Gradient Color Setting

1st day of Christmas from my room´s point of view at my parent´s house in Oslo. Couldn´t have done the photoshopping better myself. Thumbs up for the sky.

VV On Ski

Yet another famous person "enjoying" the obviously popular device; skis. This is Mr. Walter Gropius, practising his down hill V-style in a rather sophisticated look. He has carefully chosen, 50% of the garments from the work-outfit-closet, and 50% from the closet of leisure activites. From the modern point of view of old school traditions, a fascinating idea worth copying. Based on the terrified look on his face and the far from professional way he works those sticks, skiing was not Walters forte.

Jacobs, Jane

Merry Christmas to You from Jane Jacobs´ glasses. (Jane Jacobs´ glasses are not alone in the "traced-glasses-from-pictures-of-architects"- folder, check out the latest Arkitektur N. There you will find the whole collection, in an add for NAL Akademiet on page: something. Made by the NAIve Architect)

Mounty Everest

Sir Edmund Hillary on his way up to the top of the tops, Mount Everest. Looking mighty cool in his blue outfit, oxygen mask, strange sunglasses and handmade(/homemade?) mittens. For some reason, this image gives the impression that it used to be warmer up there. If you compare these two people with the characters stolling up the steep hills along a rope nowadays, the modern crowd seems to wear a whole lot more down paraphernalia.

Once a climber was asked the question: Why do you want to climb Everest and risk your life? The climber responded rather nonchalant, as if the answer was obvious: Because it´s there. (Lets say the climber was Sir E. Hillary, the origin of the Hillary steps)

King Winter

Skiing is not only good for your health, it is also a splendid opportunity to trace a landscape with the trail you leave behind. If you want to ski hardcore in a geometric way, patterns could be your focus of choice. From time to time, your pattern will be erased by the arrival of fresh snow, and a new clean sheet lays before you. Follow the example of these fine people, from the right: Crown prince Olav, Queen Maud, King Haakon, a lady with a big hat and a guy trying to get a glimpse of something.

Dot Matrix

After being interviewed by a kind of creepy guy with no head on the internet, answering: emotional, understated, progressive and relaxed to his questions, he could annonce that my type is: Dot Matrix. I´m very much happy with the result.

Do the interview (even though your level of internet scepticism will probably increase when you have to type your name), do it: Your type

Al To The Bert

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." Albert Einstein. (Einstein, baby!) I really like his pointing finger. Note to self: Time for some more index-finger-pointing-action.

Play It Self

Snapshot moment from: LA plays itself. A seriously long movie where the information flow is fascinating but sort of extreme. If your level of concentration drops during the never ending watch, I recommend the entertainment of a camera to reshoot the scenes of LA into snapshots of your own. Picture above: Shopping carts in action on their way through a parking lot.

(mis(s))Match

My after work activity these days; decide colors for my home made posters. The production of posters is actually just an excuse to write a few sentences and create nice color combinations. A good example of activity match making. My poster collection is called (for now): Things I tell myself.

Bottle Of Rome

I really (really) want to go to Rome. I´ve never been there, and I guess that is a terrible thing/sin when you´re supposed to call yourself an architect (not that I do). But I´m not sure a tourist trip is enough, imagine waking up to crazy traffic and espresso in a tiny apartment where the ceilings are high and the windows wide open, in some old dodgy building in the cheap area (if they exist) of town. Followed by days of slow adventures and impressive impressions. Priceless.

The drawing is a section of Pantheon. A place to remember I´ve heard.

Love Letter

Bonus: Apart from the fact that letters joined together often create fantastic imaginary worlds and/or add a level of enlightenment through well or poorly written books, they look pretty good.

Independent Day

Directly translated from Norwegian: Sprawl takes the cake. This version of the popular urban planning system looks like a spaceship, transformed into buildings of serious similarity. Orbiting the most important feature of the local neighbourhood, the one and only Mall. Sweet.

Brain Fuel

Brain(s). More later. Fascinating piece of human body part. CT scans. More later. Fascinating medical equipment. Bonus info: Did you know that if you "unwrap" the brain tissue, it would cover the surface of a swimming pool? ...What kind of swimming pool? Medium size I would say.

