Casa Folha

Another beach house that caught my attention...by Brazilian architects Mareines & Patalano. For more information go to their website by clicking here.

No Handrails!!

Suspension Bridge!

This bridge was built at The Trift glacier in proximity to the Swiss Susten pass, one of the most quickly melting glaciers in the Alps. Ladders as well as a path along the glacier provided access to the local lodge. In the meantime, however, a lake formed at this location. Since a detour would have been significantly longer and more difficult, the decision was made to cross the gorge with a suspension bridge.

This very delicate structure employs a parabolic underspanned suspension system to stabilize the delicate construction and prevent uplift at extreme wind speeds. Two U shaped steel elements each placed at one third of the entire span provide additional stabilization and also stiffen the suspension cables. After two years of planning and six weeks of construction the new, approximately 170 m long bridge spanning the Trift gorge at a height of almost 100 m above the lake was opened. It simple terms, it just looks amazing, and what a setting!

Talking Trash

"...if everyone lived like Americans, Earth could sustain only 1.4 billion people."

"...erecting an average home of 2,000 square feet results in roughly 8,000 pounds of construction waste and 136,000,000 tons of demolition waste are tossed into landfills in the United States every year."

That means 4,610,000 standard shipping containers of 40 feet in length!!! What does that mean for architects and designers when the basis of what we do it utilizing materials to build a project? We rely on a steady stream of materials that not only get discarded at the end of their life cycle, they also come from somewhere and require a lot of energy and resources to be produced. Based on the premise that the world is a finite element and we are already running beyond its capacity, it is time to rethink how we design.
A great example comes from the Netherlands (of course!). Jan Jongert and Jeroen Bergsma of 2012Architects have designed a house where 60% of the structure is comprised of reused materials found within a 9 mile radius from the building site. This number goes up to 90% when it comes to the interior. Some of the materials include broken umbrellas and chopped up billboards.

For more images and information click here

Water Tower

This project, in the Netherlands, got my attention because of the transformation of an old piece of water infrastructure into a house. This historical water tower was renovated into a 9 story house that takes the existing volume and creates a different room in each floor. The floors are connected by a metal spiral staircase. The existing brick structure was cut on one side to give way to a large multi-story window that spans 5 stories. For more images click here.

Ghost

In june of 2006 I was part of a two week design-build workshop in Nova Scotia, Canada.
One week design, one week construction. This was a great relief after 7 years of academic work. Yes, 7. I studied 4 years of architecture in Brasil and then 3 in the US. Being out on site, tools in hand, was a great way of putting to practice some of the theory I've learned. This year, the Ghost Lab is putting together a conference instead of a building workshop. I guess they need a break too. But this sounds very interesting. Take a look at their invite link below for more information. Click on my personal link for more images on the year I was there. Ghost 8



http://www.cvent.com/events/ghost-13-international-architecture-conference-ideas-in-things/event-summary-0ed913f123d84e5da3ff7596ab1ddcb3.aspx

House on the Beach?

CASA NA AREIA

Literally! This is a project that takes existing wood/masonry buildings and transforms them into a beach reatreat. Take a look at the link below for more images and details.


http://www.archdaily.com/119742/casa-na-areia-aires-mateus/