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http://www.fashionarchitecturetaste.com/2013/02/ciac.html

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http://www.fashionarchitecturetaste.com/2006/11/islington_square_1.html

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FAT were selected unanimously by the future residents to design 23 new houses for the Manchester Methodist Housing Group within the New Islington development by Urban Splash. The 2.3 million GBP scheme comprises of 23 two to four bedroom family homes and garden areas. Our design unifies the resident's desire for traditional homes with the New Islington masterplan commitment to innovative and world class architecture, and was developed in close collaboration with the residents.

As part of the New Islington Millenium Community, the Islington Square Housing scheme has been designed to meet ambitious sustainability targets, intended as an exemplar for the future of UK construction. The design accomodates reduction of primary energy, CO2 emissions and water consumption, Green specification of materials and reduction of construction waste, design for life-cycle adaptability to the Lifetime Homes principles and has an EcoHomes Excellent Rating. The scheme was completed in Spring 2006.

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FAT were selected unanimously by the future residents to design 23 new houses for the Manchester Methodist Housing Group within the New Islington development by Urban Splash. The 2.3 million GBP scheme comprises of 23 two to four bedroom family homes and garden areas.

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https://www.mvrdv.nl/projects/158/expo-2000

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"Holland creates Space": the theme for the Netherlands Pavilion at the 2000 World Expo in Hannover was intended to showcase a country making the most out of limited space. Six stacked Dutch landscapes form an independent eco-system communicating Dutch cultural sustainability: the combination of pro...

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https://www.ajbuildingslibrary.co.uk/projects/display/id/352

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EU Mies Award 2019 : Transformation of 530 Dwellings - Grand Parc Bordeaux

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The Winners of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2019 are The Transformation of 530 Dwellings - Grand Parc Bordeaux by Lacaton & Vassal architectes, Frédéric Druot Architecture and Christophe Hutin Architecture is the 2019 Winner of the Prize.

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Parasitic structures for disused city spaces

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Parasitic structures for disused city spaces

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London designer James Christian has created a series of architectural parasites intended to occupy empty rooftops, car parks and greens of dilapidated estates across the capital for his residency at the city's Design Museum.

One of four designers commissioned to produce work under the topic of Disruption, Christian's variation on the theme is Disrupting Housing.

Lawrence Lek at Designers in Residence 2012

"I'm really interested in estates. I was very interested in the Rookery slums and how these were unimaginable awful places but had a sense of intimacy that we don't see now," Christian told Dezeen.

Presented as "doll-house-scaled" models, the two proposed structures are designed as a new type of live/work paradigm that is instigated and shaped by the inhabitants of the building.

"It's two new forms of housing that could be inserted into existing estate structures. They're modelled on two examples of popularly condemned housing," said Christian. "Both projects are about programmed community - a community where there is something happening."

The new dwellings and workspaces have exteriors in keeping with the host building but interiors and courtyards are intended to be left open for customisation by each resident. A section through one model reveals brightly coloured lattice work representing this element of the design.

A series of storyboards charting the fictional scheme's progress - from construction and prefabrication of the buildings to the fictional lives of the residents and housing cooperative - will be added to over the duration of the exhibition.

Christian is a graduate of the RCA, teacher of Spatial Design at Middlesex University and co-founder of design studio Projects Office.

Each year the Design Museum invites four young designers to take up residency at the museum over a period of four months. This is the last residency that will be hosted on the museum's Shad Thames site before its move to Kensington in 2016.

Christian's fellow Designers in Residence are Ilona Gaynor, Torsten Sherwood and Patrick Stevenson-Keating.

The exhibition opened yesterday and will run until 8 March 2014.

Photography is by Luke Hayes unless otherwise stated.

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James Christian designs parasitic structures for disused city spaces

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London designer James Christian has created a series of architectural parasites intended to occupy empty rooftops, car parks and greens of dilapidated estates across the capital for his residency at the city's Design Museum. One of four designers commissioned to produce work under the topic of Disruption, Christian's variation on the theme is Disrupting Housing.

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Parasitic dwellings for homeless people would cling to the sides of lamp posts in this concept by British architecture graduate Milo Ayden De Luca (+ slideshow + movie).

Milo Ayden De Luca began working on Excrescent Utopia as a personal project after completing his architecture degree at the University of Greenwich.

"Every weekend for nearly a decade now, I've been travelling into the centre of London during the earliest hours of the day," De Luca told Dezeen. "During these hours, the usually dense, lively, tourist-populated London is absent and is instead populated only by the many homeless people who sleep on our city's streets. I've always thought about how the life of those living on the city's streets can be improved."

The project imagines street lights as temporary dwellings for homeless people by creating tensile structures around them using cheap, basic materials.

The structures are designed to be as lightweight as possible so that they can be modified and moved easily, and are inspired by the construction of sailing ships.

"The practical and technological constituents of sail ships - the pulleys, the sails and rope lines - also exude a sense of transparency, weightlessness, and movement," he said. "I think this is a nice contrast to the surrounding structures in London, which are usually opaque, grounded and static."

Street lights aren't very structurally secure because they aren't deeply embedded in the ground, said De Luca. This is in order to limit damage to vehicles and drivers in case of a collision.

To get around this, he proposes using guy ropes, cables and clamps to tie the structure to other street furniture and surrounding buildings. "This method creates only a little surface damage, but more importantly causes no structural damage to the building," he said.

The ropes would thread through the structure's nylon or Gore-Tex 'skin' and effectively divide the space into smaller areas with varying levels of privacy.

Horizontal boxes would provide areas for lying down and sleeping, while vertical spaces would provide a space for busking, he suggested.

The materials, fixtures and fittings necessary could mostly be obtained through the re-use and recycling of existing objects, or bought cheaply from DIY shops.

De Luca is currently hoping to raise funds to build a 1:1 scale prototype of the design.

Other conceptual architecture we've featured on Dezeen includes an algae-covered skyscraper that would produce its own energy and clean water and a high-rise building constructed from the rubbish of São Paulo's streets - see all our stories about conceptual architecture.

We've also published other parasitic architecture, including a wooden hut clinging to the side of a San Francisco hotel and a fabric-covered tensile structure on the roof of a Buenos Aires apartment.
See all our stories about parasite buildings "
See all our stories about conceptual architecture "

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Parasitic dwellings for homeless people would cling to the sides of lamp posts in this concept by British architecture graduate Milo Ayden De Luca (+ slideshow + movie). Milo Ayden De Luca began working on Excrescent Utopia as a personal project after completing his architecture degree at the University of Greenwich.

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Toronto's CN Tower reimagined as residential high-rise covered in wooden pods

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Toronto's CN Tower reimagined as residential high-rise covered in wooden pods

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Clusters of parasitic apartment units cling to the sides of the CN Tower in this conceptual proposal by Toronto studio Quadrangle.

The modular wooden residences would nestle between the giant concrete fins of the 553-metre-tall communications tower - one of the world's tallest, and a major tourist attraction.

