Here is a companion piece to the Prince Charles post of a couple of weeks ago (I hope it is clear by now that my Zaha comments were made with tongue embedded firmly in cheek…). Here, for your viewing pleasure (or displeasure perhaps?), is a very short clip propounding the virtues of Poundbury:

What do you make of it? Would you live there? Read the rest of this entry »

Amid all of the hooha surrounding our Supreme Court - symbols of power, propaganda, and hair loss - we should take time out to step back and really consider the dome issue in a more holistic way. You see, as this remarkable little film sets out, there really are supernatural consequences of building domes, which have no doubt been taken into account by the architects of our esteemed Supreme Court (who are obviously well up on their freemasonry)… The result being, of course, to hide the dome away in the interior so as not to expose bystanders to the energy drawn therein.

The energy will, of course, be invoked by the highest powers of judiciary in this country when passing judgment and handing down sentence, and will no doubt contribute to the building’s green star rating…

You may want to look away if notions of anti-christ, other dimensions, ley lines (must check Wellington’s position wrt this), or the new world order offend thine eyes…

m-d

Read the rest of this entry »

This is actually the first episode of 6 short stylishly noir Mister Glasses film clips (although for some reason episode 5 is missing). Never before has the relationship between love, sex, patricide, and Modernist architecture been so clearly expressed - it’s enough to make contemporary Modernist revivalism look hollow and superficial in comparison to the seriousness with which Mister Glasses and his team approach architecture and its meaning…

My favourite is the second episode - although ep. 6 is pretty good too, especially if you are looking for architectural pick-up lines to try out… If there is a moral in there somewhere, it seems the Modernist always ‘gets the girl’… (perhaps this explains the current revival?)…

Episode 2; episode 3, episode 4, episode 6.

Update: the ‘lost’ episode 5 was taken down by youtube, but is available here. That youtube felt compelled to remove it is quite ironic in the context of structural nudity honesty that the client initially rejected… However, the real question is, where can we get an engineer as blankly persuasive as Hard Hat…?

Smack the Pony, according to Wikipedia, was a British sketch comedy show that ran from 1999 until 2003 on Channel 4 (some of you out there might have seen them?). Weirdly, its title was intended to sound like a euphemism for female masturbation - something I won’t tag this post with in case it gets too popular amongst a demographic that we are just not seeking here…

Anyways - here’s an amusing sketch that reveals what really goes on in those design concept meetings. The expressions of a bemused Jo (the engineer) are classic…

m-d

More student studio madness - this time created by  5th year honours students in Architecture (WITS University) as a response to last week’s video… I hope this doesn’t bring back too many memories…

m-d

For those of us that remember our student days, or who still require the services of ‘X-Acto’ today, here’s a idea to help give that extra ‘bling’ to your design…

Here’s the link to the youtube page if the above video misbehaves…

It’s easy to see how the Harvard University Graduate School of Design gets such a prestigious reputation.

Note: I suspect that this is one tv show concept that won’t be picked up - not even by MTV

m-d