Everything Must Go

Specht Harpman created a series of full-scale fabrications for its show of architectural work in the Mebane Gallery at the University of Texas at Austin. Coca Cola crates, Dell styrofoam packaging and Starbucks coffee carriers lined the gallery space, while intricately crafted scale models were featured on a linear sculpted pedestal in the center of the space. Specht Harpman Leisure Industries also featured two of its projects, the Coney Island Psychoplex and the Megamodel.

Check it out on Behance!

Spotlight: GDNYU

See GDNYU in motion as our founders, Louise Harpman, Peder Anker, and Mitchell Joachim, discuss our traveling exhibition and highlight some of its innovative projects.

Spotlight: Terreform ONE - "Governors Hook Urbaneering"

Urbaneering is a new profession that can re-invent and negotiate the complex mix that encompasses the next city.

Terreform ONE: "Whose job is it to create a city? Our intention is to jumpstart a new profession that can re-invent and negotiate the complex mix that encompasses a city. We have defined a radical new occupation to regenerate, pioneer, and sustain the future urban realm. These innovative multi-disciplinarian advocates are called Urbaneers. Their immense task is to manifest and facilitate the City 2.0 across the globe."

"Each Urbaneer is an individual with a different set of versatile abilities that merge previously disparate occupations. They range from combined ecological architects and engineers to action based urban planners and developers. Almost any recombined professional activities will work, so long as they meet the constantly changing needs of urbanization. Urbaneers perform in a role akin to Jane Jacobs, but at the magnitude and accomplishment of Robert Moses. An excellent historical example of an Urbaneer is Frederick Law Olmstead. For years, we have shaped a school called ONE Lab that has expanded on this very notion. ONE Lab instructs in the art of Urbaneering to people seeking to augment their sensibilities and operate within cities. We wish to further develop an Urbaneer curriculum at ONE Lab."

Urbaneering Project Page | Terreform ONE

Spotlight: Studio Weave - "The Longest Bench"

The longest bench in Britain was opened to the the public in Littlehampton, West Sussex on the 30th July 2010. The bench seats over 300 people along Littlehampton’s promenade, overlooking the town’s award-winning Blue Flag beach.

This project began as an idea to create a very long bench down the spine of the promenade at Littlehampton, potentially the longest bench in the UK or perhaps eventually the world. The structure sinuously travels along the promenade, meandering around lampposts, bending behind bins, and ducking down into the ground to allow access between the beach and the Green.

Like a seaside boardwalk the Longest Bench rests gently on its habitat and adapts to its surroundings while like a charm bracelet it connects and defines the promenade as a whole, underlining it as a collection of special places that can be added to throughout its lifetime.

The Longest Bench Project Page | Studio Weave

Spotlight: Specht Harpman - "zeroHouse"

zeroHouse is completely self-sufficient and incredibly comfortable.

The zeroHouse is a small, prefabricated house that can easily be shipped and quickly erected. It features a full kitchen, bath, and all elements necessary to comfortably support four adults. What sets the zeroHouse apart from other prefabricated structures on the market, however, is its ability to operate independently, without the need for any external utility or waste disposal connections.

The zeroHouse can be used in many applications, including residential uses in remote or ecologically sensitive locations, as ecotourism resort units, or as living or office modules for remote employment such as mining, construction, or relief agency uses.

zeroHouse generates its own electrical power.

High-efficiency solar panels produce power and store it in an onboard bank of batteries. Fully charged, zeroHouse can operate continuously for up to one week with no sunlight at all.

zeroHouse collects its own water.

A rainwater collection plane gathers and diverts water into an elevated 2700 gallon cistern. All plumbing fixtures are gravity-fed, eliminating the need for power-consuming pumps.

zeroHouse processes its own waste products.

All organic waste is processed in a digester unit located beneath the house. It converts the waste into clean, dry compost that needs to be removed only twice a year.

zeroHouse is completely automatic.

All functions of the house are monitored by an array of sensors and regulated by a “house brain” that can be controlled through any laptop computer. zeroHouse is fully customizable for personal usage patterns, from the weekend getaway to extended-stay living.

zeroHouse Project Page | Specht Harpman

Spotlight: SLA - "The City Dune"

Copenhagen, Denmark

The harbor front of Copenhagen has through the years been widely criticized for being the site of low quality office buildings, introvert shopping malls, bad infrastructure, and few, if any, public spaces worth using.

