This private home called “Hidden House” designed by Polish KWK Promes takes “hidden” to a whole new level by even incorporating a trap door for entrance into the garage. This is like something I would’ve dreamt up at a much younger age…a grand view from a home no one knows exists.

The architect description says: “The house will be situated in Lower Silesia, in a post-german city, where the majority of buildings are steep roofed villas. Under ground there are thousands of kilometres of partly buried tunnels, which became the starting point of the design idea. The building integrates with its surroundings yet it does not refer to the visible structure, but the underground part of the city. The plot, where the house is designed slopes steeply to the south. The object’s structure has been hidden underground, what in turn has made it completely invisible from the driveway. A huge trapdoor covered with grass is the entrance to a building.”

“The driveway leads underneath the ground, to the living room, which is situated at the same level as a garden. The sleeping part has been situated in a lifted, 25 meters long centilever. It’s length results from arrangement of the bedrooms, which were supposed to be at the same side as the corridor, all with a view of the garden.”

But while this thought of a hidden house may seem as exciting as a fort made from blankets and the kitchen table to a kid, is something like a grass covered trap door realistic? Or is it taking “blending with the landscape” too far?

Another home design by KWK Promes is less futuristic looking and more like a modern take on a daylight basement but without the upper level, kind of similar to the Cooper Point House by architect Mickey Muenning in terms of trying to blend in with the landscape.

This house, called OUTrial House in Ksiazenice, Poland is based on the concept that instead of merely having an atrium that is like landscape carved out a of a house, the house is carved out of the landscape creating an atypical atrium style that is both a part of the interior and the exterior. The green roof remains a private space, like that of a trypical atrium, which is accessible only by way of stairs from the interior.

Text from the architect: “A green clearing surrounded by forest was the only context for the proposed small house. Hence the idea to ‘carve out’ a piece of the grass-covered site, move it up and treat it as the roofing to arrange all the required functions underneath.”

“When the whole was ready, the client came up with another request, to create some space for a small recording studio and a conservatory. The latter was obtained by linking the ground floor with the grassy roof through an “incision” in the green plane and ‘bending’ the incised fragment down, inside the building.”

Just like a daylight basement that, from one side of the home, provides the illusion that the house is only one level, the OUTrial house looks invisible from one side and like a typical one level, modern style house from the other.

images via KWK Promes, ArchDaily and Doornob

This creative ad from Brazilian advertising agency Ponto de Criação in São Paulo tries to put global warming into a perspective that people can better identify with. The message is “Global Warming: When you feel it, it’s already too late”. It does amazing job at getting the point across regarding the shrinking of habitat. Check it out.

I am in love with this building. I can imagine the space with it’s simple yet exquisite lines, grand ceiling arching up, filled with light and the sweet smell of pine all around. The arches remind me of the attic of Casa Milá in Barcelona where I spent a ridiculous amount of time examing the arches curving around like vertibrae, except this chapel appears far more dramatic with the daring height and sleek lines. However, despite the differnces the idea that binds these spaces is the same, to mimic the body of an animal which, in this case, happens to be a fish.

images via Ettubrute

Architect Matti Sanaksenaho of Sanaksenaho Architects was struck by inspiration while trying to grab hold of a fish that was flapping around in his boat during a fishing trip. The St. Henry’s Ecumenical Art Chapel built in 2005 in Turku, Finland is meant as a place of worship for all faiths, resembling that of a simple, old village church. It sits amidst evergreens on the island of Hirvensalo with the shape of the building following the gentle contours of the natural land on an east-west axis.

The entire exterior is made of copper and set in a way to imply that of fish scales. There no distinguishing roof from the rest of the building, it is but one body.

images via Design Finland

image via Ettubrute

Ridiculously uncomfortable looking benches aside, the interior space is exquisite. The 40 foot high ceiling creates a feeling of awe, something that one might expect to feel when walking inside of a house of faith but unlike most churches in the world, this one does it simply and without decoration. The inside is completely made of wood, from the floor to the ceiling and all furniture. The building uses pine, the furniture is of alder.

