Carbon-neutral media wall made of photovoltaic system which collects solar energy during the day and use it to power an LED display at night. Designed by architects Simone Giostra & Partners.

Xicui Entertainment Complex in Beijing, China. read more (dezeen.com).

We don't talk much about architecture here, probably because it is what Kon and I do day in day out..but maybe we should.

Here is something that spans between graphic and object, a representation of a barcode in the form of a building, and yes, its a shopping mall.

"The centre is located in a soviet residential area on the bank of the Neva River. Placed in a vast nameless square by the Volodarsky Bridge, formed by grey housing blocks. Vitruvius and Sons liven up this space by introducing a splash of colour. At the same time they are playing with a post-modern symbolic; the elongated windows which create the impression of a barcode help to clarify the functional identity of the building" source

A great read on architecture and iconography, a regular topic over at eikongraphia.com

What is left of a street when you strip it of all its commercial clutter? How identifiable does this street remain, or in case of the other way around, how much do we identify streets by the commercial elements that we connect with them?
These are the questions raised by Austrian artist Gregor Graf in a series of artworks currently on show at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London.

The result of Graf's re-worked street scenes make them look unrecognizable, alien and dead, almost like a ghost town. Graf has done this with Linz and Warsaw before turning his attention on London. read more here...

Looking at the opposite, check out a typical, commercially filled Allmightys street scene here... ;)

Kirigami is the Japanese art of paper cutting and model making. As Origami, the initial art of folding paper, forbids the use of a knife, Kirigami does allow this and makes way for some stunning and meticulous paper models. It looks like you have to be very precise indeed... :) The art of Kirigami was 'invented' in 1981 by Masahiro Chatani, a professor of Architecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

take a look at some models here...

Welcome to the future! Join the ride! :)

Collective Perception

Collective Perception is an excerpt of SpaceCollective.org, a soon to be
released, invite only information exchange dedicated to the future of everything.

SpaceCollective is about to go into public beta and is issuing a limited amount
of exclusive beta generation invites now.

Watch the SpaceCollective preview for further information.

So I am here in Chicago until the end of the week and it is a truly fantastic city. The mythical birthplace of skyscrapers does its name justice as the skyline and the amount of new construction here is incredible. I went to the Chicago Architecture Foundation yesterday, which hosts a small but dense exhibition of the city's evolution in terms of housing, transport and growth. "Chicago: You Are Here provides a tour of the spaces, places, and structures that define Chicago. It highlights the people who built the city, from the Sears Tower to the Illinois and Michigan Canal."

Very nicely done, so if you're in the area go check it out. Today's programme is the Art Institute...

Dilston Grove, formerly the Clare College Mission Church in Southwark Park in London, is a listed building and one of the earliest examples of poured concrete construction. No longer consecrated ground, it is now the city's only permanent large-scale space available for artists.

The installation pictured here is Bridge, London artist Michael Cross' installation for the 2006 London Design Festival. "The installation allows any member of the flock to walk on water inside a former church. Cross achieved the effect by half-filling the century-old church with water and installing steps that seemed to magically appear as visitors walked across the water. Purely mechanical, the weight of a person activates each step, which rises just above the surface of the water as they walk forward. There are some 30 steps in all, ending in the middle of the church—isolation that may be peaceful for some and terrifying for others."

(via coolhunting)

A brilliant space and a fine example of re-using abandoned city space.

"Sited on farmland outside the German village of Wachendorf, the chapel is dedicated to a 15th century farmer and mystic who is being considered as a candidate for canonisation.
The 12m-high structure was built by local farmers using a technique the architect terms “rammed concrete”. A wigwam-like structure of tree trunks was erected, with the walls formed around it. Every day for 24 days the farmers poured 50cm of concrete. The logs were then burnt out, leaving a charred and richly textured internal finish.
An oculus lets in light and rain at the point where the tree trunks converged and further light is admitted through the unfilled holes left by the shuttering ties. While the interior remains extraordinarily dark, the available light reflects off a floor of poured lead.
Zumthor supervised work on the project while construction progressed on his design for a gallery in nearby Cologne, which is due to open in September."

Funny things is that the chapel stands in a village next to where I'm originally from, the countryside around Cologne. I will definately check it out next time I'm home...

A friend actually sent me the info :) Thanks, Strackwitz!

Here is an interesting site from the World Monuments Watch List which features the 100 most endangered Sites of the world.
The World Monuments Fund (WMF), a non-profit organization, is aiming "to help hundreds of endangered architectural and cultural sites". This Watch List is "announced every two years in order to draw public attention to threatened cultural heritage sites across the globe.The Watch List is assembled by an international panel of experts in archeology, architecture, art history and preservation".

Among the sites featured are medieval remains of town centers, prehistoric wall paintings and Nature resources.

A very interesting read... find out more here.

Hello All,

As you would expect, we at allmightys visit a lot of graphic and illustration sites to promote allmightys competition, designers and T-shirts. It is interesting that we keep coming across comments such as:
“Competitions suck, pay us instead” so we thought it would be interesting to address this topic. We may be “preaching to the converted” but never the less we think its an important issue that we all can comment on. Maybe we are shooting ourselves in the foot as we are after all a competition site but we think its important, and very interesting.

As some of you may know, both Kon and Filip are architects. No one knows more about doing free work than architects do. We enter architectural competitions all the time and actually I (Filip) am working currently on a EROPAN 9 housing competition for a site in the UK. We have about 3 weeks left and the amount of work that is going into this is incredible, as do all competitions. We actually have a student working on it full time. The question is, why do we do competitions?

Competitions go beyond the purpose of just obtaining commissions. We enter competitions with 100+ entries knowingly that we may not have a big chance because larger, more known offices, and with way better resources are also submitting entries-they practically have a team of people working on a competition full time.  So why do we do it when we know chances of winning are very low. This has been a question I have been wondering for years. The reason is that competitions are a way of further development, team work, creative process and ambition. When we do competitions, the whole office comes alive. It is as if we put our lives on hold and dedicate everything we have to doing what we love most and that is designing buildings. New concepts are always tested, new ideas explored, new questions asked, working methods developed and new skills gained. We see competitions as a way of continuos professional development that we can apply to real projects. We believe that this is a very important elements of any business, whether this be Graphic Design, Illustration or Architecture. We as designers never stop learning. It is our duty to constantly explore and innovate. Without this, the work will not stand the test of time. This is also the reason why we at WAG (Working Architecture Group) are all involved in education. All of us, the 3 directors teach at London universities. Competitions, teaching and research enables us to articulate, explore and develop the core aims and values of their clients in interesting and powerful new ways.

So, are competitions important? Off course they are. It is not just about promoting your work, it also about you own design development. Its about your ideas, fun and exploration. We at allmightys support competitions because we know how important they are. Competitions are not doing work for free. Love for design goes beyond financial gain. Its about creativity, sharing of ideas and working for a better  tomorrow. Is there any other way to do this better than via competitions and education? I don't think so.

Yours, Filip
Allmightys Team

Filip is a qualified architect currently working on some physical internet installations for a bar and art gallery in Hackney Central, London, new retail outlet for Nincomsoup in Derby, UK, and a number of housing and public building projects . He is also involved in a number of other web based projects inluding Allmightys.com. He is a director at WAG and also teaches architecture at the University of Westminster on degree, diploma and MA courses as well as on the BA Art and Design course at Central St. Martins School of Art and Design. He is married and lives in North London.

You can find him @:
www.wag-architecture.co.uk
www.thepolytechnic.org
www.allmightys.com
www.wmin.ac.uk/sabe/