Vertigo

image via dwell, arch daily, and Tommie Wilhelmsen

Architects Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen designed this overlook platform in Aurland, Norway. The project is enthusiastically described on a number of sites including, Landscape+Urbanism, Dwell and Arch Daily. All I can think of is flying and falling and the feeling of risk involved in walking to the end and looking down, out over the fjord, the transparent glass holding your reflection at the end of the bridge.

I was searching for images related to the word moiré and I happened upon this Czech site, which appears to be about book arts or layout design. "Moiré rather trusts in crafts than marketing." In some ways I enjoy the site's opacity because the lack of context and explanation allows the pattern and images to speak for themselves (or to converse amongst themselves). Interesting collection.

Madame Ovary

artwork by Richard Russell

I think this is hilarious.

Incredible slides

Slides as experiential sculpture by Carsten Holler from a 2007 installation at the Tate Modern in London. Holler maintains that slides can help combat stress and depression. Borrowing a phase from french writer Roger Caillois, he describes the experience of sliding as 'voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind'. "What interests Höller... is both the visual spectacle of watching people sliding and the 'inner spectacle' experienced by the sliders themselves, the state of simultaneous delight and anxiety that you enter as you descend." (Quote from the Tate website) (Images and information from the exciting and inspirational playscapes. Additional images from flickr creative commons)

Concept Sketches

Here are the concept sketches Renzo Piano did in 2000, envisioning the new California Academy of Sciences. Although loose, these drawings allowed him to win the bid to design the new building, which opened its doors in late September. (from NY Times)

This is a design in an old Geneva square by Swiss firm 2B architects. I love the light an pattern created in the spacing of the glass blocks. "Using traditional sandstone, as well as glass blocks or cobblestones in a random pattern, the architects are letting you in on a secret - a lake used to occupy this land. The closer you get to the location of the medieval lake, the closer the glass blocks are spaced." (borrowed) This is a beautiful and subtle visual indication of a historical condition.