The Architecture & Design thread!

[Cowboy]

Rule 1. THIS IS NOT A PLACE FOR DISCUSSION OF THE CELTIC TIGER OR ITS FALLOUT.

Rule 2. This is a place to discuss, enjoy and admire some great building design wherever it may be and whoever it may belong to.

Rule 3. Enjoy!


I'll get the ball rolling.


Bentini Headquarters in Italy by Piuarch:







The light treatment in that last photo is wonderful and adds a real excitement to the otherwise kinda brutalist facade. Cant decide if I prefer the front or rear elevation more.

This website is fantastic: http://www.architizer.com/en_us/
The search parameters allow you to fine tune down to what you are looking for.

Please add and expand this thread! (Huwie)

Cowboy

[Cowboy]

Some work by my favourite Irish firm O'Donnell and Tuomey:

Gray House in Howth

http://www.odonnell-tuomey.ie/webpage/gray/gray.htm







These guys do clean lines and break up massing pretty brilliantly. They also like to include local materials a lot (lots and lots of wood to soften things)

[Huwie]

The Irish public choice awards 2012 linked here

http://www.architectureawards.ie/

I dislike many of them to be honest.
But the favourite for me is Mary Laheen Architects New extention to Primary School for girls. even though the exterior isn't to my liking, the interior spaces are fantastic and thats what its all about with schools





I also commend the Limerick Architects Donoghue Corbett for Old House / New House and to a certain extent House in Lispopple and Teach Bhaile Eamoinn + the renovations at Fota and Ard na Sidhe is fine work from the images

[Boo-boo]

There is always one that sticks out in my mind from childhood and I still love it.

[Boo-boo]

This Metro station always stuck out for me too. It is Opera Metro station in Budapest. So beautiful.

[Huwie]

This Metro station always stuck out for me too. It is Opera Metro station in Budapest. So beautiful.

There are a few gems in Russia also.

[Cowboy]

NUI Galway
Engineering building

Taylor Architects/RMJM

[Huwie]

NUI Galway
Engineering building

Taylor Architects/RMJM

Is that your choice in the RIAI this year Cowboy?
Its another that looks better at night. What is it with you and liking things with the lights off?

[Cowboy]

Someone had a vimeo on here of a guy creeping around a disused NYC subway station, It was excellent, but for the life of me I cant find it anymore, anyone remember it and could help out please?

[Cowboy]

Is that your choice in the RIAI this year Cowboy?
Its another that looks better at night. What is it with you and liking things with the lights off?

Ya I think thats the one for me. Plenty crash bang wallop and doesnt take itself too seriously (one or two of the others do in my view)

I like the proportions, I love the materials and I like how 'sinewy' it is.

[Huwie]

Sorry Cowboy, can't find it either.

In the meantime some more gems

Stockholm Metro



Marienplatz Station, Munich


Westfriedhof Station, Munich


The Smithsonian In Washington DC


Malostranska, Prague


Bibao Metro


Vienna


Rotterdam


Another one in Munich


Madrid

[Boo-boo]

Oh I must have something for train stations. I loved all those station shots. Maybe it is that you have to experience them when you are there and not just look on at them and wonder. The boxes out side are meh for me but the stations are underground and hidden and another world that you are allowed to explore.

[Cowboy]

The Buck Rogers Munich one is top of the lot for me. Fully expect 2 guys with AK47's, hard hats and moon-suits in a white golfbuggy to drive down that on the hour every hour.

[Boo-boo]

The Buck Rogers Munich one is top of the lot for me. Fully expect 2 guys with AK47's, hard hats and moon-suits in a white golfbuggy to drive down that on the hour every hour.

[mr chips]

I like what's been done with the Ulster Museum - the approach to displays is refreshing and you get to walk up around/above a lot of the exhibits and see them from the perspectives of three different floors. Hard to find a pic that does it justice but hopefully these might give an idea of what it's like since the refurb:







Incidentally, an exhibition of Da Vinci drawings just opened there the other day - very much looking forward to going to see it.