"Quadrangle saw an opportunity to reinvigorate the tower with desirable market condominiums, in an excellent location with unparalleled views, while maintaining the building's existing and successful functions," said the studio.

The idea involves hanging the prefabricated cubes between the wind-shielding wings of the structure, drilling supports into the concrete.

Each of pods could be designed to order, with a choice of sizes and layouts. This variety would create a pixelated effect up the sides of the tapered host tower.

Quadrangle proposes constructing the units from cross-laminated timber (CLT), which is created by gluing smaller pieces of wood and pegged as the architectural wonder material of the 21st century.

"CLT's combined lightness and strength ensures that the units can be 'hung' between the wind-shielding 'wings' of the CN Tower," said Quadrangle.

"Since CLT buildings are designed in panels that are made in factories, and snapped into place onsite, the construction will be quick and safe, having no negative impact on tourist traffic."

Eiffel DNA by Serero Architects

The structural wood panels would also be exposed on the interiors, and inhabitants would be ensured views across Toronto and Lake Ontario through large windows.

It is unclear how the residents would reach their apartments, particularly the ones higher up, however renderings show staircases linking multiple units together.

The CN Tower was designed by Australian architect John Andrews and Canadian architect Roger du Toit, with local firm WZMH Architects, and completed in 1976 as a TV and radio communications mast. It boasts a 360-degree restaurant and multiple observation levels, including a glass-bottomed deck for more adventurous visitors.

The tower held the title of the world's tallest freestanding structure for 34 years, until it was overtaken by both the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Canton Tower in Guangzhou.

"Quadrangle's proposal reinvents the landmark and in so doing also reinvents the tower as a symbol of Toronto's ingenuity and progress," said principal Richard Witt.

"We hope that the design's versatility inspires similar projects on other large-scale freestanding developments globally, increasing the value they bring to their home cities and environments."

Parasitic proposals for other iconic structures around the world include a latticed extension to the upper deck of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and a giant curvaceous greenhouse on top of Philip Johnson's New York State Pavilion.

Architects imagine new uses for Philip Johnson's New York State Pavilion

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Toronto's CN Tower reimagined as residential high-rise covered in wooden pods

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Clusters of parasitic apartment units cling to the sides of the CN Tower in this conceptual proposal by Toronto studio Quadrangle. The modular wooden residences would nestle between the giant concrete fins of the 553-metre-tall communications tower - one of the world's tallest, and a major tourist attraction.

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Metal-clad power plant mounted on the roof of an old brewery

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Metal-clad power plant mounted on the roof of an old brewery

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These three zinc-cloaked towers form a power plant on the roof of an old beer brewery in Sydney, which will supply energy to a new housing and shopping complex on the site below (+ slideshow).

Local studio Tzannes Associates designed the plant to provide hot and cold water as well as electricity for over 2,200 apartments that will be built within The Brewery Yard on Sydney's Irving Street.

The towers are the first stage of the A$2 billion (£956 million) scheme by Australian property developers Frasers Property and Sekisui House on the site, which will also include shops, a hotel and student housing as well as a public park.

The metallic trigeneration towers - so-called for their ability to heat and cool water as well as provide electricity - contrast the old red brickwork of the brewery, which closed in 2005.

"The built form of the project needed to provide a memorable expression of this important new technology within the urban context while also meeting the demanding technical requirements of the cooling towers and enhancing the heritage significance of the buildings," said the studio.

Concrete tower by Bechter Zaffignani houses a control centre for an Austrian power station

"We developed an innovative formal solution to this problem where the form of the new work arose from the integration of complex profile of the existing roofline with the organic regular form of the plant equipment within."

Moulded sheets of zinc mesh highlight the alien, curving form of the tower trio, which is set atop the roof of the brewery's boiler room.

Their perforated metal coating visually links the intervention to Denton Corker Marshall's aluminium-skinned building for the University of Technology, which sits to the rear of the site. The school's Frank Gehry-designed campus, which features a facade intended to look like a rumpled brown paper bag, is also located nearby.

"The transparency of the mesh has been minimised, enhancing the solidity of the form while providing permeability for the cooling towers that need large volumes of air intake," said the studio.

"This form was wrapped in custom-made zinc mesh sheets, like fabric draped over a curved frame."

Much of the 20th-century brewing site was cleared to make way for the scheme, but the red brick boiler room is retained to pay tribute to the Carlton & United Breweries company, which last occupied the building.

The building's giant faceted coal scuttles stores were also retained, and can be seen from the ground below.

"Fittingly, the new plant room hovers over the former Old Boiler House, the original power station for the site which operated in various formats until it was decommissioned in the 1980s," said the architects.

"The original inverted pyramid coal hoppers are retained in situ within the new zinc-clad enclosure and informed the volume of the base of the structure."

Steel beams that support the towers form a scaffolding-like structure that is left exposed from one side of the building, reinforcing the former industrial use of the site.

A tall brick chimney to one side of the former boiler house is wrapped in metal caging and echoes the materiality of the conical cooling tanks.

Tzannes Associates, which was founded in 1984, has also designed a foliage-clad school in Sydney which was shortlisted for a National Architecture Award by the Australian Institute of Architects in 2014.

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Power plant by Tzannes Associates stands on Sydney brewery

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These three zinc-cloaked towers form a power plant on the roof of an old beer brewery in Sydney, which will supply energy to a new housing and shopping complex on the site below (+ slideshow).

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Parasite Prefab / Lara Calder Architects

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Parasite Prefab / Lara Calder Architects

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https://www.archdaily.com/35859/parasite-prefab-lara-calder-architects

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Lara Calder Architects' prefab parasite project is meant populate the unused spaces found in urban landscapes. Fittingly, the parasite will cling to old facades, rock faces and even bridges as a way to "achieve sustainable densification." Designed using a parametric 3d modelling software, the form is a flexible entity as all components, such as the structural system, facade, cladding, floor levels and stairs are integrated into a sole parametric model. The integration of the design system increases efficiency and accuracy of the construction process.

More about the parasite after the break.

A mounting plate is attached to the back wall where the parasite will attach. Floors are added and lastly, the structural façade is put in place to provide lateral bracing to the form. One the first level, the building contains the main entrance and the study. The bedroom and bathroom are on the second level and the main room has access to a balcony which is protected by a privacy screen. The upper floors contain the living space, kitchen, and small roof terrace, which provides the opportunity for natural cross ventilation.

The project is accessed by a retractable staircase so as not to disturb pedestrians or light vehicular traffic. In addition to not disturbing the street, raising the building 3 to 4 meters above the ground level makes a footprint that "technically only consists of the stair landing and the services duct."

As seen on designboom. All images courtesy of Lara Calder Architects.

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Parasite Prefab / Lara Calder Architects

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Lara Calder Architects' prefab parasite project is meant populate the unused spaces found in urban landscapes. Fittingly, the parasite will cling to old facades, rock faces and even bridges as a way to "achieve sustainable densification."

