Hasta La Ideas

Ambi Labs has created a new smart air conditioner controller called Ambi Climate that can be..(Read…)

Comments update: a proposal to create a £600 million floating cycle path on London’s River Thames was the most debated project on Dezeen last week.

Cycling sensationalism: The Thames Deckway was dreamt up by a consortium of architects, artists and engineers formed to promote the development of better cycling links in London, and would run along a 12-kilometre stretch of river from Battersea in the west to Canary Wharf in the east beside the south bank.

But the idea received a rather frosty reception from Dezeen readers. “Yet another solution to London’s traffic problems that involves removing cyclists from the streets. If this is the answer then you are asking the wrong question,” wrote Ciarán Ferrie.

“Is this a parody?” asked rrrrich. “It’s like putting a plaster on an amputated limb. The scheme sums up London’s delusional attitude towards cycling, sensationalising it to the point of ridiculousness.”

But Sebastian Elliott suggested that headline grabbing schemes were important in their own way. “Sensationalising cycling in this manner is necessary to encourage new cyclists, like a Bilbao effect for bikes,” he wrote. “A long bike path away from any motorised traffic is the perfect place to learn to cycle in the capital and build confidence in self-ability.” Read the comments »

Provocative architecture? MVRDV‘s Martkhal – a giant covered food market and housing development in the centre of Rotterdam – finally opened last week. Its squashed arch shape, oversized fruit and vegetable mural covering the interior and unusual layout all proved divisive.

Amsam was among the fans of the project, writing “the new gruesome-tacky is fabulous!” Others were more reserved in their opinions. “I think I love it. I’m not sure,” wrote Chris MacDonald. “Might take a look again in a few months and see how I feel about it. Either way, it at least provokes a reaction!”

But DominicG was rather more forthright. “This building resembles the rotting carcass of a beached whale, complete with the lurid colours of putrefaction and people like tiny maggots animating the body cavity and ribs,” he wrote. “On the other hand, it is a clever building structurally, and it has drama and theatre.” Read the comments »

Newson’s round: the official launch of a home draft beer machine designed for Heineken, compared to a Nespresso for beer, prompted Marc Newson to give his first interview since joining tech giant Apple. While his comments proved entertaining, readers were less than enthusiastic about the product, called The Sub, which uses two-litre pressurised capsules of beer known as Torps.

A few thought it looked “like a Mac Pro on its side”, alluding to the influence of Newson’s new paymasters, while others pointed out that similar ideas had already been brought to market in various countries under different brand names.

“I don’t understand what the ‘new’ thing is,” wrote DalleJensen. “Like the [Australian] TapKing, such ‘personal’ draft beer units have been sold in Denmark for almost 10 years now.”

Some felt the device would be wasteful. “If Nespresso is a waste why would you need beer in two-litre cans that (if it is similar to Nespresso) that cost you two times as much as beer in a bottle?” asked hotte. “Two litres, that’s what? Four pints. I can buy four pints of Bittburger at Trader Joes for five bucks. If I want draft beer, I go to a pub,” added tony365.

But a couple of readers saw potential in the product. “I’m a home-brewer and this would be useful if the Torps were refillable,” wrote observer1959. Read the comments »

Cut above the rest? a bridge in London’s Paddington Basin with an unusual lifting mechanism proved popular, but a few readers were baffled by the need for a rising structure on a seemingly dead-end stretch of river.

“Stunningly beautiful, but where are those canal boats even going?” asked Stophourus, prompting the architects to step in and explain London’s unusual planning requirements for projects on the canal.

“Now that the canal situation is explained, this project makes complete sense. This is a visual folly added to a dead-end canal for interest and public enjoyment,” wrote The Liberty Disciple who christened the structure “Edward Scissorbridge” after a character from a Tim Burton film with scissors for hands. Read the comments »

Skyscraper city: as part of our coverage of the World Architecture Festival, Dezeen interviewed architect Moshe Safdie who called for a “reorientation” of the way cities are designed, saying that the vogue for skyscrapers and the privatisation of public space is creating cities that are “not worthy of our civilisation”.

“A million times this. I see this everyday in Panama City, there are less and less parks and more and more skyscrapers with private everything,” wrote one commenter. “Soon the coast will be a wall of white and the city will be hidden away from the sea.”

“He makes a fair point,” agreed Tim. “Only when we move from architecture about self to architecture that serves the community can we can begin to discuss how the context for architecture, including the broader environment and energy consumption.”

But others felt that Safdie was missing the mark. “He is over generalising and is ignoring a lot of what has happened in architectural/urban theory since the 1960s and 1970s, and the amazing work of several contemporary practices,” wrote idontconcur. “You can’t blame a typology, bad architecture is bad architecture, bad planning is bad planning.” Read the comments »

Concrete rules: finally, this week we published a study on Denys Lasdun’s National Theatre – the first Brutalist building in our series that seems to be universally liked by Dezeen readers, despite it being described as looking like a nuclear power station by the UK’s Prince Charles when it was first unveiled in the 1970s.

“The fact that we still reference Prince Charles in these articles shows how truly communal and social Brutalism really is,” wrote Kay. “Anyone who has strolled the elevated alleyways of the Southbank area will tell you there is an intimate and affectionate collective feel everywhere. People enjoy being there and they enjoy the public spaces. If only we had more public spaces like this in the city.” Read the comments »

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