The Mason's Bend Community Center is located in the center of the small town in Alabama on land donated by the late Mr. Harris. A small group of rural studio thesis students designed and built the center based on the community’s needs. The site features a transportation stop for the county-funded mobile library and mobile health center as well as an outdoor gathering space. The site’s main draw however is the small chapel. This chapel serves the local prayer group and is used to serve free school meals to children in the summer. The chapel’s walls are made from compacted earth that contains clay, cement and water. a rested metal drip edge sits on top of the walls, matching them in hue. The structure’s most sticking feature is the aluminum and glass roof. Which uses salvaged car windshields found in a Chicago scrap yard, the windshields and the aluminum sheets are attached to a metal frame.

Cost: $15,000 (majority of materials are reused + little labor cost incurred)

See more here.

DJ Arquitectura has designed this municipal swimming pool in the small Andalusian town of Lobres. The project is a genuinely artificial landscape, playing deftly on the ambiguity between the natural and manmade. The building becomes a kind of artificial valley enclosed by a series of rough, whitewashed walls. The volumes around and under the open air pool are put to practical use as changing rooms, service areas and a kiosk. The transition from street to pool is a trajectory through these dark, subterranean spaces illuminated by bubble-like roof lights, to the bright, al fresco pool cradled by the green lined walls. Recyclable and easy to maintain, Astroturf creates an easily sustainable illusion of luxuriance in the searing Andalusian heat. Climbing honeysuckles suffuse the building with their smell, while clumps of winter cherry and fountain trees add seasonal variety to this urban oasis. Over the pool itself, shade is provided by a squiggly cloud of white canvas threaded through with tensile wires. This moves and sways with the wind, like washing on a line, casting changing shadows across the green sward.

www.djarquitectura.com

Patkau Architects of Canada created this group of temporary plywood skating shelters huddled together by a skating trail along a frozen river in Winnipeg. The shelters are constructed from two layers of flexible plywood attached to a timber frame, with a timber floor and plywood seating inside.

See more here.

Lisson Gallery presents a major survey show of work by Ai Weiwei to be held across both Bell Street spaces, London. The broad selection of key works from the past six years was agreed with the artist at the beginning of 2011.

May 13th - July 16th 2011

Ai Weiwei is one of the leading cultural figures of his generation and consistently displays great courage in placing himself at risk to affect social change through his art. He serves as an example for legitimate social criticism and free expression both in China and internationally.

Highlights of the 13 works in the exhibition include Colored Vases (2010, 2009), groupings of Han Dynasty pots (from 200DC-220AD) covered in industrial paint. An expert in ancient Chinese ceramics, Ai’s continued desecration of individual vases can be seen as political comment on the organized destruction of cultural and historical values that took place during the Cultural Revolution, when everything old was replaced by the new. In questioning value and defacing tradition Ai is confronting the legacy of past generations with the needs and experiences of the present. At the same time he gives a new perspective on contemporary commodifications.

See more here.

The Casa das Histórias Paula Rego was designed by the architect Eduardo Souto de Moura. The building, located in Portugal makes use of certain aspects of the region’s historical architecture, which is here reinterpreted in a contemporary way. It was designed to exhibit paintings, drawings and etchings by artist Paula Rego, the red concrete museum has four wings and two pyramid-like chimneys. The interior is painted white with flooring made from local marble.

See more here.

House I



House K

Two houses designed by two Japanese Architects, Yoshichika Takagi and Sekkei-Sha.

House I is a single family home made up of open and enclosed rooms. The space is presented with a complex structure that gives the feeling of extensive space.

For House K, the client wanted an outdoor like environment indoors, without sacrificing habitability and comfort. This led to the idea of making house shaped indoor rooms emulating a village like view.

Yoshichika Takagi & Sekkei-Sha's Website.

Peter Crawley creates these illustrations by hand piercing 420gsm watercolour
paper with a pin and then stitching the paper with a needle and cotton thread.
Peter’s work has been featured in leading art and design publications and exhibitions. The illustrations are held in private collections in the UK, Europe and North America

www.petercrawley.co.uk

Felicity Hammond


Matteo Sanguinetti Bird

The AOP awards is solely dedicated to finding and promoting the best photographic talent in the UK. This is their 30th anniversary and over the years the reputation has steadily grown. They are now regarded as one of the UK’s leading student photographic awards programmes.
There are four categories - Lifestyle & Portraiture' Fashion & Beauty; Landscape, Interiors & Exteriors and Still Life. Students are called to enter challenging, creative pieces of work that push the boundaries of photography and are rich in flair and technical ability.

(Above: Winners 2011 Landscape, Interiors & Exteriors and Still Life.)

More information here.

http://www.dashmarshall.com/projects/kga/

Architectural photographer Roland Halbe has sent us his photos of three health centres in Madrid by Spanish architects Estudio Entresitio, all with identical floor plans but executed in different materials.