The Architectural Review articles from September 2005

The Architectural Review archives from September 2005

Housing, density and design.(view)
September 1, 2005... It was a myth exploded fifty years ago that high-rise housing equalled high density. Unless apartment blocks are crammed next to each other, the sites they occupy can generally be developed in many different ways producing the same number of...

Restoring Stowe.(view)
September 1, 2005... In the eighteenth century, Stowe was often called the finest seat in England. House and garden are an amazing collage created by almost all the best architects and garden designers (particularly those with Whig connections): Vanbrugh,...

AR Future Project Awards at MIPIM.(view)(MIPIM AR Future Project Awards for 2006)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Now in their fourth year, the MIPIM AR Future Project Awards for 2006 have just been launched. The awards are for unbuilt work in eight categories--offices; retail and leisure; masterplanned communities; big urban projects; residential; tall...

Copper Awards shortlist.(view)(Copper in Architecture Awards 2005)
September 1, 2005... Judges for the 2005 Copper in Architecture Awards under the chairmanship of AR editor Paul Finch have announced their choice of shortlisted projects. This well-regarded design-led competition has been expanded this year to include a new special...

Submission looms for AR Awards.(Architectural Review)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... The AR Awards for Emerging Architecture are entering their seventh cycle. Inaugurated in 1999, the awards are intended to bring wider international recognition to a talented generation of architects and designers under 45. Supported by Buro...

Size ... it's what you do with it that counts ... from a survey of recent Japanese buildings, nine houses address wider ambitions than their modest scale suggests.(comment)
September 1, 2005... Size is everything, actually. And, it's precisely what you do with it that counts. Scale and proportion have long been key variables in the pursuit of spatial perfection. While tectonics have traditionally attracted more scrutiny, as detailed...

Cliff hanger: with land at a premium price, creative architects and daring clients need to lead the way. Shuhei Endo edges ahead in Kobe.(Cover Story)
September 1, 2005... Maybe this site was just too narrow. Maybe the metallic radius simply didn't fit? Or maybe, just maybe, Shuhei Endo is becoming straighter with maturity, weary of his youthful, energetic, coiled-up, highly-sprung architecture? Whatever the...

Parallel lives: by building this simple new house, Tezuka Architects have given two homes the shared benefit of a unique family garden; a rare treat in Tokyo.
September 1, 2005... The work of Tezuka Architects has always had an ingenious, playful twist. Roof House (AR October 2001) gave us the naughty-but-nice example of the balustrade-free sloping roof terrace, subsequently copied by many misguided European students...

Country life: tumbling down a precipitous cliffside site, this compact country house makes highly resourceful use of space.
September 1, 2005... Based in Tokyo, the two partners in Atelier Bow-Wow, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima, have made their name with a series of small houses that inventively exploit unpromising or marginalised urban conditions. This work both responds to...

Attic light: through the careful distortion of familiar forms, Jun Aoki's latest Tokyo house makes the ordinary extraordinary.
September 1, 2005... There is a tendency among European architects to experiment with varying silhouettes. In the UK one thinks of the emerging work of Caruso St John and Sergison Bates, while more widely across continental Europe buildings by Studio Granda (AR...

Launch pad: standing defiantly on a suburban hilltop, the Y House declares war on conventionality.
September 1, 2005... In the somewhat culturally starved region of Nagoya City--the venue for this year's World Expo (AR June 2005)--a young couple's anti-suburban house from maverick designers Power Unit Studio battles against lazily packaged homogeneous...

Inner peace: in response to its typically diverse Tokyo context, the busy facades of Waro Kishi's latest house conceal a more restrained series of interior spaces.
September 1, 2005... Waro Kishi is known to many of us for his delightful black-beauty Hu-tong House that wonderfully translated the format of the traditional Chinese house type into Japanese in Osaka. Three years later the same architect has taken a very different...

Strip tease: Masaki Endoh and Masahiro Ikeda's latest house in downtown Tokyo confidently bares all.
September 1, 2005... The work of Masaki Endoh and Masahiro Ikeda--as with many other contemporary Japanese architects--derives significance from exploring the physical and metaphysical nature of walls. At the critical point where matter really matters, controlling...

Suspending belief: known for bringing timber into the city, Kengo Kuma now takes stone into the wood.
September 1, 2005... Within an hour of Tokyo, the Lotus House sits amid a 2300sqm private woodland, a reclusive haven built solely for its owner to spend time away from his family. The client is a wealthy businessman who 'collects' architecture; he has already...

Boxing clever: a glacial exterior conceals a tranquil inner realm of minimal materiality animated by light.
September 1, 2005... The only non-Japanese architect in this issue, John Pawson cultivates a formal and material refinement that has obvious Oriental affinities, so this commission for a house in Tokyo is especially intriguing. Having lived in Japan, Pawson has...

