Arch.itect.us

You are browsing the archives of 2009 October 04.

No matter how stylish factory-fresh laptop and netbook computers may be, they all lack that certain something only a human owner can provide: individuality. These 15 examples of creative laptop art show that stating your case to appeal to the senses demands the application of the same.

Situated in a suburban area, south of San Francisco, this particular dream home comes from Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects and brings two strong attributes to the table:  design and sustainability. The house was built considering the future owner’s requests: he wanted place that “maximizes the drama of the pond and takes advantage of the privacy [...]

This is a post from the Freshome Magazine, who bring you the latest news in Interior Design, Decorating, Furniture and Architecture.

Sustainable House By The Pond

After a discussion with a colleague at UWA on sustainability in architecture and living walls/vertical gardens, I got on Google and found this and this. London’s first living wall at Paradise Park Children’s Centre in Islington has passed away.

‘A so-called living wall relies on an artificial supply of water and fertiliser to survive, and the design… is over-optimised and therefore very vulnerable. Unlike a natural eco-system it has no redundancy, so if one thing goes wrong, it all goes wrong.

‘Just keeping [a wall] alive creates lorry-loads of embodied energy and pollution. The living wall cannot be sustainable because a basic principle of sustainability is that you do not live beyond your needs,’

The technology needs some refining really, but it’s not like the early rockets got into space…

The Infrastructurist, a lovely blog sub-headed as “America under Construction” has been added to the sidebar. Some really beautiful posts on this one, all relating to (you guessed it) infrastructure.

One with particularly nice imagery is The World’s Greatest Large Urban Parks. Non-Euroamericans be warned…

We should note that all the parks on our list are located in Europe and North America. That wasn’t by insensitive design–the ones we chose just seemed to us the best candidates. If we missed any giant, amazing, centrally-located city parks in Asia or South America or Africa or some little island somewhere, please feel free to give us a beatdown in the comments section.

For those interested in Perth, a little addition lies below…

KINGS PARK - 1003 ACRES (or 401.2 hectares)

The park is a mixture of grassed parkland, botanical gardens and natural bushland on Mount Eliza.

Besides tourist facilities Kings Park contains the State War Memorial, the Royal Kings Park Tennis club and a reservoir. The streets are tree lined with individual plaques dedicated by family members to Western Australian Service men and women who died in World War I and World War II.

Officially opened on 10 August 1895, the park was originally called Perth Park and was renamed in 1901 to King’s Park - the apostrophe was later dropped. This was to mark the ascension to the British throne of King Edward VII and the visit to Perth of George, the Duke of Cornwall and Princess Mary. One of the major roads through the park, May Drive is named in the Princess’s honour.

Sounds thrilling, especially the reservoir. Visitors will find it a slight inconvenience getting there without a car, and those that have a car will probably find it a bit difficult to park on weekends, especially if the weather is good. The eastern edge overlooking the city is nothing short of spectacular but be warned…your view will probably be obstructed by a war memorial or five. The best thing they could do to Kings Park is leave it exactly the way it is and not add anything more to it.