RAGDOLL parade
There is hope in honest error; none in the icy perfections of the mere stylist.
- J. D. Sedding
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Ancient Roman Concrete Is About to Revolutionize Modern Architecture
Modern concrete, aka Portland Cement, degrades much faster than Roman concrete, especially when in contact with seawater. Engineers analysing the chemical makeup of Roman concrete, have found volcanic ash & lyme & believe this is the secret to it’s durability. The Roman recipe, & method, is also likely to reduce the CO2 emissions associated with the production of concrete (currently 7% of industry related CO2).
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Philip Ross Molds Fast-Growing Fungi Into Mushroom Building Bricks That Are Stronger than Concrete
This might just be the coolest technology related thing I’ve read this year!
Fungi is awesome.
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Broken Can Still Be Beautiful
If you drop dishes in your kitchen, don’t throw them away! Use them to patch up a wall and bring some color to your building.
We found this beautiful patchwork of broken ceramic dishes on the corner of a building in the Sultanahmet section of Istanbul
(via thisbigcity)
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![fraserarchitecture:
12th Century Micro Apartment Complex
Long before adAPT NYC and SmartSpace’s 38 Harriet St in San Fran, there [were] tulous, multi-unit Chinese buildings that wrote the book on compact, efficient living. Tulou translates to “earthen house” and are large, generally circular, fortress-like structures that were a popular form of building from the 12th through 20th Century (there are even a few present-day interpretations). While there are many types of tulou, the most popular form is the Fujian tulou; the Fujian provence has over 20K of them.”
Read more at Life Edited…](http://24.media.tumblr.com/c677f6e34ce2a1a97e09326dd33cdbfe/tumblr_mnymyvuEfg1rgh8bgo1_1280.jpg)
12th Century Micro Apartment Complex
Long before adAPT NYC and SmartSpace’s 38 Harriet St in San Fran, there [were] tulous, multi-unit Chinese buildings that wrote the book on compact, efficient living. Tulou translates to “earthen house” and are large, generally circular, fortress-like structures that were a popular form of building from the 12th through 20th Century (there are even a few present-day interpretations). While there are many types of tulou, the most popular form is the Fujian tulou; the Fujian provence has over 20K of them.”
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Perry Kulper - Central California History Museum, Proto-Formal Section
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From the archives.
10 otherwise unrelated pieces of architectural cool.
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Bridges, walkways, stairs, wheels & other steel constructions.
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Curtain Call: Photographer Captures Abandoned Theaters’ Decay
As beautiful as these images are, I agree with the Save The St James’ Theatre Auckland facebook page when they beg that this doesn’t happen to our beautiful theatre.
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The spaceship Nomad drifted halfway between Mars & Jupiter. Whatever war catastrophe had wrecked it had taken a sleek steel rocket, one hundred yards long and one hundred feet broad, and mangled it into a skeleton on which was mounted the remains of cabins, holds, decks and bulkheads. Great rents in the hull were blazes of light on the sunside and frosty blotches of stars on the dark side. The SS Nomad was a weightless emptiness of blinding sun and jet shadow, frozen & silent.
—Tiger! Tiger! Alfred Bester
March 1999. That was when I fell in love with prose.
I found a book on the study floor, opened it & read this passage.
The imagery of the listing spaceship Nomad is beautifully intense. The contrasts of sleek & mangled, blazing light & frosty shadow were formative in my final design project at architecture school, & have subliminally influenced my aesthetic ever since.
In the following years, of course, there’s been China Mieville’s New Crobuzon, & Armada - a city made of boats; Iain Banks’ The Bridge; Alastair Reynolds’ Chasm City; & Carlos Ruiz Zafron’s Barcelona shrouded in mist & lit with brilliant sunlight with the Cemetery of Forgotten Books at the Centre. There have been breathe taking moments in books set in the past, present, & future; in imaginary worlds; in the aftermath of war & terrorism; & in the ordinary everyday of rural Britain.
To practice architecture you must understand life, know people, & both fear for & hope for the future. How better to encompass all of this within the confines of daily life, then to pick up a good book?
(via fraserarchitecture)