The building is lit primarily by the dramatic ring of windows at one end, opposite the entry behind the alter. The interplay of shadows and light is in constant flux as the sun moves through the sky. The journey one makes from the entry is that of moving out and away from the shadows and towards the light.

images via Ettubrute

Dalki Theme Park is an interesting place in South Korea built by Slade Architecture in the year 2000. The theme park is geared towards children and is based around a cartoon character, Dalki, who is a young girl who lives in a garden with her friends and posseses a wild imagination as well as a heightened sense of fashion. The characters were actually created to help market fashion products.

The building itself consists of primarily shopping but also areas for eating and playing as well as exhibits where children can play with the Dalki characters. According to the architects:

“Learned dichotomies (imaginary/ real, shopping / play, natural/ synthetic, site/ building, culture/ commerce) and scale differences create ”disbelief” and impede users from fully engaging the realization of this imaginary world. Borrowing literary strategies for ”suspension of disbelief”, our fluid organization of space and program blurs these dichotomies and eases users into the ’story’ of Dalki.”

“The building defines three zones vertically; scale-less artificial garden and sky at the ground level, flowing mixed program space on the main level, on the roof a garden and lounge extend the natural landscape, referring to four lush surrounding hills. Rather than abstracting from nature, the building is a synthetic hyper-representation of nature (meta-real): mimicking while questioning the nature of nature.”

images via Slade Architecture

In other words, most everything is fake and there are no lush gardens here. The only real landscape is seen of the hills beyond. In fact, the grounds look pretty barren and boring which make the characters, at least to me, look a little scary. And the so-called garden on the roof has got to be the saddest green roof I’ve seen. The pictures are just depressing.

If you look at the model image and compare it to the real pictures…they don’t exactly exhibit this lush, whimsical character. Unfortunately most things from the model that I would’ve thought to be vegetation are instead built and take on more of that cartoon look. And then check out a picture of some kids playing on the roof garden. This is just sad. The tree has been reduced to a colorful mount and the roof garden is splotches of grass, a few shrubs and a fenced area for people. Very sad.

imagse via pushbullbar

The building, architecturally, seems to posess to interesting spaces within but the spaces surrounding and on top of the building fall flat and are uninviting. For something that is supposed to portray the imaginary world of characters living in a garden, I think they could’ve done so much better.

Anna Garforth is an artist in London who has been working on a project which was inspired by guerilla gardening groups who aim to enrich dilapidated public spaces along with fellow British artist Andy Goldsworthy. Poet and friend of Garforth, Eleanor Stevens, wrote a poem which Garforth has decided to display one verse of in different parts of the city and at different times. And she has chosen to display them in moss.

The first verse reads “In this spore borne air,” This living, breathing graffiti acts as a healthy alternative to spray paints. Instead the moss is attached using organic materials and the hope is that the moss would eventually colonize and take over the whole wall.

According to the artist “spore borne air represents the winds of change, feeling of movement, setting seeds, moss spores in the air, moisture, potential”. The word borne is larger than the rest of the word, putting emphasis on that feeling of change and movement, both in awareness of environmental issues and in the shift in perspective given to the “transitional” area of east London where the art was placed.

images via abe

The second line says “watch your skin peel” which is not at all intended to sound morbid but rather as metamorphosis It is a “metaphor for consious change, the human body being in a constant state of flux, the casting aside of dead matter, and regeneration.”

“The quote can be seen as an invitation to watch your skin peel and consider our connection to the earth, how you can shape it, and also, how it shapes you.”

You think stuff like is not only cool but you actually want them. While landscape architecture is my first love, I’m a total graphic design geek on the side. And since I’ve been feeling was too serious lately, I feel the need to be a bit silly. I actually bought a shoulder bag in London that had a big A3 on it because I thought it was cool. You know, because Europe uses that size of paper and we don’t. See, it’s funny. Right.

