# Graphic Anatomy by Bow Wow

After the great book Made in Tokyo you might know, Atelier Bow Wow publish Graphic Anatomy which introduces all their houses by the means of narrative plans and sections. In my opinion, result is absolutely awesome and so are their houses. No fancy attitude here but a very sensitive sense of space.

# The Gotham City issue

I assume that everybody who has seen last Christopher Nolan's Batman Dark Knight would agree to say that it is a very well orchestrated movie, and I would definetly not be the exception. However, if I still can observe a little annoyance, I would have to say that I feel really disapointed by Nolan's refusal of creating anything about Gotham City. In fact, I never went to Chicago but this is obvious that it is the really city where this episode takes place (I'm also wondering what was the point of shooting in Hong Kong despite the fact that I'm always happy to see HK in a movie). Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher brought their own vision of Gotham and the weird thing is that Nolan also did in Batman begins... so what happened ? If the budget ran off, I guess it brings us back to the HK issue.
Anyway hopefully I spent a very good time watching it and I hope you did too !

# How much do you like Barbican ?

For these four last years, I went four times in London and each time I can't help going to Barbican which still amazes me. In my opinion, it is one of the rare modern urban experimentation that really proposes an interesting and efficient alternative to the traditional way of designing the city. Residential, Culture and Leisure are mixed in a very clever way, and although there are still very large resulting spaces, you don't feel like they embody a waste of land. Barbican is also a kind of maze for the visitor which can cross it in a lot of directions and appreciate each one of them.

History: Barbican Estate was built between 1965 and 1976 on a site which has been bombed during World War II (140 000 m²). Its architects were Peter Chamberlin, Geoffry Powell and Christoph Bon whose work is now Listed Buildings. It has been designed to supply a home to 4 000 people (2000 flats)

Barbican Centre though was built long after Barbican Estate. It is only in 1982 that the City of London Corporation decided to build the largest performing Arts Centre in Europe. In fact, Barbican Centre is composed by a 2000 seat concert hall (home of London Symphony Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra), a 1100 seat theatre, another flexible 200 seat theatre venue, an art gallery, a cinema, a conservatory, three restaurants and seven conference facilities.

# Work No. 850 by Martin Creed in Tate Britain

Here is Martin Creed's last work for London's Tate Britain. Every 30 seconds, somebody is running all along the Gallery as fast as he or she can.

As far as I'm concerned it quite fits with the idea of Mens sana in corpore sanum (A sane spirit within a sane body) and when you see them running, you just want to do the same !

# Four Londoners Alsop Buildings

Palestra Office 2006, Union Street, Blackfriars Road, Southwark


Peckham library 2000, 122 Peckham Hill Street, Bermondsey, Southwark


Institute of Cell and Molecular Science 2004 "The Blizzard", 4 Newark Street, Whitechapel campus, Tower Hamlets


Ben Pimlott building 2004 Goldsmiths College, University of London, Laurie Grove, New Cross campus, Lewisham

# AA Design Research Lab Pavilion [C]space

[C]space is the winning entry in the ‘AADRLTen’ Pavilion competition. It is an advanced technology concrete structure that is erected in Bedford Square,London. The Pavilion opened on 13 March 2008 coinciding with the release of the DRL10 Book. The structure was designed and developed by Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang with Adams Kara Taylor and members of the AADRL
--> DRL's website
--> [C]space's blog

# Serpentine's Roof by Frank Gehry

Eventually, I like it !