Xpressionz of an Architect

I visited Miami last week of December ‘06. Miami was full of surprises. It’s one of the fast growing fashion hubs with its diverse cultural influence. The feeling I got here was similar to European places like Paris, Milan. The Lincoln road mall is a series of shops lined along couple of city blocks which has world renowned brands from apparel to accessories mixed with restaurants, European style seating outside on the side walks. This was all at a walking distance from the beaches. South beach has incredible clear deep blue water.

To my amazement I found out that the area marked between 5^th and 15^th street at Miami Beach houses art deco style architecture. The structures here are unique examples of good preservation. Lot of use of cast in place concrete to achieve the art deco style. This was reminiscent of Bombay, India where I grew up, there is an evident influence of art deco style throughout. Another interesting thing I thought would share with you is the hotel which we were staying in, The Royal Palms hotel was initially built in 1939. When they had to renovate and rebuild it in the late 90’s, the building codes were so laid that they had to build the new hotel from the original plans and elevations of the 30’s. It’s so unbelievable that this hotel is built in the 90’s, doing perfect justice to the art deco architecture. The original stone front desk is still preserved and used in combination with glass. The hotel lobby gives a good example of mixing the art deco style with modernist ideas.

Swiss Re Headquarters – London, UK, 2004

Norman Foster is known for his high-rises around the world. In the words of the architect the pine cone like structure was the result of aerodynamic experiments which showed this shape provides lowest resistance to wind. It’s a capsule like structure emerging from the city has perfect aesthetic elegance and invokes awe. The net like steel construction allow for support free spaces right up to the core. There are triangular light and air shafts spiraling up to the top. Its concepts of natural lighting and ventilation represent a European style high-rise.

Commerzbank – Frankfurt, Main, Germany, 1997

After twelve years of completion of Hong Kong Shanghai bank, Norman Foster built the Commerzbank in Frankfurt. This was the tallest office building in Europe , a milestone in high-rise construction. Something which amazed me when I read about this building is that the guidelines provided by municipal authorities and clients were very demanding. Building regulations in Germany , contrast to USA, stipulate all office workplaces must have daylight and visual contact with the outside world. So this structure follows the concept of natural ventilation air-conditioning along with natural lighting. There are sky gardens and hanging gardens also offer unique views of the city center. Providing all that along with great architecture sets this architect apart.

Hong Kong Shanghai Bank – Hong Kong, China, 1986

This shows a structural ingenuity which is associative of Norman Foster. This being his first high-rise is the perfect example of globalization of architecture(British Architect and composed of prefab parts around the world). The building is made up of eight masts, each consisting of four steel tubes, divert the total weight of the building onto the foundation. This in turn gave unlimited possibilities for the floor plan. Foster developed innovative lighting for the offices and air-conditioning which is cooled by sea water. That’s an amazing feat to achieve for skyscrapers.

Norman Foster the name invokes well known skyscrapers. I knew about his high rises but when I researched thru his structures, I found out his creations have used the concepts of natural ventilation and daylighting which are in sync with new technology. Architecture of the future will involve using ecological concepts along with the traditional building concepts. Norman Foster has already shown us the direction.

This is a competition where all local architectural firms unite and serve the cause of giving back to the community. We create sculptures or structures out of food cans and raise money thru the exhibitions. Every year there is a new theme for this canstruction. This is a good cause to support; it feeds the homeless thru the food bank. We are a part of this from the past two years. This is our second time. This year the theme was “wonders of the world”. We decided to create the Spiral Minaret of Samarra. It’s an age old wonder of the Middle East. We created the top spiral part of it. The challenge was creating the arches and spiralness of the tower. There is a lot of work which goes around for months before the actual competition. We raise money so that we can buy food cans. The more we raise the better structure we make. We get the cans in a month ago and start mocking up our structure. The whole process is so interesting. At the final build-out day all the cans are delivered on site where we build our structure. You wonder how they must have created at the olden times without the technology of today. We started facing problems as we started getting higher more than 5′-0″. Our cans started toppling due to the weight from the layers above. Gosh that was so shocking to see our cans topple especially when you have spent 5 hours stacking them. We had to come up with something. We started putting our heads together and trying bunch of different things. We didn’t excel at the first shot but did at the third attempt. I saw the human spirit likes to soar and conquer difficulties when it’s challenged. We also got an award this year; all that effort was worth it. Our structure received the “Best Use of Labels”. Here is the link to the official website for construction (www.canstruction.org).

 

We started painting our house today. It really took lot of time… We started around 6:00PM and we worked till 1:30AM. Just returned home… Here are some snap…

Also before and not yet after photo…

We closed our house on 9/29/05. It was swati’s birthday.. So was a great day to close. Things din’t go as well as I had hoped though. First when we went for final walkthru our door was not even painted. That sucks. Next the attorney made mistake in the paperwork so we had to go back again today to sign the papers. Anyway.. I guess that is part of life. It is better that anything that has to go wrong goes wrong before we move in…:):

So now it is paiting and moving time….

Hey guys an interesting thing happened the other day. We had been mall walking over the weekend and stumbled upon this abstract painting. We looked at it from a couple of different angles and then finally decided that this would go very well with our cotemporary furniture. We bought it there and then. Sudhir and me are very impulsive shoppers when it comes to art. The problem is we do not and mind you DO NOT agree upon together to buy anything. Our tastes are totally opposite. So we do buy things on which we mutually agree upon at once.
Now the real dilemma is that the painting totally stands out from everything I had in my mind. I had chosen the draperies , accessories and the theme keeping in my mind the current paintings which we have and everything was well coordinated till then, But the moment I have seen this painting and see it day in and day out, the whole scheme is gone for a toss. Have to come up with something new this time. Thats a bummer. Didn’t see that coming.