Last week's AIA Home Tour in Los Angeles included several noteworthy projects, with more than enough unique ideas, concepts, and details to provoke some thoughtful discussion... and the opportunity to photograph a few favorite architectural elements.
Addressing the natural and built environment from a different perspective, we taking a cue from Japan, with regard to sustainability in a social and cultural context- more specifically, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, the world's largest public art festival, occurring every three years in the Niigata Prefecture.
The other day, we picked up The Ecology Center's recently published book Backyard Skills: A D.I.Y. Handbook, a collection of projects, infographics, and practices inspired by last year's popular Basic Needs lecture series.
Completed in 1972, the Library at Phillips Exeter Academy is an inspiring manifestation of Louis Kahn's approach to creating space through the honest application of material and use of rational geometry, balanced by an awareness of human scale and the integral role of natural light. From this interrelationship of form and experience, Kahn creates an architecture that is both humanist and monumental- a juxtaposition that enables a sense of place and timelessness, within a modernist context.
Here are a few favorite images from last year's trip to a building we love, the Dominus Winery, designed by Herzog & de Meuron and completed in 2007 in Yountville.
A beautiful structure at a spectacular site, this building thoughtfully relates to its surroundings and blends into the landscape, establishing a sense of place through simplicity of form and massing.