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https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/michael-rakowitz-parasite-homeless-shelter-1997/

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https://www.dezeen.com/2015/02/18/zalewski-architecture-walk-on-spiral-walkway-office/

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Bored with the dismal view from the office window, Polish studio Zalewski Architecture envisioned a grassy suspended walkway that would allow them to take a stroll without leaving the building.

Zalewski Architecture designed the fantasy project, named Walk On, for its third-floor studio in Gliwice, southern Poland. The architects came up with the concept on a hot summer's day when the building's courtyard appeared particularly unappealing, and they felt in need of outdoor space.

Oak walkway by Levitate inserted into ruined castle

They envisioned an 80-centimetre-wide pathway that twists its way out of one window, curls over the courtyard and returns through another opening. Ropes tethered between the edge of the curving walkway and the walls of neighbouring houses and offices would offer the structure support.

"There are ideas that arise from the need of a particular moment," said the architects. "Such a need - another hot day of summer spent in the office and a thought 'if only I could go for a walk' - became inspiration for a project of a path suspended in the air."

Suspended high above the dark and landlocked courtyard, the curving balcony appears from below as a metal loop with two loose ends.

"A normal path is tortuous, winds, does not lead directly to the goal, surprises, relaxes, gives contact with nature. Therefore our path should also flow freely."

The architects imagine slim metal railings would run along the edges of the grassy pathway, while the base would be made of polished metal.

The shiny bending surface is shown reflecting a warped version of the architectural environment.

Mocked-up images of the imagined walkway show the path planted with glasses and worn down to the soil in the centre by a steady stream of foot traffic.

"Longing for a bit of greenery made us treat the path as a large pot," explained the architects. "We filled it with grass that can grow as it wants - after all it's just a path."

"Usually 'the form follows function' but sometimes 'the form follows fun' - and our balcony follows this path," added the architects, who as yet have no plans to realise the project.

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Zalewski Architecture imagine spiral walkway between buildings

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Bored with the dismal view from the office window, Polish studio Zalewski Architecture envisioned a grassy suspended walkway that would allow them to take a stroll without leaving the building. Zalewski Architecture designed the fantasy project, named Walk On, for its third-floor studio in Gliwice, southern Poland.

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https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/31/valencia-parasite-architecture-studio-hanging-under-bridge-fernando-abellanas

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Parasite architecture: inside the self-built studio hanging under a bridge in Valencia

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Far from the madding crowds of Valencia in eastern Spain, Fernando Abellanas is enjoying the solitude of his unique new studio. But it's not the airy, light-filled glass and white walls affair you might expect of a designer: it's a purpose-built desk space that hangs in the underbelly of a major city overpass.

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https://www.dezeen.com/2018/01/26/video-framlab-new-york-homeless-housing-movie/

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Our latest Dezeen x MINI Living video features a proposal by creative agency Framlab to house the homeless population of New York in parasitic pods attached to the outside of existing buildings.

The hexagonal modules have been designed for easy and inexpensive assembly, and would be slotted into scaffolding structures affixed to windowless facades around the city.

Each features a prefabricated aluminium exterior shell to shield the residents from harsh weather. Framlab proposes filling the shell with a 3D-printed wall structure, made from recycled plastic and lined with plywood.

In contrast to the communal spaces offered by many homeless shelters, each unit is designed to house one occupant to maintain their privacy and safety. Meanwhile, a modular range of fittings would allow residents to customise each pod according to their needs.

The scheme aims to tackle the growing amount of homelessness in New York, and to address the scarcity and cost of space in the city by capitalising on the abundance of unused vertical spaces on the exteriors of buildings.

The movie is part of Dezeen x MINI Living Initiative, a year-long collaboration with MINI exploring how architecture and design can contribute to a brighter urban future through a series of videos and talks.
Find out more about the project ›

About Dezeen x MINI Living

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Parasitic pods attached to buildings could house New York's homeless

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This captioned movie features a housing scheme by Framlab, proposing to house New York's homeless with parasitic pods on the sides of buildings.

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https://www.archdaily.com/13370/didden-village

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Architects: MVRDV Project location: Rotterdam, Netherlands Date: 2002-2006 Client: Didden Family Program: 45 sqm extension private residence and 120...

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https://teaching.ellenmueller.com/walking/2021/10/10/guy-debord-drifting-derive-1958/

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https://www.mvrdv.nl/projects/432/expo-pavilion-20

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The design of the original Expo 2000 pavilion was a response to the Dutch theme for the Expo, "Holland Creates Space". Instead of occupying the full site, six Dutch landscapes were stacked into a tower on one portion of the site, while the remainder of the area became an open outdoor space within the Expo grounds. The pavilion stole the show; for a country defined by its lack of land, the pavilion conveyed the liberating message that nature can be created artificially and stacked vertically. It became a key reference for sustainable design, presenting an ideal of a building as a self-contained ecosystem, incorporating nature and generating its own internal resource cycles.

The current project maintains this "stacked landscape" concept, renovating the existing building and adding two stepped buildings on the perimeter of the original site. The renovated pavilion will house co-working offices and meeting rooms, with particular attention given to maintaining the features of the original design and converting them into office elements. For example the 1st floor, which originally housed a grid of greenhouses, will keep its strict rectilinear layout as an office, while the pods on the 2nd floor - originally planters - will be glazed and converted into meeting rooms and office spaces. Other features that will be retained are the forest level and the exterior staircases; the ground-level "dunes" will be retained as a meeting point with small cafés and exhibition areas, and the rooftop dome that was formerly home to a restaurant will now host a new fast-casual restaurant.

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This project is a transformation of one of MVRDV's own seminal projects, the Dutch Pavilion at the 2000 World Expo in Hannover. The project will convert the former Expo Pavilion into a co-working office building, and two new buildings will be added on the space surrounding the pavilion. The design ...

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MyBestPlace - Burning Man Festival, the trendiest and most bizarre festival in the world

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The Burning Man Festival is one of the most famous events on the planet and it takes place once a year in the USA in Black Rock, Nevada. Every year tens of thousands of people come together to celebrate art and creativity over a period of 8 days just between August and September in celebration of La…

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https://somethingcurated.com/2020/10/26/from-transportive-prosthetics-to-edible-architecture-the-story-of-haus-rucker-co/

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Austrian collective Haus-Rucker-Co's experimental architectural practice was most prolific during the late 1960s and 70s, spanning fantastical inflatable environments, futuristic prosthetics, and urban interventions all blurring the thresholds between art and design. The collective's pneumatic architecture and wearable appendages endeavoured to change participants' social and perceptual experiences. Founded in 1967, Haus-Rucker-Co aspired to extend people's psycho-physical experiences through art and architecture. The Viennese collective was made up of Laurids Ortner, Günther Zamp Kelp and Klaus Pinter, later joined by Manfred Ortner. Their collaborative output explored the performative potential of architecture through installations and happenings.

