Third Nature Studio / blog » Architecture

Saivu: Gateway for Norwegian National Park

randi — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:58:31 +0000

I am prone to think of the Norwegian landscape as a place rich in folklore and fairy tales. As a child, I associated much of what I saw and experienced in Norwegian forests with my favorite books, and most of my memories and familiarity with Norway are those of a child visiting her grandparents. Mossy, lichen covered rocks, clearings full of wild blue berries, long cross country ski trips to frozen lakes make all of that magic just feel right.

Eriksen Skajaa Architects, PUSHAK Architects and Bjørbekk & Lindheim Landscape Architects recently won a competition to design a Gateway for Sjunkhatten National Park near Bodø, Norway. The project, titled Saivu, draws its formal vocabulary from the Sami language, nomadic building, and the romance of folklore and fairytale.

It has been difficult for me to reconcile the idyllic Norway in my head with the reality of a complex, contemporary society, and the surreality of recent events. This project is a thoughtful celebration of the Norwegian landscape, and I smile when I think about the wonder and delight a project like this can inspire.

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Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry

greg — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 05:09:45 +0000

With a one-year-old daughter, I think about geometry more than usual, along with the other essentials – language, music, numbers, etc. She seems naturally drawn to everyday patterns like these and absorbs them effortlessly. You can practically hear the synapses crackle as it happens.

I recently discovered the work of Anne Tyng, San Francisco-based architect, who developed a means of spatial exploration using some of the most elemental structures known, the Platonic solids. Although the study of advanced geometry and its application to design is nothing new, Tyng set a clear precedent more than fifty years ago for the current crop of artists and architects working along similar lines.

“…geometry is both rational and expressive, as much a means of contemplation as of calculation and construction.”

Let’s hope she’s working on a line of toddler bedroom furniture.

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Greenland goes BIG

greg — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 06:55:09 +0000

An appropriately otherworldly design by BIG for Greenland’s new National Gallery was recently unveiled, the winner chosen from six invited architects. The concept is a response to the rugged and somewhat exotic conditions of Greenland itself, one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. Greenland has about 60,000 permanent residents, spread out in isolated communities on the southern tip. The largest city, Nuuk, where the museum will be located, has no roads connecting it to the few other small cities, since enormous fjords traverse most of the country’s geography.

I work at a cultural institution here in San Francisco, and let’s just say I don’t envy whoever is responsible for driving ticket sales at Nuuk’s latest architectural gem. Practicalities aside, the geometric purity of the design and how it’s assimilated into the site’s topography make for an eye-popping set of renderings.

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At Home with Third Nature Studio

randi — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:00:24 +0000

The small apartment that I share with my daughter and hubby was recently featured in the San Francisco Examiner. Stephanie Stillman, a fellow landscape designer, has been writing a series of At Home articles exploring how designers and artists arrange their home spaces. We were honored to be included, and it was a refreshing challenge to try and put my design philosophy into words and relate it to interior spaces.

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Liebermann Tree House in Marin

randi — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:57:52 +0000

This is the California that lived in my imagination before I moved here. A Radial (and radical), tree house complex tucked away in the redwoods, built by a serious architect but feeling like a daydream. Daniel J. Liebermann designed and built the house in 1958 for his family. The New York Times recently featured the house in their On Location section, describing the recent purchase and remodel of this amazing place, where the new owners had the magnificent luck of working with the original architect on their renovations. Now they just need some of my help with that slope and patio!

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Congratulations SANAA!

randi — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:16:24 +0000

Happy to see that SANAA won the Pritzker Prize this year. Of their projects, I’ve only experienced the New Museum first hand, but I thorougly enjoyed it, and love the contrast of its meshy white skin to the neighborhood that surrounds it. Something tells me they like the looks of that contrast too. Photographs of their residential projects show crisp architecture accented with hodge podge antique chairs and leggy houseplants in mismatched pots. Their work makes modest little messes look so good.

Photos below are from a visit to the New Museum in August ‘08. Sam, Laurel, Greg & I contemplate the meshiness.

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Travel Diary: India

randi — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:40:41 +0000

This morning I was looking through pictures from our travels in India. I’ve included some of the highlights above, and more can be seen at http://www.gregandrandi.com/jaihind/, and the blog we kept can be found at http://www.gregandrandi.blogspot.com/. I think one of the most lasting memories from that trip was the death defying rickshaw riding we did. It is truly no exaggeration to say rickshaws in India feel like roller coaster carts gone completely off their rails, zig zagging between cars, trucks, busses, camels moving loads of rebar, 3 people balancing on one little scooter, elephants, goats, monkeys, cows… all that chaos mixed with the peace that comes with the most beautiful food, sweet sweet people, and haunting, timeless landscapes.

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Vertical Garden: Portland Federal Building

randi — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:18:17 +0000

The newly designed facade for the Portland Federal Building was recently featured in the New York Times. Years ago, I worked at SERA Architects with Don Eggleston, who is overseeing the renovation of the existing building, and couldn’t be happier to see some attention given to the project. Controversy is stirring, as the green wall is a GSA project funded by stimulus money.

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Archinect Announces Swiss Minaret Competition

randi — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:40:38 +0000

Way to go Archinect for setting up a design competition in reaction to the referendum recently passed in Switzerland banning the construction of new minarets. What a great way to re-examine religious freedom and shifting cultural landscapes. Archinect is right, Switzerland, we have a problem.

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Steven Holl’s Hamsun Center

randi — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:06:32 +0000

Knut Hamsun is one of Norway’s Nobel Prize winning authors, and one of the most problematic and divisive figures in its literary history. He was an overt Nazi sympathizer and at the same time, is celebrated as being one of the founders of modern literature. Architect Steven Holl created a Hamsun Center in Hamsun’s home town Presteid, hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle. It sounds like the Center hopes to invite and continue critque of his life and work, rather than celebrate him as a hero, and lets hope it is a step in the right direction for challenging and examining his life and his literature. There is an intriguing article in the Guardian about the Center here.

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