The Pantone coin purse and messenger bags, made by two different companies by the way, remind me of my London bag.

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Although my all-time favorite bags are definitely the ones from Vy & Elle (play on words meaning Vinyl) that takes old billboard ads an turns them into bags. They are all different in color and design and each one is fabulously pixelated. And some are even made with old-fashioned recycled seat belt buckles!

How about a nifty t-shirt? This one cracks me up and makes me think of the days when I was putting together a magazine on the side a couple years back and InDesign was totally pissing me off. That’s right…take that you stupid fonts! Ha!

And the Emergency Clown Nose could be totally useful. I mean, I can think of several occassions where I was working around the clock and seriously got a bit loopy. Why bottle it up and keep it to yourself? Let everyone know that you’ve worked a bit too much. Or, if your studio mate is having a rough day and you need to cheer him up…you’re always prepared to launch into action.

The Sundance Channel recently released a series of short videos called High Line Stories focused on New Yorks new High Line. “An industrial relic on Manhattan’s west side, reborn as a park in the sky.” These are really well done and both insighful and inspiring. Check out the website for the entire set, I’ve posted a few clips.

The shorts feature people like Adam Gopnik, writer for the New Yorker, who documented the abandoned rail line before he even knew that it was going to one day turn into a fantastic park. “Parks play a role in the life of cities that are hard to overstate. All the great city parks of the world are not separate from their cities. They are involved in their cities both physically and architecturally and spiritually in deep ways.”

The Commissioner of Parks and Recreation for New York City, Arian Benepe, talks about the importance of parks in the city. He says, “You can’t have a neighborhood without a park. It’s very simple.” (I agree!) He discusses that the city wanted to tear the rail line down because it was a blight on the city but through community activism and a lot of effort from passionate people who wanted to see something great happen, the High Line park design was born. Now, it is stimulating the economy and everyone wants to build by it, close to it or on it. The High Line has become an attractor and is single-handedly revitalizing the area.

James Corner describes his first look at the old rusty rail line and how he was struck by the grasses and plant life emerging through the cracks. This made an impact on him and he wanted to find a way to “celebrate the energy of plant life emerging through a hard surface”. He is joined by planting designer Piet Oudolf who describes using perrenials to inspire and “open people’s eyes”. Check it out:

“When I heard they were turning it into a park, it seemed like something was turning right in the universe”. Ethan Hawke describes climbing up there with his brother when they were younger and enjoying the high line for “the way that you watch nature fight back, time fight back…it was very magical”. He was happy to hear that the design would keep the grasses because that’s what he remembers the most about the old space and in how the best part about the design is allowing history not to be forgotten but rather made to be beautiful, something that can live on and teach others.

And these are but a few shorts from the series from architects, artists, city officials, activitist, celebrities and landscape architects. Check out the Sundance website for more videos on the evolution of New York’s coolest new park, The High Line.

The overwhelming message? If you have the passion and desire to do something, no matter how how out of reach it may seem when you begin…go for it. You can accomplish great things, one step at a time.

If you just glance at the website for Zaha Hadid Architects, the lines that make up the navigation framework look very similar to the newest design, Stone Towers, a development of office, retail, residential and luxury hotel buildings to be designed in Cairo, Egypt for the Rooya Group. I am always intrigued by the lines used in Zaha Hadid’s designs.

image via dezeen

The building’s stonework is inspired by the ancient Egyptian stones which “incorporates a vast array of patterns and textures that, when illuminated by the intense sunlight of the region, creates animated displays of light and shadow. The effect is powerful, direct and inspiring. The facades on the North and South elevations of each building within Stone Towers adopts a rich vocabulary of alternating protrusions, recesses and voids to enhance the deep reveal shadow lines that accentuate the curvatures of each building within the development and animate the project throughout the day.”

- via bustler

Zaha Hadid always works with such interesting lines that are almost verging on retro. These forms could be likened to many things in the natural world but according to Hadid who believes that care must be taken not to turn this develoment into a repetitive field of concrete, “the architecture of Stone Towers pursues a geometric rhythm of similar, interlocking, yet individually differentiated building forms that creates a cohesive composition.”

I’m particularly, of course, interested in the landscape but at this stage all they really say about the landscape design is that there will be sunken landscape gardens and a plaza called ‘Delta’. I’m especially curious about the ways they intend to cool the environment. In the imagery there are large pools of water so I’m guessing water features, flooding and using the cooled water from air conditioning systems to cool horizontal surfaces and chill the air. It will be interesting to see how this develops and how the pedestrian environment takes shape.

images via designboom

I’m always a fan of fun photographic illusions and I love music so this website has been an endless source of amusement. I realize it has nothing to do with landscape architecture but we all need a little diversion now and then and after enjoying this site for awhile, I feel I need to share.

This website is called Sleeveface and it’s an entire website devoted to people posing behind records sleeves. It’s ridiculously fun and the best part is seeing not only how people recreate the scene but in how they add to it because sometimes all they are given to work with is a face and so…where is that face? What is the body doing? Well, they have to make that part up like…Billy Idol wearing a skirt, heels and doing the dishes?

images via sleeveface

And then for some extra amusement, check out this sleeveface-inspired comedy act by Rannel Theatre Company, a british dance and performance duo:

There are a lot of crazy buildings popping up around the blogosphere these days. Some are cool and interesting, some bizarre but still fascinating and some just flat out ridiculous. Perhaps I’m overly critical these days but I blame it on my exam studying which is pulling the normal whimsy out of my soul. But with that aside, if you look at this video it’s pretty hard to deny that this building should probably fall into the ridiculous category:

It doesn’t help that there are colors and music set with the video which make it look more like the inspiration is the fountain outside of the Bellagio in Las Vegas…except with people being expected to live in it. I love the end of it where it actually shows multiple buildings. The thought of being a pedestrian walking on the street through a bunch of moving buildings makes me a little light headed.

The Dynamic Tower Skyscraper by Italian architect David Fischer with Dynamic Architecture (with a rather tacky website) will actually be built and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2010 in both Moscow and Dubai. I remember hearing about this quite some time ago but was reminded again when I saw this article on weburbanist about the 12 most awesome future architectural designs.

I always thought the building movement actually helped to generate power but actually its the other way around, the building generates the power for the rotation. Sure it is supposed to generate enough power for the units to function too but each rotation would take up to three hours and I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a lot of wasted energy just on moving a unit around. But It is all part of the architects vision for providing the ultimate panoramic view. The building would be powered by solar panels along with the wind turbines that would be located between each floor. I can’t help but wonder about mainenance and noise although the idea of integrated wind turbines is extremely fascinating.

The 80-story tower in Dubai and 70-story tower in Moscow are almost entirely pre-fabricated off-site in Italy. Each unit will be placed on the core using a lift system for speedy completeion of each floor in just under a week. The only part built on the actual building site will be the slender core which will contain the elevator that will be big enough to hold people and cars (yes, cars) to the door of their unit. The core will hold each unit in place and allow for it to freely move around that central point upon voice command. I can’t help but ask the question…what if one person on the floor wants to rotate but someone else doesn’t? Say you’ve just sat down at your table for breakfast and coffee to enjoy the sunrise and then your floor starts rotating because someone on the other side wants to see it. Who chooses when the unit moves?

So…the building is generating it’s own clean energy for use in rotating units so that they have the opportunity to view the sunrise and the sunset. Uh huh. I’m all for being connected to your surrounding but this definitely seems over the top. I guess it falls into the ridiculous category afterall.

images via Dynamic Architecture