Inson Wood proposes Center for Sustainability in Dubai

Dubai explores Sustainability and Climactic Responsibility with Center for Science and Sustainability by Josef Richter

In a culture where being the biggest has recently reigned supreme, Inson Wood, of the design firm, Inson Dubois Wood LLC, has proposed a design for Center for Science and Sustainability. Dubai is not necessarily known for its most sustainable projects having recently opened Ferrari world, and being on the records for the largest indoor ski arena, the world's largest mall with the worlds largest aquarium, and of course the world's tallest building has committed to keep up with its neighbor, Abu Dhabi, by actively exploring ways to create a sustainable future beyond reliability on fossil fuels. Like most Gulf cities Dubai has extreme temperatures, winds and intense sun. Geothermal, Wind Turbine and Solar power are all easily harnessed if the infrastructure becomes further developed. As recently as 50 years ago Dubai was a small fishing village, since then it has developed as a major shipping hub, and also become a booming tourist destination with a significant financial sector. Sustainability has been an issue as neighboring Abu Dhabi has created Madsar City zero carbon city putting pressure on other oil rich countries, including Saudi Arabia, to look to the future when oil and the wealth it creates may become highly diminished. As Dubai has recently been credited with as big an eco footprint as the United States, all eyes are on the small Emirate, to show its level of sophistication in terms of environmental responsibility to the rest of the world. The biggest contribution the Center for Science and Sustainability has to offer is representing a model to the rest of the region of how an urban building might not be required to be a skyscraper to have significance, but in fact, create an energy generating skin that can soak up the suns rays to create energy through photovoltaic cells. Secondly the formation of the skin could help with the wind patterns of the specific site location to bring air into the building while generating electricity through external and internal wind turbines. Also effective at providing cooling are simple geothermal energy transfers through temperature differentials in the ground temperature. Despite skeptics views to the contrary, morphing skin exteriors can generate very effective solar energy based on reflective patterns. Also counter intuitive is the fact that windows need not open to bring in fresh air. Large internal vents and filtered duct scoops can bring in huge volumes of air more effectively than windows open in 125 degrees during sand storms. The structure does have operable windows that can be open during temperate seasons and for quality of life and safety purposes.

As countries with larger financial capital strive to show responsible approach to reducing the carbon footprint and an eye towards energy efficient survival new forms of architecture have been emerging. Wood's design exemplifies an exploratory approach to sustainabililty in design that raises questions of how can we create buildings that may be resource hungry to create, but that at least will exist into the future without consuming unnecessary energy and can minimize waste while maximizing efficiency. The Center of Science and Sustainability could be a start into looking at a future where being energy efficient will not even be an option but a required necessity.

FACING THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE

ENCOURAGING SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Habiba Al Marashi

By the middle of the last century one out of three people were living in cities and towns. Back in 1950, only New York City had more than 10 million inhabitants. It is common knowledge today that a majority of the world’s population, more than 3 billion people, live in urban places. It is projected that in another 25 years, two-thirds of the world’s population will be urbanized. By 2015, there will be 23 “mega cities”, and 19 of them will be located in developing countries. Rapidly growing, urban areas in developing nations will increasingly compete for resources. It will be up to urban governments to provide opportunities for economic, social, and cultural well-being. Cities offer much more than jobs and homes. They are repositories of human interaction and exchange, providing facilities for the arts, entertainment, sports, and recreation that allow us to relax and rejuvenate. In this vein, cities also are the catalysts of social, cultural, and intellectual evolution. Thus, cities can play a vital role in facilitating sustainable development both in the local context, and within a wider, global perspective. “If half the urban infrastructure that will exist in the world of 2050 must be built in the next 45 years, the opportunity to design, construct, operate, and maintain new cities better than old ones is enormous, exciting, and challenging”, writes Joel Cohen, in Scientific American.

Urban regions are known for their extensive use of natural resources and prolific generation of waste substances. They also import goods and services, and export waste products, leaving an impact not only on their immediate environment but also on distant environments over a longer time period. The challenge of civic authorities to provide adequate living conditions, water, sanitation, public transportation, and waste management features prominently in all urban development policies and action programs.

