As everyone who's a regular visitor to this blog knows, my love for everything comic books/sci-fi/fantasy/speculative fiction/geeky stuffs has no bounds. That is why with glee I share this post. A prove that architecture can also be a interesting sci-fi subject, particularly from the utopian/dystopian future angle.
The Transcendent City / Richard Hardy: A recent graduate from London’s Bartlett School of Architecture, Richard Hardy has produced a fascinating animation for Nic Clear’s Unit 15 that pushes futuristic architecture to a new level. Using David Foster Wallace’s ‘Infinite Jest’, a novel that questions certain aspects of Americans’ obsessive behavior – in terms of the intense fascination with entertainment, materialism, technology etc – the studio challenged students to analyze the implications of society’s “obsessive/addictive behavior…to develop tactics to cope with the difficulties of creating an architecture in uncertain times.” More about the project after the break.
Now I know what my wedding day would be like.
Us who read Blackest Night or watched the Justice League cartoon know that Diana have feelings for Bruce. Who knew they'll get serious?
I admire Renzo Piano and I like the way he thinks through a sketch. Just look at the sketch above. There's a "story" there, even if it;s just one piece of sketch. Taht, my friends, is the true art of architecture is here. The uniqueness of an architect's dynamic visual thoughts is shown in this. All the best minds did it before: Palladio, Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer, Jørn Utzon, you name it.
More about Renzo and his Building Workshop here rpbw.r.ui-pro.com/
And now, for one of his works that I love so much, continue reading after the break.
As I posted earlier, Bandung my hometown is a city full of beautiful, old buildings from the Dutch colonial era. One of such building is the Driekleur building.
During my first days of SketchUp learning curve, the Google 3d Warehouse was (and still) my best friend. For those of you not familiar with the site (or just new to SketchUp), Google 3d Warehouse is basically-as its name suggests-a repository of 3d models made with SketchUp, Google's ridiculously user friendly 3d modelling software. And my God, it really is a huuuuge repository.
Sean Murphy is my newest favorite comic book artist. He's currently doing a project with superstar writer Grant Morrison entitled "Joe The Barbarian", published by DC's mature publishing line, Vertigo. Beside the awesomely dark yet poetic story that Morrison writes, the book's selling point for me is Sean Murphy's ability to render beautiful and moody interior shots.
Dubbed 'minimalistic design', this approach to post-modernity is currently a trend at least in my hometown; especially among young, newlywed couple.
Never mind the fact that the maintenance cost is gonna be enormous since Indonesia is a tropical country so those sealed-shut windows will bleed the electric bills a lot from air conditioning alone.
William Pena summed it up best : programming is problem seeking, design is problem solving. Thus, design is not merely a process to create something unique or avant garde. First and foremost, design must solve problem(s).
But, what is design according to the Internet?
This place in my opinion, is the coolest superhero HQ ever! It's even better than Superman's Fortress of Solitude or even Fantastic Four's Baxter Building.
But how does it actually looking from the inside? For those of you wondering, here are the interior shots of one of the most famous architectural masterpiece in comicbook, The Batcave!
Wow, this seems like an exhibition tailor-made for me.
Architecture and comic books in one place! It turns out, there are other people besides me that thinks there is a connection between architecture and comic books beside the gigantic amount of caffeine comsumed by professionals in both fields, particularly when deadline beckons. And what city is more perfect to display that than Paris?
I love JMS' run on Amazing Spider-Man. He humanized Spider-Man, making Peter Parker even more relatable to us after a decade or so of annoying and confusing storylines.
Just check this page scan after the jump...
Quotes are great because they can distill ideas very efficiently.
Even though famous quotes are very popular, few people manage to create their own personal quote catalog. I am not a quote collector myself, but I always love reading quotes that I found from nearly every media: magazines, newspapers, or the Internet. My favorite popular science magazine has this tradition of ending every article with a more or less suitable quote relating to the article. I find several benefits in maintaining a personal collection of favorite quotes, famous or otherwise, at the very least they keep you entertained.
So here they are, several architecture quotes that I find both inspiring and amusing!
From now on, every once in a while-that is whenever the mood strikes me, I will post something in this blog about interesting stuffs in my hometown. Architecturally speaking, of course.
Bandung, Indonesia is a city adorned with old buildings that-as far as I'm concern-are like fine wine, getting prettier with time.
Earlier I have stated my love of comic book heroes do something fun and/or recreational inbetween saving the world.
The classic example would be the X-Men playing baseball or what Gail Simone did during her first run on Birds of Prey; Barbara (Oracle) and Dinah (Black Canary) had a girl talk, conversing about...can you guess?
