Melissa Hope Matlins

Its hard to get the media’s attention these days. They are pretty crisis focused. Especially when it comes to architectural stories. If you live in New York City you would think that all architects, engineers and construction crews are hopelessly inept and that our buildings collapse dramatically all the time, most of them before they are even completed. Sometimes you have to do something a little sensational to garner media attention or raise awareness of change for the good.

The Pink Project is a bold first move by Brad Pitt’s Make It Right foundation. Leave it to a media superstar to create some seriously attention getting architecture. Pink fabric houses - supported by aluminum frames and dramatically lit by PV-powered florescent tubes, dot the otherwise abandoned landscape of the industrial canal in the lower 9th ward. They are symbols of the 150 real homes to be built by the foundation in this community. Flashy move for the media? Sure. But they are a much more potent symbol of hope for forgotten New Orleans then the FEMA trailers.

Image via: Make It Right, photo courtesy of Mavis Yorks

Great photos of the new Digital Water Pavillion, courtesy of the deep thinkers over at MIT’s Design Laboratory. It works like a giant inkjet printer, and each “showerhead” is computer controlled, allowing the wall of water to morph into shapes or even letters. Equipped with sensors, the wall can also detect people approaching and part the water to allow entry into the building. Biblical.

Image via: Digital Water Pavillion

Last fall, shortly after hearing that the famed art/performance venue Galapagos would be closing, Dan and I put together a mock “proposal” for their site as part of the Riviera Real Estate exhibit at the Riviera Gallery. The exhibit pretty convincingly transformed the Gallery space into a real estate office, with agents, keys on the wall and imaginative listings in the window and on their website. And thus The Darwin was born, a new, luxury condominium atop the former Galapagos building, where “only the strong shall thrive.”

The building features a “reclaimed” Uraguayan rainforest in the lobby, in-loft waterfalls, a rooftop zoo, solar concentrators for tanning, and my personal favorite amenity, an in-pool shark tank so you can “swim with the sharks.”

It was a lighthearted way to raise issues about green living, buildings as status symbols, and rampant luxury development, especially in this part of town. I was reminded of our little tongue-in-cheek project when I read on Gothamist that a new performance venue will be moving into the former Galapagos space, and will be called Natural Selection. I’m kind of glad no one took our condo idea seriously. I thought it had a lot of potential.

As a side note, there is a lovely bar, Oulu, with a greenwall facade in Williamsburg now.

The world should have known that the spawn of Jef Raskin, the “father” of the Macintosh computer, would one day revolutionize a genre of his own - office furniture. Enter the Bloxe, interlocking pieces of cardboard that click together like a life-size lego set to form walls, benches and tables. Aside from its green credentials (far superior to the toxic particle board that most office furniture is made of), the air spaces within the Bloxes help to dampen sound, so you won’t ever have to hear your cubicle mate fighting with her fiancee again! Plus the assemble process looks like a bit of fun if you are mechanically inclined.

Via: Green Tech Blog

After lagging behind almost every other major design industry trade organization, the American Institute of Architects has finally announced their own comprehensive sustainability initiative, “Walk the Walk.” While I like the idea of encouraging architects to “Walk the Walk” instead of talking the talk so much (as all you architects out there know we do too often), I think that the tag line “Architects Leading the Sustainable Evolution” is straight up revisionist history. Climatologists, physicists, engineers, industrial designers, and even interior designers led this charge. Us architects are just bringing up the rear, despite the fact that our buildings account for almost 50% of harmful emissions globally.

Much of the information found on their new site is aggregated from diverse sources, including the USGBC and AIA’s own Committee on the Environment (COTE), arguably far better clearing houses for green building information. I was hoping that there would be more resources here that address the number one objection to building green - the cost. While a hard number or percentage is difficult to come by, even for one specific green building project, a benchmark for building types, perhaps based on a large and comprehensive survey, is sorely needed. Colloquial knowledge suggests that the markup for a LEED building at the certified, or even silver level, could be zero. I would love to have data on hand to back this up, as would most architects when faced with this question from potential clients almost daily. AIA where are you? Leave the ambitious emissions targets to the engineers for a moment and lets get some more clients invested in the green buildings process to begin with.

Visit the AIA website for more information.

