it is undergoing traumatic transformation with the impact of modern technology, and a surge of immigration from the countryside. In...

Light box: part of a plan to revive the urban realm and create a sense of neighbourhood identity, this new mediatheque combines formal rigour with material invention.(library architecture)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Apparently just a gleaming metal box, Dominique Perrault's new mediatheque contains some intriguing surprises. Located in Venissieux, a southern suburb of Lyons, the project forms a key part of the local mayor's urban revitalization scheme. The...

Last rites: deep in a Slovenian woodland, the material and the spiritual are sensitively conjoined in a tranquil haven for human leavetaking and remembrance.(Ales Vodopivec cemetery)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Srebrenice's new cemetery forms the first phase of a larger project for a forest graveyard which began as an open competition in 1989. The ensuing Balkans war and Slovenia's seccession from Yugoslavia put the scheme on hold, but it has at last...

Townsend transfused: an extension to one of London's best loved smaller museums respects the architecture of the original, and makes sense of circulation and connection with surrounding gardens.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Horniman Free Museum in Forest Hill in the southern reaches of greater London is, like the Soane Museum, one of London's very great pleasures. Set into the steep slope of the old London Road, the building was designed by the Arts and Crafts...

The Yemen's mud brick buildings. (Place).
July 1, 2002... For over two millennia, the inhabitants of the Yemen have built their strange tower houses out of the earth below them. The tradition continues still and seems adaptable to modern life. Though much is beginning to decay, the crafts continue....

Modern revival: expansion of one of London's best-loved institutions regenerates a redundant warehouse while retaining the character and integrity of the original. (Interior Design).(Aram Designs)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Aram Designs in Covent Garden is an institution. More gallery than furniture store, it has been for almost 40 years the place to see and buy the twentieth century's most remarkable works. Its moving spirit, Zeev Aram, was the first in Britain...

Sure bet: corporate HQ for a high-tech firm is an internal city within a vast shed with streets, open spaces and free-standing pavilions, their design essays in material experiment.(YouBet.com)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2002... YouBet.com is an American Internet horse-racing service, giving instant access to live races, information about them and betting on them. It is America's first such service and its existence opens up interesting possibilities for inhabitants of...

Nuanced materiality: Kerry Hill has established an approach to South-east Asian building that combines Modern Movement disciplines with an engagement with tropical climates.(Kerry Hill Architects)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Mirzan House is located in a secluded valley, surrounded by steeply rising ground and lofty trees close to the centre of the Malaysian capital. Visitors' cars arrive via a narrow road and pass a security checkpoint before swinging sharply...

Bruck lighting. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Adastra is a new CDM-TC light with integral control gear which can be used with Atalano, a mains track system. Recently launched by Bruck, Atalano has a very slim profile and is available with a wide range of architectural lights. Enquiry...

Hacel Lighting. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Part of a coordinated range of fittings, the Ported Eclipse is a wall-mounted adjustable wall light for commercial and retail displays. The polyester powder-coated aluminium body is fitted with low voltage halogen lamps. Hacel lighting has just...

Targetti. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Two new features, slow luminance suspended light and a floor lamp, have been added to the Roller lighting collection. The direct and indirect suspended light has a low luminance anti-glare louvre. The floor lamp is an elegant 1.856m high column...

Resolute. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... A new collection, Paper Lights, is based 4 n a high quality synthetic diffuse r material which gives the warm glow of parchment without its frailty. Wall- mounted and suspended lights are available, and they are suitable for residential or...

Se'lux. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The M-series of lighting products, launched at Light + Building 2002, offers great flexibility. The M-60 Cassette Pendant with satin acrylic diffuser is unusually slim fitting (60mm wide and 90mm deep) with a sharp square-edged profile. The...

Ludwig Leuchten. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Led's Fly is a pendant luminaire with paired aluminum heads, each with 90 LEDs. The heads can be swivelled by 120 degrees independently and the luminaire can be adjusted in height within a range between 500 and 150mm. Enquiry 506...

Santa & Cole. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Javier Mariscal has designed a family of lamps, Domine, for the proposed Gran Hotel Domine in Bilbao. It comprises two table lamps, a hanging lamp and a pair of wall-mounted lamps for placing on each side of a bed. Each lamp has a white...

Ayal Rosin. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The new floor lamp 5555, of stainless steel and matt anodized aluminium, is designed to extend over a desk. It provides 30 per cent non-dazzling direct light and 70 per cent indirect light with an efficiency of 82 per cent. The lamp is operated...

Siteco. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... SQ is a street light with a robust diecast aluminium enclosure which is dust-tight and waterproof, offering a long service life under extreme outdoor conditions. The design of the luminaire uses innovative lighting technology to ensure a high...

Antares. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Concept is a series of luminaires for embedded mounting on ceilings I to 35mm thick. The upper and darklight reflectors are made of anodized silver-plated aluminium. They are designed to illuminate large areas as wall-washers, giving a high...

Fontana arte. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Alcamo is an exterior lighting system, designed by Gae Aulenti, which is also suitable for other uses. The structures which support the system allow lights to be mounted in different directions; they can also be used for signage or as gate...