Haus-Rucker-Co, Oase No. 7, 1972. © 2020 Haus-Rucker-Co

The architects were captivated with the "inner space" as much as with the built environment. One of their best-known projects, Balloon for Two, comprised a transparent PVC membrane that inflated into a large bubble - an iteration of which was later installed for documenta 5 in 1972, entitled Oase No. 7. Supported by a steel rack, the sphere projected into the street from an existing building façade, capable of accommodating two people at a time. Psychedelia frequently entered Haus-Rucker-Co's language and aesthetic, as typified by the group's statement on the project: "Our balloons will help you to discover an unknown feeling of tranquility, of security, of relaxation. And love. We want to heighten your sensitivity. You will take a journey. Together with someone you love. Into inner space. Like Astronauts. Only an inward trip. You will attain a higher level of thinking and loving..."

Haus-Rucker-Co, Günter Zamp Kelp, Laurids Ortner, Manfred Ortner, Klaus Pinter. Mind Expander / Flyhead Helmet. 1968. © 2020 Haus-Rucker-Co

Haus-Rucker-Co simultaneously explored the potential of architecture as a form of critique, while conceiving speculative designs for experimental environments and utopian cities. Taking their cue from the Situationist'sideas of play as a means of engaging audiences, the group created performances where viewers became participants and could influence their own environments, becoming more than just passive onlookers. The different versions of the Mind Expander series, 1967-69, consisted of various helmets that could alter the perceptions of those wearing them, for example the Fly Head, a green-tinted polyethylene helmet with a set of stereo headphones and an eye-level interior split prism, disoriented the sight and hearing of the wearer to create an entirely new understanding of reality.

Haus-Rucker-Co's Food City I in the Armory Gardens (now the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden), June 13, 1971. Photo: Powell Krueger

Working often with edible materials, Food City I at Walker Art Center was one of a series of performance events that Haus-Rucker-Co created for various cities in Western Europe and the US. In all of these events, different architectural models were crafted and then eaten by members of the public. On the occasion of the moon landing in 1969, for instance, the group wheeled a cake that resembled the surface of the moon into the streets of Vienna. In 1970, as part of their exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York, Haus-Rucker-Co hosted a number of gastronomic events, including weekly dinners open to the public and a one-night performance in which a scale model of the Museum was offered up as dessert. Haus-Rucker-Co's installations served as a critique of the confined spaces of bourgeois life, creating temporary, disposable architecture, while highlighting the senses we take for granted.

Bibliography:
Barbara Wiegand, 'Pulsating Walls and Fleeting Ideas', Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 2014

Günther Zamp Kelp, Luftschlosser: A Look At Haus-Rucker-Co / Post-Haus-Rucker, Spector Books OHG, 2020

'Haus-Rucker-Co', Spatial Agency

Lisa Hsieh, 'The Edible, Playable, and Wearable Architecture of Haus-Rucker-Co', Walker Art Center

Ross Elfline, 'Common Ground: Haus-Rucker-Co's Food City I and Collaborative Design Practice', Walker Art Center

Feature image: Oase No. 7 (Oasis No. 7), Haus-Rucker-Co (Laurids Ortner, Manfred Ortner, Klaus Pinter, and Günter Zamp Kelp), 1972. Part of documenta 5: Befragung der Realität - Bildwelten heute (documenta 5: Questioning Reality - Image Worlds Today), Kassel, 1972. © 2020 Haus-Rucker-Co

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From Transportive Prosthetics To Edible Architecture - The Story Of Haus-Rucker-Co - Something Curated

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Austrian collective Haus-Rucker-Co's experimental architectural practice was most prolific during the late 1960s and 70s, spanning fantastical inflatable environments, futuristic prosthetics, and urban interventions all blurring the thresholds between art and design. The collective's pneumatic architecture and wearable appendages endeavoured to change participants' social and perceptual experiences.

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https://www.frameweb.com/article/droog-design-utilises-virtual-reality-as-a-tool-to-develop-actual-reality

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https://www.onverticality.com/blog/highrise-of-homes

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This is the Highrise of Homes, designed in 1981 by James Wines and his firm SITE. The project consists of a series of stacked levels with individual homes built throughout each level. These homes appear much like the single-family detached homes of suburbia, which results in a curious mashup of typologies. Wines is using verticality to re-arrange a typical suburb into a vertical tower, complete with sidewalks, front and back yards, and pitched roofs. This rearrangement creates some curious scenarios and experiences which are worth pondering.

Wines is attempting to re-create the experience of the surface in the sky, and he's using verticality to do so. We're all familiar with what a suburban home is. It's a single-family domicile that rests upon the surface of the Earth. When one steps out the front or back door, they do so at ground level. These buildings have a direct relationship to the earth beneath them, because they sit directly on top of it. When Wines relocates this typology to the stacked levels of his structure, he fundamentally changes these experiences into something new. He takes suburban elements and applies them to the experiences of a high-rise apartment flat, such that the elements have been 'suburbanized'. This act alters the original meaning. Front and back yards are now terraces. Handrails and balustrades are now white picket fences. Pitched roofs are now glorified, redundant ceilings. Sidewalks are now open-concept hallways. The building becomes a bespoke mashup of architectural styles and elements that have lost their original meaning. Wines has taken the suburban house and created a decorated shed out of it; the exterior exists to give the impression of something, without actually being that thing.[1]

This begs the question: are these desirable homes to live in? One suspects that the height would create value for some part of the housing market. Another intriguing aspect is the ability to construct any type of home on any given 'plot'. It's a hyper-customization of an apartment flat, if you will. Also intriguing is the idea of walking out your back door and standing in your backyard, gazing out at the view twelve stories off the ground. It's a bizarre thought, in its own way, but an interesting one to consider.

[1]: Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown coined the terms Duck and Decorated Shed as two ways that buildings embody iconography. In the Duck example, a building embodies a form, much like a sculpture in the round. In the Decorated Shed example, a building features a false facade that appears to be something ornate and unique, when the structure behind is typical and mundane. In the Highrise of Homes, the 'homes' appear as single-family detached homes of suburbia, but the experience is that of a typical apartment flat. It is a false facade.

Check out other unbuilt designs here.

This is the Highrise of Homes, designed in 1981 by James Wines and his firm SITE. The project consists of a series of stacked levels with individual homes built throughout each level. These homes appear much like the single-family detached homes of suburbia, which results in a curious mashup of typologies. Wines is using verticality to re-arrange a typical suburb into a vertical tower, complete with sidewalks, front and back yards, and pitched roofs. This rearrangement creates some curious scenarios and experiences which are worth pondering.

