the netherlands

WoZoCo Housing for the Elderly


Amsterdam wasn't as nice a city in comparison to the others i visited during the summer. i guess i rely too much on atmosphere, thepeople, the sights and the general feel of a place to make an assessment. perhaps i should be more analytical about the buildings but for me amsterdam itself wasn't the most enjoyable place.









i couldn't see past the whole sleazy sex industry which i thought extended far beyond the red light district. from sex shops to the amount of dirty looking kebab places and coffeeshops every second door down. it just wasn't for me. i didn't get many photos and even less sketching done.









the borneo row houses were a saving grace i really enjoyed seeing those. it's really cool how each of them are so individual yet still fit. there's a real sense of cohesiveness with them whilst they are all so different and i found it to be a really nice space to just saunter around the courtyards and sit on the bridge over the canal.



















UTRECHT

FEM building - university of utrecht



i LOVED the city. it made up for everything that i felt amsterdam was lacking. the whole feel of the place was far more bohemian and quaint with few cars around just bicycles and students. beautiful apartments along the canal bursting with feeling and flair. there was scope for modern designs in amongst the traditional town houses that provide the city with a strong dutch character. it was exciting to be in and easy to wander around and get lost in.

Minnaert Builiding - utrecht university


educatorium building - utrecht university

i was particularly excited to see the most recent addition to the city....





www.dezeen.com/2010/10/06/het-zwarte-huis-bakers-architecten/





this is just an example of the variety of styles that the city is open to.

science park utrecht

I made a friend in Rome who lives in Amsterdam. It was really nice to get some advice on the nicest places to go in the city that most tourists might not know about.

She studies at the science park building in De Uithof where we studied most buildings on campus for the entire day. i was pretty inspired by the variety of styles and the boldness of design displayed as a whole. our tour guide explained that the horrible brutalist buildings stay standing so as to show the varying styles ie the whole campus is a timeline exhibiting some of each style of architecture since the 50s.

At first sight i was impressed with the science park building. however according to my friend it doesn't fit its function and seems poorly designed. The building is only one year old and is laughed at by all the pupils. apparently some walls were built in the wrong places by complete mistake shutting off water and electricity to the rest of the building. two people have been knocked unconscious due to misplaced doors! i couldn't believe that one!! lettering above the entrance way are unsafe and ready to fall off after a mere year. one wall wall covered in purple dots (the material i don't know) but the intention was to muffle acoustics. as well as being ugly these dots failed at their purpose and so 60 new walls were built to allow scientists a quiet place to work.

it amazes me how on the surface of things a design can look efficient or the ideas behind them are interesting or innovative. however we can never fully understand if the design is successful unless we are the ones USING the building and being affected by it. its from feedback of those experiencing architecture or from experiencing it yourself that you can make any kind of assessment on a good design. otherwise i don't know what counts as good arcitecture. i find it difficult to choose a favourite for the V&A competition purely because you have to assess where the flaws might be and try to minimise them. these can be difficult to find when looking at a proposal and not being inside the building to see the indiscrepancies.

v&a dundee

archibollocks.blogspot.com

a blog dedicated to highlighting some of the rubbish designs hitting the UK

don't get me wrong i think the V&A is the most exciting thing to happen to dundee but this article has some fair, if cynical, points!

*s u m m e r* (continued)

from vienna to bratislava a nice short journey.

i had minimal expectations of bratislava purely because my friend had told me it was rubbish.

however surprisingly enough i really enjoyed it. there was just enough to see that we managed to get around everywhere important in a day. it was very small but nice, the people were friendly and it was a good interlude in the trip. my camera decided to play up though and so i have no photographs of vienna bratislava or venice - devestated!

from here we went to hungary and stayed in budapest for a few days. this place was definitely one of my favourite places alongside berlin and rome. i loved climbing to the top of the city and overlooking the danube with the hungarian parliament perched on the riverside. the river was overflowing and so people were lying by the water - kids splashing and dogs swimming. at night we witnessed street racing a new experience for me... the city just had an amazing ambience about it and although it didnt tick as many boxes for specific pieces of architecture to visit i just loved staying there.

a 14hour HORRENDOUS train journey later and we had reached the final stretch of the trip. venice - florence and finally rome.

i adored getting lost in venice and could only marvel at the preservation of the original city like a microcosm of history compacted into the city.

st mark's square

we stayed in florence one night and of course i was impressed by the duomo and loved seeing michelangelos david. the rest of the city, however, wasn't as i expected. it was a little more westernised than i thought it might have been.

rome was such a fantastic way to end the trip. our last few days were just packed with things to see and do. to me rome seems like such an exciting place with all the potential for its architecture to develop outside of the main city centre. so many young firms i've subsequently researched on the outskirts of the city have amazing propsals for development and seem to be hindered only by the political agendas of the recently empowered right wing party governing the state. quite frustrating, but surely these conservative attitudes are being gradually defeated with the likes of zaha's obnoxiously super-modern design bringing plenty of interest to the city. i personally loved meier's ara pacis and hope to be able to see more interesting designs such as this in the future of the city.

outside of rome we visted tivoli another highlight of the trip. villa d'este was so beautiful and to be able to overlook the tuscan landscape made me feel like i was really experiencing italy. like in the godfather or something, the true heart of the nation where the olives are grown and even the cats are sleek and cool; where they spin spaghetti all day long.

