June 8, 2010
The town of Limmen, North Holland got 1800 volunteers with loads of free time to build the highest tower ever made of Lego blocks. The tower is made up of 700,000 Lego pieces and is 30,52 metres high, breaking the old Guinness Book of Records record by a mere 30 cm (see pic), set by the city of Oslo, Norway.
(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)
May 21, 2010
On 29 March 2010 we finished work on the latest favela painting and our first part of ‘O Morro’: Praça Cantão. It is central square at the foot of the community of Santa Marta, a favela in the heart of Rio de Janeiro.
Livening up slums in Brazil is a project by Haas & Hahn – Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn. They once filmed a documentary on hip hop in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo for MTV, after which they decided to bring funky works of art to unexpected places, starting with painting enormous murals in the slums of Brazil together with the local youth.
The goal is to have the ‘O Morro’ project sponsored by a community of supporters who will finance the infrastructure, materials and people needed to complete the work. You can donate through their site in a number of ways, including one text message every month for just 3 euro a pop.
Find out more about this project on Facebook and Twitter.
(Link: trendbeheer.com, Photo; favelapainting)
Tags: Brazil, Rio de Janeiro
May 19, 2010
Some street-wise, pop-up furniture designed by Carmela Bogman and Rogier Martens was installed in Utrecht on 17 May 2010. The residents can pump up the furniture themselves (se pic) and when then are finished using it, it lowers itself down again.
It looks nice, I want to try it too, but I have to admit, the comments I read on the French site I got this news from needs to be addressed. Yes, it screams unhygienic. I mean, people walk on this furniture with dog pooh and who knows what under their shoes and then the idea would be to sit down and, what, have a sandwich on the table surface? Ick.
I can’t really get an idea of how fast the furniture goes back down and I can imagine not wanting to get my foot stuck, never mind a small child getting any of their limbs stuck under it.
As my Dutch friends say, the idea is nice, but the execution, well, kinda sucks.
(Link fubiz.net, Photo Carmela Bogman, thanks Laurent!)
Tags: street furniture, Utrecht
May 15, 2010
Last week inhabitants of the Horstermeer polder just south of Amsterdam removed a 10 ton weir placed there by the AGV water board (Amstel, Gooi and Vecht regions). They claim the dam creates a dangerous situation.
The water board wants to let nature run its course in a part of the polder by letting water levels rise, effectively turning part of the polder into marshland. The inhabitants fear that since their houses are typically located at the lowest point of the polder, the centre, these higher water levels will damage their properties.
According to the polder dwellers, the water board never filed official plans for their dam, so that the inhabitants could not legally protest its placement. The water board has reported the theft of a weir to the police.
Water boards are a parallel government in the Netherlands for the management of water.
Video: Republiek Horstermeerpolder.
Tags: dams, marshes, nimbies, polders, theft, water boards, water management, weirs
May 6, 2010
According to Mickey Bosschert, real estate agent for religious property, some 1200 churches in the Netherlands will be sold in the next ten years. Some of these churches will be repurposed, while others will be torn down.
The latter option tends to be resisted by citizens, Bosschert told De Pers, because so many memories of baptisms, weddings and funerals are often attached to a church. Big church buildings in the middle of a city often occupy desirable locations.
Churches go for between 0.2 and 5.5 million euro. A famous, recently repurposed church that drew international attention is the Dominikanenkerk in Maastricht (see photo), which now houses a book store. British news paper The Guardian called it the most beautiful book store in the world. That is quite the accolade, considering it is owned by a chain and the interior has that chain store look.
(Photo by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved)
May 5, 2010
Slot Loevestein is looking for new castle watchers (or just one, but two works better I presume), as the couple currently acting as such, as well as running the bed & breakfast on the grounds, is retiring.
This 14th century castle used to be a prison, and one of its most famous inmates was lawyer, poet and politician Hugo de Groot (Hugo Grotius) often protrayed as the ‘father of modern international law’. In 1621 Hugo de Groot pulled off a very cool escape in a book chest, an idea he got from his wife, Maria van Reigersberg who was living in the castle, albeit probably not locked up.