Here, above an underground car park on the corner of two traffic-heavy streets, the Swedish SEB Bank chose to erect its Scandinavian headquarters. SLA got the assignment to create an urban space that could tie the new headquarter together with the surrounding area, the harbor, and the rest of Copenhagen. An open space in front of a bank does not necessarily need to be anonymous, grey, and void of people. On the contrary, SLA designed the area as a green and welcoming ‘open foyer’ for the public and employees of the bank alike.

The result is a sustainable and fully accessible urban space covering an area of 7.300 m2. Like a giant dune of sand or snow it slips in between the buildings, thereby creating a spatial coherence in the design. Simultaneously, the urban space, elevated 7 meters above the surroundings, ensures the mobility of pedestrians and cyclists, leading from SEB and the harbor past The Danish National Archives and on to the Tivoli Congress Center.

The City Dune Project Page | SLA

Spotlight: Serie - "London BMW Group Pavilion"

The British have a particular fondness for the Victorian bandstand. Not much more than a lightweight roof supported on slender columns the idea of the bandstand is to get close to nature by stripping back the architecture to a minimum. There is no role for exotic form and shape-making: the architecture's beauty comes not from itself but rather from its open attitude to its natural surroundings.

With the Victorian bandstand as a point of departure, the BMW Group Pavilion seeks a similar relationship to its setting. In practice, this has involved addressing questions of spectacle and presence, of the relationship to BMW's product and service offering, and of sustainability.

One of the pavilion's functions is to display BMW's new fleet of electric and hybrid vehicles. These vehicles use carbon fibre bodywork with fluid soft curves. The geometry of the pavilion roofs manifests a similar calm and rationale attitude to geometry through the use of off-phase sinusoidal curves set out in symmetrical arrangement. The dynamism of this form is a function of the immediate associations: wave forms, fluid dynamics, air flow all incorporate similar patterns. What is important here is that this form is an abstraction of these associations. The geometry does not imitate or in any sense look like something else: it is therefore best understood as the idea of fluidity.

London BMW Group Pavilion Project Page | Serie

Spotlight: Raumlabor Berlin - "Die Grosse Weltausstellung 2012"

Raumlabor Berlin have created a counter proposal to the format of the “Expo.” Titled The World is Not Fair – The Great World’s Fair 2012, a tour with 15 pavilions set up June 1 - 24 for exploration on the grounds of the former airport in Tempelhof, Berlin.

These pavilions are not to be understood as state agents for national branding, but instead as places of highly subjective artistic and political reflection. Beyond the boundaries of cultural disciplines, architects, theater artists, performers, and visual artists seek to examine ideas, systems, and phenomena by which even the most outlying cultures are now globally connected with each other. The exhibit is not the world as it is or should be, but how we perceive, understand, and interpret it. Can it still be represented and negotiated as a totality at all?

The architecture of the 15 pavilions can be understood as a contribution to a discussion about managing resources sensibly. A third of the exhibition spaces involve reformations of structures that belonged to the existing facilities of the former airport field. Other structures were erected from modules that were used in the summer of 2011 at the festival "Survival" at the House of World Cultures. Only three pavilions are new structures, and only to a limited degree.

Die Grosse Weltausstellung 2012 Project Page | Raumlabor Berlin

Spotlight: Rachel Armstrong - "Living Materials"

"Scientists need to work outside their own areas of expertise to make new technologies that are pertinent to the 21st century and to collaborate, both with other scientific disciplines and the arts and humanities."

- Rachel Armstrong

Rachel Armstrong innovates and designs sustainable solutions for the built and natural environment using advanced new technologies such as, Synthetic Biology – the rational engineering of living systems - and smart chemistry. Her research prompts a reevaluation of how we think about our homes and cities and raises questions about sustainable development of the built environment. She creates open innovation platforms for academia and industry to address environmental challenges such as carbon capture & recycling, smart ‘living’ materials and sustainable design.