Wines is attempting to re-create the experience of the surface in the sky, and he's using verticality to do so. We're all familiar with what a suburban home is. It's a single-family domicile that rests upon the surface of the Earth. When one steps out the front or back door, they do so at ground level. These buildings have a direct relationship to the earth beneath them, because they sit directly on top of it. When Wines relocates this typology to the stacked levels of his structure, he fundamentally changes these experiences into something new. He takes suburban elements and applies them to the experiences of a high-rise apartment flat, such that the elements have been 'suburbanized'. This act alters the original meaning. Front and back yards are now terraces. Handrails and balustrades are now white picket fences. Pitched roofs are now glorified, redundant ceilings. Sidewalks are now open-concept hallways. The building becomes a bespoke mashup of architectural styles and elements that have lost their original meaning. Wines has taken the suburban house and created a decorated shed out of it; the exterior exists to give the impression of something, without actually being that thing.[1]

This begs the question: are these desirable homes to live in? One suspects that the height would create value for some part of the housing market. Another intriguing aspect is the ability to construct any type of home on any given 'plot'. It's a hyper-customization of an apartment flat, if you will. Also intriguing is the idea of walking out your back door and standing in your backyard, gazing out at the view twelve stories off the ground. It's a bizarre thought, in its own way, but an interesting one to consider.

[1]: Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown coined the terms Duck and Decorated Shed as two ways that buildings embody iconography. In the Duck example, a building embodies a form, much like a sculpture in the round. In the Decorated Shed example, a building features a false facade that appears to be something ornate and unique, when the structure behind is typical and mundane. In the Highrise of Homes, the 'homes' appear as single-family detached homes of suburbia, but the experience is that of a typical apartment flat. It is a false facade.

Check out other unbuilt designs here.

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James Wines and the Highrise of Homes - On Verticality

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This is the Highrise of Homes , designed in 1981 by James Wines and his firm SITE. The project consists of a series of stacked levels with individual homes built throughout each level.

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https://www.frac-centre.fr/_en/art-and-architecture-collection/libeskind-daniel/berlin-city-edge-317.html?authID=115&ensembleID=321

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https://issuu.com/joeyyzc/docs/manifesto

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A manifesto of Parasitic Architecture from local interventions to urban implications.

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https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/the-1960-plan-to-put-a-dome-over-midtown-manhattan

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In the 1960s and 70s, the idea of a domed city stepped out of the science fiction spotlight and seemed like it may become a reality. One of the first real life concepts came about in 1960, when engineer Buckminster Fuller proposed a two mile "geodesic dome spanning Midtown Manhattan that would regulate weather and reduce air pollution." He planned the project with architect Shoji Sadao, and it would have covered the island from the East River to the Hudson River, from 21st Street to 64th Street.

The plan was for the giant dome to reduce cooling costs in summer and heating costs in the winter. Buildings would not be heated and cooled separately, instead the entire dome would be kept at a moderate temperature level. Presumably, in-dome apartments would have higher rents! Fuller believed the dome would eventually happen once he nailed down what materials to use, and said funding would be offset by the savings to the city-he wrote, "the cost of snow removal in New York City would pay for the dome in 10 years."

In 2008, when The Whitney revisited his designs, and The New Yorker did as well, Elizabeth Kolbert wrote, "By staging the retrospective, the Whitney raises-or, really, one should say, re-raises-the question of Fuller's relevance. Was he an important cultural figure because he produced inventions of practical value or because he didn't?"

You can find more of the ol' Buckminster's designs right here, and don't forget to check out the floating cities he started to design after the dome era faded.

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The 1960 Plan To Put A Dome Over Midtown Manhattan

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In the 1960s and 70s, the idea of a domed city stepped out of the science fiction spotlight and seemed like it may become a reality. One of the first real life concepts came about in 1960, when engineer Buckminster Fuller proposed a two mile "geodesic dome spanning Midtown Manhattan that would regulate weather and reduce air pollution."

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https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/albert-ambitious-young-architect.html?chrome=1

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CRYSTAL CITY + GREATER BAGDAD: FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

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CRYSTAL CITY + GREATER BAGDAD: FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

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https://urbanutopias.net/2020/01/15/flw-other-designs/

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In the years after creating Broadacre City, Frank Lloyd Wright had a handful of chances to plan real urban environments. Few of these projects were ever built. Two of the biggest, though, provide a window into the changing urban ideas of one of the most influential modern architects.

Crystal City

Washington D.C. in the mid-20th century was growing quickly, and needed new residential development. Developer Roy Thurman saw a chance to jump on the growing mixed-use trend and build a massive project in one of the last undeveloped tracts of the capital, and brought on Wright to plan it.

Crystal City was about as far from Broadacre as you could get. It was inspired by the Rockefeller Center, which Wright saw as "the entrails of final enormity." It was to be 21 dense, mixed-use glass and marble buildings, in the midst of a tract of oak trees. It featured a 2,500 room hotel, an underground parking garage, and an 1,100 seat movie theater along with thousands of apartments. Wright claimed that "two walls of every room [would be] made entirely of glass."

The project fell through when the National Capital Planning Commission, in part because the design was nearly twice the height allowed under the Height of Buildings Act. Although Wright continued to fight for the project for a time, he eventually abandoned it after discovering that Roy Thurman's finances weren't as certain as he'd believed .

Sources and More Reading:

The Plan for Greater Baghdad

In 1956, at age 89, Wright was commissioned for one of his last projects: a master plan for Baghdad, Iraq. With an influx of oil money, King Faisal II saw the chance to rebuild Baghdad as a modern city. He brought on a cadre of architects - including Le Corbusier - to update parts of the city, and hired Wright to plan the center.

Wright's plan centered on Pig Island in the Tigris, which he proposed to rename "Edena." Here he would build an opera house, a garden with fountains of Adam and Eve, museums for both historic sculpture and modern art, and a monument to the eighth-century caliph Haroun al-Rashid. A university campus was planned across the river, and all of these elements formed a constellation of circles and arcs, echoing the historic circular design of Baghdad.

Wright was inspired by his childhood love of One Thousand and One Nights and an appreciation for the historic architecture of the region. Ziggurats for parking were scattered throughout the plan, and the opera house was topped with a sculpture of Aladdin and his lamp.

Unfortunately, King Faisal II was assassinated in 1958 and the plans were shelved. Later administrations did not believe that the beautiful designs met the needs of the people in Baghdad. This design does, however, reveal an older Wright more willing to compromise Broadacre City with the realities of modern urbanity.

Sources and More Reading:

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Crystal City and The Plan for Greater Baghdad: Frank Lloyd Wright's Urban Planning

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In the years after creating Broadacre City, Frank Lloyd Wright had a handful of chances to plan real urban environments. Few of these projects were ever built. Two of the biggest, though, provide a window into the changing urban ideas of one of the most influential modern architects. Crystal City Washington D.C.

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Parasite-Paradise-Liesbeth-Melis/dp/9056623303

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Parasites are flexible and temporary structures, designed by artists or architects, that feed off existing infrastructure. Parasite Paradise documents 23 projects that respond on their own terms to new and unforeseen demands. Many of these parasites have settled in the government-designed 'Vinex'...

