Video of Metrodome collapse | Minnesota Public Radio News

Heavy snow collapsed the Metrodome early on Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010. (MPR Photo/Tim Nelson)

Ever wondered what happens when a longspan, cable stiffened pneumatic dome collapses under too much snow.....watch and learn!

Video of Metrodome collapse | Minnesota Public Radio News

and
Read more....

AUCB GALLERY: Episode One - Peter Cook

CRAB exhibit...installation by students of architecture and modelmaking

CRAB BY THE SEA: A SIDEWAYS LOOK AT ARCHITECTURE

DATES OF EXHIBITION: 12^th November 2010 – 7^th January 2011

2010 is the bicentenary of Bournemouth and as part of the celebrations

we are holding an exhibition by CRAB ( the office of Sir Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham).

Sir Peter Cook RA studied at the architecture department of the Bournemouth College of art from 1953 to 1958 under Ronald Sims (architect of the Punshon Memorial Methodist Church) and his first architectural work was at the office of Jackson and Greenen (in Hinton Road). He moved to the Architectural Association in London and graduated in 1960. From 1961 to 1974 he was a member of the ‘Archigram Group’, producing the world-famous series of magazines and experimental projects. He is the author of several books, the latest of which is ‘Drawing: the motive force of architecture’ (Wiley). He was elected a Royal academician in 2003 and Knighted for his services to architecture and teaching in 2007. In 2008, the recently formed office of CRAB won the competition for the Law Faculty and for the Administration building of the Vienna Economics University, which is now on site. Also well under construction is their housing block in Madrid. The exhibition celebrates the joint inspirations of experimental architecture and of the seaside and includes the Bournemouth Projects by Archigram.

Coming soon:

COAST

To coincide with the exhibition CRAB BY THE SEA (Sir Peter Cook and CRAB studio), the Arts University College at Bournemouth will host the first Saturday Symposium, COAST (architecture by/on/in the sea). The event is intended to stimulate a discussion about architecture, urban design and the South Coast, during the Bournemouth Bicentenary Year. We welcome professionals and students interested in the shaping of our coastal built environment to attend.

Saturday 4^th December 2010, 10am-3pm: FREE for student who book.

Sir Peter Cook RA

With guest speakers:

Carme Pinos (Barcelona): Architect/Urban Designer

Yael Reisner (London): architect/writer

Prof. Richard Horden (Poole/London/Munich/Copenhagen).

Roger Zogolovitch (Poole/London)

Marcos Cruz, Barlett School of Architecture

VENICE BIENNALE + STUDENTS

With level five and six AUCB Architecture students we experienced all forms of architectural life from the avant-garde to modernist to vernacular to rustic to classical. Events included the structural testing of the bridge at the Stampalia Foundation (a superb interior-exterior intervention by Carlo Scarpa). Venice is beautiful, atmospheric and intricate - large expanses of water and multitudes of bridges are contrasted with narrow, labyrinthine routes - it is an interior city continuously constructed from the graffiti of materials over many layers and centuries.

Stampalia Foundation

RE: Students from the Model Making and Architecture courses work together.

This week we finished our joint project with the students from the BA Model Making course. Our 3rd year Architectural students designed a series of towers for a central London site. Their task was to prepare conceptual sketches and ideas that would challenge the 2nd year Model Making students. (Make it hard but not impossible!) On Thursday both cohorts of students met to discuss the completed models and to find out if they related to the orginal architectural concept. Importantly for the architectural students it was a chance to see how a model maker would approach a difficult brief and inform the design process.

PORTLAND STONE TRIP

Level 4 Architecture and Interior Architecture & Design students attended a study trip to visit Learning Stone in Portland. On a very cold day they learned with firsthand experience some of the processes involved in the extraction of Portland Stone - from large scale quarry sites and heavy machines, to sculpture and hand finishing with traditional tools, as used by the past-masters involved in realising such projects as St Paul's Cathedral by Sir Christopher Wren.

learning stone

BUNKER

strange wonderful thing!
(Thanks to David Hugo)
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/11873/rietveld-landscape-atelier-de-lyon-bunker-599.html

The Serpentine Pavilion 2010: Jean Nouvel

A wonderful sunny autumn day for our London trip.
An afternoon at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Apparently enough to exhaust students...and tutors!

