Just by looking at the mind-boggling New Norwegian National Opera and Ballet in Oslo, an architectural cliff on the edge of a fjord, you might think there’d be a lot of dense archibabble floating around at the firm Snøhetta.  I have been paying closer attention to them out here in San Francisco, after hearing rumors that they are in the running for the SFMOMA extension in partnership with locals EHDD. So it was doubly refreshing to hear one of the two principals, Craig Dykers, give a presentation about the firm last Friday at the AIA SF offices that was not only highly intelligible but often humorous: many choice quotes have been posted elsewhere on the Dwell blog.

Dykers searched Flickr and YouTube to find photos  and videos that people have taken of the firm’s buildings, including one (very daring) video of a stunt cyclist climbing the opera house.

Via Archpaper

Architect: Bates Masi Architects
Location: East Hampton, NY, USA
Client: Private
Structural Engineer: Steven L. Maresca
Contractor: Paul Cassidy
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Christopher Wesnofske

Thirty-five years after the firm originally designed this vacation residence, its new owners sought to rejuvenate the house while preserving its spaces, seasoned tones, and texture. Clad inside and out almost entirely in twelve-inch wide cypress boards, the original house exuded a straightforward simplicity the owners wished to maintain. By constraining the palette of materials and reusing salvaged parts of the existing house, the line between new and old becomes nearly imperceptible, limited only to minimal inflections in finish. Read the rest of this entry »

Architects: ODOS architects
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Construction: SHALE Construction
Constructed Area: 140 sqm
Design Year: 2006
Construction Year: 2007-2008
Photographs: Ros Kavanagh and Barbara Corsico

This new residential development, for a motorcycle enthusiast, adjacent to No.10 Grangegorman Villas, Grangegorman, Dublin 7 is an alternative reaction to the more traditional city centre infill residential projects; an unapologetic piece of architecture sitting within a strong urban context defined by both site and planning constraints. The building is essentially two living plates over a workshop connected by a vertical service and circulation core. While the character of this new structure is unmistakably contemporary it has been designed to sit discreetly within its more traditional context, while giving the end of the terrace the strong presence it deserves. Read the rest of this entry »

A great video by Alex Roman that has been circulating around the Internets for a bit, but always worth watching! The video was created with 3dsmax, Vray, After Effects, and Premiere.