I managed to do a quick site inspection at the Gansevoort Hotel while in Turks & Caicos. This is one of those properties where skill really isn’t a factor in shooting it–its lines are so clean and spaces so elegant, I think a trained chimp could photograph it with amazing results! more»
During the first five months of 2009 John and I got to see some amazing things: first me in Germany, then John was off to Beijing and Tokyo, then I headed over to South Africa. The only complaint we had was that we never got to cash in on each others’ trips! This time, with a shoot at the new Estates at Grace Bay Club in Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Island, we were finally both able to go. more»
Here’s the article I wrote about bathroom design company Duravit from the trip I took to Germany earlier this year. This ran in the May issue of Robb Report magazine and is the cause of my disturbingly intense knowledge of sinks, lavs, and showers. I also wrote a second piece for Robb Report’s Best of the Best issue, which you can view online here if you’re as in to home saunas as I apparently am.
I got the rare opportunity to do something I often wish for: a chance to revisit an old shoot. Almost always after editing a project, I think of better compositions or more interesting angles that I should have caught the first time around. Luckily, when it comes to the Brooklyn bachelor pad I shot last year, a Paris magazine was interested in seeing more of the house and I was quite happy to oblige. I managed to capture more of the blue kitchen and I think this time I did it much more justice. Also got around to the bedroom and deck, which add a “lived-in” element that I felt the previous set lacked. more»
Better late than never! From my trip to China in mid-March, this was from the hike along the Simatai portion of the Great Wall. This is the only portion of the Great Wall that still has the original Ming Dynasty appearance and just my luck it is also the steepest. What are referred to as stairs would more honestly be described as imposing stone ladders. The weather was pretty damn cold, but it was an amazing experience being truly isolated from the madness of Beijing.
The article that I wrote during my trip to Austin back in January came out in the April/May issue of Vacation Homes magazine. A more legible version of it can be read on Vacation Homes’ web site. I’d also like to point out here that John has not posted in nearly two months. Hopefully this public shaming will get his butt in gear to share some of the amazing work he’s done during his final semester at Columbia! more»
A little bit more of the One&Only Cape Town. These are the two restaurants in the resort, Nobu and Maze. I’m no connoisseur but I will say the the food was absolutely fantastic. Springbok, Crocodile, Kudu, Kingklip, and Cob were all new to my palate and each was better than the last. Oh, and of course, I loved that origami sculpture snaking along the ceiling of Nobu. more»
Kerzner International’s One&Only resorts opened their first urban property in Cape Town on April 3–although you’d never know you were in a metropolitan area from the look of the lushly landscaped islands they created to make quite the little tropical oasis. I guess they got the island-building bug from another Kerzner property, Atlantis the Palm in Dubai. As is often the case when visiting a luxury resort like the One&Only, the bathroom was my favorite part, with a lovely egg-shaped tub, frosted glass doors, and a rainfall showerhead that made me cry when I came home to my pathetic New York apartment shower. more»
One would assume that after seeing elephants daily for four consecutive days, one would no longer be compelled to take hundreds of photos of said elephants during each encounter. One would be incorrect in this assumption. That said, I am posting one photo here with a link to a very–ahem, very–thorough slideshow of my time on safari. Hope those that are patient enough to sit through it all enjoy!
I’ve just returned from two weeks in South Africa, where I split my time between Cape Town for the city’s opening of a new One&Only resort, and Kruger National Park, where I visited the Singita Lebombo and Sweni lodges. I slept outside under the net almost every night while at the lodge—except for the first night when I discovered an 8-foot constrictor in the hills just below my terrace, and another night when I got itchy halfway through and was certain that I’d contracted malaria from a mosquito that somehow managed to sneak its way under my bed’s net. more»
We’ve changed a few of our categories to reflect the kind of work we’ve been doing over the past year. Obviously school has been a huge part of John’s life so that was long overdue. I’ve also recently become a tiny bit of a writer, and so thought it might be a good idea to add a written work section as well. Here’s an article that I wrote for the February issue of Vacation Homes magazine about some of the new developments going up along the High Line in West Chelsea (Section One opening in June!). more»
After having seen boutique after boutique it was a nice change to visit a truly breathtaking piece of public work. If there is any building that deserves its own book it is certainly this one, the Yokohama Port Terminal by Foreign Office Architects.
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I’ve been helping the awesomely talented Amy Barkow on some photo shoots lately and managed to get a shot of my own in over the weekend at this really amazing triplex apartment on 4th Street. The bedroom is the first floor; kitchen, study and living room (shown here) share the second; and a fun little lounge-y room with two verandas are on top. All the places I get to shoot are always cool but this was the first one that I genuinely wanted to live in! If only….
