Lost AT E Minor

A Bath called Bad

Formed in New York and now based in Rotterdam and Berlin, SMAQ is a collaborative studio for architecture and urbanism by architects Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau. Here they have created an interesting installation called Bad (bath) in the Solitude Palace Gardens in Stuttgart with the premise of creating a usable sculpture which entwines a 1000 metre long garden hose throughout a timber structure. Read more

Benjamin Verdoncke’s human nest

Just a few days ago, Benjamin Verdoncke climbed out of the human-sized nest he’d been residing in for the past seven days. The Dutch artist took six weeks to build the nest, which hung fifty metres high against a skyscraper in Rotterdam. Read more

Desiree Palmen

Photographer Desiree Palmen takes some pretty amazing photos of people that have been camouflaged in their surroundings. It’s a simple concept, and not necessarily radical, but the Rotterdam-based artist does it well enough for the resulting images to be rather striking. Read more

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

Hamburg’s music and glass ice sculpture

Since the beginning, architects have been faced by the challenge of housing the ever unpinnable idea of music. The challenge here is the Elbe Philharmonic Hall in Hamburg, Germany. Basel-based architects, Herzog and de Meuron have created an ephemeral glass tent-like structure perched on top of an existing heavy modernist abandoned warehouse. The warehouse will be composed mainly of parking and back of house, while the glass structure incorporates concert halls, restaurants, bars, apartments and a luxury hotel. Clearly, this is a tremendously exciting alteration and addition to an existing site and building, with this new ice sculpture reflecting the surrounding changing environment and the soaring notes within. Completion is scheduled for 2010.