The Flash #2, which is released about 3 weeks ago (I know, it's a little late. Sorry), showed us the fight between the newly-resurrected Barry Allen and the future version of The Rogues-which apparently are heroes in the 25th century. As always in almost every case with superhuman fights, the civilians take the most suffering. But in this case, they are somewhat compensated, albeit a little...risky. What is it?
I love it when every once in a while, comic book writers remind us that beneath their spandex and awesome powers, our beloved heroes and heroines are ordinary human beings with a day job.
Peter Parker rushes to his photography gig, Clark Kent tries to beat the deadline (he does that, doesn't he?), or just a scene of Bruce Wayne dozes off in the middle of Wayne Enterprise's board meeting. These scenes humanize these heroes and make them easier to relate to us, mere mortals.
CAD monkey is a term to describe an architect hired by a firm not for his/her design ability but rather because of his/her computing skills, CAD-proficiency to be exact.
For long this practice has been a traditional breeding ground for design firms to 'forge' the fresh grads, but some thinks it's a waste of talent.
Don't want to argue about that, just wanna share something that perhaps in the days before the computer, the CAD monkeys are called 'drafting cows'.
OK, I think I now have enough confidence to post what I've been doing instead of my rendition of others' works.
Here's a project I've been working on. A residence. Sorry, can't tell who's the owner due to the privacy issue.
It's been a long time since I post anything under the label Render-vaganza and since so many of you seemed to love the Nihonbashi House model, here's something new for your (hopefully) visual enjoyment.
“If we in the Third World measure our success or failure as a society in terms of income, we would have to classify ourselves as losers until the end of time,” declares Enrique Peñalosa, who served as mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. “So with our limited resources, we have to invent other ways to measure success. This might mean that all kids have access to sports facilities, libraries, parks, schools, nurseries.”
Cain and Abel, Superman and Lex Luthor, Liverpool and Manchester United, we all have heard (or even have been going through) some sort of rivalry. Rivalry breeds from competition, and we all are competitive beings. It's not necessarily a bad thing. From competition and our eagerness to be the top dog come innovation, and ideally that's supposed to make our lives getting better every day.
If you read a rumor that said Warner wants to make a Superman reboot that is both darker and grittier than his previous movie incarnation, well it's not a rumor, it's true. You can read it here.
There are at least two reasons why I enjoy science-fiction in nearly every story telling medium.
One, sci-fi deals with the "what if" scenarios of everything we live in today : society, science, technology and differentiate them to the point that it relies on ours suspension of disbelief but somehow those imaginary elements are still within in the range of scientific possibility or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation).
Exploring the consequences of such differences is the traditional purpose of science fiction, making it a "literature of ideas". Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possibilities and I don't know why, but I always love exploring new possibilities especially regarding the choices we make today.
Whether we like it or not, whether we realize it or not, we humans are really territorial beings. We draw imaginary lines in our maps. We carve and slice the islands and continents that shaped our planet into tiny countries and sandwiched between these countries, we draw something called 'border'- a mark to emphasize what's "yours" and what's "mine".
We love miniaturize things. Good things come in small packages, they say. Our cell phones, computers both laptops and desktops are getting slimmer and smaller literally every six months and yet pack more power than ever before.
Shigeru Ban is one of the most celebrated architect in Japan. According to some sources, he is one of the strong contender for the 2010 Pritzker Prize, one of the Holy Grail in architecture, along with Steven Holl and Toyo Ito.
New looks, ladies and gents! Hope you like it!
I was bored with the old, standard look and after days of searching and choosing the perfect template (why did it took days? Well, I'm a bit busy and also am having a 'nerdgasm' due the awesomeness of Justice League : Crisis on Two Earths-two words : President Deathstroke!), I finally found one.
Years ago, Indonesian market was flooded with palm-sized Tetris. For a geeky kid like me, it was almost like owning those fancy scientific calculator but instead of doing trigonometry, you get to play one of the simplest yet addictive game of all time.
Apparently, I'm not the only one fascinated with Tetris...
It's an "Undo relationship wrongs apology card". According to the source, it's finely printed with hand-mixed ink on 100% cotton extra soft paper and priced at $3.75.
Pretty neat, isn't it? Still showing off your geekiness while apologizing.
For me it can only works when and if the receiver can appreciate your sense of humour, no matter how geeky it is. If not, well, it's probably not a good idea. Sending this card is probably like saying, 'Here honey, to apologize for spending more time with my [insert addictive gadget/geeky pastime here] than with you, I bought you a computer-based humour apology card to make up for it! Great huh!...h-hello?'
