The first thing youll notice about the Lego Architecture Studio is that its white. There are no colors, no shades, no pigments, no hues here. It is as white as a piece of paper, a glass of milk, a blind albino lizard skittering in a lightless cave a mile below the ground. White, white, white.

Your first thought might be: "Thats a little bland for Lego." But you should power through that impression. Theres a reason that every single brick of the 1,200+ Lego Architecture Studio set is white: Its a serious effort by Lego to get bricksmiths young and old the world over thinking about the core concepts of architectural design, not just a Lego buildings bright, Technicolor facade.

"We rarely offer a toolkit in only one color, but using white actually creates natural lines and shadows that can more accurately represent architectural shapes and form," explains Legos brand relations director, Michael McNally. "We felt using all that white gave the kit a very 'sketchbook feel. And since weve never offered a kit that is all white, theres that novelty factor at play for collectors, too.

The kit itself doesnt feature any exotic pieces or other elusive Lego chimeras. Except that they have been bled of color, the 1,200-odd pieces in the Lego Architecture Studio could have come from any Lego set. What makes them special is context. With every Lego Architecture Studio, Lego has included a vividly designed 268-page book that illustrates real-world case studies of six different professional forms, trying to seriously explain the principles of original architectural design by showing how you can do it all in Lego.

Arguably, this book is the meat of the Lego Architecture Studio. Not only does it feature a wonderful layout that brings to mind some of the funky, beautifully designed textbooks aimed at curious kids in the 1970s and 1980s, its a fascinating glimpse into the brains of real architects and how their methodology actually ties in with fitting dimpled plastic Lego pieces together. In fact, you get to see how real architects play with Lego themselves!

Each of the architect firms featured in the book--REX Architecture, Sou Fujimoto, SOM, MAD Architects, Tham & Videgrd, and Safdie Architects--are given as many as 50 pages to talk about their theories on architecture and construction, where they get their inspirations from, how their design process works, and in what ways Lego fits into all this. At the end of each chapter, the lead architects will all sit around a table with Lego and play with the pieces! Only then is the reader invited to take part in a hands-on Lego workshop exploring some of the theories and concepts explored in the chapter, which can range from exercises exploring symmetry, mass, density, the use of negative space, modules, repetition, and more.

"We wanted to have a mix of internationally renowned projects a broad audience could relate to, so we prioritized firms that represented global architects, various architectural styles, and diversity," McNally tells Co.Design. "Because they used Lego bricks in some of their workshops and educational programs, we worked with the Danish architecture firm KRADS to help us pick firms that showcased some of the best architectural principles in the world." The result is a fun, easy-to-understand and totally charming primer on the concepts of architecture that not only shape the world around us, but the innovative new designs that are going to make up the world of the future.

So who is this set for? Its a grown-up concept, but Lego wants this to be a toolkit that is accessible to teenagers who are first starting to think seriously about design, too.

"Lego building from the earliest age is just a terrific primer for budding designers, engineers and architects," says McNally. "We think its a compelling toolkit for adolescents who may be seriously considering a career in architecture or design, or even college students who have real needs for prototyping designs and models. It can even serve as an inspiration for budding architects or as a fun sketching opportunity for real-time design ideas."

The Lego Architecture Studio provides tangible, immediate experience with both classic and cutting-edge architecture concepts. Its a fantastic set that would be as at home in an architecture firms break room as it would be in a high school drafting classroom. Lego has long turned imaginative kids into builders, but the Lego Architecture Studio is the set that will help turn those builders into the designers and architects of tomorrow.

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A Monochrome Lego Set To Teach Tomorrow’s Architects

Concept image of environment by Li Xiaodong, commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, detail.

The Royal Academy of Arts' lofty halls are to be transformed into a sensory architectural maze by seven firms from across the globe.

The exhibit, Sensing Space: Architecture Reimagined, has been brought together by Kate Goodwin, Drue Heinz Curator of Architecture of the Royal Academy and will open on 25 January, 2014. Rather than opening up the brief for the world's architects to compete for, Goodwinhandpicked the seven architecture firms based on how they embraced the exhibit's ethos of architecture as a very human, multi-sensory and evocative experience.