Martini. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Porfido is a light-emitting 'cobblestone' of frosted glass. The LED light source is immersed in transparent resin, making it completely waterproof, and the body is tough enough to take light traffic. Available in white, red, amber, green and...

Abacus Lighting. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The floodlighting of a test cricket stadium at Kanpur, India has been designed, supplied and supervised by Abacus Lighting. The installation consists of four 50m high fixed masts each of which carries 84 Challenger 3 floodlights. Constructed...

Merten. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Designed in collaboration with Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners, M-Plan II is a switch which can be built in flush to the wall. It is suitable for walls which are plastered or built of lightweight materials, as well as those of exposed concrete....

Jung. (Product Review).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... LS plus is a new series of light switches with large rockers for ease of operation and frames of stainless steel, aluminium or satin-finished glass. Jung also offer a battery-operated. radio-controlled presence detector. As it is independent of...

North 4 Design. (Specifier's Information).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Vision panel specialist North 4 Design has added a 30-minute fire integrity to its expanding range of vision panels for doors and walls. Finished in brushed stainless steel with a choice of glass and fixings, they provide an attractive solution...

Concord:marlin. (Specifier's Information).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Images or logos can be projected from a discrete recessed luminaire using the Myriad 4 Projector from Concord:marlin. Designed in conjunction with Lighting Design International, the Myriad 4 range now includes a recessed adjustable projector...

Rehau. (Specifier's Information).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Rehau has opened a purpose-built training academy to provide a range of courses for specifiers and installers of its underfloor heating and plumbing systems. The academy is based at Rehaus headquarters at Ross on Wye and all courses are...

Praxis. (Specifier's Information).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Mono is a system of banner fixings by Brian Watson and Tony Wills. Mono banners hang straight and flat, allowing images to be seen to their best advantage. Specifically designed for interior banners. the extruded aluminium components are sturdy...

Altro. (Specifier's Information).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Altro wall coating and flooring have been used at the new David Lloyd Health and Fitness Club at Non-Such High School for Girls in Cheam, Surrey. Altro Whiterock is an impact resistant hygienic pvc cladding which can be fixed directly to...

Keystone Lintels. (Specifier's Information).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Keystone Lintels has supplied I 8 special segmental arch lintels for a new housing development at Apsley Lock on the Grand Union canal at Hemel Hempstead, UK. The lintels, with a span of 3m and a rise of 225mm, were designed to fit between...

Liquid Plastics. (Specifier's Information).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Structural protective coatings by Liquid Plastics protect a cathedral in Japan. Hokkaido is a mountainous region with snow and strong winds in winter and hot, humid summers. The cathedral was refurbished with an exterior coat of Monolastex for...

Corus Kalzip. (Specifier's Information).(advertisement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Deep, a dramatic project in Hull by Terry Farrell & Partners (AR April 1996), is roofed with a Kalzip aluminium standing seam roof. The four-storey wedge-shaped building houses an aquarium and Hull University's marine research department...

Utzon: inspiration * vision * architecture. (Singular Achievement).
July 1, 2002... By Richard Weston. Hellerup: Edition Blondal. 2002, DK1000 (approx US$120) German edition also available. One doesn't have to entirely concur with Richard Weston's espousal of Jorn Utzon as 'the last major architect of the twentieth...

Body and Building: essays on the changing relation of body and architecture. (Rykwert's Apotheosis).
July 1, 2002... Edited by George Dodds and Robert Tavernor. London: MIT Press. 2002. [pounds sterling]37.95 Last December I found myself ranting here about conference papers being sold on to the public in the form of overpriced, over-designed and...

Craig Ellwood. (The Man Who wasn't There).
July 1, 2002... By Neil Jackson. London: Laurence King Publishing. 2002. [pounds sterling]35 'Although unquestionably elegant, the visible structure is highly misleading in relation to the real one,' Edward R. Ford's quotation refers to Craig Ellwood's...

Component Design. (Making Modern Buildings).
July 1, 2002... By Michael Stacey. Oxford: Architectural Press. 2002, [pounds sterling]30 In the days when buildings were built of brick and slate, architects had an abundance of books available to tell them how to build. Now that buildings are built with...

Le Corbusier, the Poetics of Machine and Metaphor. (Dialectical Corb).
July 1, 2002... By Alexander Tzonis. London: Thames and Hudson. 2002. [pounds sterling]15.95 Tzonis has written a refreshingly concise and focused overview of the life and work of Le Corbusier. He establishes a traditional chronological framework, using...

The Ancient Stepwells of India.
July 1, 2002... Caption: Over large parts of the parched north western part of India, civilization is only possible because the monsoon rainwater can be stored through the dry seasons to slake the thirst of crops, people and animals. Traditionally, even small...

Delight: the redecoration of an ordinary American house by a collaboration of architect and artist is a wild manifesto for the rejuvenation of decayed property in imploding industrial cities.(Michael Poris; Tyree Guyton)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Architect Michael Poris seized the opportunity of the imminent demolition of his house in Birmingham, Michigan to collaborate with artist Tyree Guyton to transform the 1940s aluminium-clad Cape Cod style bungalow into an ephemeral but memorable...