*s u m m e r*

www.flickr.com/photos/54934347@N07

because it takes forever and a day to upload images to this site i took my pick of the most interesting shots from the trip and put them on a flickr page. more to be uploaded soon :)

s u m m e r

during the summer i travelled europe for a month, scraped together some money, bought a train ticket and went to see some sites.










we started off in belgium. i loved it there it was nice to get the opportunity to practice some french again after a year studying architecture my exposure to the language has taken a bit of a back-burner.






brussels was beautiful. clean and exciting. la grand place is a beautiful place to gather and drink at night. there was a jazz concert on one night and the atmosphere was just electric in the crowd. The building there that stood out most in my mind was probably the UN building purely because of its sheer scale.






from brussels we travelled to bruges. it was nice to get away from the big city and chill, soak up some sunshine and enjoy the quaint village. i always love to travel a little bit outside of the huge cities because it gives a clearly sense of the countries identity. bruges gave me a better feel for how belgians live, the style and identity of the nation. and the crepes were second to none.







next stop berlin










too much to say really. its how i reckon every city should be striving towards. it fully embraces its difficult history whilst being open to innovative and exciting new styles of architecture and art. it brings a new life to the city and makes for an exciting environment. the contrast between the old and new injected the city with a great atmosphere. i wish we had time to stay here longer and i can't wait to go back and see some of things we missed.












Inside the Holocaust Tower at the Jewish Museum.



'what is important is the experience you get from it. the interpretation is open.' danel libeskind























arrived in prague and greeted with the most miserable weather!! i was kind of exhausted by this point as well but i was so excited to see the charles bridge though and it didnt disappoint. my favourite part was probably the tour of the underground catacombs. i didnt know that the city was once a level lower and had been rebuilt up a floor to protect against flooding. it was insightful to learn that something like that was possible and a plausible solution to such a problem.











museum of modern art in prague












we journeyed outside of prague for the day to kutna hora to see the bone church which is furnished with sculptured made from hundreds of bones belonging to the monks who managed the church. really creepy. the visit was worth it to see st barbaras cathedral with its incredible vaulted ceiling.
















vienna next on the itinerary. we didnt stay there long. i was excited to see it because of the musical history to the city. being an avid music fan i couldnt wait to experience the feel of a place known as the 'city of music'. furthermore i would rate egon schiele and gustav klimt amongst my favourite artists, not to mention the museum of architecture based there.










perhaps my expectations were too high but i didnt connect with the city at all. visiting the hundertwasser house was interesting and hundertwassers paintings i found especially beautiful. however wandering the streets i found the city to have a lot of rough areas and i didnt feel particularly safe. couldnt see much inspiring architecture either. tough to compete with the likes of berlin and prague i suppose.












compulsory pretentious arty photo of me sketching away outside the hundertwasser house




'the straight line is a godless one, it's the only non-creative one, the only line that does not fit in with man as being created in the likeness of god'


friedrich hundertwasser





http://www.hundertwasser.de/mediaplayer/?file=E-The straight line

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM1maRqHw-c&feature=player_embedded

u t r e c h t u n i v e r s i t y l i b r a r y

u t r e c h t u n i v e r i s t y l i b r a r y

architect - wiel arets
completion - 2004

• the concept for this building was to create a 'black box'. the entire facade is black, broken up only by the continous pattern of vines engraved in the concrete and patches of glass panelling.



• entrance is small and insignificant with one revolving door to allow a single person into the building at one time. arets wished for each person entering the building to participate and notice the transition from the outside into the new space. the small doorway fits with the theme of a black box hiding its interior design.



• the main entrance foyer has a large stairway to present a more grand entrance to a building of such importance which accommodates thousands of people each day. the stairs are broken up by a cafe space and the entrance to lecture halls to allow people to gather and chat freely.



• the space above the social area hosts a void space which acts as a large funnel spanning the enitre height of the building. this filters all the noise from the social space upwards away from the library and holds a skylight at the top to allow light to penetrate and provide a sense of spaciousness. the pattern of the concrete also works with the acoustics. noise reverbrates of the engraving at different angles and disperses the noise equally rather than sharply if the walls were smooth. fabric is also attached to the end of each bookcase to absorb noise.

VOID SPACE - NOISE FUNNEL

• the interior is black and white with occasional red decor to break up the monotony. each horizontal surface is white to reflect light allowing the building to be airy and light whilst still black.



• the glass is also printed with the same pattern of vines - an image given to the architect by a friend.



• the glass panels open automatically with the change of weather to allow natural ventilation and the appropriate amount of light to enter the building at all times.



• the staircase and circulation was an essential part of the design, the architect desired the building to adhere with its neighbours and have a clear flow of movement. the staircase inside the library can be viewed from all angles. the building also extends across to the educatorium building and arets had planed for it to join with another university building however insufficient funding prevented this from goin ahead.

STAIRCASE INSIDE LIBRARY

• the main structure of the building is a concrete grid with the stairs and opposite central block providing apt weight to support the roof and allow the glass facade to neatly curtain the building.