Kayla Quinn: looking out week 2

Different artists from all over the world have been spending years of there life building creative structures, objects, landscapes, buildings, and physical replicas out of something as simple as matchsticks. This phenomenon is captured in these four masterpieces. Patrick Acton must love harry potter because it took him 600,000 matchsticks to recreate Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry.

It took Michael Williams 10 year and 1.6 million matchsticks to replicate the London's Tower Bridge.

 Ron Savory is a retired cabinet maker who recreated the Taj M
ahal out of 10,000 wooden match-sticks.

Michael Arndt took six years, 956,000 match-sticks, and 1686 tubes of glue to build a full-scale replica of McLaren 4/14 F1 car. 

Looking Out | Week 2 | Noopur Suckhlecha

A tiny little wooden Bath House designed by Norwegian design-build firm Massiv Lust AS in Olso, Norwa. It is a completely pre-fabricated house made of Kebony wood.It uses Kebony wood planks to give it a curvy exterior and a contemporary look. The way it fades itself into the forest because of its earthen texture is pretty cool.

Gary Li: Looking Out Week 2

Hmmmm... This project looks familiar except it isn't our civic center. The basis of this design was to incorporate a skin that increased shade as well as define the interior. The architect for this project utilized shipping pallets as a way of creating this undulating skin. Not only did it serve the purposes the building needed but it also pays homage to ecological design and reusing materials to create something better (ie. that CNC project from last semester)...wow wasn't that a long time ago.

Looking Out: Week 2

The Tree of Knowledge Memorial in Australia is probably the coolest honoring of wood that I have seen. It has an other worldly effect while still being simple. It is comprised of many wooden dowels cut at various lengths, yet it is feels complex. Its awesome.

Danielle Lehmann: Looking Out Week 2

This small escape was featured in the article, Wooden Tree House Design Ideas in Columbia (Columbia = British Columbia). This is a small get away up in the trees with a hexagonal bubble shape which designer Joe Allen calls the "Hemloft Weekend Cabin" in his favorite place in the woods. Although I enjoying working with word I have always been frustrated by it as well (especially looking at all of these posts), but I am at heart a true tree hugger and I hate to see tree being cut down for projects when other materials could be used. On the other hand it is a renewable resource and is a wonderfully inspiring material to work with. That is why I chose this tree house this week. It's a bubble where one is surrounded by soft and treated wood materials (that are arranged for the most functional shelving and circulation), but at the core of the space, there is the tree - the strong, the mighty, the essence of what forms the structure of many homes on the ground. It's a rare experience to know the tree from that height and with a relative feeling of safety. Here, one can be surrounded by trees and the product of them in a beautiful mix.

Liz Dolinar: Looking Out Week 2

This is a project in Kumamoto, Japan, by Sou Fujimoto Architects. It is a structure made entirely from heavy timber and blurs the lines between ceiling, walls, furniture, and floors. It is a multipurpose structure that has really interesting spatial qualities, especially in different size spaces created by the nooks and ledges.

Carolina Tamayo| Looking Out Week2

The Winged House is a private residential home located in Singapore that was designed by K2LD Architects in 2012. The site has a unique triangular shape and so the architects decided to use two trapezium shaped roofs to emphasize it.  These two roofs also help frame the view of an open, tropical courtyard on the back of the house.








What is most interesting about the roofs is the designers' choice of materiality. A lightweight timber was used to represent lightness and flight. Some darker accent pieces were also added to match the dark trunks of the surrounding trees and greenery.  Like it states in the archdaily article:

 "The Winged House, in its formal expressions and material language, results in an abode that sits snugly in its context in a quiet ‘winged’ embrace of the site and dwelling within."

    

Mark Terra-Salomão | Looking Out Week 2

For Looking Out Week 2, I decided to take a look at Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira. This cultural cousin of mine collects scraps and strips of junky plywood from construction sites in São Paulo, Brazil, and using some process I imagine is one part talent, one part wood glue, and one part black magic, melds them into sinuous sculptures. That's what many people - including me - find most fascinating about his work: he takes what we usually think of as a fairly two-dimensional planar material and through additive construction transforms it into a complex three-dimensional solid.

Here are just a few examples:

The guy's been doing this type of sculpture since at least 2003 and it is stunning. You should take a look at his website. The pictures I posted above are from Treehugger.com and, while crazy wonderful, do not capture the full extent of his work as shown on his website: Henrique Oliveira's Official Website.

Daniel Ha: Looking Out Week 2

Hotel Liesma in Jurmala, Latvia
Architects: Jevgenijs Busins and Liva Banka

     The theme/inspiration of this work was music. The wavy form of this project is eye catching, especially the round "eye" in front. The concept of having music as a driving force in and around the building definitely caught my attention. It not only used music to generate the form, but it is also used inside "to loosen up the visitors and make them feel free" 

Quresh Tyebji: Looking Out Week 2

Chilean architect Jose Cruz Ovalle won the Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award for designing the Pérez Cruz Winery in Maipo Alto. The building is made of laminated wood that curves beautifully and smoothly, creating wooden arches and pillars (for support purposes as well). The design is made to “harmonize the structure with nature” as wind passes through the curved wood supports. The wood is used in sensitive ways, and he forces light to enter in certain ways through the angles and curves made from the wood.

Candace Ju | Looking Out Week 2

I really like this project not just for its simple construction of a natural material and keeping it to is honest and natural form, but mostly for its purpose. These little shelters are actually homes for refugee orphans on the border between Thailand and Burma, in Myanmar. It offers both private and communal spaces, collects rainwater for use, allows for natural ventilation, and is lifted off the ground to protect from flooding. To me this project is very forward thinking not only in its economical use of material, but also what it offers to not just the rich and wealthy members of society, but those less fortunate.This project is by TYIN tegnestue.

Shannon Earnest: Looking Out 2-School Bridge

The School Bridge by Xiaodong Li located in Pinghe, Fujian, China is not only used as a simple bridge to cross the creek but also has a spiritual space within. Symbolically connecting the past with the current future the past a stage and the future a playground for the children. Even though the bridge introduces new materials to the site, it also fits in with the existing structures in the surrounding area.