10 Innovative Materials To Look Out For In 2012

from the Freshome article

The development of new materials that have increased performance and functionality has become a major driver of innovation in recent years. According to the Industrial Technologies arm of the Research and Innovation department of the European Commission, it is estimated that 70% of all new product innovation is based on materials with new or improved properties. These emergent materials and their associated technologies are changing the way that architects and designers work and the way that we as consumers are engaging with the buildings and products that surround us.


sea balls or what are commonly referred to as Neptune's balls.


Hollow Sphere Structures

Bioplastics based on polylactic Acid

The World’s Fastest Elevator

the world's fastest elevator

This month, Mitsubishi announced the development of the fastest elevator in the world—capable of reaching 1,000 meters per minute, or 60 kilometers per hour. This elevator will be used in the new Shanghai Tower designed by Gensler, which will be the second tallest building in the world at 632 meters when it is completed in 2014.

Colombian Bio Hotel Boasts a Beautiful Living Facade

Read more: The Bio Hotel is a LEED-Inspired Hotel for Bogotá, Columbia | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World











Bio Hotel, a sustainable construction inspired by the LEED methodology, will be a 7-storey hotel located in Bogotá D.C. – Colombia. LEED is a certification program for sustainable buildings and construction projects administered by the U.S. Green Building Council. The Bio Hotel boasts a beautiful living facade, solar energy generation and storage systems, as well as efficient wastewater management and gray water recycling. The recycled water will be used to irrigate the hotel’s plantings and public green spaces. The materials and wood are sustainably sourced and harvested, and all rooms received ample natural light.

+ Bio Hotel

Another Road Side Attraction

TIFG

today we google googie

from Wikipedia:
Googie's beginnings are with the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s. Alan Hess, one of the most knowledgeable writers on the subject, writes in Googie: Ultra Modern Road Side Architecture that mobility in Los Angeles during the 1930s was characterized by the initial influx of the automobile and the service industry that evolved to cater to it. With car ownership increasing, cities no longer had to be centered on a central downtown but could spread out to the suburbs, where business hubs could be interspersed with residential areas. The suburbs offered less congestion by offering the same businesses, but accessible by car. Instead of one main store downtown, businesses now had multiple stores in suburban areas. This new trend required owners and architects to develop a visual imagery so customers would recognize it from the road. This modern consumer architecture was based on communication.

try it yourself! click here

Metropol Parasol

 TGIF!
For today's YEOW, we'll be taking a look at the Metropol Parasol designed by J. Mayer H. Architects.
Here's a part of the article from http://www.huhmagazine.co.uk below:

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The recently completed Metropol Parasol in Seville has taken the crown as the world's largest wooden structure. Designed by J. Mayer H. Architects, the shade-providing parasol covers over 5,000 sqm of its 18,000 sqm plot in the Plaza de la Ebcarnacíon and ended up costing a cool €90 million (£80 mil). As you might be able to tell, head architect Jürgen Mayer H. originally worked as a fine artist, and as such, his design incorporates complex sculpture-like shapes and non-repeating elements, meaning that no two parts of the Parasol are identical.

The main purpose of the structure is to offer shade - "a valuable service in a city as sunny and hot as Seville" - making the square a much more liveable space. By placing the supporting columns in an unorthodox arrangement, the parasol cleverly leaves the Roman ruins below entirely undisturbed. This strange arrangement also led to the construction of mushroom stem-like torsos, which feature lifts and stairs up to the stunning walkways.
"The form of this building was inspired by the vaults of Seville's expansive cathedral – I wanted to create a cathedral without walls that would be democratic – and also by the handsome trees already in the square."
–Jürgen Mayer H.








To see the rest of the photos, visit the site below.
http://www.huhmagazine.co.uk/1877/metropol-parasol

Patrick Dougherty

Combining his carpentry skills with his love of nature, Patrick Dougherty began to learn about primitive techniques of building and to experiment with tree saplings as construction material. Beginning about 1980 with small works, fashioned in his backyard, he quickly moved from single pieces on conventional pedestals to monumental site-specific installations that require sticks by the truckload. To date he has built over two hundred such massive sculptures all over the world.
His home base is his handmade house of log in Chapel Hill, NC where he lives with his wife Linda and son Sam.




Right in our Own Back Yard Folks


WASHINGTON, DC - Dumbarton Oaks announces a new contemporary art installation by sculptor Patrick

Dougherty. Dougherty's project for Dumbarton Oaks was created and installed in the Ellipse, one of the most

familiar features of the Dumbarton Oaks Gardens. Originally designed by landscape architect Beatrix Farrand during the 1920s and surrounded by a sprawling boxwood hedge, the Ellipse was transformed by architect Alden Hopkins in 1956 by the removal of the boxwood and the addition of a double row of pleached hornbeams. Dougherty, well known for sculptures of woven saplings, responded both to the monumentality and the static quality of the space by adding a series of what he describes as "running figures," or twisted architectural elements, that rise into the trees and pursue each other actively and gracefully around the Ellipse.

The sculpture was constructed in 21 days in September with a team of volunteers using a variety of saplings, chiefly maples. It evokes some of the oldest forms of building and garden design and is particularly evocative of the organic or rustic architecture that was a feature of 18th century garden arbors, pavilions, and furnishings, especially in England. The sculpture will be on view through the spring of 2011 during public hours.



 


Call of the Wild

Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA, 2002.
Photographer: Duncan Price.



Childhood Dreams

Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, Arizona, 2007.
Photographer: Adam Rodriguez.

Crossing Over

American Craft Museum, New York, New York, 1996.
Photographer: Dennis Cowley.



Ain't Misbehavin'

Winthrop College, Rock Hill, SC, 2010.
Photographer: Zan Maddox.



Easy Does It

Hollywood Art & Culture Center, Hollywood, Florida, 1998.
Photographer: John Lawrence.



Nine Lives

Franklin Park Conservatory, Columbus, Ohio, 2006.
Photographer: Greg Sailor.




Na Hale 'o waiawi

(Roughly translated from the Hawaiian language to mean: Wild Dwellings Built from Strawberry Guava).
The Contemporary Art Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2003.
Photographer: Paul Kodama.



Trailheads

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, 2005.
Photograph: Courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of Art.

Uff-Da Palace

Minnesota Landscape Arboretum of the University of Minnesota, Chaska, MN, 2010.
Photographer: Todd Mulvihill.

For more information check click on this link:

http://www.stickwork.net/news.php

Why does everyone hate modern architecture?

TFIG

Modern Architect David Chipperfield wants to know...

Turns out that he thinks it’s because the "low quality dialogue in matters architectural and urban”.  He goes on to show a beautiful old building re-purposed as a museum with an extensive design process and a very involved public. The Neues Museum by David Chipperfield Architects.



Do you hate Modern Architecture or just the insidious influence it has had? Is it just that more public scrutiny would result in a better build environment? Is it that more money spent equals better results? or just that museums are better than office buildings and the invisible hand of the market dictates?


thank you Gretchen Pfaehler for today suggestion..