War and conflict often bring about the destruction of architecture, however these forces can also result in new constructions that define a cultural identity and place.Stressed by China’s growing population, the Hakkapeople have been confronted with armed warfare for local resources since the 17th century. To remedy their situation the Hakka began building massive structures that could not only stave off intruders, but would also form amazing self-sustaining micro-communities complete with food storage, space for livestock, living quarters, temples, armories and more.
Rooftop solar panels are unlikely to elicit complaints from neighbors–they’re silent and relatively unobtrusive. But loud rooftop wind turbines? That’s where the virtually NIMBY-proof Ridgeblade turbine comes in. The turbine, designed by a former Rolls Royce turbine engineer at UK-based The Power Collective, boasts a sleek profile that is both powerful and visually pleasing.
For a long time car owners have had yearly gatherings for special brands. Now bike owners are catching up. The first bike gathering for Helkama Jopo-bikes was arranged in Helsinki. Photographer Roni Rekomaa took a cool photo of the bikers on their Jopos. Talk about ultra-cool! /aitoa
ComplexCity is an exploration to find a concealed aesthetic by using the pattern formed by the city’s roads, which have been growing and evolving randomly through time, thus composing the complex configuration we experience today.The project started in Seoul, Korea, where designer Lee Jang Sub was born and has grown up. Now it is expanding to other cities all over the world. Lee Jang Sub now lives in Barcelona, Spain, and explains: “I perceive the city’s patterns as living creatures that I recompose to form an urban image.”
Rome and Paris
The ComplexCity design concept is screen-printed on different materials, such as wood, textil, or paper, each giving the design a different feel. For the final product, the screen-printing effects of the design are implemented on one of the materials listed above.
I was sitting on the tram number 6 trough the center of Helsinki on my way to Hietalahti, and it crossed my mind, how similar the businesses in metropolitan areas are becoming. It doesn’t matter if its Paris , Madrid, Stocholm or Helsinki, but in the core shopping district you always find Prada, Gucci, Hugo Boss, Hästens, Hennes et Mauritz and Zara occupying all of the downtown rental spaces. It’s the same verywhere! Cities need to stand out and find their own character again.
We used to imagine this was a phenomena only concerning shopping malls; that is where you find the shops and enterprises composed of specific pre-organised compounds of shops. Shops that do not enter into each other comfort zone too much to create real competition in prizing, shops that tend to the needs of the average IMAGINED shopper of a specific targeted area. You have malls targeting middle class; these are the malls on the ring roads and perhaps the malls in city center targeting the offspring of the wealthy (those who can afford to live in the city)…so we get for example Kamppi Mall in Helsinki centre that attracts mainly teenagers. (The Kamppi Mall is by the way the busiest mall in Europe –insert ad here-). But as I watched the well known brands pass by my tram window, I realised this has happened to our city centres outside the malls as well. Our cities are becoming a malls.
So what will happen if the turbulence on the financing market continues? Would it possibly create new opportunities to reclaim the liveliness and dynamics of the city centres? When people stop spending on luxury, and the brand shops have to close down, is there a new dawn for experimental enterprises in the centre? Perhaps we will see sprawling young entrepreneur businesses find a niche in our cities. I remember the attraction and excitement of for example Barcelona adecade back, that lay in the possibilities to create things, live from it, change your mind if you felt like it and go in another direction, and succeed again. This was the creation of young students, immigrants, of refugees, of local people using the buzz…all of this both gave opportunity to business to establish and to the atmosphere of that your life lay at your feet to create, whatever age you were. The centre of Barcelona was full of unknown designer shops, small clubs popping up everywhere, record shops, cafés, restaurants. The huge number of tourists consequently flocking there gave way to a lot of trendy hostels. Forget Gaudi (however fantastic), forget the MACBA Museum…the city grew its fame out of the will to do things of people living there. If the city centre would not have supported low enough rents for small new businesses, if the rent levels would only allowed brand names there, the famous Barcelona we know today would not exist.
History, Catalunya, beauty of architecture…all of this would prevail, but we would not have our imaginary City of Life. A lot of `city´ is in the minds of its inhabitants and its visitors, and like the rug under the feet of the financing market, it is also easily shaken if not tendered.//aito
Does architecture shape our surroundings and our behaviour
-or do we collectively shape our architecture?
The street was not wide, maybe four meters wide, and it was sloped up towards a small bell tower. The level change was realized as steps, so that street felt like an interior– a part of a public building or a church. And indeed at the fond of the street there was a the local church, to which outrage the local gay bar on the street set up a fiesta every Sunday at the same time as church sermon took place.
The space of the street was surroundedby four-five story buildings, that seemed to grow out of the same material as the street. Their architectural qualities were humble, one had an over proportioned balcony off center that was full of dry plants like a hairy mold on your face, another had bad cracks in the plaster of the façade resembling a very old woman´s skin. There were also new-builds in the street. One lot on the street had as an economical venture sold building right to wealthy Russians from Novosibirsk, and the Russians had built a luxurious, but slightly tasteless apartment building on the lot. Still something – undefined still by our modern architectural theories – kept the streetscape together like glue and made it hole.
What we noticed after a while after settling in at our rented apartment on third floor, was that the street was never quiet. Even by night you could hear apart from some traffic here and there, also sound of heels tapping the stone pavement, strange shouts you could not locate, and dogs barking.
