Hasta La Ideas

Let’s continue on this fandom kick, as we turn to Geoff Manaugh‘s fantastic essay over at BLDGBLOG, “Nakatomi Space.” The name, of course, comes from the fictitious tower in Die Hard, also known as this writer’s favorite Christmas movie, or in Manaugh’s opinion, “one of the best architectural films of the past 25 years.” Stripped down to its basic idea, it’s a great, winding discussion of how architecture is manipulated to exist without boundaries like walls or doors — in Die Hard and others like it, these get blown to pieces to create new methods of traveling within a building — defying the “spatial logic” we’re familiar with. But it’s certainly a lot more heady and interesting than our short description, and as such, comes as a highly recommended read. Yippie Ki-yay.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Japanese architects Studio Loop have completed a house in Gunma, Japan, conceived as a hole in which the residents can shelter. (more…)

With all this endless talk about Apple‘s possible announcement of an iSlate this or an eTablet that, it was nice to see some of the Mac sites buzzing about something else over the weekend. The news is that the company might soon to be trying out a new design for their retail outlets. The San Jose Mercury News has found that Apple will be moving its store in Palo Alto, California to another nearby location, and with it will come a new look. According to the paper, the architecture firm behind the project is Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the same company who designed their much-celebrated glass cube store on Fifth Avenue in New York. No illustrations or detailed plans have been released yet (it’s Apple after all), but a tidbit or two has slipped out via a handful of sources (like a recent meeting with the city council to get the building’s design approved):

The memo adds that the transparent glass front “dissolves the boundary that traditional store facades create. By not breaking the horizontal ground plane of the sidewalk with opaque wall or landscape element, for example, the street is made part of the store’s interior; the pedestrian is in the store before entering it.”

…”The whole design is inside-outside, with everything completely exposed,” said [Alexander Lew] of the architectural review board. “With the huge skylight, there’s going to be lots of daylight and it will feel more like an atrium inside…We’re excited about the project.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Beijing architects HHD_FUN have completed a temporary office building in Binhai near Tianjin, China, which features a patterned metal skin enclosing verandas. (more…)

Here are some photos of a blue striped house in Northampton, USA, by Pennsylvanian architect Joe Biondo. (more…)