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Future City - Experiment in Utopia in Architecture
https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/71414048?queryString=future%20city&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false

Visionary Architecture - Blueprint of the Modern Imagination
https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/83979740?queryString=visionary%20architecture&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false

Future Cities: Architecture and the Imagination
https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/1089492341?queryString=future%20cities&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false

Future Cities: A Visual Guide
https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/1202475413?queryString=future%20cities&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false

First Works - Emerging Architectural Experimentation of the 1960s and 1970s

Unbuilt: Radical Visions of A Future that Never Arrived
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unbuilt-Radical-visions-future-arrived/dp/1849946639

Beyond Architecture -Imaginative Buildings and Fictional Cities https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/294884915?queryString=beyond%20architecture

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https://www.dezeen.com/2020/05/13/archigram-instant-city-peter-cook-video-interview-vdf/

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Architect Peter Cook explains Archigram's concept for a temporary city that can be set up overnight in the third instalment of our exclusive video series with the radical architecture group for VDF.

Developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Archigram's Instant City concept is a transportable kit of parts that can be quickly assembled to provide the inhabitants of small towns with access to the resources and cultural attractions of a large metropolis.

"Instant City was, in very raw terms, like a cultural circus," Cook said in the video, which Dezeen filmed in London and is sponsored by Enscape.

"It takes the cultural essence of a metropolitan city and takes them around like a circus, so that a small town or a village could become a kind of city for a week."
Instant City inspired by the architecture of outdoor pop concerts
According to Cook, the concept developed from Archigram's own experience of giving lectures with a packable set of presentation materials and props.

"Instant City was really based on our own Archigram experience, because we'd started giving lectures, packaging the Archigram ideas and going round with lots of projectors," he explained.

"There was an intermediary project called Ideas Circus, which was much more specific, which was actually a set of teaching devices put on trucks with the odd inflatable."

"It was that, allied to the period of open-air pop concerts - I think that was all in the air at the same time," he added.

Like Plug-In City, another of Archigram's metropolitan concepts, which Cook and fellow Archgram member Dennis Crompton discussed in the previous video in the series, there were a number of different versions of Instant City.

Initially, the concept comprised a packable kit of parts that could be transported by road, but later versions introduced lighter elements that could be delivered by air.

Archigram's Plug-In City shows that "pre-fabrication doesn't have to be boring" says Peter Cook

"We started to speculate, instead of a city trundling around on trucks, maybe it could all hang off an airship and it would just silently come in the night and you'd open the bedroom curtains and there was the city in the field behind you," said Cook.

"And then, a week later, it would have carried on. It's kind of analogous to the contemporary thought that everybody could be famous for five minutes, the Marshall McLuhan thing."

Archigram was a collective of six architects - Cook, Crompton, Michael Webb, David Greene, Warren Chalk and Ron Herron. Different Archigram members had different takes on the Instant City concept.

"There were various different versions of the Instant City - there was my version and there was Ron Herron's version," explained Cook.

"Funnily enough, we were both working on them in Los Angeles, but mine were still bedded in England and his was located in Los Angeles. There were only minor variants on an agreed set of parts."

The group also started to extend the Instant City concept as a series of parasitic elements that could enhance existing buildings and structures, which Cook said could have been explored more thoroughly.

"There are odd drawings, such as what happens if an Instant City off an airship drops into a town, so that you then have a series of parasite elements that are actually attached to the town itself," he said.

"You infiltrate WH Smith or the top of a bus. You don't just leave it in a field, nice and separate. I mean there is a whole territory there that one could have moved into, which is a mixture between an organised, contrived set of parts and a sort of agitprop effect on a town."

"I've never pursued that, but there's a whole territory there that I think can send messages to the current generation."

Founded in 1961, Archigram was an avant-garde collective of architects that became famous in the 1960s and 1970s for its radical architecture concepts.

As part of Virtual Design Festival, Dezeen is publishing a series of exclusive interviews with former Archigram members Cook and Crompton.

In the first instalment of the series, Cook explained the origins of the group and how it rose to prominence through a series of self-published magazines. In the second video, Cook and Crompton discussed its Plug-In City concept for an elevated city of capsule homes.

This video was filmed by Dezeen in London and sponsored by Enscape, a virtual reality and real-time rendering plugin for architectural design programme Autodesk Revit.

All images are courtesy of and copyright of Archigram. You can browse more images from Archigram's archive online at The Archigram Archival Project.

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Archigram's Instant City concept enables "a village to become a kind of city for a week" says Peter Cook

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Architect Peter Cook explains Archigram's concept for a temporary city that can be set up overnight in the third instalment of our exclusive video series with the radical architecture group for VDF.

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https://www.archdaily.com/233625/films-architecture-blade-runner

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Following with the films we will recommend every week, this time we want to introduce "Blade Runner". Another classic from the '80 that shows a future Los Angeles with an atmosphere that intents to shape the urban space within which we will move in the current century. The soundtrack, composed by Vangelis deserves to be mentioned as it plays a fundamental role in the comprehension of this futuristic American city.

More info after the break.
MAIN INFO

Original Title: Blade Runner Year: 1982 Runtime: 117 min. Country: United States Director: Ridley Scott Writer: Hampton Fancher, David Peoples y Roland Kibbee Soundtrack: Photography Director: Jordan Cronenweth Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah
PLOT
In Los Angeles 2019, humans have genetically engineered Replicants, which are essentially humans who are designed for labor and entertainment purposes. They are illegal on earth, and if they make it to our planet they are to be hunted down and killed.

Rick Deckard is a "blade runner", or a hunter of replicants. A group of replicants make it to Los Angeles to seek out a way to extend their life span. Sent to the Tyrell Corporation to ensure that the test works on Nexus-6 models, Deckard discovers that Tyrell's assistant Rachael is an experimental replicant who believes herself to be human; Rachael's consciousness has been enhanced with false memories to provide an "emotional cushion". As a result, a more extensive test is required to determine if she is a replicant. Replicants have a built in 4 year life span, and this group is at the end. Although he hunts them to the end, the replicants end up teaching the detached Deckard what it really means to be human.

TRAILER ADDITIONAL INFO
The former designer for Ford Motor Company, as well as "futurist consultant" for companies like Sony or Chrysler, is responsable for the development of these futuristic ideas. Specifically for the film he worked close to Ridley Scott designing the environment for the movie, and his drawings of the "spinners" (flying cars) shaped the 25 models utilized on the movie.

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Following with the films we will recommend every week, this time we want to introduce "Blade Runner". Another classic from the '80 that shows a future Los Angeles with an atmosphere that intents to shape the urban space within which we will move in the current century.

