Hasta La Ideas

The Holmenkollen ski jump by JDS Architects has opened in Oslo, Norway. (more…)

Found by way of A Daily Dose of Architecture, here’s your chance to own a piece of “what could have been” New York starchitecture. On eBay, someone is selling a rare 20″ model of Herzog & de Meuron‘s residential skyscraper project, 56 Leonard Street, which was one of the many casualties following the collapse of the real estate market. According to the seller, there were only three hundred models built and they were originally created to give to pre-construction buyers, the media, or if you were somehow connected to the development and/or construction of the project. If you have a bunch of disposable income and collecting failed buildings is your thing, you have until Wednesday at 9:14am Pacific to snatch it up. Here’s the description given:

This model is #37/300. The model is actually 58 separately numbered lucite pieces that are anchored together by a solid lucite core that extends the entire height of the model. At the base is the Anish Kapoor sculpture that was commissioned to anchor the building. While text within the box encouraged the model to be deconstructed and reassembled, I can assure you that I never took the model apart and that every piece is in the correct order.

The box itself is adorned with numerous statements and descriptions of the building and has a form fitting foam lining that cradles the model when it is not on display. In addition to this, a pair of cotton gloves are included to be used when handling the base & pieces. A nice touch, but certainly not necessary. The box, as well as everything inside it, is in pristine mint-condition.

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Playing to the mounting excitement of South Africa’s upcoming World Cup, last month’s Design Indaba conference in Cape Town was billed as something of a major sports event in its own right with colorful banners, stadium cheer-worthy introductions and even trading cards for the visiting speakers. Talks covered dozens of intriguing projects—from the likes of Tord Boontje, Ronan Bouroullec, Manabu Mizuno, Han Feng and Mokena Makeka—and participants ran the gamut from veteran to rookie, guru to diva, and far-flung to homegrown.

Here, we’ve singled out a handful of presentations for their memorable insight into both the creative life and the world at large, along with soundbites, and other projects worth checking out.

Our hats off to founder Ravi Naidoo, a consummate host whose boundless energy, unparalleled enthusiasm, and belief in the transforming power of creativity is truly inspiring.

Read on after the jump.

1. The importance of humility

Always a great speaker, Pentagram partner Michael Beirut set the bar high with his thoughtful opening presentation. Instead of a sweeping career survey, Beirut focused on one assignment with the hope of sharing a fundamental lesson in project management. His presentation, called “My favorite project and how I almost blew it,” detailed his distinguished work with the The Robin Hood Foundation on The Library Initiative, a program to revitalize libraries in New York’s most disadvantaged public schools.

To summarize Beirut’s lessons in humility:
Don’t try to be so darned clever.
You get power by giving away power.
The real opportunity my not lie within your scope.

Consistency is not always good.

The audience is more wonderful than you think.

2. The virtues of limitations

One of the few speakers to receive a standing ovation at the conference, Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena provided a laudable rejoinder to Martha Stewart’s strikingly vainglorious presentation. Aravena, principal of the award-winning firm Elemental, gave an impassioned speech on his efforts in developing affordable community housing in Chile and Mexico. The design solution, half-finished structures that allow for self-build expansion, held particular resonance for the largely South African audience, confronted as they are with how to rectify the housing deficiencies of the country’s many impoverished townships.

3. The value of a narrative

A recent graduate of the Royal College of Arts in London, Thomas Thwaites provided the most hysterical six minutes of the Design Indaba conference. In recounting his 2009 thesis, The Toaster Project, Thwaites had the audience in stitches over his attempt to manufacture a toaster from scratch, right down to procuring the raw materials copper, nickel, mica and plastic. While the real aim of the project was to examine the absurdity of scale in the industrial processes that lead to a £5.00 consumer toaster—Thwaites’ toaster looks more like a nightmarish wax model of the thing itself—an unintended consequence may be a career in television for this graduate. Thwaites has all the makings of a engaging storyteller.

