Switzerland’s biggest bank cuts 8,700 jobs after a £1.75bn loss in the first quarter.
Sweden’s National Museum of Science and Technology displays a confiscated Pirate Bay file server.
Wednesday
Thursday
15.04
16.04
– Punggol Waterway Housing deadline
The Alphabet Light Wouter Dons meets with EWO to begin prototyping
The Alphabet Light render
The Alphabet Light repetition and variation
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2. Guggenheim Rotunda ExpEriEncing thE Void: architecture turned into enjoyment and participation. instead of contemplating the void we propose to experience it by letting a trampoline net spiral down the rotunda space. the experience plays on Wright’s original scenography for the guggenheim to visit the exhibition downwards.
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A study by Nature Geoscience announces that rising global temperatures may dry up peat bogs. Tuesday
14.10
– IMEC tower deadline
IMEC Tower study models
5. Århus Docklands: Escaping the Ghetto by Julien De Smedt Potential Energy Århus is known as “the second city” of Denmark. There is always a certain bitterness with this condition, a bit like being the “second child” in a family or winning the silver medal. As the overachiever-saying goes: second place is the first loser. This is the situation Århus finds itself in, and why it strives even harder than a city like Copenhagen to prove itself. The city plans on developing the post-industrial Århus harbor into a residential neighborhood. The overall planning has been established and requires most of the new projects to be settled on reclaimed land. One of our clients decides to pitch for one of the prime sites facing the sea, with the idea to compose a small team of young European architects. They ask us to recommend a series of offices, and Århus-based Cebra, to recommend
another set. The client would pick a total of four teams that would then collaborate on a proposal for 25,000 square meters of residential program. The teams selected with us were SeArch from Amsterdam and Louis Paillard from Paris.
stories from the architectural Ghetto
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Iceberg unfolded facades
Ă…rhus DocklanDs
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Office for Metropolitan Architecture wins Taipei Performing Arts Center international competiiton.
Liens placed on the Museum Plaza in Louisville, Kentucky stops construction for a second time.
Wednesday
Thursday
28.01
29.01
Beirut House of Arts and Culture 1:100 model
Belgian Pavilion in Shanghai 1st phase concept
Holmenkollen Ski Jump model 1:100
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s economic policies draw more than a million demonstrators.
The New York Times announces a 48% decline in profits.
Japan Airlines conducts the first successful test flight of a Boeing 747-300 partly powered by biofuel.
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
30.01
– Beirut House of Arts and Culture deadline
31.01
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The client struggles with the budget and tries to make cuts everywhere, even attempting to eliminate the façade. JDS produces images of facade-less skijump, titled “images from Oslo’s nuclear aftermath.” August 27, 2009 VM2011 organisation and Ski Association expresses new-found welcoming sentiments towards the new ski jump, announcing they “look forward to inviting the world to a spectacular national Nordic arena.” March 13-14, 2010 Test events are scheduled at Holmenkollen ski jump and media facilities. February 24-March 6, 2011 The new Holmenkollen ski jump is scheduled to host the 2011 FIS Nordic World Skiing Championships. Holmenkollen Ski Jump model picture
sweet dreams
HoP: A CHRoNoLoGY
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Dow Jones Industrial Average falls below 7,000 for the first time since 1997. Monday
02.03 Portland Housing study models
The complexities involving these projects have led to two major debates that marked the architectural scene over the last decade in Brussels. As such they are pivotal in defining Brussels’ future. By creating distinct forms, De Smedt’s projects for Brussels are veritable renditions of this future. We have come to learn in the past years, the struggle for federalism is the struggle for the co-existence of difference. Architecture must address this, even when the city has no goal for architecture. The struggle of this city is a struggle about the definition of its form and these forms emerge from difference. Notes 1. The National Administrative City [Dutch: Rijks Administratief Centrum; French: Cité Administrative de l’Etat] is the former hub of Belgium’s national administration and housed the departments of the Finance, Foreign Affairs, Health, Homeland Security, Housing, Human Resources, to Information Resource Management, Management Policy, and Secretary of State. 2. The panel Quel avenir pour la Cité Administrative? [Which Future For the National Administrative City?] organized by City Mine(d) and Disturb includes the PoLITICAL IDENTITY
Rue de la Loi view of European Union HQ Plaza
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A.I.G. reports losses of $61.7 Billion as U.S. gives more aid.