Rails Of Russia

The Trans siberian railway from Beijing/Vladivostok to St. Petersburg or vice versa. It´s 9289 km from Moscow to Vladivostok, and 7622 km between Beijing and the Russian capital. To traverse the great distance between Beijing and Moscow you need more or less six days. According to a Finnish friend of mine (she decided to go countryside when moving back to Finland after a year in Hongkong. (I have the feeling that three days might have been more than enough)) you´ll get a view of pretty much every tree in Russia during the quite monotonous travel. The only interruption is the green fields of Mongolia, and a few hours of outback China.

The little shape of dotted line is Lake Baikal, despite a small surface area the lake contains more (fresh)water than any other lake in the world. In other words, very deep. A population of freshwater seals enjoys life here. The other bigger shape of dotted line is the Caspian Sea, the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area.

The Groth

The master of lines, the Norwegian artist, Jan Groth. Extensive minimalist to the point of extremity.

Sardegna Sun

Last week was spent on the beautiful island of Sardinia. A few hours a day we observed the surrounding scenery from a horizontal point of view. When renting extremely ephemeral homes, you get a couple of beds, a very small table and a dynamic roof. The roof may be positioned in two different ways, A) unfolded; creating a big umbrella, providing shadow for sensitive skin, and B) as you can see on the photo, a sticklike feature, providing no necessities but looks good in formation. The Sunbed Army ready to serve Scandinavian weather refugees and locals, craving sunshine.
Let operation T A N begin.

DBS Spesial

Dude

OSL - TRD

This is the plan of tomorrow. Drive and drive. From the Oslo to the Trondheim. Rule #1: The more time you spend behind the wheel, the more time you get to boss the soundsystem. Time to get some sleep, I don`t want to listen to Eva Cassidy all day. The solid line is E6 through Gudbrandsdalen, to the dotted line is Road3 through Østerdalen. Solid = approximately 500 km, Dotted = slightly shorter.

Book Or Zine

I`m making a book. It`s a super slow process. Writing essays is not something you just do I`ve come to realize. Takes forever to create sentences (that I think is good), not to mention the story. That`s why the book contains more and more images and drawings, some stolen from the great abstract world of internet (ops), some made by the author.

Busy Card

Adopting a Japanese networking tradition; business cards. They always have one (probably several) available, for every occation and situation. It doesn`t matter if the only word uttered is hi. You`re still on the vip list worthy a card. Which I guess is a very nice thing. Only problem: to remember the people behind every hi. My solution: personal cues added to the excisting information. E.g. Tomi Ogata, photomaker, Tokyo + extremely skinny pink jeans, plastic hat, favourite color: yellow.

(the card is not supposed to have the dotted line and half a scissors, it is just to make a frame on this white background)(just so you know)

1983

My age in computer years. Mac from 1983

Green Greeny

aka. jungle. Looks fantastic, but imagine all those bugs living there. In other words, you`re not alone.

Road Of Silk

When blogger went moron on me, I was about to tell you a really fascinating story about the trade route "The Silk Road", from China to the middle East. It was a filled with facts and amazing information. But it turns out that it was a: NO GO. Bite me, I don`t know why. It began like this:

When I was a kid at the age of 5-6, I was obsessed with a television series called "The Silk Road". Obvious to the masses, this show presented the history of the trade route (in a very objective way). I remember the scenes on the screen to be unbelievable picturesque with a hint of fairytale and last but not least, extremely dangerous. The series was broadcasted on a weekday after the news, so every week I had to fight for my desperate need of historical facts, in regards of bedtime. Some years later I wrote a letter to NRK (the channel), and asked if they could broadcast this amazing piece of television imagery once more. I never got an answer.

Then all the wonderful facts arrives on scene, but..No.
If this survives the unwanted censor, I just want to end this feature with: OK, so now it works!

"Kawaii?" "Hai"

Those Japanese people really got it going on. Barcodes of the future, coming your way. (This might be ancient information, I`m generally not up to date on the topic "breaking news", so this might actually be barcodes of the past).

In The House

R o b y n : Dancing on my own. La musica of tonight.

Colorido

This dude knows his colors, the one and only Mr. 2nd Winner of the Pritzker Price: Luis Barragán.