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https://www.archdaily.com/267093/films-architecture-the-fountainhead

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https://www.archdaily.com/237385/films-architecture-metropolis

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Following with the list of films we propose every week, as The Belly of the Architect, Blade Runner, and .This week we are going back to the times when technologies didn't allow yet the sound or even color to be part of films. Metropolis, one of the classics by the German director , is a film that shows a future where the city is structured in vertical layers according to the different social strata. Something that could be recognized in the current situation of several cities today... Do you know about any example? Do you think this will be the actual future pattern of our cities?
MAIN INFO
Original Title: Metropolis Year: 1927 Runtime: 120 min. Country: Germany Director: Fritz Lang Writer: Thea von Harbou Soundtrack: Berndt Heller, Otto Harzner, Frank Strobel Photography Director: Karl Freund & Günther Rittau Cast: Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Rasp, Theodor Loos, Heinrich George
PLOT

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class, who live in poor conditions but are the basic force for the city's work, and the upper class, which is mainly integrated by the city planners and their families, two persons from each class fall in love with each other. One of them is a working class prohet, a woman who gives hope to the city's workers. She predicts the coming of a savior, a savior who will mediate the differences between the social groups and give the city the start of new era.

The other is the son of the city's mastermind. But the prophet is kidnapped by a crazy inventor, who wants to use her to make a robot work. The robot is given the same physical appearence the prophet has. Following orders from the crazy inventor, the robot creates a lot of problems for the working class. The son of the city's mastermind and the prophet will have to stop the robot and its crazy inventor for creating more problems for Metropolis, and achieve the goal of making Metropolis an harmonius place.

TRAILER

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Following with the list of films we propose every week, as The Belly of the Architect , Blade Runner , and .This week we are going back to the times when technologies didn't allow yet the sound or even color to be part of films. Metropolis, one of the classics by the German director , is a film that shows a future where the city is structured in vertical layers according to the different social strata.

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https://www.archdaily.com/906742/intricate-illustrations-of-italo-calvinos-invisible-cities

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https://www.frac-centre.fr/_en/art-and-architecture-collection/asymptote/steel-cloud-los-angeles-west-coast-gateway-317.html?authID=12&ensembleID=43

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In 1989, Asymptote was awarded first prize in the international competition to design the Los Angeles West Coast Gateway, a monument to celebrate American Pacific rim immigration. The Steel Cloud, a project which was never built, was designed as a spectacular "city gateway" above the highway leading to Hollywood. It replaces the typical monolithic vertical forms of architecture with a horizontal sectioned structure without walls. The gigantic Steel Cloud - stretching horizontally for a length of nearly 500 meters - turns the idea of the void above the highway upside down by transforming the 8-meter high dead space into a city above the city. Its cruciform structure is essentially composed of overlapping inclined planes without any parallels. The functions of this vast hanging ensemble where mobility and activity rein (Museum of Immigration, aquariums, gardens, theater, cinemas and a library) correspond to the profile of a city of attractions. But this architectural assemblage constantly overturns every concept of scale and organization. Thus, the two aquariums, like the hanging gardens, swing in the air, oscillating in varied rhythms. The History Museum is a long sloping space slicing the sky; a sculpture park is literally separated from the whole; the cinemas' roofs open up to the sky; excerpts from books in the Genealogical Library are projected in different languages onto immense electronic screens. An open space filled with air and wind where the proportion of functional spaces is low compared with the whole, this "steel cloud" can be seen from any one of its six sides in 2 different ways: slowly, like the visitors walking along the local paths; or with an overall, high-speed view, like the drivers who, passing by at 70 miles per hour can enjoy it for just 18 seconds.

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In 1989, Asymptote was awarded first prize in the international competition to design the Los Angeles West Coast Gateway, a monument to celebrate American Pacific rim immigration. The Steel Cloud, a project which was never built, was designed as a spectacular "city gateway" above the highway leading to Hollywood.

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https://www.archdaily.com/912738/the-city-in-the-air-by-arata-isozaki#:~:text=City%20in%20the%20Air%20is,the%20necessities%20of%20the%20residents.

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Arata Isozaki, the Japanese architect and winner of the Pitzker Prize 2019, is not only renowned for his fruitful portfolio of works built all over the world (more than a hundred) but also for his continuous input to the theory of urbanism, including texts and proposals.

It is precisely in the field of urbanism, that he developed one of his most interesting non-built projects: the futurist master plan, known as City in the Air, in the Shinjuku neighborhood in Tokyo, Japan.

At the end of the Second World War, in Japan - a country in full material and spiritual reconstruction - an avant-garde architectural and urbanistic movement emerged, known as Metabolism. The Japanese architects started to explore the relationship between the human being and the constructed environment.

The Metabolism emphasized the concept of biological growth in architecture, implying that the city, as well as its structures, are living organisms that develop together. The architecture was now understood a being in constant transformation, a movement able to reflect in its design a dynamic reality.

The Metabolists separated themselves from much of the established international discourse after the Second World War. They distanced themselves from the architecture defined by functional programming and moved towards one more focused on human association and mobility, reflecting on how to create utopic cities after the destruction of the war.

Arata Isozaki, who was 12 years old when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, understood the urban history as a circular existence. A vision that moves from the construction to the destruction and vice-versa, putting an emphasis on actions such as natural disasters and wars that have the capacity to destroy entire cities.

In Incubation Process (1962), Isozaki reflects:

"The ruins that formed my childhood environment were produced by acts of sudden destruction...wandering among them instilled in me awareness of the phenomenon of obliteration, rather than a sense of the transience of things."

Although Isozaki was never formally part of the group of the Metabolists, his initial vision of the sixties was associated with the movement. In 1962, he created a futurist proposal reclining on the idea of the metamorphosis of the city: "City in the Air".

City in the Air is a project of capsules suspended in the air over cylindrical and modular megastructures. These structures permit the expansion and the reorganization of the urban space, incorporating or removing units of capsules in order to satisfy in real time the necessities of the residents. Meanwhile, the foundations of the towers resembled enormous craters left by bombs, making a reference to the clouds of smoke raised during the bombardment by the United States during the Second World War.

For Arata Isozaki, the city is destined to be destroyed. A ruin is the future of our city and the future is the ruin itself. In Incubation Process, he says:

"Future cities are themselves ruins. Our contemporary cities...are destined to live only a fleeting moment. Give up their energy and return to inert material. All of our proposals will be buried. And once again the incubation mechanism is reconstituted. That will be our Future"

At the moment in which City in the Air was proposed, Tokyo had limited the maximum height of construction to 31 meters. Isozaki said:

"Tokyo is hopeless...I am leaving everything below 30 meters to others. If they think they can unravel the mess in this city, let them try. I will think about architecture and the city above 30 meters. An empty lot of 10 square meters is all I need on the ground. I will erect a column there, and that column will be both a structural column and a channel for vertical circulation."

With almost 60 years since its creation, City in the Air is a timeless work by Arata Isozaki. Popularized thanks to a black and white photomontage that survives in the times of the internet, the project is a declaration of architectural principles: flexible, mobile and capable to satisfy the constant necessities and requirements of its users.