Tuesday
03.03
– The Weave deadline
Entrpôt MacDonald S4 study model Belgian and European Pavilions for Shanghai 2010 study model 1:200
following participants: Gwenaël Breës, Eric 6. La prise de l’Europe is jointly organized by Corijn, Chantal Dassonville, Xaveer De Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Geyter, Marie Demanet, Willem Draps, Rotterdam, and Barbara Vanderlinden, Christian Lasserre, Benoît Moritz, Henri curator of the exhibition Revolution / Simons, and François Thiry. For further Restoration. The participants of the seminar information about the panel discussion are: Stefano Boeri, Etienne Christiaens, see Yves Rouyet, Quel avenir pour la Cité Eric Corijn, Rainier De Graaf, Rem Koolhaas, Administrative. Available online at www. Gilles Ledent, Mark Leonard, Dieter Lesage, maprac.org/pdf/debat101103.pdf. Benoît Moritz, André Sapir, Henri Simons, 3. Benoît Moritz, and others. Richtschema HG Iwan Strauven, Erik Swyngebouw, and “Kruidtuin:” Een centrum voor de toekomst François Thiry. [Guiding Scheme HG “Botanical Garden:” 7. Pier Vittorio Aureli, Bernardina Borra, A Center for the Future] (Brussels: BrusselsJoachim Declerck, Agata Mierzwa, Martino Capital Region, 2006). Tattara, and Tom Weiss. Brussels-A Manifesto, 4. The total employment at the European Towards the Capital of Europe (Rotterdam: institutions in Brussels rose from 22.236 in NAi, 2004). 2003 to 29.042 in 2008. Source: Mini-Bru 8. Julien De Smedt JDS/Blog [internet]. Brussels: (Brussels: Ministry of the Brussels-Capital Julien De Smedt. March 26, 2009. Available Region, Brussels Institute of Statistics, 2003/09). at, http://blog.jdsarchitects.com/ 5. The participants of the brainstorm-sessions jds-architecture/the-unveiling-of-the-jdsBrussels, Capital of Europe are: Michel secchi-vigano-project-for-the-renewal-of-rueCrozier, Umberto Eco, Bronislaw Geremek, de-la-loi-brussels/ Nicolas Hayek, Agnès Jaoui, Rem Koolhaas, Pasqual Maragall, Maryon McDonald, Gerard Mortier, François Schuiten, Geert Van Istendael, Ignacio Juan. The report of the Brussels, Capital of Europe is available online at www.pedz.uni-mannheim.de/daten/edz.../ Holmenkollen Ski Jump brussels_capital.pdf. elevation BrUssELs: CALLINg for form / rUE DE LA LoI
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The 15-nation Eurozone enters its first recession since the introduction of the single currency in 1999.
David Hicks, the first terrorism suspect to be incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay is released.
As a result of an ongoing drug war, remains of 12 decapitated men found in Mexico.
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
20.12
21.12
22.12
3. Interview with Lars Von Trier by Julien De Smedt, Benedict Clouette and Jesse Seegers BC: In JDS’s work, every project is a process of iteration and combination. The office makes a huge number of models in an attempt to exhaust all the possible directions for a design. Within that set of models, there may be details that they then try to extract and recombine to see how they work together. It seems very similar to how a director works, using the best moments from one take and splicing them together with the best from another version of the same scene. LVT: Yes, but I don’t think that many directors work that way. It’s how I work, but I’m not sure it’s that common. The idea was just that rather than having a smooth, gradual progression within a scene, you might create this more immediate, faster movement by trying very different versions and then cutting between the takes. JDS: In our practice, we’re also constantly producing more versions of an idea and using repeated variations in order to evolve a design. In your films, you use similar thematic material again and again, almost like you tell the same story, but tell it differently each time. LVT: Yes, it’s clear that in some sense it’s always the same story. I think of a film as a series of layers, which are almost like givens. You might change something or do something different in one of them, but if you change all aLternatIve UrbanItIes
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of them, it’s very difficult for people to enter into. I prefer to work with just one or two variables, not changing everything at once. It’s like entering a forest: you need something familiar, some friend to guide you through the forest. Making the same story over and over is a bit like that. Also, I’m very interested in the technical side of filmmaking and taking those aspects as givens. If I were an architect, I think I would like to just work with one kind of brick, and just see what I could make with it. JDS: In many ways, that’s what all architects do: they don’t actually make a building themselves, but rather specify options from an existing catalogue of possibilities. We tried to make a film using that idea. In 2001 Bjarke and I started a collaboration under the label PLOT and our first project and the reason for our moving to Copenhagen was a movie. It