(Link: rtl.nl, Photo of Castle Loevestein by StimpsonJCat, some rights reserved)
Tags: castle, Loevestein
April 24, 2010
Toni Bienemann from Arnhem is an avid collector of vintage cars, but having acquired about 40 automobiles he decided it was time for a change. And so he bought an old rail bridge in Germany—only to find out that this particular bridge is a symbol of German reunification. The Germans would get very upset, for instance, if he were to strip the thing for scrap metal.
Bienneman told Duitslandweb:
I had expected perhaps a small article in a local news paper, but not this much attention. Spiegel, ORF, Berliner Zeiting, they all called me to ask me why I bought the bridge. So I told them a story which I had made up afterwards. Originally, the bridge just seemed a nice symbol for my company, Dutchi Motors.
The Dömitz rail bridge (1873) used to be one of the longest bridges in Germany. It spanned the river Elbe, and was bombed by the alies in World War II. Afterwards, one side of the bridge became East German territory and was scrapped.
Wendland-net faithfully reproduces some of Bienneman’s spin:
“It would have been a pity if such a symbolic bridge had fallen into the wrongs hands.” This is the fear that drove Toni Bienemann […] to buy the historic construction for 305,000 euro from Deutsche Bahn in an auction.
Bienemann has now proposed the Germans come up with suggestions on how he could use the bridge in such a way that its symbolic value won’t get lost. He doesn’t need to make much profit right away, according to Duitslandweb, but if running the bridge is going to take him too much time, he will sell or lease it. Some of his own suggestions are to turn it into a bicycle bridge and run an ice-cream stand from it.
(Link: Sargasso. Photo by R. Kirchner, some rights reserved.)
April 23, 2010
What started way back in 2002 has finally been approved by The Hague’s city council: world-renowned architect Rem Koolhaas plans to build a 93-metre high building in front of the city’s central station as a new city landmark. The plans include three tapered towers, two with a total of 179 apartments and one for offices that meet and merge at the top, encompassing Koningen Julianaplein (big town square) on two sides. And it looks like a big M.
The Dutch press always likes to inform their audiences how much things cost. In this case, NRC tells us the ‘wowie’ building (that gives me a Grande Arche at La Défense in Paris feeling, but then a Dutch version) is estimated to cost 300 million euro and expected to be finished in 2015.
(Links: dutchnews.nl, oma.eu, nrc.nl)
Tags: Rem Koolhaas, The Hague
April 11, 2010
Last autumn a study project had eleven architecture students from the University of Delft create a house for a person based on their tweets and on other statements the ‘client’ made on-line. The eleven virtual clients were not told about the project, so the students could only go by these on-line statements.
Each student was given an area of 500 x 500 metres in Amsterdam in which to find a suitable location for a 130 square metre house.
A book made about project Twitterhouse can be viewed here, and a video about one of the cases, fashion designer Joline Jolink, is below:
Says Jolink:
@KimTextilia Kim moet je dit zien: http://www.bright.nl/ontwerp-een-huis-op-basis-van-tweets SCARY!!
(Links: Bright, The Mobile City. Source image: Twitter.)
Tags: TU Delft
March 29, 2010
Woonerfs are streets where the boundaries between the areas for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians have been eradicated on purpose, making them true shared spaces; and Toronto wants one.
Waterfront Toronto said yesterday that, thanks to CAN$ 5.3 million from Ottawa [federal government], it will turn the one-hectare stretch of city and provincially owned land [near the Don Valley Parkway on/off ramps ] into a park, complete with ball hockey and basketball courts, community gardens, ‘ribbon’ benches and climbing structures for children.
Waterfront Toronto also attempted yesterday to slip a Dutch word into the local vernacular, promising to build “woonerf” to bisect the new residential buildings north of Underpass Park. Designers say “woonerf” are streets, popular in Holland, that are cobbled in pavers. Woonerf do not have sidewalks or lines painted on them, and favour pedestrians and cyclists over cars.
Tags: Canada, pedestrians, shared space