The last stop during my trip to Austin was a visit to the new Hotel Saint Cecilia, which opened last December. This place has a great, kitschy theme, featuring tons of original, vintage pieces (check out the 500-pound original bear claw bathtub!) mixed with new, hip decor. Kim over at Desire to Inspire, one of my favorite interiors blogs, was so kind as to post these on her site as well. more»
Trying to get a handle on classes and arrays to create organic growth. I’m looking to build more behavior into the movement, certain colors are attracted to eachother, and repelled by others, etc.
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I find it so funny that every person I told about the wrestling match we went to today immediately thought of WWF instead of the traditional Greco-Roman form that took place at Columbia University this afternoon. I guess everyone still has Micky Rourke on the brain. And can I just say that wrestling looks like the least comfortable sport in which one could ever participate? more»
A poor economy means two things…more networking and less spending. Thus a new business card was in order until the opulent days of the laser-cut business card return.
I was in Germany last week for a press trip at the headquarters of bathroom designer Duravit and collaborative fixture manufacturer Hansgrohe. There wasn’t much time to photograph more than this sassy facade designed by Philippe Starck. It’s a giant toilet. A giant toilet in which one can stand and take in the bucolic beauty of the Black Forest. It’s certainly nothing if not inventive. There are a couple of other photos of general things of interest around the area, including a lovely waterfall and a pious window display, but all in all, photography had to take a backseat to note taking on this trip. more»
More from the Austin trip. I’m really proud that Austin claims such a renowned spa as the Lake Austin Spa Resort. It was also really great to get some lovin’ from the sun too, as the day I was there it was a whopping 80 degrees! more»
One of the great things about this semester is that a component of our studio involves an overseas trip during spring break and the preceding week. Our studio at this point is broadly looking at future technology concepts through the lens of film, science fiction, and philosophy; and the role of the architect to shape that world. We’ve narrowed our trip down to half the time in Beijing and the other half in Tokyo. I was also thinking that a giant Yao Ming caryatid could have saved Arup a lot of trouble on the CCTV construction.
I just got back from a great week in Austin where I shot my booty off. While there, my brother and I got a tour of the very cool new performing arts center. Formerly the Palmer Events Center, the architects managed to recycle 90 percent of the old building, using about 65 percent of it on the new building itself. I also loved the view of Lady Bird Lake and the majorly expanding downtown skyline seen from the center’s front circle. My bro was super patient with me as he froze his nuggets off in the wind while I made him follow me around with my tripod. More from Austin is on the way! more»
While on our DC trip we were shocked at how unbelievably cool their subways are. We couldn’t help but be jealous of it as we thought back on our own city’s rat-infested, urine-soaked, tile-stained, trash-heaped stations. Yes, we admit that New York’s system is the original—and far more complicated—but come on! more»
We recently visited the inspiring memorial for the 184 victims of the Pentagon attack on 9/11 by Keith Kaseman and Julie Beckman. Each memorial unit represents a victim and is organized on the site by age. The effect of the two children by themselves is particularly strong.
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Time off from school!
Creating a parametric model in catia, whose inputs are optimized through the engineering program modeFrontier with additional structural finite element analysis coming from autodesk’s newly aquired robot. The challenge became how to convert your design position, parti, whatever, into a quantifiable metric that the software can optimize for. For instance, to optimize for material efficiency, you could let the software optimize a shape for maximize volume with minimal surface area. After 3000 designs you’d have a sphere, but things can get very complex fast when you begin optimizing for competing objectives. See our complete studio blog here. Project description…
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I recently shot this house in Stamford, Connecticut, which was once the stables owned by the Vanderbilt family. It still has the U-shape of the original building as well as plenty of indoor/outdoor spaces. The pastoral setting was certainly a change from my last seven months in New York!
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Obama Will Change Everything.
I recently shot the Caledonia, a luxury condo development designed by Clodagh that is located along West Chelsea’s High Line. The area is really fascinating, having taken an unused, unwanted elevated railroad and turning it into one hell of a money maker. For the time being it has become my favorite neighborhood in Manhattan. I went back the day after the shoot to take photos of the general area and, I’ve gotta say, shooting in the winter will be much more challenging here than in LA. more»
Beginning of including the Robot structural analysis into the workflow. Running a script through catia, Robot can now dynamically update and change from fixed to free columns - a structural objective. While programmatic and surface are efficiency requirements tend to create hanging and clumping column elements that directly compete with the structural program, which will optimize the ratio of hanging vs. full height columns and the angle and placement of the supports. The interior airport terminal space is engaged in a dance to optimize for the most efficient arrangement to satisfy multiple objectives.
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