Radical Reconstruction by Lebbeus Woods, is one of my favorite books. The projects contained in the book are so rich and dense with detail that I never tire of flipping through them. Even though the book was originally published 10 years ago, I think it’s still relevant today. Better than the incredibly pervasive blobitecture of the last 5 years. There is a new paperback version recently republished, definitely worth buying if you don’t have it already.

Wow! This is an awesome idea…Dutch architect Hofman Dujardin came up with a fold-out balcony…so cool! When it’s in its closed position, it becomes part of the exterior wall and acts as a window. Some mechanism (not clear how it works, exactly, nor am I clear on what the whole assembly looks like from the interior) allows the window/partition to fold down into a balcony. So cool. I want one!

Via Swissmiss.

Check out this crazy design by Zaha Hadid for a performing arts center in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Zaha Hadid is just one of the starchitects who designed a building for this arts supercomplex – Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Tadao Ando each designed a museum as well. Hadid’s performing arts center is somehow organic while still feeling very rigid – it looks like a series of capillaries and veins underneath a very thin skin. It will be interesting to see how the project is actually built.

Via Tropolism.

John Hejduk will forever be one of my favorite architects. His work is so far apart from his contemporaries and those who succeeded him, that it will become an example of an architecture without time. While many might believe that it appears dated and that other design trends like surfaces, wrapping and computer modelling have long since surpassed his work, I cannot say I think the same. Hejduk’s use of architecture as narrative created a much deeper involvement for the viewer than most contemporary theoretical work. But what I love most about his work was the romanticized drawings that he produced. While many architects of his time focused on the sterility of their white box designs, Hejduk’s drawings were always so infused with energy and personal connection that they transcend the page.

This is craziness…In a public park in Linz, Austria, three drain pipes have been converted into mini hostel/hotel rooms. Called Dasparkhotel, each room comes with a double bed, linens, a side table and a bed light. The guest is asked to pay what they can for the room. As for amenties such as a bathroom, guests at Dasparkhotel use the park’s public toilets, and nearby restaurants for food. While I think this is a great idea, and a really awesome rethinking of something as banal as a drain pipe, I would have safety concerns, perhaps because I am imagining something like this in Central Park. Also, I wonder who cleans the rooms? The Parks Department?

Via Designklub.

A professor once told me that your architecture can be playful, as long as you are rigorous.

The Hanover Expo 2000 Pavilion by the quintessential Dutch firm, MVRDV, is exactly playful-rigor. It is one of my favorite buildings ever built. Designed around the concept of the vertical garden, each layer displays a different type of ‘natural park’ which is constructed for tourism.

The pavilion has unfortunately fallen into disrepair, as the Expo has long since past and there has not been any allotment to maintain any of the pavilions from the Expo.

Steven Holl has designed a new “Linked Hybrid” complex that is under construction in Beijing, China. Designed as multiple towers that house 700 apartments, these towers are connected on the 20th floor via a circulation path of cafes and other amenities, inverting the traditional city building relationship of commercial on the ground floor with residential above. Holl calls it a “city within a city”. The various ‘towers’ have been organized in such a way (public gathering spaces vs. private living spaces) so as to mimic random city-like relationships through movement, timing and sequence.

Holl’s interest in the “city within a city” shows up in the undergraduate dormitories he designed for MIT (right image). He called the dorms a “vertical slice of city” with residential living interspersed with public gathering spaces as well as a 125 seat theater, a night cafe, and street level dining.

First found at Architechnophilia.

Chad Oppenheim is a Miami based architect (and cornell architecture grad – yeshimesh). The majority of the images on his website are renderings rather than pictures of built works, but regardless, what I like about his work is his interest in the facade. His facades become skins, layered to filter light, air, public and private. Responding to Miami’s climate, he often incorporates exposed interior walkways and gardens by pulling the building’s skin away from the building’s main mass.

Via Inhabitat.

Some buildings have two very distinct appearances, some do not. The Irwin National Bank, in Columbus, IN, is one such example of a building that has a striking second life. Although most people would not see the night side, I think it is a great thing to do. And I appreciate that the client was willing to pursue an inventive way to bring light down into the bank.

The bank was designed by Deborah Berke and Partners in NYC. The perpendicular light volume has a strange mix of Miesian geometries and Dutch weirdness. Either way, I think it’s great.

This is a rendering of the new home for the New Museum of Contemporary Art by SANAA: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa. The design reinterprets the traditional New York wedding cake building. The museum, which is sited on the Bowery in Manhattan is set to open in late 2007.