"I once spent an afternoon talking with an architect about his influences and references, and this was personally etched on my mind," Goodwin explained at the exhibit's announcement on 14 August. "He spoke about how haptic touch was central to his work -- the feel of a cool doorknob, a warm threshold under foot. A sense of atmosphere." Leaving that conversation, Goodwin says, she looked at everything with heightened senses, suddenly appreciating the way light would fall on the staircase she used everyday at work. "I felt very present and in the moment," she explained. This sense, of looking at and appreciating architecture anew for how it makes us feel, rather than its perfect lines and ratios, is what she hopes to achieve through Sensing Spaces -- to have the audience delight in and experience architecture in a totally new and visceral way.

The Academy will have just three weeks in which to make this happen, shutting down whole sections over the Christmas period to erect seven building sites within its walls. This is because, as Goodwin notes, the only way to get an audience to experience what she intends is to place them in "direct proximity with a space".

Architectural models and photos will be replaced with the real thing for the public to walk around, climb on and explore. "We're doing something we never do, which is encourage visitors to touch," said Goodwin.

Building a space specifically for the public to interact with and immerse themselves in issomething many galleries have already experimented with (notably the Light Show at the Hayward Gallery or the grownup playground that was Bodyspacemotionthings by Robert Morris at the Tate Modern). But for the RA this is an epic exhibit built on the shoulders of centuries of experience. Scottish architect Sir William Chambers was a founding member of the Academy in the late 18thcentury, and today it counts some of the biggest names in the business -- from Norman Foster to Zaha Hadid -- as members. The academy has also run a series of prestigious exhibits focused on architecture over the years, and has a series of ongoing architecture programmes.

The exhibit is also not designed for the sake of art or play, but aimed squarely at introducing architecture to a new audience or, alternatively, reawakening perspectives in an old audience. Describingthe exhibit's sentiment, Goodwin borrowed some words from composer and conductor Igor Stravinsky who said: "I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it". The hope is to give laymen and amateur experts alike a new and accessible way to experience architecture in their daily lives, by being reminded of what it was about it we once found so enthralling. As children it was easy to see a curve in the wall as an excellent spot to imagine a cave, or associate the hard cool wood of a stairwell handrail with being home -- it's this sense of possibility and familiarity the exhibit hopes to evoke.

Any information on the exhibits, which will not be mapped out for the public to explore in any specific route, was left deliberately vague by the curating team. It was noted though that it would be reflective of how the digital and virtual worlds increasingly influenceour lives, and how, though our lives have become more and more portable and our spaces have less need for distinct functions, we have a human reluctance to become homogeneous, and so architecture will come to focus on how a space makes us feel.

We do have some snippets of information of what to expect from the chosen architects, however.

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Seven global architects to build sensory structures inside Royal Academy of Arts

The new Lego Architecture Studio set doesn't come with instructions for any one building. Image: Lego

Instead, in the box is a guidebook outlining some basic architectural concepts with exercises for exploring them in Lego. Image: Lego

The idea is to give budding architects a more sophisticated platform to explore. Image: Lego

Here, a sample page from the guide book, on surface. Image: Lego

Real-world examples help bridge the gap between the plastic world and our own. Image: Lego

A sample building. Image: Lego

Seventy-three different kinds of bricks are included in the set. But bricks are easy to find. Its the guidebook thats truly new. Its pages offer accessible overviews of basic architectural concepts, along with illustrated exercises for exploring them in Lego form. Pages on negative space and interior sections, for example, encourage budding builders to think not only about how their miniature creations look from the outside but also in terms of what sorts of spaces they contain within them.

That, admittedly, is a bit headier than snapping together a castle for a smiling minifig army. And the set does come with a recommendation of ages 16 and up. But if Lego products have proven anything over the years, its that with simple tools, young kids can prove to be surprisingly proficient designers. For a 10 or 12 or 13-year-old whos just starting to get curious about some of the concepts involved in their structures, this could be an excellent stepping stone.

The guidebook features contributions from a number of acclaimed firms, including REX, Safdie, Skidmore, MAD, and Sou Fujimoto, among others. Their real-world projects are used to bridge the gap between the clean plastic world of Lego and the one we live in. A hundred and fifty bucks for a bunch of white bricks might seem steep, but its hard to get mad at a product aimed squarely at encouraging kids to nurture their innate creativity in imagination.

And if youre looking for slightly more profound way of putting that, this passage from the guide book does a fine job: It is no coincidence that Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Buckminster Fuller were all taught kindergarten in the school system that introduced building blocks into educational play. These simple forms reveal the first traces of modernismthe start of a relationship between architecture and creative childrens games that continues to this day.

