SKATING IN ORDOS

What do you do with a city built for 300 000 people, but with a population of less than 10% of that? (It's Inner Mongolia, I don't blame humanity for not moving.) We're talking large urban spaces, attempts at innovative architecture, oversize bronze horses galloping across stone plazas, organic concrete shapes and four-lane roads without cars.

You bring your skateboard, of course.

The poetically named Kangbashi New Area, Ordos. Not Bregna.

PUMPKIN TUNNEL

Picture credit: Pinterest, I think

Today in outdoor architecture: A super cool tunnel made of steel and living pumpkin plants. The colour, the contrast between the geometry of the steel and the organic shapes of the plants, and the amazing filtering of the light all come together to make this an unusual and interesting space. Would love to put one of these in my garden, or even in the grounds of a school or public building.

STUMP HOUSE

To live in a stump house! How wonderful is this? From the Jim Linderman collection, who also published a book of arcane americana, with this picture and many others.

PHYSALIS

Picture by Wikimedia Commons

Eating delicious Phsyalis berries as an evening snack, I'm thinking it would be great to make a building with a structure based on that of a of a Physalis shell. A greenhouse, perhaps?

LEAF CEILING

This amazing ceiling made of linden trees can be found at Blindernveien in Oslo, and creates a room as good as any.

The technique is called pollarding in English, and is an excellent way of renewing trees.

ICH BIN EIN HAMBURGER

Yours truly at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof earlier today. The building was constructed in 1906, designed by architects Heinrich Reinhardt and Georg Süssenguth, based on the Galerie des machines. Hamburg is an nice place, and the burger was tasty.

SNOW CURTAIN

"Who needs ccurtains on the isle of Røst"? Photo taken yesterday by my friend Gaute Granlund, who is also the island's vicar.

PINK CHURCH

I don't always go to church on Sundays, but when I do, it's a pink church.

I really wish that was true.

Chesme church by architect Yury Felten in St. Petersburg, Russia. Picture credits: Wikimedia Commons (where it was the picture of the day today/yesterday, depending on where in the world you are).

LIVING BRIDGES

I stumbled upon this video in the Facebook group of my school. It describes the ingenious bridges made from live ficus plants that can be found in Meghalaya, Northeast India. Have a look!

ON WORKING CONDITIONS FOR THE CRAFTSMEN OF MEDIEVAL ARCHITECTURE

FACEBOOK 101

Yesterday, this blog's Facebook page reached 101 likes! As you can see, 92 of them are friends of mine, most of whom were probably invited by yours truly. Still, I think this is fun. I joined Facebook in 2006, and I use it almost every day to connect with friends and co-workers, learning new things, and finding out about real-life events. In this way, the "social network"actually works almost like a well-connected city, with more or less rounded blocks of homes, stores, offices, restaurants and cultural scenes.

In this amazing map of Facebook friendships made by Paul Butler, you can see how large parts of the world are interconnected using this powerful network. I, for one, com from Norway, but have connections going to such far-off places as Kenya, Colombia, South Africa and Bangladesh. Read more about how the map was made in this short and interesting article.

Finally, a picture of a well-connected city, for comparison. Bologna in 1640:

May both the world and its cities become increasingly interconnected in the years to come!

THE UNIVERSE AS SEEN FROM UTØYA ISLAND

If you look long enough, you'll see how the trees spell out the word 'love'.

PINE HORIZON

You might have heard of the pines of Rome, but what about the pines of Skjeberg?

As some old readers may have noticed, I'm very much concerned with how the architecture we create, meets the sky. In nature, the horizon is never boring, but in architecture, it often is. So maybe, the next time you're out there shaping a part of your fellow citizens' horizon, in the shape of a roofline, a garden or a tree-lined street, and you think it looks too simple, maybe you should consider using a pine? They grow into all kinds of shapes and sizes, smell nice, and produce cones than are fun to play with.

As for the picture, it looked better the way it was taken, a bit tilted, and depicts me and my friend Freja-Lina in between all the pines.

SOLID EARTH

Solid Earth from PassitOn on Vimeo.

A little film about a woman who loves to build houses out of earth. Almost too cute, but very appealing, at least to me.

THE STORY OF A TRELLIS

Rummaging through Facebook earlier, I found this very nice picture of my friend Jon-Arne and his friend Isabelle standing under a beautiful trellis in what appeared to be a park of some kind. I got curious about the age and designer of this piece, and after getting some vague description of "Boston, down by the harbour", I employed my superb googling skills, using such search terms as "Boston harbour", "Boston trellis architect" and "Columbus park architect", and I eventually found what I was looking for.