By day the street was a stage for activity. There were small shops that poured out their products on the street for display, cramped by the small space they had inside. People stopped and talked to the shop owners while passing by. The butcher on the street had a peculiar way of greeting all elderly ladies with a bit too intimate hugs. White collar workers rushed pass the street on their way to work and home. The homeless loitered around. Young men played football on the street. There was a sense of liberties taken and given, an unpronounced allowing code of conduct.
The above writing is freely adapted from professor Panu Lehtovuori´s lecture “Calzada de sant´Ana”, but it could be a description of any street in Europe admired in travel brouschures for its genuinity. Why are we as trained architects unable to design a street like this today?
It’s a steet that encourages, not just allows people to be themselves. It forces to interaction with other people. Interaction is one of the main keys to happiness, if not one of the most crucial. All humans have a need to define themselves and their identitiy through others , through their reaction. Be the reaction admiration, schock, indifference, but we all crave that in some form. When the possibility to interact is taken away from you, you seek it trough the internet, through books, or through meditation or other. Human life is an exodus for recognicion, reaction or the lack of it. But it has to be tested. Every single human being seeks interaction. What architecture needs to do, is to give space for people to meet on the terms they define. Individuality wants liberty to have the freedom to choose who and how it interacts with, but individuality always needs to define itself trough others; if it only observes from the balcony above the street, if it stays in the shadow of the doorway, timid to step out into the limeligh, of if it takes center stage and becomes the hero or the antihero of the show called Calzada Sant´Ana.
Give and get in return.
The above is a story of a street in Lisbon Portugal – Europe. Thanks to professor Panu Lehtovuori and his “Calzada de sant´Ana”.
A simple mission: “to generate design opportunities that will improve living standards for all” by providing an open-source platform through which ANYone can view, post, share, and adapt sustainable, humanitarian-based, scalable solutions. The idea that designs and all associated documents can and should be shared within the decidedly proprietary architectural industry is truly innovative, and could very well aid in the reshaping of the entire architectural profession into a more socially-focused and responsible vocation. Architecture for humanity; Cameron Sinclair on TED talks//aito
To transform temporary available and under-used spaces
A renewed approach to architecture and urban planning cannot be initiated solely by centralised structures and governmental bodies. Doina Petrescu highlights the importance of ‘other spaces’, the temporary appropriation and use of leftover spaces and urban interstices, spaces of relative freedom, where rules and codes can still be redefined.
“Reclaim the streets” is a worldwide phenomenon, where people take over the streets and set up a party. Yesterday in Helsinki, Punk took over. The organization was excellent; one second – people fill the street, two seconds – traffic is stopped and anarchist black flags put up, and a red blanket constructed to hinder cars from passing. Three seconds – the tent is up. Four seconds – the instruments are orderly put up and the spontaneous stage is ready. Five seconds – a small aggregat is carried in to give power to the loudspeakers. Next the bar is up and punk music fills the neighbourhood. //aito
As architects we often get frustrated by building codes. Finnish building codes are strict, and cut in stone, there are no excuses made. A step higher than 40-50 cm; has to have a safety rail of 90 cm high. Apple trees in apartment building gardens; forbidden, raw apples can be toxic if consumed in huge quantities (and I mean HUGE). A staircase cannot be too narrow or too steep – ever. Etc, etc. By all these rules we think we make the world safer. But is safety first right? We are actually by eliminating risk, also eliminating part of life, and the process of learning. Learning gives you joy and confidence. And arent small risks so much more fun than someone telling you “play NOW!”.//aito
A major study says parents harm their children’s development if they ban tree-climbing
A major study by Play England, part of the National Children’s Bureau, found that half of all children have been stopped from playing; climbing trees, playing conkers or taking part in games of tag or chase. Some parents are going to such extreme lengths to protect their children from danger that they have even said no to hide-and-seek.
‘Children are not being allowed many of the freedoms that were taken for granted when we were children,’ said Adrian Voce, director of Play England. ‘They are not enjoying the opportunities to play outside that most people would have thought of as normal when they were growing up.’
Voce argued that it was becoming a ’social norm’ for younger children to be allowed out only when accompanied by an adult. ‘Logistically that is very difficult for parents to manage because of the time pressures on normal family life,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want your children to play out alone and you have not got the time to take them out then they will spend more time on the computer.’
Voce pointed out how irrational some of these decisions were. Last year, almost three times as many children were admitted to hospital after falling out of bed as those who had fallen from a tree.
The tendency to wrap children in cotton wool has transformed how they experience childhood. According to the research, 70 per cent of adults had their biggest childhood adventures in outdoor spaces among trees, rivers and woods, compared with only 29 per cent of children today. The majority of young people questioned said that their biggest adventures took place in playgrounds.
Voce said Play England was determined to spread the message that children ought to be taking risks and that it is ‘not the end of the world if a child has an accident’. The latest study will be launched on Wednesday to coincide with Play Day, when hundreds of events will take place across the country to celebrate children’s right to play. It will show that play providers also feel the opportunities for children to ‘test and challenge themselves in play involving a level of risk’ have reduced over the past decade. They blame overcautious health and safety officers and the fear of litigation if children have accidents.
