Green roof tops Daum Communications / Ilshin Building, Seoul, Korea

Seoul is not known for it eco-friendly building designs, but a couple of buildings I encountered recently, which have significant green roofs, have made me thinks that there may be hope yet for this city.

A Green roof according the Wikipedia:

A green roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and soil, or a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. This does not refer to roofs which are merely colored green, as with green roof shingles.

The most significant benefit of green roofs are:

• Reduces cooling cost in the summer
• Reduces the city’s average temperature
• Reduces stormwater run off

The best known green roofs are Chicago City Hall, The GAP Headquarters and Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge Plant.

Click image to view slideshow

Yesterday I visited the new offices of Daum Communications, the distant-second-but-nicer-place-to-work Korean portal site (#1 is Naver.com). It is housed in the newly completed Ilshin building in Hannam-dong which is also the home to the Italian embassy. On the roof of the building I was surprised to discover a green roof. The chairman/CEO of Ilshin Spinning, Kim Young Ho, the building’s owner, is no stranger to design and architecture, having graduated with an architecture degree from Pratt in NY, and served on the board of the Korean Institute of Architects and also know for his formidable modern art collection. The anecdote recounted by one of the Daum staff was that he delayed the opening of the staff cafeteria on the 2nd floor of the this building because he was not happy with the design of trays.

Click image to view slideshow

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself at Ewha Womans University (Note: “Womans” is not a misspelling), one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Korea. I was very impressed by their recently completed the Ewha Campus Complex, which was designed by French architect, Dominique Perrault. The building itself unnoticeable at first glance since it is half buried in the ground, but this makes for an impressive green roof.

Dongdaemoon Design Plaza
(photo: archiCentral.com)

Ground was recently broken for Dongdaemun Design Plaza, which replaces the aging Dongdaemoon Sports Complex. The London-based architect Zaha Hadid was awarded the commission following an international competition. The most prominent feature of the design is its fluid surface green roof that weaves and connects the various part of the design.

Central Library, Seattle, USA (Rem Koolhaas, OMA)

How does a public library cope in a digital age? How does a physical space handle a virtual classification system such as the Dewey Decimal system, and continuously changing needs?

In the Seattle Public Library’s Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas / OMA, books stacks run in a spiral space AKA The Book Spiral (very cool diagram), with removable numbers in the floor so that the library is flexible enough to “learn” and adapt to new needs.

The library embodies many other noteworthy principles that you can find in OMA’s original 1999 concept book for the library.

It’s a space that exemplifies Stewart Brand‘s notion of “How Buildings Learn”.

More photos.

Lille Grande Palais/Congrexpo, Lille, France (Rem Koolhaas, OMA)

Photo taken in 1995, shortly after Lille Grande Palais / Congrexpo in Lille, France was completed. Designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA.

AIA's America's Favorite Architecture website

The American Institute of Architects (aka the AIA), celebrating its 150th Anniversary, put together a website of America’s favorite architecture. The list was compiled by polling its members. The result is a collection of 150 buildings, bridges, monuments and memorials which users can vote on.

What’s nice is that they have added models to Google Earth, so user can see the location, and see the landmarks in 3D

My personal favorites? (from the list provided by the site)

1. Grand Central Terminal, New York
2. The Vietnam War Memorial, Washington DC
3. Brooklyn Bridge, New York
4. The Getty Center, Los Angeles
5. Seattle Public Library, Seattle

Of course, my selections are skewed towards building in New York that have personal significance and buildings I have actually visited.

One glaring omission in my opinion: National Gallery of Art‘s East Building, Washington DC, by I.M. Pei. This building is by far my favorite in Washington DC.

Go and vote!

iriver booth at CES 2008

I used to live in Fairfax Virginia, about 10 minutes away from Tyson’s Corner Mall. Tyson’s Corner was the mythical location of the first Apple Store which opened in the summer of 2001.

When I first visited the Apple Store in 2001, it was like setting foot inside a gallery: very quiet, uncrowded, with patrons admiring Job’s masterpieces, slowly moving from one item to the next. Just before I left for Korea, I had a chance to visit the NYC 5th Avenue store. It was a madhouse.

However despite the difference in atmosphere, what remained the same in both cases was the consistency of the user experience throughout the store conveyed through the layout, knowledgeable staff and careful choice of architectural materials that furnish each store.

Our experience of a store is first impacted by the materials our senses register. Think of a GAP store compared to a Urban Outfitters store. It’s not surprising that someone took the time to take apart all the materials and furnishing in an Apple store, in case you want to build yourself a shrine to Apple’s retailing success in your living room.

A project that I was peripherally involved in was the iriver booth for CES 2008. iriver, best known in the US for its un-iPod MP3 players and other digital devices, is one of only a handful of companies in Korea that maintains a strict control over its products and branding image, much in the same way that Apple does. VINYL the company I work for (along with 607)was responsible for designing and installing the iriver booth (link in Korean). The team took a lot of care to project a clean, sterile environment and even suggested that iriver hire knowledgeable local fans to man the booth. The booth ended up on the Top 25 Booths as selected by Tech-Em and Event Marketer magazine. The most successful part of the booth in my mind is the interactive projection. When a visitor stand in front of the projection, speech bubble pop up above their shadow and follow them around, showing whimsical graphics. The walls of the booth is actually a screen, so all this interaction can also be viewed from the exterior, drawing curious visitor to come inside.

(Photo credit: Vinyl VLab)

Simplicity

Belatedly I finished John Maeda‘s book, The Laws of Simplicity, which outlines ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology and design. In effect he is building on the “Less is More” principle, popularized by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (originally spoken by Robert Browning in 1855.)