Or imagine if she is a hardcore Mac fanatic! This card can only make her angrier.
Remember, if things don't work out better after this, you're probablybetter to ctrl-alt-del so she doesn't retain any memory. make sure you delete the temp files too so it doesn't get thrown in your face next time you open her up.
And oh,if that happens,the purchase of the card cannot be ctrl+z'd.
As someone who holds a great fascination with built environment design (that's architecture, urban design, and interior design), I always appreciate town planners and city administrators who take great concerns regarding public transportation. Personally I think the better a city's public transportation is, the better the life of the citizens are. And that, ladies and gents, is the sign of a modern, ecologically sound, and friendly city.
Decorating a small room? While these spaces can be a bit challenging, here are a few ideas that you might find beneficial in helping your small space take on a much larger look!
Frank Gehry is one of those architects whose works can boldly divide people into two camps : those who adore him so much and those who loathe him with such a fiery passion.
In this video below, TED presents a video of Frank Gehry's speech recorded in 1990, when Gehry was "not-yet-legendary architect".
In lights of recent event in Indonesian pop culture scene,in which an actual horror movie (it's quite scary and not some crappy excuse for a softcore porn movie)made it at the box office without any cheap sensasionalism, I decided to post something a little gory (the said movie is a slasher flick, FYI).
New label, ladies and gentlemen! As the name suggests, Incredible Interior is my attempt to share what little knowledge I have regarding interior design; tips and tricks and everything. Of course, the posts under this label will also be littered with geeky, comic book stuff since that is the main theme of this blog.
For those of you not familiar with The Losers, it's actually a classic DC Comics World War II title reimagined by writer Andy Diggle (who's now in charge of Marvel's Daredevil) and for the most part illustrated by artist Jock.
In this current reimagination, The Losers are set today's grey political climate, including the so-called War on Terror as the background. Now, instead of World War II operatives, they are a Special Forces team seconded to the Central Intelligence Agency. In Afghanistan, the Losers were betrayed by their handler, Max, and left for dead following the conclusion of their operation. Eager for revenge and the opportunity to remove their names from a secret CIA death list, the Losers regroup and conduct covert operations against the CIA and its interests, uncovering startling operations spearheaded by the enigmatic Max, whose influence within the CIA and U.S. government is unparalleled.
The Losers ran for 32 issues from 2003-2006 and I've been on a trade-reading marathon these last few weeks and it's been awesome. If you like conspiracy-laden story with blow-things-up action that'll ashame Michael Bay but still with great characterization, smart dialogue, and unpredictable plot, this book is for you.
Unsurprisingly, this book was nominated as for the Eisner Award as "Best New Series" in 2004. For those of you not familiar, the Eisner is the comic book equivalent of the Academy Award.
Seeing from this trailer, it seems that this movie has a good cast, quite faithful to the original source, and it seems funny. It looks awesome, and i've been kind of crushing on Zoe Saldana-the new queen of geek flicks- since Pirates of the Caribbean (you know, the hot black pirate chick). The scene with her firing the bazooka sold me.
However, the comparison with the A-Team and the Expendables are going to be unavoidable. Personally, I think this is another one of these coincidences where there are movies with the same theme out around the same time.
I really loved The Sixth Sense when it first came out, but right now I feel M. Night Shyamalan has lost a lot if his magic; The Village and other of his supposedly sophisticated mashup of horror/fantasy/sci-fi movies are really, really disappointing. So when Night was announced as the director of the Avatar cartoon movie - carefully retitled The Last Airbender so James Cameron wouldn't get pissed off at Nickelodeon - I assumed airbending fans were in for a mass suicide. Then the trailer came out, and it looked awesome. Seriously, just take a look at it :
Now the movie posters have come out, and they're equally as awesome and stylish as the trailer. How is this possible? How is Night not fucking this up? Also, isn't that our first decent look at Zuko, and doesn't he look kind of badass? What the hell is happening here? My brain tells me the movie will be a disaster, but my eyes keep telling me something different. It's all very confusing. (Via /Film)
I could not stand not to take the picture above because it's so funny. Sorry for the lack of technical skill because it was a spontaneous effort using my cellphone camera. As you have noticed, this is a signpost of the West Java (the Indonesian province where I live) chapter of IWAPI.
Apparently being savvy businesswomen doesn't mean being savvy in IT as well. Just take a look at the URL address next to the word 'website' (as always, click the picture to see the larger version).
Here is the 'URL' if you want to make sure you read it right : www.iwapi.jabar.@ymail.com.
Madness...
Anyone who can access that web page is a certified genius or mad scientist...