100% Design.(product review)
September 1, 2005... Now in its 11th year, 100% Design goes from strength to strength, magically transforming Earls Court in London from 22-25 September. More manageable than Milan (and just as stylish), the UK's leading commercial contemporary design show boasts...

Specifier's information.
September 1, 2005... Cast Advance Concretes MASSI is an innovative precast concrete worksurface for a range of commercial and domestic applications--kitchen and bathroom surfaces, bar tops, reception desks and so on. It uses new laminated concrete technology...

Set pieces.(Jean Prouve Complete Works, 1944-1954, vol. 3)(Jean Prouve Highlights, 1917-44)(Book Review)
September 1, 2005... JEAN PROUVE COMPLETE WORKS VOLUME 3: 1944-1954 By Peter Sulzer. Basel: Birkhauser. 2005. [euro]118 JEAN PROUVE HIGHLIGHTS 1917-44 By Peter Sulzer. Basel: Birkhauser. 2002. [euro]48 Peter Sulzer designed prefabricated concrete...

Voices of experience.(The Afterlife of Gardens)(Book Review)
September 1, 2005... THE AFTERLIFE OF GARDENS By John Dixon Hunt. London: Reaktion Books. 2005. [pounds sterling]25 Are designed gardens and landscapes experienced by the visitor as the designer intended? What is the difference between his/her intent and...

Comprehensive coverage.(Skins for Buildings: The Architect's Materials Sample Book)(Book Review)
September 1, 2005... SKINS FOR BUILDINGS. THE ARCHITECT'S MATERIALS SAMPLE BOOK Edited by Piet Vollaard, Els Zijlstra. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers. 2004. [euro]145 Responding to the growth of interest in materials as a prime site of invention in...

Teaching by example.(Modern: The Modern Movement in Britain)(Book Review)
September 1, 2005... MODERN: THE MODERN MOVEMENT IN BRITAIN By Alan Powers. London: Merrell. 2005. [pounds sterling]35 A picture in Alan Powers' Modern: the Modern Movement in Britain captivates the ambiguities of the 1930s. Flanking the great Corbu are...

Complete Works.(Mexican Embassy)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Mexican Embassy, Berlin, by Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon, completed in 2000, from his eponymous Complete Works edited by Miquel Adria, Mexico City: Arquine + RM, 2004, [pounds sterling]55. Known for an architecture that draws inspiration in equal...

Dwelling on the Roof.(Saitama University)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Saitama University, Yokohama, Japan by Riken Yamamoto and Field Shop, with its network of roof terraces and gardens, from Dwelling on the Roof, Andres Martinez, Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2005, [pounds sterling]25. Getting up on the...

Committed.(browser)(www.deathbyarch.com)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Death by Architecture at www.deathbyarch.com which was Browsed four years ago, was then reckoned to be a rather good, but tired site reporting lots of competitions. Then it had presciently reported a conference topic 'Yet another non-American...

Committed society.(browser)(http://www.archeworks.org)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... The really interesting architecture school link at Death is with Archeworks at http://www.archeworks.org. This is an alternative design school, one of whose founders is Stanley Tigerman. The school is directly concerned to express social...

24 architects in search of a reason.(browser)(www.vitruvio.ch)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... I took a stroll through the Swiss architectural site Vilruvio.ch. You are probably adept enough at surfing by now to know that just typing vitruvio.ch will achieve the result. I'm not going to indulge in national stereotypes but, yes, it is....

Student apathy rules.(browser)(www.casa-acea.org)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... And so to Canada. The Canadian Architecture Students association site at www.casa-acea.org has the typically desultory student discussion board/chat-room, lists and links to participating architecture schools including some, though not enough,...

Committing to the cause.(browser)(www.suslainabilityworks.org.uk)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Poking fun at the socks, sandals and sustainability brigade seems an entirely legitimate sport. I suppose it is natural enough for members of this congregation of earnest, self-important and often loopily fundamentalist beings to mistake...

Djomba corrugations.(browser)(www.djomba.com)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... And so to Djomba.com (www.djomba.com). All right it's not all that architecture-related and it is in Portuguese and you really do have to have your sound turned on and up. And its design extensively deploys corrugated cardboard, post-its and ad...

Monumental banality.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2005... SIR: It is true to say that much of modern architectural theory is derived from literary theory and post-structuralism of the late '90s. In Peter Davey's article (AR July 2005). we have another attempt to give meaning to and so justification...

Diary.(Architectural exhibitions and events)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
September 1, 2005... AR'S CHOICE OF INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS BELGIUM LUCIEN HERVE Until 25 September CIVA, Brussels Major retrospective of the photographer who was the eye of Corb, Breuer and Aalto, and whose exquisite black and...

Delight.
September 1, 2005... Architectural photography is often criticised for omitting all traces of humanity, concentrating instead on capturing pure geometry, space and light. While working on this issue, I made a conscious decision to redress this balance by providing...