References:
[1] Helen Levin, "Clusters in the Air detail"
Accessed March 05, 2019 https://magazine.sangbleu.com/2014/02/06/cannibal-city/
[2] Mark Jarzombek, "Positioning the Global Imaginary: Arata Isozaki, 1970"
Accessed March 05, 2019 http://web.mit.edu/mmj4/www/downloads/criticalinq44_3.pdf
[3] Arata Isozaki, "Incubation Process"

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Arata Isozaki, the Japanese architect and winner of the Pitzker Prize 2019, is not only renowned for his fruitful portfolio of works built all over the world (more than a hundred) but also for his continuous input to the theory of urbanism, including texts and proposals.

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https://medium.com/@jcheung/constants-new-babylon-485e6a6592f9

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New Babylon is a magnum opus created between 1959-1974 by the Dutch painter Constant Nieuwenhuys. Constant was a leading member of the CoBrA group - an avant-garde art movement influenced by surrealism and Dada - before joining Guy Debord in founding the Situationist International in 1957.

The mid-1970s saw the wane of Fordist mass production and the rise of automation in manufacturing and knowledge labor, which planted the seed for our contemporary cognitive-cultural economy. This trend was perceived by members of Situationist International in different ways. Guy Debord saw the saturation of media in everyday life as a detriment to culture, and sought to actively undermine the mass media using tactics such as dėtourment (rerouting, highjacking).These gestures were meant to counteract the effects of alienation in the capitalist society and to recuperate agency in the hyper-mediated urban life. To Debord, his cultural epoch marked the total politicization of the built environment by media and communication.

Constant's outlook, on the other hand, was more technologically optimistic. A fully-automated society, in Constant's mind, would liberate people from labor and enable a new kind of existence: homo ludens ( men at play, a term coined by Dutch cultural theorist Johan Huizinga). Constant explored these ideas in New Bablyon, a multi-media project that combined drawing, painting, sculptures and blurred the line between art, architecture, and fiction. Constant described New Babylon as an anti-capitalist city of infinite play, where citizens were freed from the "bourgeois shackles of work." In the 1974 exhibition catalogue for the project, Constant outlined the assumptions that served as the conceptual foundation for his project:

- Automation of all 'useful,' repetitive activities frees, at the mass level, an energy that can henceforth be directed towards other activities.

- Collective ownership of the land and the means of production, and rationalization of the production of consumer goods, facilitates the transformation of this energy into creative activity.

- With productive work disappearing, collective timekeeping has no more rasion d'etre; the masses will, on the other hand, have a considerable amount of free time.

While Constant envisioned New Babylon to be a realizable concept, the project remained on the side of aesthetic fiction. The relationship between cultural producers and their means of production remain contentious. Automation did not eliminate the problem of labor. In fact, labor simply has taken on another form, whose exploitation is still pervasive, more insidious, and difficult to detect. To describe this post-Fordist condition, theorist Maurizio Lazzarato coined the term immaterial labor.

Sources:
http://bombmagazine.org/article/2713/constant http://www.wdw.nl/en/our_program/exhibitions/constant_new_babylon http://www.notbored.org/new-babylon.html

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New Babylon is a magnum opus created between 1959-1974 by the Dutch painter Constant Nieuwenhuys. Constant was a leading member of the CoBrA group - an avant-garde art movement influenced by surrealism and Dada - before joining Guy Debord in founding the Situationist International in 1957.

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https://www.mvrdv.nl/projects/115/markthal

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The Markthal is a sustainable combination of food, leisure, living, and parking, a building in which all functions are fully integrated to celebrate and enhance their synergetic possibilities. A secure, covered square is nestled beneath a large arch, conceived as an entirely new take on a typical market square and its surrounding buildings.

Located in the historic Laurenskwartier in the heart of Rotterdam, the Markthal is formed by the construction of privately-developed apartments arranged into a large arch, strategically allowing a private initiative to create a public space. The result is a covered square which features a central market hall during the day and, after closing hours, a lively series of restaurants on its lower levels. It is a hybrid building where visitors are able to shop, eat, enjoy a drink, live, and park their car.

The building has a total floor area of 95,000 square meters, with 228 apartments and 1,200 below-ground parking spaces. But the building's most striking feature is its central market hall, which provides a home for 96 fresh food stalls and shop units, ranging from Rotterdam based businesses and market vendors to established local heroes. They offer a diverse range of products: from fresh fish to game, from cappuccino to cheese, from local favourites to exotic cuisine, and from bargains to exclusive slow food.

At the sides of this hall, the ground and first floor accommodate 20 retail units, restaurants and cafés. On the 1st underground level there is a supermarket, allowing visitors to complete their shopping under one roof, and "The World of Taste", a centre for education, information and innovation in healthy eating.

Located under the 40-metre-tall arch, the market hall is enlivened by a large mural covering the vaulted interior. "Cornucopia", by artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam, shows massively enlarged images of food products alongside flowers and insects, in reference to Dutch still-life paintings from the 17th century. The entire work is over 11,000 square meters in size, with a resolution comparable to a glossy magazine. In order to achieve this sharpness, the image was rendered by Pixar software and printed onto perforated aluminium panels, which were then attached to acoustic panels for noise control. In contrast, the exterior façade, the floor of the market hall, and the surrounding public space are all clad in natural grey stone, helping to emphasise the colourful interior that is the building's centrepiece.

In order to attract visitors, the building is designed with an open character. While the ends of the arch had to be physically closed to provide protection from the weather, they are kept as transparent as possible by a single-glazed cable net façade. With a construction system similar to a tennis-racket, pre-stressed steel cables create a suspended net onto which the glass panes are hung. Markthal's cable net façade is the largest of its kind in Europe, and has enough flexibility to withstand heavy storms. The Markthal is also an energy efficient building, awarded a Very Good BREEAM rating.

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Video made by Dutch design studio Moooi about the Markthal. (in Dutch): click here.

Within the arch structure itself, the Markthal holds 102 rental apartments and 126 freehold apartments, including 24 penthouses. The apartments vary from 80 square metres to 300 square metres, and from two to five bedrooms. Every apartment has a view towards either the River Maas or the Laurenskerk, and into the market hall.

The apartments follow strict Dutch laws regarding natural daylight: rooms that require natural light, such as living rooms and bedrooms, are situated on the outside, with views towards either the river Maas or the Laurenskerk; while kitchens, dining rooms and storage are positioned on the market side, establishing a connection to the market through windows or a glass floors made of sound- and smell-proof triple glazing.

With its unique arched structure, and unusual achievement of turning a private development plan into a public building, the Markthal makes Rotterdam home of a new urban typology, a hybrid of market and housing.

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The Markthal is a sustainable combination of food, leisure, living, and parking, a building in which all functions are fully integrated to celebrate and enhance their synergetic possibilities. A secure, covered square is nestled beneath a large arch, conceived as an entirely new take on a typical m...

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