You are browsing the archives of 2007 December.

Bill Dunster Architects Zedfactory Limited has been successfully demonstrated that the environmentally friendly skyscraper is no longer an oxymoron. Office towers by Ken Yeang and Norman Foster, among others, have shown that building tall can be energy efficient. However, there are currently few, if any, residential equivalents. Bill Dunster, architect of the low-energy BedZed development [...]

LOT-EK’s best-known rooftop project is the Guzman Penthouse in midtown New York. Constructed partly from a reclaimed truck container, it is an iconic image of Modernism returned to its industrial roots mixed with the spirit of Post-Modern reappropriation and New York’s famously bohemian loft culture. The project included extensive technological gadgets, most notably a vertically [...]

De Kamp, Amsterdam-Buitenveldert Apartments by Tangram Architekten
Penthouses are not the most democratic of urban spaces, yet their lofty perch enables them to conjure up light-filled, airy interiors that belie their central location and the high density of the surrounding housing. Amsterdam-based firm Tangram Architekten has taken two of the penthouse’s most enviable characteristics ? the [...]

Mobil Chalet at Munich, Germany
A great amount of mobility, energy efficiency, good design and optimum functionality?Hans Georg Dieterle kept his promise to fulfill these requirements in a convincing manner with his patented solution for living and working. The mobile chalet can be used at various locations in an undisturbed natural setting as well as in [...]

b. Norwich, 1778;
d. Cambridge, 1839.
English architect and classical scholar who pioneered the Greek Revival in Britain. The eldest son of an architect, Wilkins took a joint degree in classics and mathematics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (1796-1800). He was elected to the Society of Antiquaries and travelled round Sicily, Greece and Asia Minor as [...]

With the LoftCube, the architect and designer, Werner Aisslinger, from Berlin has created an ideal concept for big city nomads. Studio Aisslinger’s LoftCube combines the appeal of rooftop living with three other emerging trends: smaller living spaces, portable architecture and prefabrication. Essentially a square, caravan-like structure. the lightweight LoftCube is described as a ‘mobile home [...]

b. Oxford, 1831;
d. Worth, Sussex, 1915.
As close friend of William Morris, friend and mentor to W. R. LETHABY, the chief technical adviser and instructor to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and the designer of a relatively few but hugely influential major houses Webb became the principal instrument through which the Arts & [...]

Wolkenstein in Meran, Italy
Wolkenstein is designed by Holz Box Tirol and Di Anton Hoss. Marquees and sunshades usually spell the death of every architecture with ambition. For that reason, the architects of a four-storey residential building in Meran have taken precautions to prevent unregulated design elements appearing at random on the balconies of the [...]

b. Karlsruhe, 1766;
d. Karlsruhe, 1826.
Friedrich Weinbrenner was the dominant figure within the German school of Neo-Classicism at the beginning of the c19. After studying mathematics and architecture at the Academy in Vienna, Weinbrenner travelled to Berlin and Italy, returning in 1797 to take up the position of building inspector in Karlsruhe, where his influence became [...]

The Skyhouse is a residential concept from Marks Barfield Architects, best known as the creators of the London Eye. There is continual pressure from the central government for new housing initiatives, but little official encouragement for new high-density schemes, and Skyhouse was developed as a means of demonstrating that living in towers needs not [...]