was an idea of making a no-production movie, a movie that’s only created in post-production. A sample movie. We observed that one hundred years of moving images had produced so much material that you could actually dive in and create your story out of existing footage. You could even star Jack Nicholson, because he had made so many films already that you could just re-cut them into something else. Back then we discussed producing this project with your company, Zentropa. LVT: We also got a little bit into that. My company was called Element Film, because the idea was that you had these standard elements that you could recombine. But your idea is probably pretty hard to sell. JDS: It’s not like your films are super easy to sell either! (laughs) BC: You mentioned that when you were making Anti-Christ, you watched and admired Japanese horror films. LVT: For the first time, I decided to watch some films, horror films, which is something I normally don’t do. I saw fifteen or something. I liked The Ring very much, mostly because you had a feeling that it was just from a different culture, the images were not from Western ideas. When I was young and started studying films, I saw a lot of films, three or four a day, and then I made a library in my head and started from there. The problem is that if you go over stuff that has been made previously, you somehow lose concentration, because you have a tendency to say, “that’s very good, I want to make something like that.” Whereas, I have this idea that I am on an unknown island and I have chosen to go south. Then it’s important for me to stay going south, even if south is difficult to define in this sense, because if I saw a lot of things that were suddenly interesting, then I might go east, or I might go west if that seemed like more fun. So I have this feeling that I should keep on going south and keep trying to stay on the course. IntervIew / Lars von trIer
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CRISIS RECLAIMED
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DoChoDo zooLogICAL ISLAnD
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Slovakia is the 16th nation to join EU’s euro currency.
Wednesday
31.12
New Year’s Resolutions: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Work It Make It Do It Makes Us Harder Better Faster Stronger More Than Hour Our Never Ever After Work is Over
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NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
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Last Gasp
… “Go West,” “Go East.” WHERE do we go now? … IS growth an end or a need? … IF icons are wrong, are we ready to be right? …
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p. 124 1. Fast Times at Burj Dubai, by Andrew Griffin and Jesse Seegers p. 142 2. Crisis on Infinite Earths, by Ryan Neiheiser p. 145 3. Ascension Atomic LAST GASP
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Vilnius and Linz become the 2009 European Capitals of Culture.
Czech Republic assumes presidency of the EU.
Thursday
Friday
01.01 JANUARY
Entrep么t MacDonald, Paris study models 1:500
Technology University, Belgium massing studies
02.01
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The squirrels
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Lance Armstrong is accused of violating strict drug testing rules.
Tornadoes and wildfires, fuelled by strong winds, wreak destruction in the southwestern US.
Thursday
Friday
09.04
10.04
behind the space (the gallery) through the various apartments (artists lofts), and arriving on the other side of the New York city block. Within the pace of 3 meters one would have viewed an entire urban block of New York in its intimate details. The installation was later shown in Sao Paulo and in 2009 in Paris where we used it as a device to curate a visit through the Centre Georges Pompidou.
ALTERNATE REALITIES
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A Dutch man opens fire at a crowded cafe in Rotterdam, killing one person and injuring three others.
Swiss architect Peter Zumthor wins the Pritzker Prize.
Saturday
Sunday
11.04
12.04
Intense lowrise cover of the exhibition catalogue for the Weave project
Le Passe Muraille At the Center Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris
LE PASSE MURAILLE
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The oldest person in the world, Gertrude Baines, dies in Los Angeles aged 115. Friday
11.09
– Andrew Griffin lectures in Tampere, Finland
Two Seasons Hotel daylight simulation
CRISIS RECLAIMED
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Israeli war film “Lebanon” wins the Golden Lion @ venice film festival.
Belgian Kim Clijsters defeats Danish Caroline Wozniacki to win the 2009 US Open Women’s Singles.
Saturday
Sunday
12.09
13.09
PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR CELLS
CHIMNEY EFFECT
RAINWATER COLLECTOR
NATURE INSIDE
CAIRO RETAIL CITY
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SHADED SPACE