Legal, Illegal or just iLegal_for the overtly rich

New York times link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/world/asia/29mumbai.html?ref=world

Balkanology exhibition in Romania

I am quoted in this newspaper text about a show in Romania, but I can't read Romanian. Anyone knows anyone Romanian? Thanks. Srdjan
link: http://www.newspad.ro/Fratii-de-haos-urbanistic-ai-Bucurestiului,349608.html

reference: vertical zoo

Buenos Aires Vertical Zoo Competition proposal / Hila Davidpur, Tal Gazit, Eli Gotman, Hofi Harar
http://www.archdaily.com/81828/buenos-aires-vertical-zoo-competition-proposal-hila-davidpur-tal-gazit-eli-gotman-hofi-harari/

world corruption index

this is a very interesting interactive map, showing the volume of corruption by countries. 

it would be great to combine this map with the GDP world map.

link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/interactive/2010/oct/26/corruption-index-2010-countries-world

Urban Errors

A project from Cooper Union, beautifully presented in axonometric views.

Kosovo_Balkanology

Hi all, I am quoted in this article as a seeker for the positive aspects of Balkanization. Very happy for it.
The link to the article is at: http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/content/view/full/44972

Reference: housing built half way for the residents to expand as they like_source MoMA New York

by Elemental, great architects from Chile.
take a look at the video posted at MoMA website: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/smallscalebigchange/projects/quinta_monroy_housing
and especially notice the simplicity of diagrams.
units before expansion:

and after expansion:

Reference: Lacaton & Vasal _ perimeter expansion of a modernist tower in Paris_source MoMA New York

Take a look at this project in Paris. An aging modernist residential tower was upgraded by surrounding it with a series of balconies. Take a look at the video here: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/smallscalebigchange/projects/transformation_of_tour_boise_le_pretre

images before:

and after

Made in Podgorica_Montenegro

Adam's board.

Made in Sarajevo_Bosnia

Augustin's board.

Made in Tirana_Albania_From Paint to Form

Emily's board.

Made in Belgrade_Serbia_Radical Preservation

Autumn's board.

Made in Skopje_Macedonia_A Mosque Converting into a Church

Miles' board.

Made in Novi Sad_Vojvodina_Serbia_The "Valley of Thieves"

Jim's board.

Made in Prishtina_Kosovo_Roof-top Urban Villas

Keith's board.

Made in Ljubljana_Slovenia_Squat at Rog BicycleFactory

Political School. Kumrovec, Croatia

Form Follows Law / Legal-Illegal house

check this house out in cologne germany, built by manuel herz, link here:
http://challenge.visualessence.nl/C2063922860/E1390031752/
and also under his portfolio: http://www.manuelherz.com/ under projects.

Instructive is also the use of the blurry legal conditions, in order to add the "illegal" piece on top of what essentially was a gate.

Here is the text description below by Manuel Herz:

ILLEGAL ARCHITECTURE

Legal / Illegal Architecture

...

Located on that main street, Goltsteinstraße, in the middle of the area

affected by that development plan is a site currently occupied by a storage

space and facing the street with a large entrance gate, considered

a historical landmark. Once the storage space is torn down, the site is

supposed to be developed. The investor who owns the site is a small-scale

real-estate developer who, having studied and worked for a few years

in the field mathematics, and is now building and selling appartments to

make a living, had previously acquired the site in a combinatory deal with

a different site close by. That other project, located just around the corner,

had already been processed, the building built and all appartments

been sold. The site on Goltsteinstraße though, proved to be far more difficult.

Having received a design proposal and a quote for the projected

cost from a large general contractor, he could easily calculate that with

the very average design proposal and the expected turnover through the

sales, a debit would generated, as the 250sqm flatspace multiplied with

the average saleprice would be below the construction cost plus property

value. In other words, the site was commercially not viable.

Only one possibility remained, as much as the investor was very critical

about it: Architecture. If the developer would, as he calculated, invest a

certain percentage of surplus in „interesting architecture“, he could possibly

receive a overproportional increase in the salesprice and therefore

finish off the project without a deficit. This decision, arising purely from

a cost-benefit calculation, without any emotional commitment, resulted in

the best prerequisite of the project. The second one being the fact that

the investor specifically said that he did not want to be an architect and

had no interest in acting like one. Therefore the tasks were devided and

the work could commence.

The Design

The 5.50m wide and 25m deep site, in combination with all norms, rules,

fire regulations, building laws, the municipal development plan and the

rules of „construction near landmark buildings“ result in a very clearly

defined and non-ambiguous volume. Form follows Law! This starting position

forms the first volume of the building: a transparent (as transparent as

the law, as Kafka once said) and orthogonal volume, that out of respect,

or for safety reasons, steps back from history by one meter, and thereby

reacts to the municipal building line set in the development plan. In the

back part of the site, as a full construction covering the whole site is obviously

not allowed according to the development plan, a stepping down

of the volume is created by terraces on each level. It is the proper volume

of the building, which is formulated according to all laws and binds itself

to the rules. The „legal“ volume.

The second volume of the building is formed through different measures.

