000off_WHAT_architecture guest editor for Mark Magazine!?

048per_BENT LIGHT

Bent light.

206win_Diamond Pavilion

The WHAT_architecture Diamond Pavilion is a relocatable pavilion that embraces the legacy of QE2’s Diamond Jubilee Year through its transparent, cut facetted form. It is the crown jewel that enhances both place and occasion in Winchester’s events calendar. The project follows the 5C characteristics of the diamond trade but transforms cut, carat, clarity, colour and certification into cut (form), clarity (transparency), colour (opacity), change (enclosure, location) and cost. Oh, BTW, it’s inflatable within 30minutes. Think: Bouncy Windsor Castle!

132nnr_bridge house

There’s nothing new about bridge housing as this 1793 proposal (by the poignantly named W. Bridges) for a bridge over the River Avon at the Rocks of St Vincent from Sion Row illustrates. This multi-storied bridge was to have been wedged into the Clifton Gorge at Bristol. Above its single arch span, the structure incorporated a chapel, public offices, warehouses and a corn exchange. So the creativity of the 132nnr WHAT_bridge lies not in its architectural proposition but in the discovery of the site in the first place!

000off_5th Auckland Triennale

The 5th Auckland Triennial includes Teddy Cruz from San Diego, Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai and Anthony Hoete of WHAT_architecture.

203car_A380 vs B787 aircraft hangar

The Boeing Everett Factory used to manufacture various planes, including the 747, is the ‘largest building in the world, by volume’. The Welsh Assembly’s brief for this hangar was to design the most compact hangar which could accommodate the world’s largest passenger planes:  the Airbus A380, the Boeing 747 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the world’s first mostly composite commercial airplane. In doing so the proposed hangar streamlines large span composite trusses to give the hangar its identity. As a counterpoint to the large passenger jet that flies and unite families, is this Motiti family each with their own plane.

179prs_WHAT architecture FC

When we realised that the turnover of the world’s largest architectural practice Aecom will soon exceed that of the world’s largest football club, Real Madrid, it made us think about the relationship between football and architecture.

048per_WEATHERBOARD PORSCHE 997

Machinehabiter? The Porsche 997 may not yet cost more than your flat but as a mobile status symbol it can partially explain the skewed prominence of high performance vehicles over high performance housing. Architecture costs money. An aspirational vehicle is a cheaper way of acquiring designer living. WHAT_carchitecture re-presents the car as Villa(in).