4. The wonders of serendipity

In recounting his prolific career to date, Harry Pearce of Pentagram U.K. returned again and again to the notion that things can take on a life of their own. From his work on the Dana Centre and Peter Gabriel’s Witness program to his latest book project on typographic conundrums, Pearce’s career has been filled with the kind of serendipitous moments usually reserved for a Paul Auster story. The takeaway: the seeds of creativity are sown in the most unlikely of places.

5. The joys of doing what you love

Graphic designer Stefan Bucher, principal of 344 Design and creator of the off the wall Daily Monster, gave a fervent talk rife with sardonic humor. At the heart of his presentation was the concept of knowing your operating system, or what feeds your creativity. For Bucher, this translates into several working strategies: workarounds (obsessive compulsive design strategies that let the mind go on autopilot), repair permissions (infusing projects with personal relevance), and greed control (limiting one’s desire for money to focus on work that one loves). The result of that last bit happens to be Bucher’s Monsters, a pet project that has, not surprisingly, developed a massive following.

6. The merits of humor

Executive chairman and national creative director for Ogilvy & Mather India, Piyush Pandey has been hailed as the most influential man in Indian advertising—for good reason. Pandey gave one of the most entertaining presentations of the conference, showcasing a selection of hilarious commercials representative of his approach.

In a nation with over 30 spoken languages, the task of communicating a coordinated brand message seems insurmountable. Nevertheless, at the core of Pandey’s work is the ability to connect with an incredibly diverse audience through emotional storytelling. His favorite emotion, humor, plays a central role in many of his campaigns, including the Vodafone Zoozoo shorts, which have become India’s most popular ads to date. (Its official Facebook fan club is nearly 400,000 strong). Take a moment to watch a compilation of the ad shorts here, you won’t be disappointed.

Six more projects worth checking out

1. Troika’s All the Time in the World
2. Christien Meindertsma’s Pig 05049
3. Bill Drentel’s (of Winterhouse) Polling Place Project
4. Handspring Puppet Company’s work on the renowned production War Horse
5. Marcelo Rosenbaum’s Brazil line for Oxford
6. Revital Cohen’s Electrolyte Appendix concept

Six memorable quotes

1. “Cities need unauthorized acts of creativity.” —Wooster Collective’s Marc and Sara Schiller
2. “I believe there is life beyond logic.” —Piyush Pandey
3. “Do we change the world to suit us, or change ourselves to suit the world?” —Fiona Raby
4. “We should build half of a good house, instead of a small one.” — Alejandro Aravena
5. “Form follows fiction is more important than form follows function.” —Jurgen Bey
6. “Your brain is like an unruly pitbull; it will chew up your furniture at best.” —Stefan Bucher

You’ll likely recall how much flak Al Gore received (and probably continues to receive) once the size of his mammoth house was revealed, post-Inconvenient Truth (Snopes has some particularly good info on what’s been true and what hasn’t in talk about his house’s energy consumption, as well as this comparison to former President Bush‘s house) . But Gore lives just outside Nashville, not exactly an epicenter of the green movement. Not so with Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus, who decided he wanted to build a gigantic mansion in Berkeley, California, albeit a green one. As the NY Times reports, it’s that mixture of “gigantic” and “green” that isn’t sitting so well with the locals. Despite Kapor’s efforts to make everything as green as possible, both the city and activists don’t believe the two can exist alongside one another, making note that Kapor’s going to have to knock down an already existing house on the property and “a 10,000-square-foot house is likely to require four times the resources of the average new American house.” The city has approved the plans, but there will be an appeal hearing in late-April to try to get it blocked. Here’s a bit from one of the people at the forefront of the movement to get the house shut down before it even begins construction, Gary Parsons, writing in the Berkeleyside blog:

Staff calls this project “green.” Although the ten car garage may be a good idea since there is no street parking on this narrow street, to call a nearly 10,000 square foot home green (especially when it is built only for a couple to inhabit) is absurd. That the staff, the owners and the architects indulge in this kind of greenwashing only serves to make a joke out of Berkeley’s environmental aspirations.

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Judd Lysenko Marshall Architects of Melbourne have completed a Corten steel-clad house in Smokey Town, Australia. (more…)