[fitzy73]

It's not everyones cup of tea, but I love La Grande Arche de la Defense in Paris. There is something elegant about it for me.

[Hellboy]

It's not everyones cup of tea, but I love La Grande Arche de la Defense in Paris. There is something elegant about it for me.

Dangerously crumbling building.
And the canevas sheet wasn't in the project.
The archis didn't think to the pressures and damages caused by the draught ! (true.)




Save queue time and money...

http://www.versailles3d.com/en/

[munstershane]

NUI Galway
Engineering building

Taylor Architects/RMJM

My wife works opposite this building and i have to say I am very disapointed with it from a design point of view.

Could the architects not have come up with a design that matched in some way the two other buildings in that area of the campus? It's bloody awful and looks nothing like the picture above at night. That picture is massively photoshopped.

[NotreDameRFC]

Oslo opera house.....

[Piquet]

Dangerously crumbling building.
And the canevas sheet wasn't in the project.
The archis didn't think to the pressures and damages caused by the draught ! (true.)

They never do.

[Huwie]

Dangerously crumbling building.
And the canevas sheet wasn't in the project.
The archis didn't think to the pressures and damages caused by the draught ! (true.)




Save queue time and money...

http://www.versailles3d.com/en/

They never do.

Sure thats a failing with the product or the engineers not the Architects.

[Huwie]

Oh I must have something for train stations. I loved all those station shots. Maybe it is that you have to experience them when you are there and not just look on at them and wonder. The boxes out side are meh for me but the stations are underground and hidden and another world that you are allowed to explore.

I agree Boo-boo. Love the fact that they are hidden, my favourites are ones that have shafts of natural light coming down, really makes you feel like you're in a crevasse or something.
I do like some of the ground level Guimard entrances on the Metropolitain in Paris. They seem like something Jules verne dreamed up

[mr chips]

What do people think of the Titanic Building in Belfast? I reckon it's a triumph myself, a real addition to the city's skyline.



When it comes to architecture, I'm a bit of a bridges man. I know it may suffer from over-exposure/over-familiarity on here, but I think the Beckett bridge in Dublin is truly beautiful - makes me think not only of a harp, but of a full sail.



The new Peace Bridge in Derry (for pedestrians only):




The Humber Bridge - what a piece of engineering!


The Forth Bridge, a real icon:


Then of course there's what I consider to be the daddy of them all - the Millau Viaduct:






And just to finish off - the bridge at the end of my lane.


Some day I'll organise myself a long trip around Europe on the trike, one that takes me either walking or riding across all my favourite bridges. Looking forward to that one!

[Piquet]

Sure thats a failing with the product or the engineers not the Architects.

If the Architect was advised that the proposed materials of construction were unsuitable for the conditions and failed to alter the design to take account of this advice, then the Architect is at fault.

[Huwie]

If the Architect was advised that the proposed materials of construction were unsuitable for the conditions and failed to alter the design to take account of this advice, then the Architect is at fault.

If it was a call made by the architect then it falls to him.
But thats an engineering or fabrication issue usually. Have you a link for this info?

[Piquet]

If it was a call made by the architect then it falls to him.
But thats an engineering or fabrication issue usually. Have you a link for this info?

I was posting generally rather than specifically for the building in question.

Sometimes an Architect will design a building, the Sydney Opera House for instance, that cannot be built as designed.

[Huwie]

The Buck Rogers Munich one is top of the lot for me. Fully expect 2 guys with AK47's, hard hats and moon-suits in a white golfbuggy to drive down that on the hour every hour.

And the one in Rotterdam looks like the chute thing they send Arnie down in the running man.

[Cowboy]

My wife works opposite this building and i have to say I am very disapointed with it from a design point of view.

Could the architects not have come up with a design that matched in some way the two other buildings in that area of the campus? It's bloody awful and looks nothing like the picture above at night. That picture is massively photoshopped.

Disappointed

[Cowboy]

Oslo opera house.....

You sparked a memory:









The Black Diamond in Copenhagen. Coffee almost as good as the surroundings!!!

[Huwie]

I also thought of the Black Diamond