Just some typical building project from the advertising section in the local paper. A building project in the inner city of The Hague. Read more…
Render vs. Reality 1 – the ball gown, The Hague
In this series of images I will not focus on the architectural qualities of the featured architecture but on the way these designs are shown in renderings and artist impressions. How are these designs sold to the general public? Read more…
The Hague: many interpretations of one space
A teaser for a more exact research (and movie collection) of the city of The Hague as it is used by different groups.
Work Conditions
Wives of employees of the gaming company Rockstar (famous for Grand Theft Auto) are protesting against the long hours that their husbands have to work. See Gamasutra.com. The Spouses wrote a letter to the managment of the company to complain about the twelve hour workdays, the regular overtime on saturday and the 70 hour workweek that is quite common at Rockstar nowadays. They even say the pressure to work even more is growing.
The workhours sound sooo familiar to an architect. Working into the night, no overtime payments, coming in on weekends to work on competitions and 70 hour workweeks are even quite common at some architectural firms. Yet i have never heard of protest of the spouses against these conditions. Why? Is it because architects have no spouse? Is it because they are architects themselves? Is it because architects do not complain, because they like architecture to much? or are the spouses just happy that there husbands are never home?
In any case according to the sources on the internet it is not the first time this happened in the gaming industry. In 2004 employees were awarded millions when a similar case against EA was brought into court.
Bought: Archis – 1986-2000
Recently I bought a large amount of an old Dutch architecture magazine: The Archis. I now have all the issues from 1986- 2000. I heard much about the supposed greatness of the magazine but that turned out to be true. The old Archis is better than the new (Volume). A lot of the articles from the issues of 1986 are still relevant today. One example: In one issue there is a long article on the Dutch coasttown Scheveningen and the plans for renewal there. Even in 2009 the issues they raise are still relevant.
It’s a shame this content is still not available digitally in such a nice way as The New Yorker already has done. There is not even a searchable database on the subjects the magazine covered in the past. Luckily the issues can still be bought secondhand. And the expercience of buying it was also very good. A nice recepetion with coffee and a good conversation about Architecture. Thanks Marian & Hans!
Ken Yeang – Bioclimatic City / Vertical urbanism.
On 28 March 2008, as part of the Academy of Architecture Rotterdam /AIR lecture series on the future of Rotterdam – Rotterdam Reinvented, the Malaysian architect Ken Yeang talked about high-rise, and about eco skyscrapers in particular.
Wall House for beginners: the practical use of a theoretical model
It all started with the stairs. There’s something uncomfortable about them, the steps are too high. Could that be because the Wall House was built on a larger scale than originally conceived and drawn? And I also had my doubts about the finish. There was something about it. It would have been better to have concealed the mullions behind the columns and the ‘wall’, too, would have gained power if the materialization had been pushed through. Also surely Hejduk never intended the Wall House to be covered in all that pigeon shit. But do these defects detract from the design? Or do they only serve to make it more ‘real’?
