JUNE 2ND, 2010
By BUILD LLC
It happens in all cities; bizarre little situations where the circumstances allow for something strangely beautiful to happen. Maybe it’s a blind spot in the control of our built-environment, maybe it’s someone applying their creative vision to an abandoned pocket of the urban realm, or maybe it’s the overlapping of disparate intentions. Whatever the case, we love the freak accidents that occur between the cracks of planning and design. Today’s post calls out a couple of our favorites in Seattle. Hit that comments button and share your favorites where you live.
The Wells Fargo Bank at the corner of NE 45th and University Way in Seattle’s U-District re-appropriates the previous grand entry with the modern day interface of banking; the cash machine. Flanked by corinthian columns and it’s own marble clock, this must be the most architecturally celebrated ATM machine in town.
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APRIL 15TH, 2010
By BUILD LLC
Sometimes the most interesting design work on a project occurs after the architect has left the scene. When the punch list is complete, after the furniture has been placed, once the owners have had a chance to kick the tires on their new home.
We noticed this on our Park Modern project and it’s a good time to give a shout-out to some design ideas that are pleasing and synergistic to the building’s architecture. They’re also great modern design elements for your own home or project.
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FEBRUARY 26TH, 2010
By BUILD LLC
[Photo by BUILD LLC]
This time of year we like to escape the gloomy northwest and seek out the yellow rays of southern destinations. This time around we picked Miami for several reasons; the weather, the urban life, the design culture that’s been steadily growing, and Art Deco architecture. For today’s post we’re going to highlight some fantastic examples of Art Deco design and then we’re going to throw a bunch of BUILDblog opinion at it.
As designers of the current time, rooted in modern materials and methods, we were initially skeptical of the Art Deco philosophy. The design moves seemed flamboyant, the elevations overly glamorous. Such lavishness so easily leads to pure decoration and we’re rarely fans of fashion in architecture. However, this was a different place, another culture and the buildings represent a different time. Before making up our minds about Art Deco there was a due diligence required of us. So we photographed these structures in the bright daylight, we shot them in the glowing neon nights, we drank coffee under their sheltering awnings, we dined in their grand restaurants, we drank martinis on their terraces, we thoroughly kicked the tires on Art Deco. Our conclusion?
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FEBRUARY 12TH, 2010
By BUILD LLC
With structural engineering in our backgrounds, we’re crazy about bridges here at the BUILDblog. We’re also very lucky to have some incredible bridges right here in the neighborhood. The waterway connecting Lake Washington to the Puget Sound includes 7 bridges (8 if you include the walkway at the locks). For today’s post we’re going to cover the five bridges that are dynamic in nature. What fascinates us most about these operable bridges is that they are designed, both structurally and functionally, in two completely different positions – horizontally and vertically. The engineering has to be worked out in two distinct, and possibly conflicting, scenarios. Architecturally the structures change from a line on the horizon to a vertical mass the size of a small building. Imagine taking any piece of architecture, flipping it ninety degrees and having to reassess it all over again.
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FEBRUARY 1ST, 2010
By BUILD LLC
It was a frequently used phrase by one of our professors back in school. What he meant by it was this; as architects and designers we’ll always be liable for everything except aesthetics. City planners will evaluate a project’s zoning and height restrictions. Building officials will scrutinize the structural and life-safety design. Inspectors will analyze the electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems. Health inspectors will scour over the food service requirements. From the sidewalk curb down to the energy efficiency of each and every window, there are codes to meet and agencies to satisfy. As a professional, you can be held liable for a daunting number of issues. How the building looks, however, is not one of them.
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OCTOBER 16TH, 2009
By BUILD LLC
Real cities have industry. Real cities have grit. Real cities have places where steel gets machined, where cabinets get built, where cars and boats get fixed, where work gets done.
Gentrification can be great, unless it sweeps clean the breadth of a city, purging out the factories, lumber yards, steel shops and institutions necessary for an authentic city to function and be true to the resources it requires.
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OCTOBER 9TH, 2009
By BUILD LLC
So there we were, going six hundred and fifty miles per hour at thirty thousand feet in the air on a recent flight when we nearly spilled our martinis all over ourselves. Turbulence you ask? Nope – it was our eyes making contact with some incredibly provocative photography. We had never before seen the work of JR, the anonymous and elusive Parisian photographer known for infiltrating dangerous slums around the world to install his large scale portraits. Perhaps it was simply the shock of finding something so piercing in an in-flight magazine. But the more we read and researched about the work, the more fascinating this bridge between architecture and photography became. Work of this magnitude doesn’t need us and our words getting in the way of it – so we’re going to keep our traps shut, show the work and leave you with one question: Why does this work make the built-environment a better place?
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SEPTEMBER 7TH, 2009
By BUILD LLC
[MARCO photo by leckan18]
We recently spent some time down in Monterrey Mexico, and although it’s the country’s third largest city, it seems relatively untraveled by foreigners. Monterrey is a big city of 4 million inhabitants and subsequently it’s full of significant built work. Most notable is the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo and the Hotel Camino Real, both designed by Ricardo Legorreta.
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AUGUST 21ST, 2009
By BUILD LLC
[Photo by doubleare]
We heard an interesting term on the radio the other day. There was a discussion about opera and that the audience for opera in London is superior because they are “Actively Silent”. The dialogue went on to explain that each and every person in the audience is also putting on a performance – one of silence. Apparently it’s so quiet that you can hear a pin drop at the London Opera. Because of this assembly of silence the, viewing of an opera in London is much more acute and highly refined. In fact, it’s supposed to be bloody incredible.
Being design geeks, we immediately thought about how this term would be applied to architecture. An element of design that is Actively Silent would have a function but would accomplish that function inconspicuously. It would be everything it needs to be and nothing more, it would be a modest worker.
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AUGUST 11TH, 2009
By BUILD LLC
Buildable land is increasingly difficult to come by in Seattle, at the same time population growth continues and the needs of our built environment continue to evolve and expand. It’s a great problem to have assuming that we solve it with maturity, intelligence and forward thinking. Like many cities in the U.S. right now, we’re at a critical moment in terms of how our current decisions will accommodate the future (or how they might not…)
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