Eco gas station

William Powhida at LA’s Charlie James Gallery

Fellow alumni William Powhida has a fantastic new exhibit up at Los Angeles’ Charlie James Gallery, No One Here Gets Out Alive. In this new Series Powhida’s aptly named fictional character, Powhida, flees the New York Art World for a stab at destroying LA, indulging in all of our favorite vices, booze, coke, sex and sometimes art. We read about this debauchery in Powhida’s trompe l’oeil notebook pages, newspaper articles and obsessive lists. I even found myself enjoying an issue of 944. Incredible! The show remains open until December 5. Read more

Mirko Martin

German photographer and video artist Mirko Martin has some great photos of car crashes, arrests, and street scenes taken in LA. They are very much imbued with the character of the city, blurring the distinction between Hollywood and reality. Read more

Wurstküche Restaurant, LA

Touted as an ‘exotic’ sausage grill, the Wurstküche restaurant in downtown LA has quickly established a cultish following since it’s opening last year. This super popular joint features an impressive range of mouth-watering sausages from classics, like Italian or Bratwurst, to gourmet varieties like apricot and ginger, to exotics, like rattlesnake and rabbit with jalapeno. Read more

Floating House

This house has many facets that make it an intriguing example. First of all, it is a very aesthetically pleasing project with the use of light horizontal timbers and a clean pitched roof. Designed by MOS, an interesting design collective based in America, the secret to the Floating House is that it floats on a structure of steel pontoons. The house rises and falls with the changing waters and is frozen in place depending on the season. The steel pontoons were constructed first and towed to the lake outside the contractor’s factory and then the house was built atop of it. When finished it was towed to its position, anchored and enjoyed in its unique position. Finally, it forms a bridge between the land and an island. Wonderful!

Torre Bicentenario

Dutch uber-firm OMA, headed by Rem Koolhaas, has created this concept in Mexico City to symbolize the coming two hundred years of Mexico’s independence. There are many layers of symbolism in this building, from Mayan pyramids to which part of the building controls the park and which part controls the city, to the fact that the bulge of the building is below the centre height, and that it all happens on a relatively small footprint. Most of all, in this building there is a barely contained energy that seems near to release and it may be that this is what Torre Bicentenario represents.

Danish Building Bridge

The Danes are renowned for their considered and subtle design. However, in these times of change, they must feel they need something with this selection of a bridge building as the winner of a recent architectural competition in Denmark. The American architect Steven Holl designed this building with a pedestrian bridge that links two sides of the harbour in the distinctly low-rise Copenhagen. Read more