The Sundial Bridge

This is a design classic that I’ve dug out of my archives. On a road trip heading north in California, we took an intentional detour to see Santiago Calatrava’s Sundial Bridge in Turtle Bay, Redding.

The bridge did not disappoint. A majestic single cantilever holding up a translucent deck that glows blue at night. It also doubled up as a clock, using the sun to tell time by casting shadows onto numbers in the park at one end of the bridge. The bridge spanned 700 feet and did not touch the water at any point.

Interesting story about this bridge, it was constructed at nearly ten times the intended budget. Long battles were fought at city hall against this blatant waste of public funds. However when it was finished it became directly responsible for a 42% increase in visitors to Redding.

Funny how a pedestrian foot bridge can put a whole city on the map!

Freedom Park in Bangalore

Pleasantly surprised to see a nice public project where they’ve taken a 150 year old prison in Bangalore and converted it into a park.

Aptly named Freedom Park, the city held an open competition inviting submissions for the conversion. The winning architect was given a generous budget to execute the transformation.

The architects have retained a sense of history and maintained the prison barracks in some areas so you understand the history of the place. Since a lot of freedom fighters were imprisoned here in colonial times, a contrast between the beautiful outdoor spaces and the cramped dark cells highlights the lack of freedom inmates undoubtedly felt.

The park features sharp, light and angular features of rock and landscaping, against the rounded, overbuilt and heavy colonial buildings. A modern exhibition space with dynamic walls that can be opened, is very stylishly connected with a beautiful angular sectioned foot bridge. Even pathways progressively taper off into nature in an angular design to symbolize the overbuilt and overly secure prison returning to nature and freedom.

Very inspiring overall, I hope to see other public projects of this caliber in Indian cities.

The Coolest Restoration

A hotel in Penang has done one of the coolest restorations I’ve ever seen. Taking a congested row of Chinese shop houses and combining it into one very casual and stylish hotel with multiple rooms.

Inside, the walls are retained as is, exposing the wonderful layers of build up gathered over a century of use. However, the furniture has been nicely updated with a few modern objects and a lot of restored pieces that retain their original wear. By carefully controlling the colors and placements, the space exudes a sense of style that is simply not achievable through just modern furniture.

I hope to see more such restorations in the future that retain all of the glamour and sense of history of a bygone era, but accent it with some modernity that is fun and classy.

Highline Park in New York

A defunct elevated rail track has been converted into a beautiful park in New York city. This space is a wonderful example of transitioning the function of a space from one to another, without losing the essence or historical value of the space.

It’s important to retain the historical context of a place and celebrate it, rather than erase it completely. I’m seeing this happen all too often, and I think it is a big mistake. As a designer, I consider a successful design, one where the design has multiple layers of meaning and one that can be enjoyed at many different levels. A city is no different, and if it loses history as one of the layers, then it starts to lose it’s identity and become more generic.

The other great aspects of the park, are the consistency of the design details from the benches that appear as though they were pried up from the floor, to the water fountain. The tracks that have been retained and some that even have rolling seats on them. The limited and refined material use and the consistency of their colors.

There are also great new spaces with new functions, like the traffic viewing gallery, and the art view points.

The Coolest Escalator Ever Built

Has been found at the Modern Art section of the Nation Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. East Building! The handrail is inset into the wall, and it is chocolate brown!

Another interesting observation: the West Gallery, a traditional building, where Art from the 13th-18th centuries is displayed, and the East Gallery, a modern building that features modern art, are dramatically different spaces. It took me about 3 hours to walk through the west building due to the maze like complexity of the floor plan, where I found myself lost a lot. And by contrast the East building took me about a half hour to breeze through due to the large open spaces and airy atmosphere.

It’s funny how the spaces we look at new art in have become so much less complex visually, as has the Art (by and large). Is this because we are less detailed-oriented now, or are we less patient. I’d like to think we have become more focused!

Design Details in Wood

Not sure how sustainable this is, but it was certainly amazing to look at. In the check in area of Paris Charles de Gaulle, the entire ceiling was covered in raw wood panels. A beautiful texture and color, and while rough up close, incredibly tightly composed at the scale it was employed at. There were also color changes as the ceiling moved through space, leaving us to believe this might be reclaimed wood!

Past the security area, steamed wood panels adorn the ceiling in an interesting overlay pattern. Letting in light and exposing some of the metal structure behind. A nice contrast to just plain steel and glass constructions, that often look very cold and uninviting.

Other details, like the informational graphics, were also very progressive and a pleasure to look at!

Design Details from Another Time

The Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre is often visited just for the view. However if you spend time looking at design details, there is a lot of modernity to be discovered, even though you would be looking at a basilica that began construction in 1875.

The endless spiral stairwell up to the top dome is constructed entirely out of an identical repeating stone block with a wonderful organic underside. The way the light falls on the transitioning surface shows incredible design restraint and control and is delightfully modern (although I’m not entirely sure that was the goal when it was created!) Also without modern measuring methods, it’s hard to imagine how a complex compound curve that blends into a crease could be easily mass produced.

Other details like the gargoyles used primarily to allow rain water to flow off of the building, also bring in some incredibly modern surfacing to an old gothic structure, but only on the top side! 

An Intelligent Construction Method

This is an idea that I’ve been personally very interested in for many years: exposing a building’s structure and functionality so that everything is in full view.

The Centre Pompidou is a great architectural achievement. This new aesthetic may look messy and uncivilized to some, but in actuality it represents a truth and plainness in the resources and energy we use to put up a building. It also showcases all the functional requirements we expect from our buildings, such as electricity, plumbing, temperature control and ventilation. 

In addition to the obvious awareness this brings up with regards to resource use, it also makes things much easier to fix since everything is clearly visible.

I question the point of hiding/sealing in all of these elements behind concrete walls or drywall in our conventional building methods. Why do we need to hide from the fact that all buildings are temporary and that if we want to be good citizens of nature, we must build to be able to recycle, repair and dismantle. Whereas currently we do everything in our power to create a mess of cemented together tubing, pipes, brick and mortar that is only fit for landfill at the end of its life cycle. We ought to change that mindset!