L: Visualization of 53W53 Tower by Jean Nouvel via Bloomberg; R: House for Essex, via Dezeen.
Mile-High Mansions: If you have a few dollars to spare and appreciate a stunning panoramic view across Manhattan, perhaps you’ll consider purchasing the duplex penthouse at the summit of Jean Nouvel’s 53W53 tower above MoMA — a steal at a mere $70 million. If that seems a little steep, there’s always SOM’s Baccarat Tower, just across the way, where you’ll enjoy aerial views of your new backyard: MoMA’s sculpture garden.
It’s a Madhouse: An ode to eccentricity in rural England was finally completed this week as the architectural provocateurs of FAT and artist Grayson Perry unveiled their House for Essex, a riot of colorful ornamentation constructed for Alain de Botton’s Living Architecture Program. It has certainly provoked some lively debate: one Dezeen commenter hailed it as “a punch in the face to bland, modernist crap.”
L: AirBnB on the Thames, via Designboom; R: Visualization of Nordstrom Tower by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, via Curbed.
Whatever Floats Your House: A new listing on Airbnb in London is making waves — literally. With two bedrooms, kitchen, lounge, and a back garden complete with apple tree, a waterborne house is sailing down the Thames this week, giving people a chance to spend a night floating under Tower Bridge and past the Shard.
Tall Tales: Conflicting reports emerged this week on whether the Nordstrom Tower will in fact rise higher than One World Trade Center despite its original design being carefully topped off just one foot lower than the western hemisphere’s tallest building “out of respect.” Either way, the super-tall forest of Manhattan continues to grow at a rapid rate.
In Brief
The British Are Coming: One of the UK’s leading architecture and design magazines is arriving in the Big Apple! Dezeen has set up a new office in New York in order to produce content for their growing audience in the United States. Congrats to Architizer alum Jenna McKnight and Alan Brake on the new gig!
L: Architectural Camouflage by Snarkitecture for PAOM; R: Levitation Suit by AA Visiting School Slovenia, via Fast Company.
Non Sequitur
How to Disappear Completely: Our friends at Snarkitecture are offering you the chance to be an architectural chameleon, creating a fashion line that camouflages perfectly with a variety of urban environments. Rest assured these clothes are substantially cooler than Largeman’s wallpaper shirt in Garden State.
In Dreamland: It’s a well known fact that architecture students are obsessed with sleep (or a lack of it), but those at the AA Visiting School Slovenia have taken the preoccupation to the next level with a “levitation suit” that simulates the effect of sleeping in space. It’s enough to make you drift off …
L: “Paperbridge” by Steve Messam via Designboom; R: Underwater tennis arena for Dubai © 8+8 Concept Studio
Bridging the Gap: The dramatic landscape of Cumbria in the U.K. was given a surreal twist this week as artist Steve Messam built a blood-red footbridge from 20,000 sheets of paper across a remote stream. The crimson sculpture was designed to bear the weight of walkers, using color-fast recycled paper to minimize its environmental impact.
Game, Set, Catch of the Day: The Internet was flooded with an ocean of opinions over 8+8 Concept Studio’s outlandish proposals for an underwater tennis arena. Polish architect Krysztof Kotala is seeking investors for the glass-domed stadium just off the coast of Dubai — although he has been met with a veritable tidal wave of doubts from engineers over the feasibility of this rather fishy project …
Sign of the Times
Creating History: Sure, flow motion is the coolest new video technique for architecture, but it turns out there is still life in the old time lapse yet — computer scientists have invented what they call ‘timelapse mining,’ illustrating decades of urban evolution in an instant by sourcing millions of photographs from Flickr and Picasa. Out of oceans of Internet data comes a seamless, cinematic slice of history!
GIF via The Verge / Images via University of Washington/Creative Commons.