Yesterday, we saw a courthouse extension with randomly distributed, punched-out windows across its golden facade. Today, we have a project with a different kind of random window arrangement. The project is the RAKE showroom designed by a workshop of students, RAKE visningsrom. The workshop focused on the life cycle of materials, and the raw materials for the project came from an office building nearby that was scheduled for demolition. Even though the roof is made of doors and the floor of wooden cubes, the interior is a pretty simple white box to display works by artists and architects. Many projects reuse materials, and it’s always nice to see a project where the reuse is done simply and well.

Alex.

Ok, I know it looks like a church but bear with me.  It’s not actually a church, but an art project called Reading between the lines by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh. Gijs Van Vaarenbergh is not a person, but two young persons collaborating on architectural in Belgium. Previously, the two worked inside a church to install a stunning, upside-down dome made from chain. Outside, this rural and petit church is made from horizontal slices of steel that are welded together with small steel blocks at irregular intervals. The small scale of the project and its exposure to the elements make clear that this is not interested in the traditional role of a church even if it takes the traditional form of a church. The architects say “ because the church does not fulfill its classical function, it can be read as a heritage related reflection on the present vacancy of churches in the area (and their potential artistic reuse).”

Alex

The architect of this project, Kazuyo Sejima, makes up half of the celebrated Japense firm Sanaa. When she’s not alongside architect Ryue Nishizawa leading Sanaa, one of the most influential firms practicing today , she’s leading her own firm to realize projects just as compelling, but on a smaller scale. Shibaura House, the project above, is such a project from her office.

It’s hard to tell from the exterior (although there is at least one hint: the slender, curving staircase) but the otherwise blocky and transparent building is softened by geometries that snake through the project’s white steel skeleton. The curves create a variety of spaces that you can see in the fantastic line drawing at the top. I’m usually not a big fan of curves, but these really help this project. Of course, in less capable or less resolute hands, these curves could be conceived and executed terribly. So what makes Sejima so good? I once met a tall and sturdy-looking employee of Sanaa who described Sejima as being “ballsy.” I thought he meant her projects were daring, but when I asked him what he meant, he said “Sejima has bigger balls than I do.”

Alex