Victoria Modern

Thought I would post some of my research findings for a new project I am currently working on in Victoria BC.

The highly inventive Trend House, Saanich, 1954, a demonstration house for the lumber industry, was tremendously influential. Modest in size (825 square feet), it was the smallest of the eleven Trend Houses, but easily the most dramatic, with an angular floor plan and soaring roof anchored by a massive central chimney. Throughout his career, Di Castri retained a singular vision of modernism, one that did not shy away from historical references or decorative elaboration.
article courtesy of Modernism In Victoria 1945-1975 by Donald Luxton and Associates.

Trend House brochure

About the Architect

Born in Victoria, John Di Castri showed an interest in the Arts from an early age, becoming a talented architect, writer, musician and skillful painter. As a young man, Di Castri admired the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and went to study with the formers most eminent pupil, Bruce Goff, at the University of Oklahoma. See below for some of my favorites Di Castri works.

Green Orange Composition 1956

Brown Green Orange Compostion 1971

Totemic Compostion 1958

Returning to Victoria and opening a practice in 1951, Di Castri became the architectural brains behind the modernist movement, displayed in some of Victoria's most well-trodden landmarks; including the addition to the Royal B.C. Museum, Centennial Square, the CNIB building, several local churches, the Trend House and University of Victoria campus buildings.

Improvisation Composition 1956

Westcoast Mysticisim II 1954

Adolescence Composition 1967

Homage to Mondrian 1952

Committed to the fulfillment of man's need for a significant environment, Di Castri injected modernism, low profile, and organic design into Victoria's architectural landscape.

images via WinchesterGalleriesLtd.com

Urban Animals

fox in London Underground

image series below courtesy of artist ROA

ROA started painting abandoned buildings and warehouses in the isolated industrial outskirts of his hometown, Ghent, in Belgium. Fixating on the animals he found there, the wildlife became the central subject matter of his work, inspired by their clever ability to adapt as scavengers in order to survive. via www.arbuturian.com

more ROA

The role of Social Media in Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design

Urban Interventions is the theme at the 2010 British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects Annual General Meeting this weekend in Vancouver. I will be contributing to the round table discussion on Trends in Social Media, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design. This years conference is full of stimulating topics including Plant Species for Urban Environments presented by Wimm van der Zalm, Kris Fox on Economics and Modularity In Sustainable Landscape Construction and Hell Burlingame on Reclaiming the Outdoor Space for the Digital Generation. See below for the social media round table section from the conference program, and be sure to visit the website to download the full agenda. I will let you know how it goes as soon as I get back, enjoy!

For more information please visit
www.bcsla.org

Landscapes of Future

Pavel Pepperstein (b.1966) takes us on a journey through the conceptual landscapes of the future.

the red black star - multifunctional bridge in Perm, the year 2201

the artificial icebergs with faces of the polar explorers, the year 2241

el lissicky airport in Perm, the year 2102


the artificial clouds in the year 2488

the great red flag, the year 2500

the red cube, the year 2555

the monument of the yellow colour. Kamchatka, the year 4307

the huge spriral of DNK, erected west Sibyria in the year 3021

excalibur sword to all warriors of the earth. year 2199

attack of the old houses

Pavel Pepperstein

Vertical Garden Concept Yates Street Victoria BC

field trip

A recent project has me researching the principles of acoustics in spacial design. I visited the University of Victoria's Phillip T Young Recital Hall on a recommendation from a friend and was moved by the sound quality, layout and comfort of the space. See below for sketches and images from my visit.

My timing could not of been better as a masters violin student was practicing her art.

Phillip T Young Recital Hall

return of landscape

Via Topos.de
“Landscape must become the law.”

exhibition Berlin Germany - 13.03.2010 - 30.05.2010

Such was the call, made as early as 1959, by the landscape architect Walter Rossow in the face of rapidly increasing water pollution and destruction of the environment.

Fifty years later his call is more relevant than ever: The urban over-exploitation of the countryside is causing environmental problems of unimaginable magnitude world-wide - and the concepts involved are familiar: climate change, water shortage, food shortages and the disappearance of species.





Urban sustainability must be conceived in a larger, more comprehensive way. The city of the twenty-first century must be developed from the landscape. But, in this process, the landscape must be seen as more than just a supplier of material resources; it must be strengthened, too, in its significance as an aesthetic and emotional living space.

The Akademie der Künste in Berlin is placing these topics at the centre of the large, interdisciplinary exhibition Return of Landscape.









Among other subjects, the exhibition will feature a comparative juxtaposition of the world’s two most artificial cities: Las Vegas (see photo; credit: Alex S. MacLean for Akademie der Künste, 2009) and Venice.

The following offices will be presenting their work: Shlomo Aronson Landscape Architects, Jerusalem; Astoc, Cologne; RMP, Bonn; Batlle i Roig, Barcelona; Workshop: Ken Smith Landscape Architect, New York; Studio Boeri, Milan; Turenscape, Peking; Atelier Corajoud, Paris; Kiefer, Berlin; Kienle, Stuttgart; Lohrberg, Stuttgart, and Venturi, Venice.

Please visit:

Topos.de
+
adk.de/landschaft

Activating Nature with Gross Max

If you have yet to familiarize yourself with the work of Gross. Maxx........your slipping.

The firm lead by Bridget Baines, Eelco Hooftman and Nigel Sampey (formerly of West 8) represent a new generation of contemporary European landscape architecture.

We chose Gross Maxx and Chora Architecture's collaborative proposal for the state of Berlin's Urban Landscape and design competition to represent the firm's progressive outlook on the relationship between nature and technology.

Competition:

Open two stage urban-landscape architectural design competition

Client:

State of Berlin, represented by the Senate Department for Urban Development

Occasion and Purpose:

With the cessation of flight operations at Tempelhof Airport on October 31 2008, Berlin recovers a large inner-city area which was withdrawn from the urban development for decades and can now be developed in stages and reintegrated into the city organism.

the site

Plan for the renewal of the Tempelhof Airport site, Gross Max in partnership with Chora Architecture & Urbanism, Joost Grootens and Buro Happold.

The partnership’s conceptual proposal suggests the development of new city quarters and the construction of a renewable energies power plant which will supply power to the adjacent districts and play a key role in achieving the German government’s targets to reduce CO2 emissions.

Check out Gross.Max. for more