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.

The Hills And The Hood

Life changing neighbourhood activity going on at the moment, creating huge traffic jams/queues and troublesome arrangements in the department of public transport. My cup of tea. Reason for all this fuss is the architecture in the picture to the right. A new SkiJump is born, and tonight the first jump will be performed in the name of a female athlete. Go equal rights!

My favourite neighbourhood architecture is the radio tower (to the left), further up the hill. It was built in 1962 and designed by PimPam aka. Peter Andreas Munch Mellbye. Previously the tower had a observation/visitors deck where you could see all the way to Sweden. (Had to close down in 2005, because of fire regulations).

Tower picture photomaker: Me.
Ski Jump picture photomaker: Some dude working for Aftenposten.

Easy Company

I`ve now seen all 10 episodes of the HBO series; Band of Brothers. Story: A batallion of American Paratroopers, called Easy Company, arrives in Normandy on D-Day behind enemy lines. Dropped from the sky in an inferno of planes, bullets and fire. Those who survives this Armageddon of german hospitality, gather up and fight their way through occupied Europe. Participating in pretty much every worst case scenario and frontline fights possible. They spent the winter of 1944 surrounded by enemies in a freezing forest in Bastogne, dressed in summer uniforms and the only avaliable shelter/cover being foxholes dug in the frozen ground. It`s 10 hardcore glimpses of hell on earth, and if you: stay away from food during watch, turn off sound and cover your eyes every now and then, it`s recommendable.

Shigoto! Ikoze!

Work! Lets go! One of the first phrases I learned in Japanese. In Japan they work a lot, you might think it`s just a well established cliché, but it`s not. I don`t work much these days, and I seriously wish the situation could be somewhere between my current working schedule and the one I had in Tokyo. After returning to Oslo two days ago I`ve had difficulties occupying time, but I`ve done a great effort trying to keep a relatively tight program.

The night of arrival I dismantled my childhood desk, and replaced it with a large table. Then I reconnected my record player with my stereo (music = important), but before this was possible a collection of my novels needed to be relocated. After figuring out music + books, I organised all my "important" papers and tried to balance my bank accounts (sad story). When paper and money business were done, I tested ALL my pens, throwing out everyone with a hint of dryness. Next step, organising my drawing paper according to grams and color shade. Then I read one of the relocated novels to end the day in a nice manner. Next day I got up early, and drove to my local social security office (where they subscribe the magasine "Golf", one of my favourites. Do you really need welfare if your hobby is golf?) and waited for a good while. Because of a weird misunderstanding one of the guys thought I was pregnant, and could happily announce that I was entitled to a large sum of money. At this point I didn`t know he thought I was knocked up, so me, happy as a bird, smiled and said "yes!", but then the lady laughed her ass off explaining the situation once more. Suddenly the money was out of reach. To process this failure I took a roadtrip to Moss, and picked up my shipment from DK. These four large boxes kept me busy all night, with a second wave of sorting out stuff, such as clothes and pure stuff.

Today, I`ve watched two episodes of "Band of Brothers" and downloaded Adobe Trial Versions. It`s a good thing I can`t figure out the new television, guess I would have been able to name every single competitor in the Olympic Games if I did.

Life Of Architecture.
Help. Work anyone?

Post Script: You wouldn`t believe the amount of stuff I`ve managed to squeeze into my room. To be honest, organising business is my cup of tea. It`s actually super fun working with a limited amount of space.

Hasta Luego

Århus (place to be: 2004-2010)(with a 2007/08 break), from my current room with a view one night in December (2009).

Welcome Home

Just another building block among others in the vast city of Beijing. Looking like a charm. These structures are replacing the traditional hutong neighborhoods, and one thing`s for sure, they accommodate a whole lot more people on a similar sized footprint. In the terms of cultural inheritance and atmosphere it`s a sad story, but the brutal and rigid architecture fascinates.

NL_Architects

"When our reporter woke up out off hibernation he discovered that there was about 9 gigabyte of [christmas] party pics to sort-out; 9 gig in one single night… this equals the same amount of data the entire office produced in its first decade."

Haha. NL_Architects for you. A fun place to work, but you actually learn something as well. The fun part is just a bonus. (Extra bonus: the office is located in Amsterdam). To the annual Christmas Party, everyone have to buy a gift and write some sort of "poem" to a colleague, then after a couple of drinks the ceremony of presentation begins. Entertaining sequence indeed.

More + pics: NLBlog.

USS Nevada

While searching for magnificent American nature, I came across this power shot. A perpetuated moment of USS Nevada. To me it`s strange to name a ship after a state with no shore, however it is pretty obvious that you don`t mess with this dude.

Stand-in Odyssey

Word on the street; the best cut in movie history is the transition from the world of apes to the world of space in 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. I have not yet reached the cut, the reason is all the magnificent scenes of landscape. The movie is paused while I google nature. Don`t know where the movie is shot, but the desert in Arizona looks like a match. Arizona, here I come.