Friday 30 November 2012

Architecture…for the Feet

 If ever there was a painfully (excuse the pun) obvious link between Fashion & Architecture those magnificent structures on your feet were it.

Particularly among women shoes are often most structural & form altering pieces of clothing that you’ll ever own.
Even in it’s most basic form (the classic black court), the architectural qualities of the humble high-heel are breath taking. The simple flowing form & single steel column support; the shoe is literally the foundation of wearer, the supporting element in maintaining an elevated position.

So imagine an architect’s delight when our eyes fall upon the architectural footwear of recent times, the sheer euphoria of seeing exposed structure, flowing forms & the design of miniature spaces that your feet do not wear, but gracefully inhabit.

Of course many make the mistake of assuming that Architectural footwear is simply crazy-shaped shoes (it is not architectural just because it’s shaped like a sandwich), but in reality it is so much more. They are shoes with clean lines & flowing forms, materiality & free from frills, truly architectural footwear makes you look at the shoe & the space in & around it.

Take Tea Petrovic for example, having designed a shoe collection inspired by none other than Santiago Calatrava, his creations are so removed from traditional footwear it almost seems wrong to disturb the space within them with feet.
In true Calatrava style we see an array of clean white lines with rib-like detail, Petrovic makes the most of the context of the foot, filling & playing with all the available space & drawing the attention away from the foot & instead to the relationship between the shoe & the floor.

The shoe unlike most forms of clothing is an ideal precedent for an architect; for a shoe to work it must be structured to support the load of the wearer, it must contain a degree of internal space, it must have a strong & solid relationship with its context (the ground) and it must be comfortable to inhabit. All we have to do is alter what Marilyn Monroe once said "Let an Architect design the right shoes, and they can conquer the world."







Monday 26 November 2012

Architects of Man: Fashion vs. Architecture – Hussein Chalayan

 When exploring the links between the worlds of Fashion & Architecture, it’s almost impossible to exclude Hussein Chalayan.

Chalayan is widely recognised as being far more than a Fashion Designer; with his desire to span all design disciplines in his work, and from seeing the results that this desire produces, it would be a crime to pigeon-hole him into one category.

So what is it that makes him so vastly different?
He’s not like McQueen in the sense that he uses art & architecture to create controversial fashion, instead, Chalayan uses fashion to create miniaturised architecture. His work carries a real spatial quality; his collections create the effect of clothing that is inhabited as opposed to being worn.
Through exploring technology & space, the garments interact with their wearer, surrounding & enclosing them in a wealth of texture & materiality. He uses the architects palette of materiality to create his garments, his catalogue including a series of plastic, electrically wired & wooden garments; from light-up & moving dresses to his most famous wooden “table skirt” (so well-known that he himself is now tired of speaking about it).
To many Chalayan’s ideas could be viewed as crazy little quirks but to an architect his work is an incredible learning tool (Chalayan is often used in Architecture School curriculums), His clothing exhibits a great understanding of the human form & proportion, he knows exactly how manipulating space & light can drastically alter the human perception & emotion. He is so much more than a designer exploiting a shock or controversy factor, he is teaching us how to understand our interaction with the world around us, making us see how our decisions can & will affect the context of our daily lives.

He studies the world & its culture and by using form, materiality, space, light & context he produces a wondrous & technologically advanced structure that encases us to secure & protect us in our everyday. And if that’s not a true architect then I don’t know what is…





                         




Friday 9 November 2012

Happy World Urbanism Day (Yesterday)

Yep World Urbanism Day was Nov 8th so here's a little something I'd like to see croppping up in our city scapes in the coming years...


Image Sourced from www.dezeen.com

A beautiful display by Wilkinson Eyre Architects at the Gardens by the Bay tropical garden in Singapore.

It could fit into Glasgow's George Square right?

Inspiring Interiors: Pescados Capitales Restaurant - GonzalezMoix

Image Sourced from plataformaarquitectura.cl

Ok not wholly the interior this time but since there is such a fantastic continuation between the in & exterior I opted to place it among my inspiring interiors.

Pescados Capitales is yet another restaurant (there must be some form of link between food & space) but it’s been chosen with good reason.
I’ve always been greatly moved by monumental architecture, the way in which the modesty of stone & timber is off-set by the sheer strength of scale is something I find demanding yet sympathetic. The monument commands your respect & attention but you’re so emotionally driven toward it, it never really had to ask you to admire it anyway.

This is, rather strangely, how I feel about Pescados Capitales when I look at. Although made from concrete as opposed to stone, it’s got a wonderful feeling of natural simplicity to it. It quietly hints at being something more than a place to eat, sunken into the imposing concrete outer walls, it’s more like entering an ancient south American temple (something quite nicely suggested with the little selection of sea creatures carved into the beams)

Image Sourced from plataformaarquitectura.cl

The interior is a wonderful marriage of the cold & modest concrete beams and beautiful warm timbers, all wrapped in layer of pristine glazing, leaving you to feel that you’re never truly inside yet still protected by the spirits & space of this gastro-temple.

Image Sourced from archdaily.com

Located in Lima, Peru by Argentinean practice Gonzalez Moix Arquitectos, Pescados Capitales for me encapsulates all that I’ve ever loved about architecture. Drawing its inspiration from the ancients, this modern day temple commands your presence with its stark & powerful concrete walls yet rewards your entering with a warm & welcoming interior.
The Gods presence is always felt as the concrete beams cut through & across the restaurant but at least in this Gods temple it looks like he puts on a pretty good spread.
Image Sourced from archdaily.com

Image Sourced from plataformaarquitectura.cl


Head over to http://www.architectureoflife.net/Blog/2304/Pescados-Capitales-restaurant-by-Gonzalez-Moix-Arquitectos.aspx for some fantastic images