It appears the park and the trellises was somehow threatened by a complete redesign in the early 2000s, which resulted in a preservation campaign and several articles written, including this very enlightening one. I guess it went ok; at least the trellises were saved.

Architects were Sasaki Associates, which seems to be a very interesting practice, especially when it comes to landscape architecture. Their project description with more pictures is here. The park was built in 1976 as an initiation of a major waterfront redevelopment in Boston, clearing old sites and roads to connect the city with the water in a mindful combination of greenery and open space. As a reflection of the site's past as a harbour, materials such as wood, iron, brick and granite are used in a diverse manner throughout the site. I especially appreciate how the space between the water and the streets going down towards it is kept completely open. I imagine this provides people with an opportunity to see the water from within the urban fabric and get a feeling of the landscape.

The beautiful geometry of the trellises oveergrown with Wisterias seem to fascinate many people. There's a "Trellis lighting" here every December, people seem to like hanging around next to them, and an abstracted version is even the logo of Friends of Christopher Columbus Park.

Picture credits:

I: Jon-Arne Bilben Haughseth
II: FOCCP
III: Sasaki Associates
IV: Sasaki Associates
V: FOCCP

FICTIONAL FRIDAY!

Why are there dinosaurs walking in this street? I'll tell you why: Because this is a painting from the fictional land of Dinotopia.

Welcome to Fictional Friday! For quite some time now, I've been interested in fantastical and fictional  architecture and urbanism from books, tv, films, computer games etc, and I've decided to start sharing some on this blog every Friday. 

The opening archifiction is from James Gurney's Dinotopia. The Dinotopia series started with the publication of the first book in 1992, and made up of beautiful and compelling stories, set in a land where dinosaurs and human live together, in (mostly) peace and harmony . To me, however, what remains most interesting, is all the architecture and urbanism Gurney imagined for this world. Everything from farms and small villages to great cities and monuments fill the pages of these beautifully executed books. The references go to Italy, to Gaudi and Maya architecture among other things, and the result is an eclectic and intriguing mix that is both traditional and humanistic, and yet something very different. 


Gurney's drawings and paintings are almost nostalgic, all bearing a picturesque quality and warm glow which I'm sure is what captured my imagination when I forst got to know the work. Now, however, I think it's just as interesting to see how different scales meet in buildings and streets that are made for both dinosaurs and humans, like the different stairs in the top picture, or to see how the needs of humans and the dinosaurs can both be covered and combined through design solutions.

Great books, herebu recommended to all lovers of fictional architecture and good stories.

The first picture shows Steep street in Waterfall city, where one of the main protagonists lives. 


This next one is a view from above, where visitors to the city are getting ready to enter the only way possible, via the air:

A view along one of the channels of Waterfall city. there are no really narrow streets in Dinotopia.

A detail of Waterfall city, with the huge globe and flying creatures transporting people back and forth.

Gurney often makes maquettes for the design of buildings. I think he makes photographs and then paints after them. That's at least how he usually makes paintings and drawings of people.

The Hatchery, a sort of farm, where the protagonists of the story are first taken when they arrive in Dinotopia.

An almost-too-cute village of tree-shaped houses, borrowing some shapes form gothic architecture, built in an unknown material (maybe concrete?). In this painting, Gurney seems somewhat influenced by his infamous college friend, the late Thomas Kinkade.

Thermala, a "village" high up in the mountains of Dinotopia. No dinosaurs up here, only pre-Ice age-looking mammals. A place to stop while on the way to the


Tentpole of the Sky: Featuring Tibetan-looking architecture and old Tibetan-looking guys, this is a monastery of sorts built for seclusion and isolation. This image also shows how his paintings are based on drawings.

Treetown, where houses are built at the hight of the heads of tall dinosaurs. This way humans and their tall friends can talk together face-to-face.

It's nice to have dinosaur friends when you've lost your thingy in the water.

Street scene from the city of Pooktook. Gaudiesque architecture on the right.

This painting was actually made before the books were written. The surroundings were later given the name of "Sauropolis", and named the capital of Dinotopia. The scene is copied for less than a second at the very end of Star Wars Episode 1.

Saurpolis from above. Very classical-looking.

Approaching Sauropolis from the water. Note the Triceratops head on the keystone.


Finally, be sure to visit James Gurney's blog, from which several of these pictures were stolen.

