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The Ha Ha and the Hall
Just arrived in the UK after an ok flight, but flying just gets harder as I get, dare I say, older? I am sitting in the bar at the AA School of Architecture waiting for my friend Valentin to set me up with the maybe dodgy place I am staying tonight.
The end of year exhibition and party is tomorrow night, so the whole place is under construction. When I walked in the front door 3 students were carrying in a giant sheet of Perspex (plexi for Americans) the metric equivalent of a 4×8 sheet and it just fully cracked across the whole sheet.
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Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park: Living Sculpture / Sculptural Infrastructure
Seattle has a history of reluctance to accept innovative design projects, grudgingly receiving Gas Works Park in the 70’s, then Frank Gehry’s EMP building and the new Central Library designed by Rem Koolhaas. Now, however, Seattleites are welcoming with open arms the Olympic Sculpture Park, which officially opened on January 20. Designed by the New York firm Weiss/Manfredi Architects, the sculpture park is the Seattle Art Museum’s public showcase for its sculpture collection and a new public open space for the city.
Located on a former industrial site, the Olympic Sculpture Park bridges a major urban arterial and an existing rail line, to connect three parcels and link the city to the waterfront. The park’s design manages to offer a sense of continuous ground without sacrificing the experience of the automobile and rail movement through the site.