We’ve all scene the Martin Scorsese directed ‘Bad’ video by Michael Jackson and many pondered ‘where the hell did they shoot this video?” For those who still don’t know, that train station is the Hoyt-Schermerhorn stop in Downtown Brooklyn. Soon it will be become a Michael Jackson-theme subway stop celebrating the video shot 23 years ago. The NY Post reports this might include a full-size mural, lights and projection at night.
“We see this as a great opportunity to potentially establish Hoyt-Schermenrhorn’s role in American pop culture and as a tourist destination to attract people to a part of Downtown Brooklyn already rapidly growing,” said Joe Chan, president of the partnership
I’m not to keen on the latest developments of capitalism that are taking place in Ethiopia, from new banks to multiple story building suddenly blossoming out of the ground. In my eyes, Ethiopia is one of the holiest of holiest territories and ancient countries in all of Africa, with the trace of roots of the Ethiopian dynasty linking back to the 10th century BC. Not to far away is Dubai, where for the past several years has been massive amounts of construction for over the top luxury resorts to now end up in financial turmoil, I would hate to see the same happen to Ethiopia.
German firm Henn Architects has won the competition to design the new headquarters of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The proposal was designed by Henn Architektens Design & Research studio in Berlin, Hennstudiob.
The building will be the tallest building ever in Ethiopia, consisting of 42 storeys. The tower is accompanied by a conference center and a shopping mall , where they are clustered around a sunken landscaped plaza. The classical high-rise plinth dissolves into individual volumes to merge the scale of the surrounding district.
View more images of CBE Headquarters after the jump (more…)
Located in the heart of one of the wealthiest and historic neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York is the infamous “Clocktower” apartment complex. The complex stands as a triplex penthouse apartment with a price tag of $25 million.
The main floor has four working clocks housed in four 14-foot-high round windows, which provide nearly unobstructed views (except for the clock faces) out to the four points of the compass.
The 3,000-square-foot main floor has an open living room, dining room and kitchen with 16-foot-high ceilings. A glass-walled elevator and a three-story floating staircase at the center of the space lead to smaller floors that narrow toward the top of the tower. There are three bedrooms on the 2,300-square-foot second floor, and on the floor above that, a 988-square-foot open loft with a 15-foot ceiling. Finally, up a narrow staircase at the very top of the building is a tiny windswept crow’s nest.
The apartment was created by David Walentas, the creator of the Dumbo neighborhood, in an old industrial building built by a cardboard box manufacturer. Mr. Walentas renamed the factory the ClockTower Building and converted it first into offices for the New York State Labor Department, and then, in 1998, into 124 condominiums. (more…)
CSD Archtecten is a trio of creatives made up by; Britt Crepain, Stefan Spaens and Joep Debie. They designed this house that is located in the center of Antwerp, Belgium. Despite the confined space, the house eloquently contains four split level floors, a basement, ground floor, and a roof terrace. CSD Archtecten had to be extremely inventive to optimize the space of every room. For instance, behind the door in the library there’s a wash room. Take a tour of the interior after the jump! (more…)
First thing that comes to mind when looking at the images… skateboard ramps. If I was a avid skateboarder I would definitely want to live there. Luckily for Spanish architecture firm A-cero, I won’t be leaving skid marks all over their precious house. The sleeping and living zone are organizes into 2 blocks and connected by a covered veranda, while featuring curved volumes emerged from the ground. (more…)
Visiondivision’s Eden Falls is a proposal for the ‘Vertical Zoo’ competition organized by Arquitectum. The brief was to enhance the Constanera Sur Ecological Reserve in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is a natural space of artificial origins situated on a large area of land reclaimed from the river. They asked that a versatile structure at least 100 meters high that functions as a home for animals and administrative services associated to the zoo be designed for the area.
Visiondivision’s concept involves taking water from the river, cleaning it and pumping water through a system of huge pipes which acts as the zoo’s vertical structure. This water is constantly overflowing the pool on the roof which creates a waterfall on the entire façade concealing, the pipe structure and turns into energy at the basement level through the turbines and the main generator. The building’s self-generated waterfall also makes an air conditioning system redundant. (more…)
The Insidehouse & Outsidehouse designed by Takeshi Hosaka Architects is a private residence in Tokyo, Japan. The two-storey wooden structure consists of two independent units which complete the home. The house is constructed in a way which allows fluid movement from indoor to outdoor spaces, as well as between the two structures. The smaller structure is considered the ‘outdoorhouse’, while the ‘indoorhouse’ is the larger unit of the two.
The outsidehouse has a small study which opens up onto a roofless courtyard which can be accessed from the insidehouse via the open walkway which runs between the two buildings. Using a built-in ladder, one can climb to the outsidehouse’s second floor which consists of two open balconies.
Though the home isn’t physically connected, large glass windows and cutouts in the courtyard wall facing the insidehouse provide transparency within the home, allowing one to easily look from the insidehouse to the outsidehouse. (more…)
Vertical Village by Graft Architects is a residential, hotel and entertainment development that harnesses renewable energy from the sun. Organized to reduce solar gain and maximize solar production, the buildings are massed as self shading slabs at the north of the site on the east west axis to reduce low angle sun penetration. At the southern end of the site, a vast solar collector array optimally angles itself toward the sun and faces the main public strip as a potent gesture to the developments sustainable intent and minimum LEED gold rated performance. (more…)
Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, VISUAL ACOUSTICS celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman, who passed away this year, captured the work of nearly every major modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner, and Frank Gehry. His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California’s modernist movement and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. This unique film is both a testament to the evolution of modern architecture and a joyful portrait of the magnetic, whip-smart gentleman who chronicled it with his unforgettable images.
The house built from LEGO that was built earlier this month has now been demolished after a deal to sell it fell through. The LEGO house is the latest toy challenge by James May, a British television presenter, for his BBC series James May’s Toy Stories. Because the home didn’t have planning permission on its site, the builder were hoping to find a buyer to transport the house elsewhere. LEGOland theme park showed interest, but the high cost of transportation didn’t make it a good deal in their eyes. The 3.3 million LEGO bricks used to build the home will be donated to charity once the home is no more. (more…)
