The Design Crack Guide to Architecture
Nice Tower! Who’s Your Architect?
"THE HL23 tower, planned for a site on 23rd Street in Chelsea, is the kind of commission Neil Denari has being waiting for his entire working life. Mr. Denari, a Los Angeles architect who once ran the Southern California Institute of Architecture, has labored on the profession’s periphery for decades. But because of a recent […]
Heineken World Bottle: Green Means More than the Color of the Bottle
Heineken has created one of the most ingenious products I’ve seen in days. As you can see from the image above, the new Heineken World Bottle or WOBO can be used as a building material after its contents have been consumed. This product presents a real challenge to my moral compass. One perspective is that […]
Urban Wind: A Viable (and Aesthetically Pleasing) Green Design
Dan Hill from the Blog, City of Sound, has written a compelling article on the sound modeling of wind turbines as well as the aesthetic affect on the urban fabric. In his recent blog post, he states:
“In urban environments, smaller vertical axis wind turbines can look like modernist sculptures and all the better for it, […]
Parametre by 3Form
I almost don’t believe this exists. This is a panel created by the company 3Form. If you’re not familiar with 3Form, and you’re an interior designer than quit now. 3Form is becoming the preeminent interior surfaces and materials company with their plastic sheets embedded with fanciful objects such as grass and their beautiful use of […]
Drop Tiles by Johans Golv
I’ve been spending the last couple of days loading design crack with draft stories. I have hundreds of products that I want to tell you about that blew me away. I would say this product is more mildly warm, though. Drop is a system of ceramic tiles by swedish tile maker, Johans Golv, that are […]
The Chicago Spire by Santiago Calatrava
Famed Spanish Architect, Santiago Calatrava, known for such buildings as the recent Milwaukee Art Museum, has moved further down the lake to Chicago to create what might be his most enduring work in a long career of enduring works. This one is not as flashy or anthropomorphic as his previous buildings, but it has one […]
New Academic Building, Cooper Union, New York by Morphosis
I’m embarrassed to tell you that I started this post months ago. I was in New York in May when I went by the building site, and at that time the building was still at the stage where the contractor’s were doing sitework. This new building will be the New Academic Building for Cooper Union, […]
Peter Zumthor Bruder Klaus Chapel: Sublime, Powerful Beauty
I’ve always been a fan of the work of Peter Zumthor. And a recent article that I’ve read in Icon Magazine has reinvigorated the joy that I get in his work. This work in particular, the Bruder Klaus Chapel, has inspired me to go to souther Germany to see this work in person. Rarely do […]
The Illoiha Climbing Gym Explores the Childlike Joy of Climbing Over Fine Furniture
The Illoiha spa and Gym in Tokyo explores a number of fun and interesting concepts in pampering and working out, not the least of which is this climbing gym. This climbing space designed by Nendo Akihiro is made of a number of baroque pieces of furniture, mantles, and picture frames built to a high durability […]
East Beach Cafe by Thomas Heatherwick
Thomas Heatherwick created this beach side cafe in Little Hampton, UK around an extremely strict design cept. The owners wanted to discourage graffiti, which was a problem in the past, by getting rid of any large expanse of flat surface on the building. But it was the building’s intention to be long and thin to […]
Can a Gas Station Really be Green? Office dA Thinks so.
Office dA, a Boston based design firm, has created in the heart of Los Angeles this gas station that creates quite a paradoxical relationship for those who seek it out. For the everyday user of this gas station, it’s just another funky monument in the “look at me!” culture of Los Angeles road side architecture. […]
