Buildings of Gingerbread

This year's gingerbread creation - The Emerald City! Why do one house when you could do a whole city?
I still need to figure out royal icing, because this stuff was way too stiff to get very artistic with. Still, though, I think it turned out pretty fun. It is 4 layers of flat gingerbread stacked against each other and turned upright. Decent depth. I am going to have to try this again next year with some more thought and better icing.

Barbie gets a new career

This cracked me up, so I had to share it: Barbie is getting a new career.  Mattel is producing an Architect Barbie as part of its "I can be" line.  The article put out by the AIA (American Institute of Architects) is interesting.  I find it particularly disparaging that even in this modern day and age of supposed equality, only 17% of AIA members (the institute in which one is likely, but not required, to belong to when one becomes a licensed professional) are women.  This sounds about right since there were just 12 women out of 50 in my own graduating class almost 10 years ago (yikes! I'm getting old!) and becoming licensed involves MUCH more than just graduating.  I won't get started on my feelings and opinions of how male-dominated and un-family-friendly the profession is...that's for another post entirely.  For now we can just focus on the fairly unrealistic Mattel "vision" of what an architect must do:

“Girls can imagine designing their very own Dream House with Barbie® I Can Be…™ Architect.  Ready to tackle the daily responsibilities of a real architect in or out of the office, Barbie® I Can Be…™ Architect includes a hard hat and a set of blue prints. Wearing an architecturally inspired dress showcasing a city skyline, Barbie® doll’s outfit is symmetrically stylish with bold colors and clean lines.  In designing this doll, Barbie®  partnered with the American Institute of Architects to keep Barbie®  I Can Be… ™ Architect  doll  authentic to the career.”

Meanwhile, I bring you an image of Architect Barbie.  Don't you think the dark-rimmed glasses are a nice touch?  Personally, I think the outfit is ALL wrong.  Architects wear black and gray.  (Okay, I am being somewhat stereotypical, but while I worked, I did notice a lot of black and gray and it crept into my own wardrobe at an alarming rate.  I still think of my dark gray turtleneck as a professional-looking power shirt...maybe I have problems.)  We won't even get into the fact that architects rarely make enough money to design their own dream house...

Bottles of Light

Oh that I could take an architectural photo like this one.

On Thursday the boys and I made a little architectural pilgrimage to a building I had not visited since architecture school.  We were visiting a friend who happened to be at Seattle University for work for a couple of days and I decided since we were there, we would make a little detour.  Unfortunately the weather was wretched and we couldn't actually go inside the building due to a service in progress.  A lot of my pictures from the day are terrible due to the weather and having my children with me, so I have supplemented from the web.
On Seattle U's campus is a very famous building designed by a famous architect who actually went to my alma mater, the University of Washington, and believe me, none of the professors ever let us forget that during school.  The building is St. Ignatius Chapel and the architect is Steven Holl.  I don't love all of his stuff (for example, did not like his proposal for Ground Zero), but I am very fond of this little building.
I have a thing for church-architecture. It is a fascinating genre because architects are generally given more artistic freedom, yet the obvious religious purpose of the building provides some fairly intense constraints and challenges.  This creates the possibility for some serious elegance and grace (or unbelievable bad taste, as is the case of another church I intend to blog about in the future once I figure out how to get some decent pictures of it).  I could actually write quite a few blog posts on interesting churches I have visited, and I have not even been abroad to see the cathedrals of Europe.
Back to St. Ignatius.  It is fascinating!  As stated by Holl on SU's website:

Holl conceived of the chapel as "seven bottles of light in a stone box," with each bottle or vessel of light corresponding to a focal aspect of Catholic worship. Light passes through each bottle in a specific area of the building to define physical and spiritual spaces with pools of clear and colored light.

The outside of the building is what I will call tastefully-funky, but it completely serves the inside of the building.  It is truly a case of form following function.  That might be both a critique and a compliment.  I can't decide because as critical as some are of the exterior of the building, I like it.  It is very human-scaled and almost feels friendly as you walk by it.  The exterior is also very tactile - even the glass of the windows at eye-level appear to be dimensional and it is hard not to reach out and touch them - in fact, I did.  Nearly everything about this building feels unique and custom made for it.
While the interior truly is the highlight of the building's experience (as it should be with a church), there are many interesting details on the exterior of the building worth noting.  Here are a couple of them:

The front door hardware.

The front door.

My son next to one of the custom windows.