LØKKE BRIDGE

I was hanging around Sandvika (Yes, I know) the other day, when I stumbled upon this beautiful brigde, spanning and being reflected by the Sandvika river. I googled around a bit after taking the picture, and it turns out this is Norway's oldest cast-iron bridge, designed and built by Count Herman Wedel Jarlsberg in 1829. It spans 22,5 meters, is 5 meters wide and is only used for pedestrian traffic.

Already partly hidden by greenery, the bridge now looks pastoral and cute, but I imagine that it must have looked very fresh and modern in its time. I like the circle-shaped holes in the sides, which, I suppose, are there to take some weight off it. While cast-iron is a great material, often providing a handmade look and a finely textured surface, it's also very heavy.

I also found out that I'm not the only one who's been inspired by this subject. In the winter of 1895, one of my favourite painters, Claude Monet, spent some time in Sandvika, and among his paintings from the time you'll find this one, depicting Løkke bridge in it's original location further down the river. You can find versions of it both in the Norwegian National Gallery and at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I MISS KENYA

From the camp we stayed at in Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya.

SAND CASTLE

On my second visit to the city of Mombasa, last week, I decided it was time to build a sand castle again, as I hadn't done it in more than ten years. It's always interesting to explore typologies, and at least in Norway, it seems to me that almost any building that has a tower and isn't made of wood, will sooner or later be called a castle. Nothing more needed? What is a castle, really?

I chose to make mine with a few central towers, some smaller ones around it, and originally, a courtyard surrounded by even more towers. However, the sea soon started devouring the courtyard, and by the time I started taking pictures, more than half of it was gone.

In the technique I use, you need to dig a hole in the sand until you reach the water level. The sand you already dug out, is used to make the underlying structure, be it cone-shaped, long and flat, with a circular or square courtyard, or others. You then take a handful of the sand-water mixture, and let it slide between your fingers to form towers, walls, openings and whatever you want. This technique gives the rounded shapes, and Wikipedia describes it as "dribbling" or making "drip castles".

If you build it too close to either the sea or your little man-made lake, parts of the structure will soon begin to fall. Adapt and fix as you go along.

And, finally, realise it when it's time to abandon your creation and let it return to nature.

ARCHES

I've been thinking a lot about arches lately, especially in connection with building brick walls, an increasingly interesting construction method for new architecture. If you have an ideal of the true construction of a building being visible, as I do, you have you use either arches or lintels to cover any spans, for example for windows and doorways. You could of course, as many do, fake the whole thing by using hidden steel lintels, covered by the bricks, but that is in my opinion a cheap trick, unworthy of an architecture with ambitions beyond a certain wow-effect. A Norwegian example here, from the otherwise rather tasteful Bøler church, by Bjørndal/Hansen Architects A/S:

*Sigh* Back to the arches. There are many kinds of arches to be found, and they're all suitable for different situations.

Parable or catenary arches may be good for a gateway, or a building you want to look soaring and strange,

a semi-circular arch may be suitable for a solid and classic look,

the segmental arch is good for informal red-brick architecture,

the right-angled flat arch or jack arch (there's also a variant called french arch) can be used in architecture with a geometric or minimal expression,

and the four-centred ("tudor") arch may be fitting if you're a hardcore romantic, 

perhaps combined with some sort of pointed ("gothic") arch. 

Still, I think one of my favourites (What's your "favourite arch"? God, I'm such a geek.) is the three-centred arch. This gentle shape creates good vibrations all around, feels earthbound and yet poetic, and doesn't require great height. 

The first place I thought of that uses these, is my former school, the eminent Nansen Academy in Lillehammer.

The old school building, originally a private residence built in 1918, features three-centred arches in the ground floor windows of the entrance facade. There's also a tiny side building, connected to the main volume via a very short arcade made up of a couple three-sided arches. 

It seems this shape was very popular in early 20th Century Norwegian architecture, but it seems to have more or less vanished around 1925. Now, how do you construct this three-centred arches, you ask? You already love them that much? That's good. Here's a youtube video with a very simple explanation:

Now, go ahead and design your own!

(Picture credits:

Arcade with yellow arches - Wikipedia
Bøler church - Anne-Beth Jensen/bygg.no
Catenary arches in Gaudí's Casa Milà - Wikipedia
Marble Arch - Wikipedia
Insula with segmental arches - Wikipedia
Georgian row house facades with flat arches - PhotoEverywhere
King's College Chapel - Wikipedia
Hogwarts' Great Hall - Warner bros, I guess
Nansen Academy entrance facade - Nansen Academy Facebook page
Nansen Academy side shot with people holding flags - asylmarsj.no)