photos via inhabitat.com

My wife and I have been staring at this treehouse for about 20 minutes now.  We found some blog that had tons of entries on treehouses, and this one was the most captivating to us.  Yellow Pages is actually behind the edifice, but it’s far far away in New Zealand- and it’s booked for decades to come.  I guess pictures will have to do for now.

Tonight my wife and I just blew off our daughter’s bedtime and hauled all four of us to my brother-in-law’s friend’s house to watch “So You Think You Can Dance.”  It was the season’s performance finale, and you can imagine our delight and anticipation.  Unfortunately, all 8 of us that were watching agreed that it was weak.  This comes from some VERY loyal sytycd fans.  One of the choreographers was wearing headphones around her neck??  Country dancing somehow made the cuts??  The Paso doble AGAIN????  “Nasty” by Janet Jackson??  So many questions.  The event was held in the Kodak Theatre and I thought that maybe would be the redeeming moment for the night.  Though the interior looks very nice, and it seemed to be a great place to hold the event, the exterior looks like the Cheesecake Factory restaurant building in Midvale.  So the night was pretty much a total bust and the girls didn’t get to sleep until way after bedtime.

photos via artbite.fr

I couldn’t resist posting on the sweetest public, park bathroom of all time.  Shuhei Endo (the architect) said that the structure is “‘springtecture’ for its apparently sprung, coiled corrugated-steel enclosure, and as ‘halftecture’ because it is both open and closed.”  I just like the curly metal.

photo via Businessweek.com

I got a kick out of the article, about this monster house, in Businessweek.com and the LA Times.  32,000 square feet of nightmare is what it sounds like to me.  If nothing else, it’s pretty cool that the pool goes inbetween two sections of the house and all the way in to the front yard.  I’m not sure this is LEED approved… or passive.  But, in the end, ugly is in the eye of the beholder- what do you think of the house?

photo via Davide Lussetti

Richard Meier’s architecture takes my breath away.  I could spend hours on his website just looking at pictures of all of the stuff that he’s done.  Having said that, there is one building that I would take above all others: the Jubilee Church.  I wish I could commission Mr. Meier to secretly design the exact building but as a house for me and my family…. and my friends… and you could come visit.  Maybe I’ll do another post on it again tomorrow.  It’s located just outside of Rome, and maybe someday my wife and I will go visit the Jubilee Church and Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame Du Haut in Ronchamp, France.  Both of our construction crushes would be fulfilled.

photo via Barcex

So Wikipedia, like a new sunroom, has turned into an addition to the small cottage that is my brain.  In this Wikipedia, I looked up “architecture” last night and was reminded of things long forgotten.  How rad was Vitruvius??  The article discussed his three principles of architecture being: durability, utility and beauty.  Architecture, to be actual “architecture,” must exhibit all three.  The article also discussed a new principle that has recently been added known as “sustainability.”  Meaning a structure must be healthy for the environment while being built, while being used and while being recycled.  Then there is a quote from our friend Le Corbusier that says, “You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: that is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: This is beautiful. That is Architecture.”

Even though we can’t all be architects (myself included), we can all insert our line of work into the same theories of Vitruvius and Le Corbusier.  The idea is to put a little extra thought into what we are doing- a little more art.  Even though they’re not designing structures, we’ve all heard of ugly businesses out there that could use a little Le Corbusier pumping through the veins of their company.

Almere

Newly added to “The Places I Would Like to Visit” list is  Almere, Netherlands.  I was trying to find a project that I was interested in on the internet, and stumbled upon this website.  I sure wish that it was in English, for I can’t understand it (how about the word “woonwijken”).   But the pictures are sure sweet.  Make sure you make it to the bottom and check out the pics down there.  Anybody out there willing to sponsor a worldwide architecture photography trip??