Reducing electricity consumption in homes to become as addictive as checking your blogstats?

The UK government has recently passed new legislation requiring electricity suppliers to fit free real time electricity price monitors in homes in a plan to massively reduce electricity consommation in homes. With Britain committed to reducing its carbon emissions to 60% of 1990 levels by 2050, I am certain that this measure will go at least some way to seeing how much electricity they are wasting. Who knows, checking your consumption metre might become just as addictive as checking your blog stats (addicts, you know who you are!). Read more on the ICE website.

Pre-’fab’ wooden house in Hackney

Over the last few days the way we live, architechnophilia, and inhabit have all been covering a new pre-fab wooden house in Hackney designed by David Adjaye. Pre-fab does exactly what is says on the tin. It is PREfabricated and it allows the construction of some FABulous buildings in less time than it takes concrete to set. I remember seeing a documentary about a pair of artists who dreamt of building their own house for their retirement. In the end chose to have a house designed by a German team who specialise in pre-fab metal structures. The house arrived in pieces on a flat bed lorry and within a matter of days, a team of five or so had ratchetted the whole thing together in a latter of days (if any readers remember seeing this programme and know who they were I would be much obliged if they could share the knowledge!).

There are quite a number of streets in Hackney with grand old Victorian semi-detached houses set back from the road, especially around London Fields and Victoria Park. Every so often however there is a house missing, presumably victims of stray second world war bombs in this area of East London. And quite often these gaps are filled with new and exciting architecture. I haven’t seen Adjaye’s house for myself, but I can well imagine it filling such a void.

ps If anyone reading happens to be going to Hackney this weekend (I’m sure one of you will be) and happens to be passing, could they get me a picture so that I don’t have to steal somebody else’s… thanks

Fischli and Weiss at the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris

 

 

Last night I went to the brilliant and rather amusing Fischli and Weiss exhibition “Flowers and Questions” at the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris. To say rather amusing is somewhat of an understatement: I spent so much time smiling, if not laughing out loud, that if ever I left one of the exhibition rooms without the corners of my mouth turned up, I was inclined to feel it was a bit boring. In fact I think this happened only once.

This pair of artists play on our perceptions of materials and our sense of scale. One room was filled with jet black objects all apparently made from different materials: a tree trunk, a stone facia for a fireplace, a cutlery rack, a leather pouf. They were all in fact cast in rubber. More unbelievably, in another room which appeared to be an artists work shop filled with tools, rotting food, furniture, cargo pallets, razor blades, cigarette packets etc etc, I was stupefied to find out that every single object had been cast in plastic and then painstakingly painted. We were permitted to pick up a plank of “wood”. It was in fact a plank of plastic that seemed to float up with no effort. This illusionary game played with materials made apparently everyday objects unusually tactile.

In front of two video projections is where I spent most of my time. One was the ultimate childhood dream. It showed footage of one of those chain reaction sequences that kids dream of but apparently only grown ups get to build. Something falls over, it tips something else, a bowling ball rolls down a spiral etc. Only in this system, it wasn’t a ball that was kept moving, but a flame. Paraffin flows, and catches fire, balloons burst fireworks rocket up tubes and set off detonators, fire extinguisher foam dissolves blocks of sugar cube that support a vat of chemicals on the point of tipping over and so on and so on.

From the sublime to the ridiculous in the second video. A nature video but with our two heroes in a panda and mouse suit living out their animal existence.

In fact, I loved it so much that I am going to go back.

Showing in Paris until 13^th May.

Can’t get enough of Calatrava, Hertzog and De Meuron

Two articles on the way we live caught my attention…

Since my final year project is well and truly rooted in the domain of tall buildings, I was interested by Calatrava’s Chicago spire

and because, quite simply, they build beautiful buildings, cast an eye over Hertzog and de Meuron’s work in Beijing

God’s architect: Saint Antonio Gaudi?

Thanks for Mary for finding this article about the camapaign to confer sainthood upon architect Antonio Gaudi, creator of my favourite building site in the world: La Sacrada Familia in Barcelona. I say building site because the colossal cathedral is not due to be finished for another twenty to forty years.

It is well known for its UNESCO protected facades, but it is the columns that flank the impossibly tall and narrow nave, sculpted like impossibly slender trees that are astonishing. All imagined and engineered without finite element analysis or any other modern day computer wizardry. The grounds for Gaudi’s beatification are his pious lifestyle and his divine inspiration (attempts at finding a “miracle” to confirm his saintliness – a prerequisite on the saint application form – have resulted in some pretty hilarious and far-fetched tales. See the article for more). I have no doubt that Gaudi lead a pious life and there is no doubt that having a new saint on the block will help with the construction of this cathedral: every drop of concrete has been paid for by private donations and gate fees so a few extra pilgrims would do no harm. It would be a shame however to confuse mastery of the mechanics of materials for divine inspiration. A wander around the crypt at the at the Sagrada Familia demonstrates some of Gaudi’s technical mastery through his models (details of which deserve a post of their own).

The same could be said of other ‘devinely inspired’ engineers and architects: Christopher Wren for St Paul’s, Michelangelo for St Peter’s, Imohotep and his step pyramid (Egypt’s first). They may have prayed a lot but they are also all great engineers!

Finally, I wonder about the wisdom of granting sainthood to an architect/engineer. The bible is not exactly full of praises for worldly construction afterall…

Engraving The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré