Azul Historico Restaurant in Mexico City

Azul Historico Restaurant in Mexico City

Restaurant Azul Historico is located half block away from Madero —the new fantastic pedestrian street   at the historic center— and right across the traditional Casino Español.

restaurateur Gonzalo Serrano, teamed up with architects Juan Pablo Serrano, from Serrano Monjaraz Arquitectos and Elías Kababie from Kababie Arquitectos. Gonzalo’s experience in operating successful restaurants in Mexico City found in the ideas of Pablo and Elias exactly what he needed for this space that promises to be the new reference in the historical center of Mexico City.

 The project focused on maintaining the integrity of the original court of the fantastic colonial building that was adapted for the new activity. The magnificent interior facades are the frame that surrounds the restaurant that is sunken among vegetation to provide its guests with a gastronomic experience al fresco. Honoring the great project of architectural reuse of this extraordinary building, Pablo and Elias made the selection of the furniture with reuse and the important location  In some of the tables names of nearby streets, area maps, characters and dates related to the historical center can be read. In the bathroom a couple large copper pots and were used as sinks as a tribute to the Mexican cuisine. To add an industrial touch, burned-out bulbs were placed on a grid on the ceiling to inspire the visitors on the importance of reusing materials that have already completed their useful cycle and may have a new life using the imagination.of the restaurant in mind.

 

 (article from sweetydesign.com )

Bio-Architecture Formosana

Dormitories for ITRI Southern Taiwan Campus / Bio-Architecture Formosana 

 Architects: Bio-Architecture Formosana
Location: Liujia District, Taiwan
Site Area: 52,792 sqm
Floor Area: 6,182 sqm
Year: 2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Bio-Architecture Formosana

 

The whole campus is programmed to be a research environment including building hardware and landscaping software for 1500 people. The overall layout comprises research buildings, cafeteria, dormitories, ecological ponds, bamboo forest, organic green house, and an art district for bamboo kiln.

The site is surrounded by hills in three directions, and fronted by lakes to the west. The layout is aimed not only to have the building cluster fit in the environment but to make the place for the habitat of the existing eco-system. Further, the built site, along with its networked landscape within the whole campus, is expected to be a great place for ecological observation. The building group is formed as part of the landscape vista dialoguing with the topography, and its roofs serve for viewing Chiayi Plain.

The ecological pond in the center of the courtyard may adjust the micro-climate and co-work with a nearby retention pool. With future efforts to cultivate the lake area in the vicinity of the construction site, the experience strolling around the site and its neighborhoods will be characterized with the scenic water body in stepped elevation and in varied scale from manmade to nature.

Bamboo forest is a prosper scene in the campus area, and utilizing this local material helps to reduce carbon footprint of the new construction. The application of bamboo ranges from planting to architectural elements like exterior screening of the staircase, soft partition in the entrance area, and in the courtyard to define the outdoor corridor. Further walking path is planned to circulate to the bamboo forest around the site and to the Bamboo Art Section in the southern campus. Locally produced brick is adopted for the pavement of the semi-outdoor walkway.

(article read in archdaily.com for more info click here) 

food art

food art :)

Inspiring architects

Kenzo Tange

  "The role of tradition is that of a catalyst, which furthers a chemical reaction but is no longer detectable in the end result. Tradition can, to be sure, participate in a piece of creation, but it can no longer be creative itself."
Kenzo Tange was an architect from Japan, who has won several prestigious awards during the lifespan of his career, among which the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1987. He was renowned for blending Japanese traditionalism and world modernism in his works. 

 

 

OLYMPIC ARENA  Tokyo, Japan 

 

"Together with a number of other important projects which Kenzo Tange carried out after 1959, the Olympic stadia in Tokyo can be regarded as the culmination of his career, designed in 1960 and built in 1964, on a par with the highest achievements of the Japanese tradition... The plan [of the larger stadium] is in the form of two semi-circles, slightly displaced in relation to one another, with their unconnecting ends elongated into points. The entrances are located in the concave sides. The roof is supported on two reinforced concrete pillars, and is made up of a system of steel cables onto which enameled steel plates are then soldered. The curving form of the roof serves to make it more resistant to wind, which can reach hurricane force in this region.  

PORTRAITS OF THE MIND

PORTRAITS OF THE MIND

Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century (Abrams, November 2010) follows the fascinating exploration of the brain through images. These beautiful black-and-white and vibrantly colored images, many resembling abstract art, are employed daily by scientists around the world, but most have never before been seen by the general public. From medieval sketches and 19th-century drawings by the founder of modern neuroscience to images produced using state-of-the-art techniques, readers are invited to witness the fantastic networks in the brain. 

The book is a bridge between Science and Art. The book  is filled with real life images of brain and its cells. Basically a book 

of study of brain has turned into an artwork.

This can soon lead to new sets of innovative design era. Well

believe it or not these images are far beyond imagination.

The nerve cell - an art inspired from neurons.(made out of metal work)

vibrant colors of the image surely breadth taking

The synapse's image  interpreted by art   

The Author

Carl Schoonover is a neuroscience PhD candidate at Columbia University, the author of Portraits of the Mind, and has written for The New York Times, Le Figaro, and Scientific American. He is a cofounder of NeuWrite, a collaborative working group for scientists, writers, and those in between, and hosts a radio show on WKCR 89.9FM, which focuses on opera, classical music, and their relationship to the brain.


He currently lives in New York City and works on microanatomy and electrophysiology of rodent somatosensory cortex in the Bruno laboratory at Columbia University Medical Center. He is a former NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a 2012 TED Fellow.