You don't always need four walls and a roof to create "architecture", as proven by Claude Cormier through his landscape architecture installation designed for the summer-long Aires Libres festival in Montreal. Cormier artfully suspended 170,000 pink balls from the trees and buildings lining the festival street to create the "roof" surface of this 1.2 km-long space. The layering, density, and intertwinement of the "artificial pink foliage" creates varied feelings of openness and enclosure as the light filters through.
Check out more photos here.
The following Joseph Albers-esque graphic from CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, shows average home sizes built between 2003 and 2006. The website apartmenttherapy converted square meters to square feet:
US: 2,300sf
Australia: 2,217sf
Denmark: 1,475sf
France: 1,216sf
Spain: 1,044sf
Ireland: 947sf
UK: 818sf
It's worth noting that the Asian world is absent from this survey.
Venture Architecture has designed homes for residential clients on both ends of the size spectrum. Whatever our clients' space and budget needs, we focus on designing a space they can live with and love for years to come.
It's true. The American Institute of Architects has teamed up with Mattel to design Barbie's new - and quite sustainable - dream house in Malibu. After receiving nearly 30 submissions from AIA-certified architects, the competition jury has narrowed it down to five lucky finalists. You can help choose Barbie's chic new pad and vote for your favorite design here.
This may be the first and the last time you see architectural plans and sections presented in hot pink!
We here at Venture Architecture celebrate the round pegs in the square holes. Over the weekend I listened to this wonderful podcast from The Memory Palace by Nate DiMeo. It's a beautiful piece of storytelling and I think it typifies the indomitable inventiveness of the American spirit and it's something we aspire to in our office in every project we do.
The Memory Palace produces weird and wonderful slices of American history in podcast form. Apparently this episode was commissioned by 99% Invisible, "a tiny radio show about design, architecture & the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world," from KALW in San Francisco.
There's no doubt that glazing is a mixed blessing for all buildings. Windows bring in needed daylighting but have poor insulating qualities. It's always a balancing act when attempting to earn green points with a building design. A recent forum at the McGraw-Hill Construction website explored many aspects of this very issue.
Applying solar panels to the roofs or even exterior walls of buildings as facades and curtain walls is nothing new. Using transparent photovoltaic glass in skylights brings a whole new level to Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV). This triple laminated glass claims to allow daylight through while repelling the UV and infrared rays that cause interior space to heat up, all while generating 52 kWh per square meter a year. One of the more remarkable applications of this technology the skylight designed by Onyx Solar at the San Anton Market in Madrid. Naturally, innovations like this could be of great benefit in Denver where we receive 300 days of sunshine a year.
According to both The Denver Business Journal and The Denver Post, Denver was ranked the 5th greenest major city in the US and Canada. How did we get this status? From the b-cycle program, to changing energy consumption habits to building sustainable buildings. All facets of the community have come together to make this a great city to live and work in.