I’ve been a long admirer of the concept of simplicity. In architecture and the arts, simplicity was often called “minimalism” or even “modernism”. At the turn of the last century, in reacting to rampant pluralism of styles, and trying to come to terms with industrial production and the embodiment of socialist ideals, modernists rejected ornamentation and sought more fundamental architectural values. They stripped architecture down to it minimal functionality. Works by Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier of the 1920′s and 1930′s exemplify this movement.

By the 60-70′s simplicity had become stylized to the point that some reacted against its “over-simplification” burden of stylized, soul-less modern architecture. The vanguard of this reaction was Robert Venturi‘s compelling 1966 book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. In this book, the author call for a return to richness in architectural meaning, and the embrace of inherent contradictions of the human condition. Unfortunately what they started was the beginning of the often misguided and cacaphonic post-modern movement in architecture.

Maeda’s book mentions this cyclical relationship and rhythm simplicity and complexity have towards their coexistence. We seem once again to be drifting towards the simplicity extreme again these days.

What I liked the most about Venturi’s book, isn’t so much the complexity part, but the contradiction part. I think we are bound to live with contradiction. This is a part of what makes us human. I love simplicity but I value complexity. Fractal rules are so simple yet they reveal a deep complexity. Humans are wonderfully complex but driven by very simple hopes and loves. I see it all the time within me and in my children.

It seems that Maeda tries to dig deeper to a more spiritual plane. What he write seems more than a series of observations that can be translated into techniques for product development or organizing your desk. It is less a series of laws to abide by and more a series of conversations worth engaging in, with our very being, in search for a deeper meaning.

Vittorio Gregotti, Italian architect, architectural critic and former editor of Casabella has a whole chapter entitled “On Simplicity” in his 1996 book Inside Architecture. Here he muses: (my italics)

…to me simplicity is not simplification, and above all not simplification as a formal model. Eloquent simplicity can be reached through great effort, but it is never a good starting point, nor above all, an objective at any cost. Architecture is not simple; it can only become simple.

…Simplicity must make contradiction itself clear and compehensible without denying its existence and its value as a material for establishing difference.

Gregotti talks about simplicity in the context of architecture, but it can equally be applied to product design or design of online services. What he seems to be getting at is that we should not strive for simplicity for its own sake. This will end up being another misguided stylistic overture or even worse, end up denying the a meaningful part of our existence.

The future of simplicity seems to be in its ability to work with complexity. Industrial production techniques nowadays allow for simple, personalized variations in design. (think iPods inscribed with personal messages before delivery). Websites deliver, in simple form, personalized information that is in fact generated through complex algorithms and make use of immense processing power.

Great complexity belies anything of great beauty or meaning.

Leibniz once wrote:

The infinite fold separates or moves between matter and soul, the façade and the closed room, the outside and the inside.

Infinity that is enclosed in a finite space. Now that’s a simple and complex idea, if not a pure contradiction.

My Lloyd's on London photo on Schmap!

A photos I took back in 1989 of Richard Rogers‘s Lloyd’s of London made it on to Schmap‘s guide to London, a dynamically travel guide which bills itself as:

Exploring a Schmap Guide is a uniquely interactive experience: maps and guide content are dynamically integrated, allowing intuitive, real-time access to reviews and photo slideshows for places of interest.

You can also see the original photo or the Lloyd’s of London Flickr set.

Dismantling the P&O Building, London (via Daily Mail)

Amazing photograph of the P&O Building in London getting dismantled bottom up. It reveals how the whole building is actually supported by the structural utility core, and that volume does not equate to weight. [Daily Mail via BLDGBLOG]

The angle and composition of the photo reminds me of two painting, one by René Magritte and another by M.C. Escher exploring similar themes of volume and mass.

Lightness

It also reminds me of how Buckminster Fuller – architect, engineer, innovator, inventor – was always concerned about how much a building weighed. He went on to construct the world’s first geodesic dome building in 1949, which was a building that could sustain its own weight with no practical limits. He gave practical meaning to the phase “less is more” when he said in 1980:

For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the ‘more with less’ technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option to become enduringly successful.

We see Bucky Fuller’s influence live on in sustainable architecture projects, best know of which is Habitat for Humanity.

A weight of a building, we now know, has more somber consequences in the aftermath of 9/11.

This is very high on the list of places to visit next time I am in NY.

ITP Big Screens Testing Round 2 from shiffman on Vimeo.

The Getty Center, Los Angeles (Richard Meier)

I’ve spent a lot of time in Los Angeles in the past few months consulting for a client there. In a short-but-sweet time off, I did get to visit the Getty Center, a huge $1.2 billiion complex overlooking LA, designed by Richard Meier, which was literally walking distance from the hotel I was staying at.

Richard Meier is one of those architects whose works all architecture students of my generation have a love hate relationship with. You love it because it’s so romantically modern, in the lineage of the master Corbu himself, but begin to hate for the same hegemony and seductive qualities, constraining the exploration of architectural potential.

The Getty Center stands almost like the Acropolis on a hillside and is accessible only by tram. But I must say, I was impressed by the architecture, and the attention to detail. Meier’s signature white walls, the careful choice of materials, the landscaping, the architectural promenade weaving through the building that serendipitously revealing view of LA all beautifully complement the blue sky and the dry landscape.

You could sit on the grass, which prompted one surprised kids to shout back at his parents, “Look Ma – free grass!” It just tells you how nature-deprived we all are living in cities.

On one of the steps, I found something interesting: an imprint of a leaf in the travertine stair landing. It’s a mystery how it got there.

I put together one Flickr set of all the photos I took at the Getty, and one of just the materials.