In Chicago

I'm in Chicago for about a week, so in that time posts will be slow. Here's a few of the buildings I saw in the last couple of days, via my Instagram feed.

WMS Boathouse at Clark Park by Studio Gang Architects:


Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston by Ross Barney Architects:


Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois in Skokie by Tigerman McCurry Architects:


Northeastern Illinois University El Centro Campus by JGMA:



Erie Elementary Charter School by John Ronan Architects:

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MoMI as a Future House

The first time I saw this futuristic house in a commercial for New Jersey lottery's "Cash 4 Life," I thought it looked familiar:


Turns out it's the highly photogenic Museum of the Moving Image expansion in Astoria, Queens, designed by Thomas Leeser:

[Photo: Elizabeth Felicella | Image source]

Specifically it's the cafe at the back of the lobby, which doubles as an event space:

[Photo:Wendy Moger-Bross/Museum of the Moving Image | Image source]

And in the land of commercials it doubles as a house in the not-too-distant future:

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Gathering Pavilion

The following text and images are courtesy Mark Pearson, Associate Professor of Architecture at the College of DuPage, which had its first ever Design + Build Studio this summer resulting in a Gathering Pavilion for the community college campus outside Chicago.



During the 2014 summer semester, the College of DuPage Architecture Department offered its first ever Design +Build summer studio. This course became a hands-on, experiential learning opportunity for our students to explore space and the built environment through the design and construction of a creative, spatially innovative, temporary structure.



Designed and built by 16 students, this temporary gathering pavilion is located on the COD main campus adjacent to the west campus pond. This project allowed our students to have a firsthand experience designing, and then building a structure. The necessity of building a design forced students to consider both the poetic and the tectonic simultaneously, adding a richness to the design conversation.



Conceptually, the gathering pavilion is an exploration of "framing" – framing space, framing views, and framing experience. The design is a series of five sectional bays, or frames, which are positioned adjacent to one another. While all of these sections are based on a consistent module, each frame varies in height, alignment, and seating placement. These five frames collectively create a space that allows for students to gather and interact with each other.



This space is activated by light and shadow, modulated through a trellis-like canopy. The design frames views toward the adjacent water feature and provides a creative composition of seating elements that can be occupied in a variety of ways. This structure functions both as a sculptural object within the landscape as well as a memorable space to be occupied and enjoyed by the campus community.

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Today's archidose #785

Here are some photos of the Afrykarium - Oceanarium, ZOO Wrocław (2014, under construction) in Wrocław, Poland, by ArC2 Fabryka Projektowa, photographed by Maciek Lulko.









To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:

:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool

To contribute your Instagram images for consideration, just:

:: Tag your photos #archidose

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High Line at the Rail Yards

Like my time-lapse walk of the High Line posted last week, here is a north-to-south tour of the third section of the High Line, which opened to the public on September 21. About 2/3 of this section is a solid-surface walkway that parallels plantings kept in their found, as-is state with wildflowers and other vegetation. After that, the park changes to its more familiar palette of precast concrete pavers, benches, reused rails, and so forth; as will be seen, these elements are used in a slightly different way than the first two sections.

Some steel pylons overlooking the Hudson River and West Street:


About halfway along the straightaway paralleling the Hudson River are these large pieces of timber stacked into seating overlooking the Hudson on the right and the Hudson Yards on the left:


Another view of the benches, this time looking north to Javits:


Separating the walkway from the wildflowers is chain link fencing that the wildflowers poke through:


A large seating area can be found at the bend where the High Line turns east (the vista will be full of Hudson Yard towers in five years):


Another look at the bench made from steel and wood:


A view of the wildflowers looking west:


Section 3 has the High Line's only playground, where kids can squirrel their way through the steel beams (this is where this section transitions from "wild" to "tame":


At the end of the playground is a tube where kids can pop their heads up in a planting bed:


A stair at 11th Avenue gives an elevated view of the park, here looking west:


Seating over 11th Avenue incorporates tall backs for safety:


Some of the peel-up benches in section 3 combine to make really long benches:


Another slightly different detail is the creation of tables similar to the benches:


Also new is being able to walk between the rails and atop the railroad ties:

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Long-Awaited DVD of the Moment

Finally! Thom Andersen's brilliant, nearly three-hour documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself is being released on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 14, eleven years after it was completed.



At its most basic, the video essay (as it's been called) is an analysis of Los Angeles through movies. On a deeper level, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum calls it, in addition to "a masterpiece," "an essay that qualifies as social history, as film theory, as personal reverie, as architectural history and criticism, as a bittersweet meditation on automotive transport, as a critical history of mass transit in southern California, as a wisecracking compilation of local folklore, as “a city symphony in reverse,” and as a song of nostalgia for lost neighborhoods such as Bunker Hill and unchronicled lifestyles such as locals who walk or take buses." (my emphasis) Rosenbaum's description of the film as part architectural history and criticism is spot on, just one aspect that makes it a stimulating and enjoyable experience for every one of its 169 minutes.



So, you may be asking, why has it taken eleven years for a DVD release? The main reason is that the film was made without studio backing and distribution, and since it's completely made up of clips from other films (with Andersen's highly opinionated narration on top), the rights to use the hundreds of clips was too much for the filmmaker or any distributor wishing to take on the task.



Enter The Cinema Guild, which announced in July that it would be releasing Los Angeles Plays Itself and three more Andersen titles: Red Hollywood, Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer, and Reconversão. As other documentaries have invoked "fair use" protections in recent years, such as This Film Is Not Yet Rated, so is Andersen. As he said last year last year on the film's 10th anniversary: "I was, am, and will be able to use [the clips] under fair use. No copyright owners were harmed in the making of this film."

For a taste of the joys of Andersen's film, here is a 6:40 clip on the use of modern houses in films:


Available at (but cheaper to buy direct from Cinema Guild on DVD and Blu-Ray.)

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White Sails Hospital & Spa

File this thing under "money does not buy taste": Millionaire architect Vasily Klyukin's proposal for a 4-tower hospital and spa to be built in Tunisia Economic City.







(via The Verge)

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