FEMA claims that the temporary trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina victims cost only $14,000. Independent investigations by the GAO show that the real cost is more like $229,000 when you factor in transportation, on-site construction and maintenance. To this already staggering number we can now add another hidden cost - health problems caused by formaldehyde off-gassing of the trailer materials. A new congressional report points the finger at FEMA for downplaying reports of formaldehyde exposure. FEMA claims that their tests concluded that air quality inside the trailers was safe “as long as things were properly ventilated.”

Maybe a better architect, or a FEMA architect, could tell me exactly how you are supposed to ventilate an outsized tin can with four tiny window openings inside four tiny rooms in a humid climate like Louisiana. Sustainably-designed buildings often undergo a “flush-out” period of several weeks to optimize air quality. They are also designed to ventilate naturally, and feature nifty things like fully operable windows, on two adjacent walls even! And porches for shade. A lot of people think that green building is a luxury that only the rich can afford, or that disaster housing cannot be decent housing. A quick review of Rural Studio’s work on the “20K house,” and Shigeru Ban’s cardboard-tube disaster housing illustrates that this is patently untrue. In times of need, architecture can become a redemptive, and sometimes even inspirational force.

Via: The Daily Green and MSNBC

Have you ever noticed an out-sized evergreen tree in your neighborhood that appears to be sprouting antennae? I think we all know that most evergreens don’t grow to be 131 feet - the height necessary to transmit a cell phone signal. Fake evergreens like this one are literal lightening rods for aesthetic and environmental criticism. Ericsson, along with designer Thomas Sandell, have designed a lean, green answer to these great pretenders - The Tower Tube.

Modular concrete construction is used (instead of conventional lattice or tubular steel construction) reducing environmental impact by 40 percent due to material, transportation and energy efficiencies. Natural air convection creates a chimney effect, cooling the interior. All equipment is housed within the slender 16 foot wide structure, eliminating the need for a equipment shed at the base, or an unsightly security fence. It looks like it is time for the cell phone tower to come out of hiding.

Via: Metropolis Magazine and Ericsson

Baby its cold outside, and in case you were wondering how to build an igloo, your friends at Architectureweek have you covered. With a pole, saw, shovel and a little luck, the step by step instructions will have you warm and toasty in no time, and you will even learn some basic principles of physics and sustainable construction in the process. However unless you are in Alaska, Canada or a more exotic locale in the high northern latitudes, you may be out of luck. Suitable dense-packed, dry snow has yet to make its seasonal appearance in my hometown of New York City.

Via: Architectureweek, image by Amelia Bauer

The developers of Dubai World have announced their ambitions to meet sustainability goals for all new construction. Initial requirements will be based on the USGBC LEED rating system. The Dubai World master plan un-ironically includes a fanciful cluster of private islands off of the coast that mimic earth’s land masses. The price for your own private island? Starting at $10 million.

The construction of the islands is expected to finish this year. While moving over 326 million cubic meters of sand is an impressive undertaking, it doesn’t seem particularly green. This looks a lot like dredging to me. There must be some truth to the statement from developers of the World Islands that this feat “will not be repeated again.” New environmental regulations will ban building activities “within 50 feet of the sea.”

Via: BDC, construction photos via: Private Islands Online

Art loves Miami. Art loves Music. Art loves design. But mostly Art loves New York. There were a great number of these endearing tag lines meant to categorize a plethora of events in and around the Art Basel fair this year. The one thing that everyone seemed to have in common though, was New York. “Where are you from?” meant what borough. When you see your New York City neighbors under the umbrella nearby, you get the funny feeling that you are being followed.

Can you really blame them? If I told you that Art Basel Miami was just like a fun weekend in New York City, but with more art and less clothes, wouldn’t you want to go? There is so much partying going on that the seriousness of the enterprise tends to get overlooked. Which is why it was refreshing to see a few brave designers convey a shred or two of meaning.

One of my favorite works, unsurprisingly, was an architectural one. Shigeru Ban, best know for his cardboard tube architecture and laudable disaster relief housing, designed an elegant pavilion for Artek. Constructed entirely from recycled plastic beams, it was one of the few things at the fair with a sustainable agenda.

As Art Basel is mostly about looking, check out my slideshow for more images (and commentary.)