Her award winning research underpins her bold approach to the way that she challenges perceptions, presumptions and established principles related to scientific concepts and the building blocks of life and society. She embodies and promotes new transferrable ways of thinking ‘outside of the box’ and enables others to also develop innovative environmental solutions. Her innovative approaches are outlined in her forthcoming TED Book on Living Architecture.

Rachel Armstrong on TED

Spotlight: Ordinary [Magnus Larsson & Alex Kaiser] - "Dune"

"A vast 3D printer made of bacteria crawls undetectably through the deserts of the world, printing new landscapes into existence over the course of 10,000 years..."

- Geoff Manaugh/BLDGBLOG

A 6,000km long stretch of solidified sand dunes is proposed, which will architecturally support the Green Wall Sahara initiative: 24 African countries coming together to plant a shelterbelt of trees right across the continent, from Mauritania in the west to Djibouti in the east, in order to mitigate against the encroaching desert. Sand is solidified into a habitable structure that protects from sand; a permacultural anti-desertification network made from the desert itself.

A particular microorganism, Bacillus Pasteurii, is flushed through the dunescape (an analogy could be made to an oversized 3D printer), which causes a biological reaction that turns the sand into solid sandstone. The initial reactions finish within 24 hours; it would take about a week to saturate the sand enough to make the structure habitable. The bacteria are non-patogenic and die in the process of solidifying the sand. This part of the project relies upon research carried out by professor Jason De Jong's team at the Soil Interactions Laboratory, UC Davis, as well as conversations with professor Stefano Ciurli at the University of Bologna.

Dune Project Page | Ordinary [Magnus Larsson & Alex Kaiser]

Spotlight: NEA Studio - "Latitude Lamps"

Living Lamp 1 is the first prototype in the Living Lamp Series. It is an art/solar lamp made in Brooklyn NY from local recycled corten steel. By adjusting the tilt of the solar panel, the lamp can be fabricated in any geographic location, applied indoors or outdoors, assembled in various ways into screens, or blown up to inhabitable scale. The aim of the project is to explore the perception of sunlight filtered through solar cells.

Latitude Lamp 1, is the first working prototype in a series called Latitude Lamps. Two interlocking cubes forms the basic design module. A solar lamp consists of one module. Many modules can be assembled in a variety of ways into screens of different types.

Living Lamp 1 is designed around the material characteristics required by the specified amorphous thin-film solar panel as a starting point. The lamp is dimensioned to frame the solar panel (15x15cm) and accompanying batteries, wires and LED lights.

Latitude Lamps Project Page | NEA Studio

Spotlight: MMW - "Fhiltex-x"

Location: where ever wanted

Fhiltex is a simple and functional house which can adapt to any terrain. Two 20` and 40` standard steel containers, are transformed into a 62m² house lifted above the ground on four steel legs. The house contains everything needed for a modern life: bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, living room and wardrobe. It is self-sufficient in terms of energy by use of gas and solar panels, as well as having a water recycling mechanism.

A 16m² roof terrace, 3 balconies and a 21m² roof rack gives a 360 degree view and sun throughout the day. This can also be used for storing equipment such as water tanks and gas containers. The house is wrapped in an insulating cloak. All parts can be dismounted, transported as two containers and re – erected at a new location. When closed the Fhiltex appears as any ordinary steel containers, and may be shipped by boat, train or car anywhere in the world. The only attachment to the ground is four plain foundations for the columns. The stairs are hinged to adapt to any type of terrain.

Fhiltex-x Project Page | MMW

Spotlight: OSA_Office of Subversive Architecture - "The Accumulator"

The Leeds International Swimming Pool Project

OSA's proposal focuses on the building as a landmark in the city and its former use as a public space. The installation work transforms the former swimming pool into a virtual water collector and raises questions about resources and sustainability based on current discussions on climate change. However, at the same time it symbolises an emotional charge of an important public space in the city.

Conversions in the city are often necessary to react to changes in the society and technical standards. Leeds International Swimming Pool, which was constructed in 1965-67, exhibits all the ‘swank’ and ‘jauntiness’ of the swinging sixties. This is also reflected in the shape of the funnel which has the virtual function to create a gateway to discussions about standards for modern buildings. Now that the building is deemed not to be energy efficient and would need extensive repair the decision has been made to demolish the building.