The interior of the church is filled with textured
pale walls washed with very delicate and indirect, colored light.  This is achieved through clear or translucent glass, oddly enough.  The windows are generally up high and hidden by a baffle that has a bright color of paint on the window-side of it.  The light shines through the window and bounces off of a colored wall, reflecting colored light onto very plain walls.  All of the windows are different shapes, at different levels and reflecting different colors.  The light changes inside the building based on both the time of day and the weather.

One of the baffles with a bright blue painted on the back.  I also love the pendant lighting.  You can imagine how this photo would look differently if taken at night.

The reflection of red has a powerful effect.

If you ever find yourself in the area (sort of where the Central District meets First hill meets Capitol Hill), take a walk past it (just north of Columbia off of 12th Avenue).
The building won an AIA award and the model permanently resides in New York City's MoMA.
For another great take on this building, go HERE.

Beseiged by "Plop Art"

Today, I took my sons on a little tour of our new lightrail system here in Seattle. Most of the time, we just rode the train, but we stopped off at the most ambitious station on the line to have a good look around and take some pictures. It is a station that sits on a challenging topography in a location where the tracks are pretty far above the ground, and right next a freeway that is going up a big hill that curves around a bend. I've been watching this station since it was just earth, so it was interesting to see the finished product.
I spent a couple years of my career, as well as one of my studios in college, aiding in the design of light rail and monorail stations. I've participated in all sorts of things including functional and conceptual planning, 3d modeling, track-visualizations for an Environmental Impact Study, etc. I even had a 3d station model rendering displayed very large in an art exhibit at a museum in Canada. I have a great love and appreciation for this kind of architecture. It is one of the few kinds of architecture that is not inhibited by mechanical systems. There are wires and ducts, but since it is not an enclosed building, the rules tend to be a lot simpler. I love visible structure and stations are full of it - no need for drywall.
I don't have much to say about this station itself. It's about what it should be, I'm not in love with the roof, but it works. It's kind of a no-frills structure. It's easy to negotiate as a user, seems to flow and function well, I even like that parts of it are painted a very loud yellow (helps with the winter-drear).
The thing that drives me crazy about any kind of public works project is the public art. Seriously. In so many instances, I feel like it compromises the integrity of the architecture. I remember touring the Millenium Line of Vancouver's SkyTrain back in college. There are many impressive stations (google them if you're into architecture, you won't be disappointed) but only a couple had tasteful public art. Most of it was just tacky installations awkwardly hanging in odd places or plopped right down on the ground out front. I have no problem with 1% of the construction budget going to public art, but I wonder why it couldn't be more practical and integrated. I love the idea of using the money for some pretty glass. Have you ever stood next to or under Dichroic glass on a sunny day? It is stunning and memorable - even a little mysterious. Glass can have a huge impact on the beauty of a place, without compromising (or distracting from) the architecture. I have also seen some very tasteful wrought-iron fences right here in Seattle that were works by artists which served a purpose and beautified a location - King Street Center is a great example (even if the artist is the most egotistical guy I've ever met).
After you look at the above links, let me show you what I saw yesterday, and these three pieces were all at the same station:
This is the first piece I noticed while coming down the escalator. Umm. Huge drop of milk?
Hanging over the other escalator "foyer" was a giant molecule? I wouldn't dislike it so much if it didn't have all these goofy "memories" all over it. It said stuff like "...I remember when..." followed by some reference to what used to be around the location of the station. I'm okay with making a nod to the elderly people who grew up in the area, but isn't there a better way than on a giant, brightly-colored molecule? Furthermore, where is the cohesion with the giant drop of milk?Then upon going outside, we encountered this one. Is it an avocado or a guitar? Or is it a guitar-avocado? I am confused. I can tell you, though, that while my three-year-old son LOVES guitars, he was completely terrified to even go stand next to this thing, it was so giant.
Don't get me wrong, I love art, I love artists. I just think these kinds of pieces really junk up a nice, clean piece of architecture. Why clutter something that is so purposely-simple? What does it add? Looking at the above picture, though, can't you see how some nice built-in glass might have dressed it up appropriately while enhancing the experience of taking that escalator down to the ground? Maybe some sort of design in the form-work of the concrete might have been tasteful?
If I thought that anyone actually read this blog, I might ask for discussion, but for now, I'm just saying...
Still, I'd love your comments/opinions/experiences seeing atrocious or beautiful public art.