It is the defiant volume. How many rules can be disregarded in a place

dominated and strangled by rules. First of all, the volume as a whole is

not allowed to exist at all, as its complete floor area exceeds the maximum

area permitted in the development plan. Hence, the volume in itself

is illegal. Being a non-orthogonal, free-formed body, it is mainly opaque

and traces a path from streetlevel through the gate, moving up the floors,

piercing through them, and facing with its main mass at the upper levels

back down upon the street, thereby realising a loop around that gate,

the historical monument. Its windows, goggle-eyed, look into the sky, onto

the terraces and down on the street. Every single surface of its faceted

volume throws a „shadow-area“ onto one of the neighboring sites, something

forbidden by german planning law, and in most cases the official

formulas for calculating their sizes cannot be applied onto the shape of

that volume. The fire-regulations are disregarded and the main mass of

the volume encroaches the street again, crossing the municipal building

line. Not a single exteriour wall is standing perpendicular upright and

the differentiation between wall, roof and floor, the main categories of

building elements in architecture, is disolved. It is covered with a bright

red polyurethan coating which allows for a “construction without details”

and forms a continuous skin over all surfaces of the building. Being disrespectful

to the german building code and the laws and regulations of

that site in particular, it is the „illegal“ volume. Both combined, they form

the building.

Architecture in Bayenthal

What does this architecture want in Bayenthal. The building is an expression

and reacts to the urban condition of that part of Cologne. Having

always been the toy of the real-estate investors and speculators, the building

introduces a foreign body into the urban fabric, which is very receptible

for that. The building moves right up to the limits of the site, or rather,

exceeds them, in its ratio of massing, in its measurements, in its complexity

and its materiality. It overloads or strains the site, and is in a certain way

ruthless to it. Maybe it is one of these architectural interventions which are

not in the interest of the suburb. Maybe it has a self-sufficiency. But in all

these examinations, it expresses the economic situation, the constellation

of laws and rules to form, and the sociocultural condition of the suburb

in a built form. As foreign as the building might seem in the context of

the area, as more it acts upon the history, the state of the urban fabric,

and attempts to formulate an enrichment out of this immediate context.

And attempts of course, as Bayenthal is used to, to view the context as

its capital.

Architect: Manuel Herz

Project Team: Emmanuelle Raoul, Sven Röttger

Site Supervision: Martin Schäfer

Structural Engineers: Ove Arup

Technical Services: Frank Rapita

Client: TURRIS Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG

Floor Area: approx. 400 sqm

Projectvolume: approx. 800.000,- €

completed in summer 2003

Housing for Informal City

Via Lindsay Bremner, here is the link to the Housing and the Informal City exhibition in partnership the Goethe-Institut, South Africa

The website is  www.housinginformalcity.co.za 

An inspiring hoax in Paris

This was a hoax for adapting the top of the Eiffel tower by Serero architects in Paris (for Mies).

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://design.socialblog.us/files/2008/05/design-blog-sociale-31-march-2008-tour-eiffel-extension-by-serero-architects-a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://design.socialblog.us/2008/04/01/the-eiffel-tower-victim-of-an-early-april%25E2%2580%2599s-fool/&usg=__nsEt1YSPpzTllDVyB343vCJPzm4=&h=702&w=468&sz=88&hl=en&start=0&sig2=ny8JDZi4580MbBK4xtiyGg&zoom=1&tbnid=7HDJ-3mKqFf1VM:&tbnh=151&tbnw=131&ei=7HezTMneNcGBlAfFvdTlDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dserero%2Beiffel%2Btower%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D721%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=367&vpy=172&dur=1080&hovh=275&hovw=183&tx=73&ty=129&oei=7HezTMneNcGBlAfFvdTlDw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=14&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0

L Building

This post is for Keith:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/15/19841206_a90afd8b7c_o.jpg&imgrefurl=http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php%3Ft%3D18370%26page%3D6&usg=__2gvfJRmUW8ebyjb7XQ0TicfXEro=&h=768&w=1024&sz=136&hl=en&start=121&sig2=mNzyLvXXaVaIQDNio5dlgQ&zoom=1&tbnid=VDwt1LNQ21QQ7M:&tbnh=116&tbnw=155&ei=KnezTLvbAoGB8gbD1Z2oCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dportzamparc%2Bhotel%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D721%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C3691&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=726&vpy=327&dur=112&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=182&ty=91&oei=FHezTK3LIsaLnAfrqaHCBQ&esq=7&page=7&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:14,s:121&biw=1024&bih=721

Bow Wow Atelier_Pet Architecture

this book is a good resource for bridging research of informal architecture and design.

http://www.archidose.org/books/bow-wow.html

Tirana, Albania

Modern Ruins

This has been floating around the internet for a while. Some great examples of beautiful, unneeded places.

The Balkans Project

The link contains some highly informational maps on refugees and mass graves from the Kosovo War, as well as historical maps of the Balkan regions. Comparative maps of demographics and minority/majority comparisons from before and after the war.

iLegal Timeline

Prishtina Tourist Map

Left; Tourist Map (2010)

Right; Development Map (1995)

Kosovo War occurred from 1998-1999. During the post-war period rapid development has occurred and sparked rapid private development throughout Pristina, Kosovo.

Mapping Stereotypes

This is a really stellar look at how certain countries stereotype the areas around them in Europe, including one on how Americans look at Europe. Completely off topic, but cool.

Another Article on Bosnia from the NY Times

Article from NY Times "Migrant ‘Walled Villages’ Ignite Debate"

ROG indoor Skate PARK!!!!

Rog