Alongside the formal and technical qualities of a building there is always an emotional connection between the space and the users due to personal experiences and memories. This so called emotional charge of a space has been particularly revealed by the fact that the pool will be demolished. The funnel symbolises this and allows the former users to exchange their experiences and say good bye to the building. This public pool now becomes not only a virtual water collector but also a big emotional accumulator in the city for the next 4 weeks.

The Accumulator Project Page | OSA

Let's Talk about Design!

NYU leaders and professors welcome GDNYU London 2012 participants and attendees

Gary Slapper, head of NYU in London, welcome talk

Lisa Goldfarb, Associate Dean of NYU Gallatin, welcome talk 

Louise Harpman

Mitchell Joachim

Peder Anker

View more photos from the event here!

Spotlight: New Territories - "The Building Which Never Dies"

Austria + France, Les Andelys

A nocturnal observatory pivoting on itself, this research laboratory is intended to analyze human beings’ physiological and ocular adaptation to the dark, in order to be able to reduce urban light pollution. This lab is aimed at the moon when it’s above the horizon, to take advantage of the one-lux minimum moonlight and even amplify it. At night this lab restores the light intensity of daytime by discharging UV sensor units located on all the exterior surfaces. Their phosphorescent components (uranium oxide pigment) thus report on solar activity and its degree of dangerousness, and variations of intensity according to the areas affected by direct sunlight.

The Building Which Never Dies Project Page | New Territories

View the London 2012 Photo Gallery!

Click here to view more photos from GDNYU LONDON 2012!

Spotlight: Mi5 - "Rivas Youth Center"

Rivas Vaciamadrid, Madrid

From the beginning, the project was conceived as the possibility of making the “underground” visible, a construction devised as a radical manifestation of Madrid’s outskirts youthful spirit in general, and of Rivas´ youth groups in particular. The project aspires to become an explicit “teen” communication vehicle by appropriating their language and their voices as the ingredients of the project. In this way, the project’s team embraces all Rivas’s youth groups by means of an open participation process, in which the future users of the centre, combined with technicians and politicians, will contribute their decisions, their concerns, their fantasies and their aesthetics to create a contemporary “social monument”.

The end result of this process is a public structure with a punk spirit, intensely burdened with content and articulated around programmatic centres conceived as activity explosions, which are erected as meeting and exchange points of the emerging communities.

Rivas Youth Center

GDNYU LONDON 2012 OPENS!

GDNYU London opens TODAY at 6:30 PM! Come to The Building Centre and witness these amazing designers and innovators: 

Aberrant, ACME, atmos, AWP, BIG, Biothing, BLOOM, Code: Architects / Eriksen + Skajaa, Creus and Carrasco, CUAC, David Kohn Architects, doxiadis+, Fantastic Norway, GroundLab, Haugen/Zohar, HHF, Jestico + Whiles, J. Mayer H., LAVA, Mi5, MMW, NEA Studio, New Territories, Ordinary [Magnus Larsson & Alex Kaiser], OSA_Office of Subversive Architecture, Rachel Armstrong, Raumlabor Berlin, Serie, SLA, Specht Harpman, Studio Weave, Terreform ONE, Topotek1

Check out our LONDON 2012 photo album!

Spotlight: LAVA - "Green Climate Fund"

Bonn, Germany

The Federal Republic of Germany’s bid to host the Secretariat of the Green Climate Fund [GCF] in Bonn includes LAVA’s design for the proposed headquarters.

LAVA’s concept is ‘an ecological model project’ and demonstrates LAVA’s motto: ‘green is the new black’.

The vision for international climate protection will be realised in the building design itself, with innovative solutions such as:
• Facades articulate according to building orientation
• Surfaces integrate various means of regenerative energy production
• Photo-voltaics and bioreactors demonstrate the application of the latest technologies
• Building responds to the site to maximize the experience of its natural qualities

With a design inspired by the beautiful setting in the Rhine valley, and with curvilinear forms, natural light wells, roof top gardens and a large sunken terrace for the restaurant, the three level structure will comply with the latest energy and building ecology standards, meeting the highest demands in terms of sustainability (German gold certificate), ecology and energy efficiency (net zero energy).

Green Climate Fund | LAVA