Fabricated Luxury: October 2006

Luxury properties

Hi Everyone,

Several of you have emailed with questions about developing the Luxury site, program, and structural strategies further. One comment that I've made across the board is that examples are important, but it is equally important to qualify each example that you cite, relating it to a gradient of luxury. So any example must be thought of in relation to a more luxury and less luxury version. You will all have more success making your points if you can think about your examples in this way.

Big Box Housing Potential

This comes as nothing new to most of us, but the New York Times has observed that housing is being built above big box retail: http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2006/10/29/realestate/29box.html&tntemail0=y

Some of you may be familiar with this project by Lewis. Tsurumaki. Lewis that looked at the same issue, but in a suburban context: http://www.ltlwork.net/pages/portfolio/speculations/newsub.html

Actually it's not a bad precedent for many of you who are dealing with the logics and infrastructure of one landscape (Big Box retail and shelving in this case) and how it can be extended into another (Suburban housing on the roof).

luxurious commercial?

http://www.bravia-advert.com/paint/thead/
"Sony's latest Bravia spot, is an orgasmic choreography of rainbow-colored paint explosions. Directed by Jonathan Glazer, who's known for his music videos, the piece took 10 days and 250 people to film and five days and 60 people to clean up."

Boeing 787 Dreamliner

For the Super-Rich, It’s Time to Upgrade the Old Jumbo Jet

The New York Times reports on the new Beoing 787 Dreamliner and the super-luxury options offered.

Some resources for the material explorations

These are some resources that you all might find useful, especially as the material explorations develop over the course of the semester. Two are publications of academic work from the AA, one is a recent edition of Pamphlet Architecture by Aranda/Lasch:

Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies
Michael Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael Weinstock, editors

Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design
Michael Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael Weinstock, editors

Pamphlet Architecture 27: Tooling
Ben Aranda, Chris Lasch

Four Seasons Residences

The Four Seasons hotel chain has recently begun offering two different types of housing marketed to luxury consumers. One is a time share program at major Four Seasons hotel locations and the other is a series of individual residences with hotel services.

http://www.fourseasons.com/residences/index.html

Skin + Bones

http://www.moca.org/museum/imagerotator.php?exid=370&id=858

SKIN + BONES: PARALLEL PRACTICES IN FASHION AND ARCHITECTURE
11.19.06 - 03.05.07

This exhibition explores the common visual and intellectual principles that underlie both fashion and architecture. Both disciplines start with the human body and expand on ideas of space and movement, serving as outward expressions of personal, political, and cultural identity. Architects and fashion designers produce environments defined through spatial awareness—the structures they create are based on volume, function, proportion, and material. Presenting the work of international fashion designers and architects, the exhibition examines themes such as shelter, identity, tectonic strategies, creative process, and parallel stylistic tendencies including deconstruction and minimalism. The exhibition is curated by MOCA Curator of Architecture & Design Brooke Hodge and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture is made possible by generous support from The Ron Burkle Endowment for Architecture and Design Programs; the Sydney Irmas Exhibition Endowment; Infiniti; The MOCA Architecture & Design Council; Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam; Étant donnés: The French-American Fund for Contemporary Art; Dwell; Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown; Westfall Commercial Furniture, Inc.; The Japan Foundation; and the Consulate General of the Netherlands