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A Lego Set for Budding Architects, With No Instructions

Architects ft. Jason from Letlive. - Follow the Water (warped tour #39;13)
St. Petersburg - Tampa.

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Architects ft. Jason from Letlive. - Follow the Water (warped tour '13) - Video

Monday, August 12, 2013, 11:48am

New York-based Ennead Architects has been selected to design the Peabody Essex Museum's (PEM) $200 million 175,000-square-foot expansion. The expansion is expected to open in 2019.

The expansion project is part of the museum's $650 million campaign. The expansion will add approximately 75,000 square feet of new galleries; public program and education spaces; a restaurant; and allow for improvements to the museum's collection, conservation and exhibition processing areas.

Ennead was chosen following the completion of the first phase of the building project, executed by London-based Rick Mather Architects. This initial phase included master planning and the renovation of the Dodge wing, which will reopen in October with a new and expanded Art & Nature Center and other special exhibitions.

Ennead previously designed the expansion of the Yale University Art Gallery, as well as projects at the Brooklyn Museum, Natural History Museum of Utah, William J. Clinton Presidential Center and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History.

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Ennead Architects To Design Peabody Essex Museum’s $200M Expansion

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, has chosen Ennead Architects to design its 175,000-square-foot expansion. The firm picks up where London-based Rick Mather Architects left offcompleting master planning and renovation of the museums Dodge wingfollowing principal Rick Mathers death earlier this year.

PEM selected Ennead from a group of architecture practices that were invited to participate in a design charrette this summer. "Ennead Architects impressed us with their creative dexterity, in-depth understanding of our institution, and thoughtful design solutions for the museum's complex architectural program, Dan Monroe, PEM's director and CEO, said in a statement.

"PEM's expansion presents an exciting design challenge and an opportunity to reimagine one of the oldest and fastest growing museums in the country," added Ennead design partner Richard Olcott. "We are committed to creating a design that functionally integrates the museum's existing campus with a bold new vision that enhances the museum both aesthetically and experientially."

The museums $200 million expansion will add new galleries, public program and education spaces, and a restaurant, as well as improvements to the collection, conservation, and exhibition processing areas. Groundbreaking will start in 2015, and the new wing will open in 2019.

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Peabody Essex Museum Hires Ennead Architects to Oversee Expansion

CHARLES CITY Architects for the new middle school to be built as an addition to the existing high school are proposing that construction begin in June 2014, and that the building be ready to occupy by August 2015.

Representatives form BLDD Architects of Davenport, the firm the school board hired to design the new middle school, were at Mondays School Board meeting give a report on the $17.6 million project.

BLDD representative Sam Johnson said the schematic design phase is already under way.

September through October will be the design development phase, which will involve more detailed plans.

Construction documents are to be prepared from November through February, with bidding on the project to take place in March or April.

Johnson said BLDD representatives have been speaking to staff, parents and students to get their ideas for the new middle school.

He said they want it to be a magnet school that will attract people to the community.

The idea is to design the school so students can learn the skills they need in the modern world, such as STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) skills, critical thinking skills, people skills, technology skills and media literacy, according to Johnson.

The building design will be flexible, allowing for both small-group and large-group learning, he said.

It also will be built to allow for more connection with industry and to establish the school as a community center with increased public access, according to Johnson.

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Architects: C.C. middle school could be ready by August 2015

MINECRAFT SHIZZLE - Part 19: Xerain Architects
Favorites Likes are MUCH appreciated and helps out a lot! Thank you! #9659;Subscribe: http://bit.ly/xgsubscribe #9659;Facebook: http://bit.ly/xgfacebook #9659;Twitter: ht...

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Learn To Live(guitar cover) - Architects [HD]
Learn To Live - Architects I hope you like it! Gear Canon 600D ESP Eclipse 1 Kemper Profiling Amp --- I do not own this track ---- (Copyright Disclaimer Unde...

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Learn To Live(guitar cover) - Architects [HD] - Video

[HD] Drum Cover - Red Eyes by Architects
Was a lot of fun covering this song, still, I do not own this song, it belongs to its owners. My setup: PDP X7 Tama S.L.P. POWER MAPLE 14" X 6.5 Meinl Mb10 M...

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[HD] Drum Cover - Red Eyes by Architects - Video