Hasta La Ideas

Detail:

Dutch architecture firm i29 uses typography as their basis for Panta Rhei, a public school in Amstelveen.

i29 says: ‘We think in structures and rhythms and not in taste or style. You can look at it as music which deals with harmony and contrast. One tone is not unconnected to the next and silence is essential.’

From Press Release:
In the design for the new accommodations of public school Panta Rhei in Amstelveen (NL) there is a lot of attention on the balance between freedom and a sense of security. Snelder Architecten realised a building with many open multifunctional spaces where students can make themselves familiar with the teaching material. The interior design by i29 links up with that perfectly and gives the spaces an identity that connects with the students’ environment and addresses them directly and personally. i29 let itself be inspired by the name of the school. Panta Rhei, meaning ‘every-thing flows’, ‘everything is in motion’. This led to a design that leaves space for the imagination of the users, offering elements that can be used flexibly, which also propagates the school’s identity.

i29 commissioned poet Erikhan Harmens to develop the series of poems that are integrated throughout the school (as seen above). The condensed typographic treatment is stems from the school’s logo and signage.

More images:

Spanish architects Jose Selgas and Lucia Cano of Selgascano have designed an office for their own practice, located in the woods near Madrid in Spain. (more…)

Paris architects Atelier Martel have completed a house with four gabled facades in the Vosges mountains in France. (more…)

Following the big-yet-not surprising story that Frank Gehry is now officially off the Atlantic Yards/New Jersey Nets stadium project, we have two newspapers with very differing pieces about the matter. First up, the New York Times‘ architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff is livid about the decision to dump Gehry, saying that Ellerbe Becket‘s new design for the stadium is awful and that the recent move to their firm makes the whole city look bad:

…what’s most offensive about the design is the message it sends to New Yorkers. Architecture, we are being told, is something decorative and expendable, a luxury we can afford only in good times, or if we happen to be very rich. What’s most important is to build, no matter how thoughtless or dehumanizing the results. It is the kind of logic that kills cities — and that has been poisoning this one for decades.

On the other side of the fence is the Kansas City Star, the hometown paper of Ellerbe Becket, who begins their piece about the change: “Kansas City sports architecture firms 2, Frank Gehry 0.” They’re happy and gloating, of course, because this is the second time EB has won a building from the starchitect, the first being when they were up against one another to design the Sprint Center stadium right there in Kansas City (Ellerbe Becket was part of a group of local architects who had banded together for the attempt to win the contract). So there’s the two sides of the coin. And perhaps a word of warning for anyone, starchitect or otherwise, for what’s further become the town in charge of stadium building.

Zaha Hadid Architects have won a competition to design Cairo Expo City in Cairo, Egypt. (more…)