COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE

Can be nice, but sometimes it just looks weird. 

(Azania Front Lutheran church, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania)

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.

SIMCITY!

The old classic is coming back. This looks like fun!

THE NILE

A few weeks ago, I was at the source of the river Nile. Just outside Jinja, Uganda, this body of water separates  from Lake Victoria and sets off to its journey to the Mediterranean. The Nile has contributed to many great and interesting cultures, most famously that of Ancient Egypt, which sparked the creation of the rather successful Western culture. And I've touched it, just where it begins.


PS. There are at least two or three other places around in Africa also claiming to be the source of the Nile, but this one has trees growing out of rocks and big lumps of concrete creating cool waves.

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)

GO FORTH

Decay and optimism for a new decade.

CHEESE SLICERS!

After almost two months in Kenya fighting off the deilicious cheeses they produce here using unsharpened knives of all sorts, my colleague Heidi and I were extremely happy when we suddenly found cheese slicers at our local supermarket the other day. And they didn't just have one type, they had four different models! The cheese slicer is a Norwegian invention, originally designed by carpenter Thor Bjørklund, and patented with the number 43377 in 1925.

NICE CURVES AGAIN

When am I ever going to stop obsessing over nice curves?

Answer: Not today

(I found this lamp-post in the government quarters in Nairobi.)

SIMPLE

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. - (Probably) Albert Einstein

WEAR SUNSCREEN

We were talking about this song in the classroom some time ago. I'm doing great in Kenya, but I miss you guys!

A SIMPLE IDEA OF TETRIS AND URBANISM

Imagine the point when the screen is almost entirely filled up by the different pieces, because you're not really that good at Tetris. Imagine it's a city, and you're seeing it from above. Imagine that every piece is a block, with apartment buildings along the edges, and huge green common backyards in the middle. Imagine narrow streets separating all the pieces, and that the unfilled spaces are squares and parks.

SWEDISH KING

I found this in the Swedish National Museum. I forgot to write down who it was, but I guess it's a king or something.

And now, have a look.

Normal king:

PSYCHO king:

Conclusion: Be careful when choosing your "good side".