Architectural Mystery Tour

This year we headed of to Winchester, to the Hospital of St.Cross, the oldest alms house in England in continuous use. The 37 new first year students had the opportunity enjoy these superb medieval buildings as the morning mist slowly cleared from the meadows. They toured the buildings with two of the "Brothers", sat and drew, and finally took shelter (and tea) during the afternoons light autumn shower.




The church was started in c.1135, along side the "Hundred Man's Hall" for feeding the poor. Simple timber buildings were then added for the first "Black Brothers" (named by the colour of their cloaks). Later the magnificent 15th Century stone and flint wing was built to house the "Red Brothers". This row of apartments is punctuated by the high stone chimneys, originally reaching up high above the thatch roofs.


A charitable institution from the beginning, there are elements of the monastic and similarities with the early colleges of Oxford or Cambridge. Still occupied by up to 25 Brothers, they represent some of the best qualities of English architecture: rational planning, clear structural rhythm, appropriate local materials, while retaining an ad hoc, picturesque irregularity in details and modifications. Intelligent, economic and expressive architecture at its best. The garden is a small paradise.

Venice Biennale

Studio Mumbai (India. Corderie, Arsenale)

Work Place
(International Jury Special Mentions)

Just one of the fantastic exhibits this year...a wonderful collection of small models, prototypes, studies and full scale mock-ups from India. An example of how architects address this years theme of People Meet In Architecture, directed by Kazuyo Sejima:
"The idea is to help people relate to architecture, to help architecture relate to people, and to help people relate to themselves."
(The first woman to direct the Architecture Sector of the Biennale, Sejima has recently been awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize 2010, together with Ryue Nishizawa, of SANAA.)

Venice Architecture Biennale 2010
Preview?
iPhone?
iPad?
Biennale App!!
iBiennale

VENICE

Check out the pavilions on ArchDaily etc...
still some to pay!!

Preparation:
READ!!! MORE!!!
almost anything about Venice and the architecture, such as:
HOWARD, D, 2004, The Architectural History of Venice, New Haven: Yale University Press
£12.74 Amazon (there is also an older B&W print)
Particularly read about Palladio, Ruskin and Scarpa.

For a really good overview of history, politics and architecture try:
Ackroyd, Peter 2009, Venice: Pure City, London; Vintage (£6.99 Amazon)

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VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE

Images
Review
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VENICE!!

Don't forget the balance for Venice Biennale is due this week!
http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/
cheques to The Arts University College at Bournemouth,
or call finance with your card number!

Serpentine

The trip to Jean Nouvel's Serpentine Pavilion in October will be for the first years only...so the rest of you will need to catch it when seeing the V&A show this week!
Coffee and chess, or on a sunny day table tennis!
Catch the video at:
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/architecture/

LAST CHANCE TO SEE!!

Closing 30th August 2010.
The excellent 1:1 and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
the 7 structures + exhibition of all 19 proposals.
Well worth seeing....and a £5 catalogue!
All can be entered and experienced.
I particularly enjoyed The Beetle House by Terunobu Fujimori (Japan), the In-Between Architecture, by Studio Mumbai Architects (India) and the Ark by Rintala Eggertsson Architects (Norway).

see vidios and images:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/architecture/smallspaces/index.html

CODA Music Project: Week 8

CODA

TEKNE Suppliers of plywood

The main structure is complete with new ceiling layers affixed. Next is to complete the closure for the entrance... We have initial testing with musos (we can fit four seated inside, depending on instruments). The acoustics so far are well controlled, nicely damped and the music sounds great at this early stage. More testing and experiences to follow. Coda chief Phil Hallet stands next to the music practice room - and the intelligent creatives (i.e. the architecture students) who built the structure stand in front of their creation.

CODA Music Project: Week 7

The structure secured with screws, gets higher...

FREE book to download

Read on ArchDaily about the Imagine The Mississippi projects, produced by a studio at the University of Minnesota, showing student projects for the banks of the Mississippi in Minneapolis .
Then download the little pdf book .
(produced with ISSUU)
http://imaginethemississippi.com/about.html
Something to keep the brain alive over summer!

CODA Music Project: Week 6

The layers build higher...

CODA

TEKNE Supplier of plywood

CODA Music Project: Week 5

CODA

TEKNE Supplier of plywood