How and/or What not to design in Sri Lanka by Tadao Ando

The Concrete Mausoleum designed by Ando in Mirissa. How is this regional modernism? Come on Dezeen! thanks for the pics though!

Leaning tower of Pettah!

Original Article

Stop drawing trees on Skyscrapers!

(Excerpt from Archdaily)

Want to make a skyscraper look trendy and sustainable? Put a tree on it. Or better yet, dozens. Many high-concept skyscraper proposals are festooned with trees. On the rooftop, on terraces, in nooks and crannies, on absurdly large balconies. Basically anywhere horizontal and high off the ground. Now, I should be saying architects are drawing dozens, because I have yet to see one of these “green” skyscrapers in real life. (There’s one notable exception—BioMilano, which isn’t quite done yet.) If—and it’s a big if—any of these buildings ever get built, odds are they’ll be stripped of their foliage quicker than a developer can say “return on investment.” It’s just not realistic. I get why architects draw them on their buildings. Really, I do. But can we please stop?

More here

The genius of Ivan Sutherland

Fucktards of Copyright

© All rights reserved.

Please note that all images displayed here are Copyrighted material and cannot be used anywhere without the authors express written permission

This is a common copyright warning put up by the numerous "photographers" on Facebook. To you Sir's and Madam's I say "Fuck YOU"

Believe me,  I am not going to use your crappy little photos. Your photographs are not even that good. Even if they were, its not your talent its just your over expensive digital camera's that are doing the work. That lens is so BIG! trying to compensate for something else?

Software which usually should be thousands of dollars are distributed free and opensource, yet you think your crappy photos are worth a million bucks!  You take pictures of buildings which architects, designers, and clients payed to be built, yet you think your photos deserve copyrights.

Grow up fucktards.

My two cents in three paragraphs.

Here is a snippet of a conversation going on in the Sri Lankan Architects FB page. I think the question should be rephrased as How much English do you need to "Produce" a Colombian Architect, because that's exactly what's happening. The Colombian effect has significantly been reduced, thanks to the free education in Sri Lanka, yet there are some fractions who still have this elitist mind set. These "Few" cater to the agenda of a the Colombian Population, which are again a fraction of the entire population in Sri Lanka. What they fail to understand is that most of these so called "Colombian Architects" are produced by the tax payed by the non the Colombian "Civilization". We as Sri Lankan Architects have failed miserably  since we have forgotten our purpose, our roots, and betrayed our conscience.

We constantly ridicule Sri Lankan cultural aspects, as superstitious nonsense and pray to the gods of the Bauhaus. Our failure as professionals can be empirically proven by looking at the number of people who actually get the services of an Architect to build their homes. These same people payed money for us to learn in universities, but we ridicule them for their "Superstitous" beliefs. Stop blaming the draftsmen for the "Crapitecture" in the country, blame your self for not listening. The "Architects" produce enough "Crapitecture" them selves.

What we need to do, is to create our own Architectural "Culture". Try to "Understand" and "Read"  Sinhalese literature before trying to read Maupassant. We have our own "Rich" "Civilazation", be true to it. Just by wearing a Sarong you do not become a Sri Lankan, in that sense then Barack Obama supposedly had been once a Sri Lankan too. But I do think there is a problem in the education system. I'm not extremist enough to say that we need to abandon the "Western" system of education. All I am trying to say is that there needs to be a compromise.

Thats my two cents.

Google Vs Apple : Architecture of HQ's

Apple HQ

Google HQ

What do these renderings tell us about the companies?

This post talks more about the differences and how it relates to the company philosophy

To me Apple's architecture just shows its Utopian, unapproachable, introverted, too idealistic nature which is beyond the reach of the common man, and Google's more approachable, humane architecture. Of course that's just my two cents.