Articles published by: Nickname

Editor’s: Design for luck

Post de: Constantin Goagea
The most beneficial trade has become nowadays that which deals with luck. Such a relative, intangible and evanescent value has each time more and more offices, public consumption, even temples. Until a few years ago people were still thinking of opening restaurants or bringing clothes from all over the world and starting up a design boutique. Today – in Bucharest at least, but I think it is the same in many other cities – you find spaces that celebrate luck.

 

Editor’s: Dusting, painting, and thinking critically…

Post de: Cosmin Caciuc
For a couple of years now we keep on mapping alterantive practices among our neighbours – all sorts of “action-isms” which do not look like genuine architecture in the glorious meaning of achievements meant to last over centuries, but which are connected to dusting, clearing and painting things in deprived areas, as a part-time or voluntary work.

 

Editor’s: Urban activism, NGOs and future businessmodels

Post de: Constantin Goagea
For the last three days in Prague, I assisted toan international project about activism and NGOs as a possible dominant practice in the future. The English title (NGOs shaping cities) draws the attention on the fact that activism turn into a global trend as a reaction to world economy.

Urban integration of tramline in Zaragoza

Post de: Iñaki Alday, Margarita Jover

Aldayjover’s scheme is a brilliant example of integrating traffic concepts, a vision at city scale, public space and object design.

Rebirth of the tram
Since the 1960s, as in other Spanish cities, a transformation occurred in the realm of traffic space in Zaragoza. Previously, there was reduced circulation and little separation between foot traffic and motor traffic.

ArcelorMittal Orbit. Or how to produce an urban icon

Post de: Stefan Ghenciulescu

The main ingredients of this project are a mythical and ambitious metropolis – London; one event – the Olympic Games; a dynamic and ambitious mayor  – Boris Johnson; a very powerful corporation – ArcelorMittal and its Chair – Lakshmi Mital; a cooperation between an exceptional artist (and always appealing to a broad audience) – Anish Kapoor and a visionary engineer – Cecil Balmond.

BMW Guggenheim Lab in Berlin

Post de: Cosmin Caciuc, Cosmina Goagea

The urban life exploration lab has moved from America to Europe, proving to be a model of public dialogue and active participation.

After the BMW Guggenheim Lab New York cultural project was launched in New York last summer, the mobile lab came to Berlin where it ran from 15 June to 29 July. The open-air pavilion designed by Atelier Bow-Wow (which was presented in Zeppelin #98) is hosted in one of the inner courtyards of a former 19th century beer factory: the Pfefferberg complex in the Prenzlauer Berg district (Schönhauser Allee 176).

 

Editor’s: Holiday scenes with Mars in the background

Post de: Constantin Goagea

5.32 GMT

Curiosity is a car with big wheels, similar to a tractor. It is 3 m long and has almost the same width, and it explores Mars. It landed there very early on 6 August. It has 17 video cameras which send the images it collects there via the radio. Once in a while, the people on earth see Mars through the electronic eyes of Curiosity.

Top Floor

Stefan Tuchila climbed over 80 buildings and took several thousand photographs of Bucharest: another kind of urban research, a methodical and spectacular urban mapping. And a support for the recollection of a city that is constantly reinventing itself.

Editor’s: Tradition is the New Modernity or the Other Way Round

Post de: Stefan Ghenciulescu

It seems as if with the passing of days, we are more and more conservatives here in Romania; including about architecture. Somehow, this is understandable. On the one hand, constant destruction can bring people closer to the past than to an aggressive present; on the other, crises always cause things to fall back into place, bringing about a return to strong identity landmarks and an even stronger nostalgia for the good old, safe days. 

Editor’s: The end of the world and new beginnings

Post de: Cosmin Caciuc

Right from the end of the ‘60s, apocalyptic topics broadened up in a cultural genre mixed with SciFi, urban myths, real environmental disasters, blockbuster movies, TV shocking documentaries, the statistics of ending resources and the maps of pollution..