Plan : SubUrban

I have a plan. It`s extremely quiet and incredible far. It doesn`t include architecture of buildings, but it does include architecture of letters. I don`t know if Tokyo is involved, it`s not unthinkable but rather unlikely. The deadline is the day after tomorrow, so this is high class procrastination. These letters should have been used in a totally different setting, a serious setting with well established arguments and fashionable sentences delivered in a composed manner, created to convince one or more persons that I should be the one to receive the grant to write a book. Wish me luck.

Post Script: If you manage to locate Sendagaya station, you`re in my neighbourhood.

17th of May

The day of ice cream, hotdogs, shoes of pain, champagne for breakfast, obscene amounts of Norwegian flags, marching bands and national costumes. An enormous birthday party, where absolutely everyone is invited ( - terrorists and hardcore criminals).

The dimensions of the flag is: 6 - 1 - 2 - 1 - 12 horizontal and 6 - 1 - 2 - 1 - 6 vertical.

Holy Shape

Religion or not religion. Either way, Triangles do look holy nice. Once back in my wild youth, I almost got a tattoo like this. (Almost = waterproof pen on skin)

Rules Of Attraction

While googling sustainable housing I came across a series of photos where the world famous Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull performed as scene/model. To be honest I don`t see the obvious connection to housing, but who cares, I call it luck. These pictures are amazing! Had no idea ash could be so beautiful. You go girl, work that ash!

More beauty shots: Boston.com

Voila!

I did not build this. But if I could choose one architectural-super-power, I would like to be a human lazer cutter and be able to mount models in the same league as this beauty of precise-ness. You will find more pictures, text and drawings on page 108 - 111 in the very recommendable book: Models; 306090 Books, Volume 11. Go Amazon.co.uk shopping round.

Cut : Take Two

One good old golden hit. Gordon Matta-Clark. I don`t know if it is Matta-Clark in the picture, but lets say so. Gordon got one piece of fine looking camera. Guess it is made from some sort of metal, lets say aluminium. Nothing (well, at least not much) beats a square aluminium video camera. Way to go, GMC.

I actually didn`t post this photo to talk about the tiny camera in the hands of an unidentified person. But, what do you know. Please notice the serious cut made through the facade of this rather small house. Maybe not so small.

Work It

Neon Snakes by Fontän. Check it out, dudes. Works for work.

Enna

Let me introduce; Enna. A small city on top of a small mountain located pretty much bulls eye on the rather small island of Sicily, Italy. Charming place I`m sure, as long as you don`t expect summer temperatures in April. You have to trust me on this one, but the view is actually amazing. I found this picture in my "pictures of pictures pictures" file, among memories and other foggy stuff. Enna + Sicily in general was visited studytrippin` in April 2005, we spent most of the time on a bus, wearing every piece of clothing brought from home. Or we made sketches of ruins, wearing every piece of clothing brought from home, or we ate the best italian food ever, wearing every piece of clothing brought from home. Or we drank grappa. Good old cold (except during grappa) times.

It`s Criminal

I wish I was a cooler kid at the age of 5 in the year of 1988, when this little tune came out on the open market. I guess those dance moves would have been easier to adapt at young age. Not that I haven`t tried as an older member of society, but where Mr. Jackson looks funkyfresh in a freaky way, my skills on the dancefloor only leads to freaky. Take a pick: SmoothCriminal , BlackOrWhite , P.Y.T. , BillieJean , BeatIt , Thriller , Bad .

...saw "This Is It" the other day, that might explain it.

Tokyo oykoT

Tokyo: 05:00 in the morning on the day of my departure. On my way back to Sakura House Sendagaya, after "one" beer in Golden Gai together with Ms. A. A(n) hour later I was on the train to Narita AirportO, with all my stuff and a mild hangover, my personal tradition when travelling. This crossing is located in Shinjuku, close to the huge station, usually a crowded area. Both with cars and people.

Scoop

It`s spring, it`s loppemarked (flee market) season. Yesterday in the book department of Grefsen Skoles Musikkorps´ Loppemarked I found a small piece of Atlas heaven, a pocket version of The Book (Atlas). Now I may go wherever I want with the entire world in my bag/pocket. Imagine that. From the top: Switzerland + Austria, Java/Indonesia, parts of South America and parts of South Africa. Hello.