The use of CAD or BIM in architecture/design field is nothing ordinary these days, especially for younger generations; but there were times when Computer Aided Design sounds like something that came out of 1950's sci-fi movies.
There is this one anecdote where one young architecture student presented his all-computer aided drawings to his professor. The professor observed the pencil-less drawings and said to the student, "If your computer did all of these things, where's your work?" (seriously, it's a true story!)
These days, the digital gap between younger and older generations may have been less wider than in the past, but that doesn't mean the gap isn't still there, as shown by the caricature below :
CAD/BIM can also present its own set of problems as well. There's no way in the past staffs of a design firm debating (or even fighting!) over pencil standard' or whatever. But, in today's world, it's a routine, especially for newly-bloomed firms with so many young designers with various CAD skill :
Another set of problem with CAD/BIM software is the classic 'layer' problem. What at first is a tool to ease to design/drafting process, now has become some sort of a monster by itself ; since layering a drawing-if not done wisely-can lead to literally a thousand mess :
Now this is a modern problem. Many design firms today have gradually left CAD software for BIM (Building Information Modeling). BIM offers a unique opportunity to integrate the whole process of designing into one single experience, which is more efficient design-wise (click here for more), which is more than can be said about its predecessor-CAD-which basically is nothing more than glorified drafting board.
But unfortunately, this glorified drafting board is still commonly used in the architect's partner-in-crime office : the construction firms. You can guess what happens next : different standard leads to different understanding and file-reading between the computers in both office...and chaos ensues :
Sadly, all of these progress in technology hasn't yet overcome the biggest monster of them all : the deadline!
Digital revolution, whether you like it or not, it's here to stay!
Marvel has released a trailer for the long-awaited (at least for me) return of Kitty Pryde. She will return after whatever it is she's doing in space after saving the Earth from a giant bullet in Joss Whedon's "season finale" of his Astonishing X-Men run (you know, the fact that I can write a sentence like this with a straight face is one of the things that make me love comicbooks...) .
Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men has garnered a lot of praise. One of the praise came from Whedon's ability to conceptualize such a strong female character in Kitty Pryde. Considering Whedon's track records of strong female characters of his own creation (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, characters from Firefly/Serenity, Dollhouse, etc), it's hardly a surprise.
For me, Whedon had me becoming one of Kitty's fans. That's the surprising part because in my opinion, Marvel is never traditionally known for their interesting female characters.
Anyway, Kitty will return in March's Uncanny X-Men #522 and I will eagerly wait in anticipation.
Oh, here's the link if you want to read the whole Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.
Even though Liberty City is loosely based on New York City, I always have this strange feeling that this virtual city is based on my hometown, Bandung. The similarity between the two towns, I find, is strikingly similar.
Liberty City is Richard Rogers' worst nightmare: a city designed for those in love with cars. The former advisor to the London Mayor, should he visit, is more likely to be mowed down by an out-of-control automobile than sip an overpriced latte in a pedestrianised piazza peppered with parasols. Foreigners who visit Bandung should also be careful lest he/she will be mowed down not by an out-of -control automobile but by public transportation drivers and motorbike riders who think that they are playing a real-life version of GTA IV or Need for Speed.
Bandung-whether the citizens realize it or not-also is a city built NOT for people, but for cars and those in love with cars. Try using the sidewalk and soon you'll feel you're in pedestrian hell as you'll also fight for the walking space with street hawkers, not to mention the difficult accesibility for those with different ability. The comparison between public space and parking space is also very unfair you'd think people in this city never steps out of their cars.
It's really ironic since Thomas Karsten-the Dutch urban designer who built the city almost 200 years ago-designed the Bandung with the concept of "Garden City", an urban planning movement founded in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the UK. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained, communities surrounded by greenbelts, containing carefully balanced areas of residences, industry, and agriculture. From this perhaps Bandung once nicknamed "The Flower City".
Back to Liberty City, Despite the evident dangers, people flock to live here. Perhaps its the dramatic sunsets, the coastal location or Liberty City's aesthetic affinity with the Big Apple.
People also still loves Bandung despite those things mentioned above, despite the "Flower City" nickname getting more irrelevant, and despite the city gets more "mechanopolitan" than "humanopolitan" (I probably should discuss these terms later). I personally hope Bandung should never becomes like Liberty City or I'll start jump into a car, looting and shooting everyone within my sight.
I always love the idea of a World Expo although I have never visited one. The idea of (almost) every country in the world tries to promote what's great about them and to out-awesome one another in terms of kicking-ass pavillion design fascinates me both as a culture lover (not just pop or geeky one, mind you) and as someone with architectural background. It's as if as a designer you could always go wild with this kind of project.
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