Sunday Morsel 4

a poem by Lebbeus Woods

War and Architecture 

Architecture and war are not incompatible.
Architecture is war. War is architecture.
I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority
that resides in fixed and frightened forms.
I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family,
no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end,
no “sacred and primordial site.”
I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories
that would chain me with my own falsness, my own pitiful fears.
I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments,
and forms that appear with infinite strength, then “melt into air.”
I am an architect, a constructor of worlds,
a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody,
a silhouette against the darkening sky.
I cannot know your name. Nor can you know mine.
Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.

WAR AND ARCHITECTURE
RAT I ARHITEKTURA
Lebbeus Woods
pamphlet architecture 15

Incredible! Get it, read it, then read it again!

Stoned! Casa Miquel

sketch 7

stone, transitive verb

Inflected Form(s): stoned; ston·ing
13th century
1: to hurl stones at; especially : to kill by pelting with stones

stoned (slang) adjective
1952
1. Stupefied, excited, or muddled with alcoholic liquor
2. Stupefied, intoxicated, or otherwise influenced by the taking of drugs
3. (one I particulaly like) under the influence of drugs, under the influence of alcohol, drugged, ripped out, high, spaced out, tripping, turned on

These definitions sum up the week and what I’m going to do about it…

The post was going to start out, “So you want stone? Well here it is, all of you fake Tuscan-lovin’ sons of bitches…” But then, because of the week it’s been, the post has shifted to the fore mentioned theme.

sketch 3

Anyway, the house is for a small site in Barcelona that has a four story building close to one side of it and a two story retaining wall about a fourth of the way into the lot. Fortunately, a garden could be placed around the side and front on the lower floor of the house, to achieve privacy and give a sense of the exotic and intimate.

casa miguel3

The house is simply organized around a pool/living area that opens onto a front garden. All interior spaces open onto the pool and are defined by rustic (rustico! Pepe) structural stone walls. The pool area has a wall of translucent and colored glass block. A traditional material that has been manufactured in Spain for, who could say, 80 years.

This wall allows a wonderful diffused light into all the interior spaces and controls the view of the multi story building. At the bottom of the glass block wall there is a low continuous ribbon of clear operable windows that look onto the small side garden allowing the eye to expand beyond the boundary of the wall. The problematic back yard, two stories in the air, was tied into the roof to make an extended garden and terrace. A green house on this upper level of land continues over the two story living/pool area to become a skylight.

Most of the sketches shown were done on the flight back from Barcelona.

It’s happy hour so see ya, what ever happened to those days of three for ones in Lubbock (that story will have to wait…).

sketch plan sketch 5 sketch 4 sketch 6 sketch 2

casa miguel3(10)

casa miguel5 casa miguel7 casa miguel3(3) casa miguel8 casa miguel3(8)

Asphalt to Collect Solar Energy

Is anyone else as excited about this as I am?

Harvard, the Street not the…

some teasers of one our duplexes in east austin…

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32nd Street Remodel

Some spanking new sketches by MJ for a remodel of an Arts and Crafs cottage in the University area.

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Tile, Tub, Trellis (TTT’s)

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A few images from the last site visit. Alex chats as John and Mike of Living Art Austin lean on the rift cut white oak guardrail just freshly installed. Dennis has the spoon tub installed and the shower running.

Sunday Morsel 3

“There are no twelve-year-old geniuses in architecture,” remarked Le Corbusier.

Architecture is a field for irrepressible optimism and demands a tenacious staying power.

from Mexican Architecture, the work of Abraham Zabludovsky and Teodoro Gonzalez de Leon 

by Paul Heyer

Dancing About the Mulberry Trees

in 2003 we were asked to submit ideas for an Art Forum and Community Center in Annaka, Japan… Our design was centered about the Mulberry trees we were gonna plant, hundreds of them.

See if you can spot the kids with balloons and the dog (in the sketches.)

MJ and I have gone into macrobiotics lately, we are also learning Japanese cooking, of course, MJ has always been obsessed with Japan… You should see his Japanese collection of books. It’s just delicate and beautiful.

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