One Double 0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99..just so you know.

Oh Barn

My latest fascination is barns. During a long and monotonous train ride to Trondheim, barns along the tracks became my focus. Many of them close to self-performed-demolition, but still well proportioned with long slim building structures and openings/windows where they`re needed. I like to think that not many considerations regarding aesthetics were made when the decisions had to be done. This is five models in 1:100 I`ve made from my own imagination with no site or developer present. Just for fun, so to speak.

My Own Personal Surprise

Never thought I would say this, but: I kind of want to go to...Lanzarote. I can mos def picture myself in this scenery, in the back somewhere handing out peace signs for everyone/anyone.

Lanzarote is part of the cultural Mekka of Gran Canaria. The island consists mostly of volcanoes, which have done a great job covering huge areas with lava. Because of the dry weather the apocalyptic look has been perfectly maintained, since a long time...1824 to be precise.

Plan: flight, hiking boots, disposable camera (great picturemaker), sunglasses, followed by pink drinks in a tacky bar where a super local and surprisingly undiscovered band is playing the "best of" - series, entertaining the cultural elite of Scandinavia.

The Seed

Shanghai Expo 2010, UK Pavilion by HeatherwickStudio. Movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpBa_QpkzNE on youtube.

Space Out

Just had a session of serious internet-connection-freakout-moments, and need a piece of zen reality to stabilize the situation. This works. Easter holidays view from mountain cabin porch.

Anything

Jolly Sunday. I googled "anything" in google images, and this came up. Pretty much what my plan for today is: cruise in a "funky" family car, listen to some bad boy music, wear a serious relaxation outfit and since Oslo is big time foggy today, I`m going to pretend it`s sunshine Springy. A walk in the park, here I come.

To You From Space

I like "seen from space"- articles. The Earth looks so good from far out. This is the Saskatchewan River in Canada, duplicated and flipped horizontally. Looking more like an evil alien butterfly than a river...or maybe not. The original picture is from Wired.

"The bird’s foot delta of the Saskatchewan River in Manitoba is formed as silt carried by the river is deposited and builds up, eventually forcing the flow to find new paths. The delta measures around 8 miles across, while the most famous bird’s foot, of the Mississippi River, is more than 30 miles across.

The Saskatchewan River’s delta mud contains a lot of fossilized amber from around 80 million years ago that was carried there by the river and preserved in the sediments. This image of the Saskatchewan River was taken in 2007 by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/gallery-rivers/11/#ixzz0j1liGPH5"

Pearls Of Namsos

I`ve just returned to Oslo after a little mid-Norway-tour, visiting family and friends. My Grandmother lives in the city of Namsos, a rather sad place when talking Architecture. Wednesday morning my G-mother had her weekly appointment at the hairdresser, and I decided to use this half-an-hour-break to explore the city center. Overall, there`s not much beauty going on but I managed to find a few objects in the category of: Me like. A couple of the buildings are in fact designed by a member of the Aursand Architect Clan, Arne.

Bar(Dress)Code

Had a little dose of sightseeing today. This is from the roof of The Opera looking towards north-east and the city, in other words: the BarCode project. Me like. It`s very unNorwegian and wannabe metropolitan, but I have to admit that the building without facade is my favourite. Nothing beats a stripped structure. Go nudity!

The Phrase

"We haven`t located us yet" - Brendan, The Darjeeling Limited. The phrase of my life. The picture has a happy ending, Mr. Brody manage to jump on board. The Indian railway; the business in the world with the largest number of employees at 1.6 million people.

Amen, Ames

I don`t usually post fashion related pictures, since this blog is all about hardcore professional architecture. But, thought I make an exception, because this girl is wearing enough grid to plan a city. And I finally get to quote a famous saying; The more fabric, the merrier. It`s not so famous, I made it up, I need an excuse. I like (L O V E) baggy clothes.

This creation is in the name of the designer: MatthewAmes.

Fantastic Freia

The best chocolate ever is featuring in the cutest advertisement I`ve seen in a long time. Kvikk Lunsj is the perfect companion when you`re out hiking/mountain climbing. This cow totally got it.