2008 and What it means, to me.

I would first like to wish all a Very Happy New Year. I would think that along with this an applogy for the delay in blogging would be just apt. A month of exams sent my brains into a state of recession. But never mind all that. We have lots to look forward to this year and thats what I intend this post to be. A preview.

2008 brings a lots of varied and important events from US Presidential Elections in November, Beijing Summer Olympics in August and locally the opening of Bangalore's very own International Airport sometime in Mar/April. It is doubtless that after some interesting work in the Athens Olympics by Santiago Calatrava, which of the previous topics would most interest us. No Olympics would disappoint in the Architectural sense and definitely not if China is involved.

There are three important projects that I would like to look at,
The "Bird's Nest" - the National Stadium by Herzog and de Meuron;
The "Water Cube" - the National Aquatics Center by PTW + CCDI + Arup and
The "CCTV" building and its sister the "TVCC" building by Rem Koolhas's OMA - the most expensive building in the world.

Ok, lets face it, these buildings are definitely engineering marvels. China is looking to prove its Economic Prowess, and what better means to showcase it than in the Olympic Games. Which brings me to a slightly disturbing thought, "Do the Chinese really know what the Rem Koolhas and Herzog de Meuron are trying to achieve in the large canvas they have provided?" Probably not.

Brad Pitt Rebuilds New Orleans

Something few people know about Brad Pitt is that he is an ardent follower of Architecture. Though formally educated as a journalist, his interest has driven him as far as taking an informal internship at Frank Gehry's Los Angeles office.

But why is it that I talk about it now? It is because today he is involved in one of the most important reconstruction projects in the world, that of New Orleans, affected by the furious Hurricane Katrina in mid 2005.
In Dec. 2006, Pitt and a group of experts, explored the possibility of building green, affordable houses for the displaced residents.

A competition was organized, to develop ideas on rebuilding this community in a sustainable manner.
The result of this is the Make It Right (MIR) Project.
The goal of this project is to build 150 homes in the Lower 9th ward, which was one of the worst hit by the hurricane.
Brad Pitt commissioned 13 architectural firms, that includes the 2005 Pritzker Winner Thom Mayne's firm Morphosis, MVRDV and Shigeru Ban, to create a 1,200-square-foot house for about $150,000.
The MIR team created a set of guide lines for the designers such that important goals of the organisation were met.
The four main guiding principle for the designs were

• Safety
• Affordability
• Sustainability
• High design quality

Last week Brid Pitt made public the 13 architects designs. Some of the visually interesting designs were that of

Adjaye Architects  London, England



Concordia



Morphosis



Trahan



MVRDV
Wah?!! Is that before or after Katrina? I guess that was the idea.


One of the concerns that the residents raised was that many of the designs are on stilts. The stilts are provided for obvious reasons, but it also drives the cost of the building up by a lot, making it, lets say, not so affordable. But then hey, you dont get to rebuild a town everyday, make it good when you have the chance. "Make it RIght". So long as its done quickly.
Right now as I right this blog, 27 of the 150 houses have been sponsered for.

Comic of the Day: The arch.Maaik Network

The arch.Maaik Network