For a country like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), urban development is a major concern of policymakers, planners, public officials, and environmental advocates. The UAE has been progressing steadily on the path of growth and development over the last three decades, propelled by an oil-rich economy. Although not affluent in other natural resources, the country scores high on development indices in recent years due to unprecedented economic growth, high per capita income, and robust social development. Among all the nations in the Arabian Gulf region, the UAE has emerged as a hub of commerce, stability, security, and peace. According to the 2005 Human Development Index Report compiled by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the UAE has risen in rank to occupy the 41st position among the developed nations of the world. Because of its economic growth and relatively open immigration policies, the UAE has attracted large numbers of people from all over the world, particularly from Asia and Europe. The UAE has urbanized rapidly over a comparatively brief time frame. Prominent cities like Dubai have expanded several times their size in comparison with what they used to be, even as recently as the 1970s and 1980s. Today, Dubai features prominently on the global map of emerging places, and is now considered by some experts to be among the “world cities”.

The population of the UAE has been increasing by more than 5 percent annually for the past 15 years. The immigrant population in the UAE has grown by more than 6 percent annually during this same time period. One consequence is the UAE’s large-scale boom in construction due to the huge expansion of urban areas, facilities, and infrastructure. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region, more than US$300 billion is being invested in building urban residential, commercial, tourism, leisure, and entertainment projects. Of this, the UAE accounts for US$36 billion, according to estimates of the Arab Real Estate and Construction Association. In the next five years this amount is expected to double, making the UAE “the pearl of the east”.

While construction and real estate is a major contributor to Dubai’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it is also among the prime resource-intensive sectors. Thus, growing cities such as Dubai need to plan along sustainable lines in order to reduce their negative environmental impacts and natural resource depletion. There is ample scope for establishing direct links between environmental and developmental issues in urban growth. By promoting sustainable lifestyles, cleaner production, renewable energy, water resources management, reduction of solid waste and sewage treatment, reuse and recycling of materials, ecological urban design and construction, public health, cultural expression and social responsibility of residents, cities can strive to be magnets for long-term environmental sustainability.

Taking up the cause of sustainable development, the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), a leading non-government organization (NGO) based in Dubai, has emerged as one of the most active civil society NGOs in the United Arab Emirates. EEG, as it is popularly known, has been a pioneering force behind the mainstreaming of such potent issues as education for sustainable development, waste management, and separation of recyclable materials at source, the three R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle), water and energy conservation, renewable energy production, sustainable transportation, public transit, combating desertification by expanding urban green spaces, promoting recourse efficient green buildings, and encouraging corporate social responsibility. EEG’s operations are targeted at building effective outreach among key stakeholders including governments, businesses, communities, and civil society groups. EEG’s vision is to facilitate a green and sustainable UAE.

EEG has spearheaded community waste recycling through successful collection campaigns for aluminum cans, paper, cartridges, plastic, and glass. By facilitating sorted collection, EEG aims to promote sound cyclical use of materials, reduction of emissions and pollution, mitigating global climate change and reducing the ecological footprint of the UAE. A few years ago, EEG mounted an awareness campaign to popularize the concept of green buildings in an environment that was still unfamiliar with the imperative for sustainability. Raising awareness among policymakers, communications media, professionals, and community leaders, EEG is now the conscience behind the movement to form a green building council for the UAE, to establish minimum environmental quality standards and objective and transparent rating systems, and to build environmentally sustainable structures. EEG has supported various national and local initiatives to improve and expand public transportation systems, by promoting public education on the economic and environmental benefits of urban transit. EEG has enlisted the active support of the corporate sector to steer growth and development in the direction of sustainability. In 2004, EEG launched the multi-stakeholder Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Network in the UAE, bringing together the heads and hands of urban economic development in a single, structured, composite body.

Keeping in perspective that 80 percent of the world’s green house gases causing global warming now come from urban regions, EEG has increased the urgency of its campaign to create a cleaner urban environment, one that is based on the participatory efforts of all concerned. EEG’s work has received recognition at the international level, and it has been officially accredited by the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. EEG is the first environmental NGO in the world to earn the prestigious ISO 14001 accreditation for its environmental management systems.

Habiba Al Marashi is Chairperson of the Emirates Environmental Group in the United Arab Emirates, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Dubai Award (UN-Habitat Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment), and a member of the Board of Directors of Global Urban Development. In 2003 she won the Emirates Professional Businesswoman Award.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE GULF REGION

By James Duncan
The Mideast News Service
February 18, 2007

The explosion in development activity in the Arabian Gulf region in general and the UAE in particular in recent years has led to new way of thinking about the approach to sustainable development in high rise communities.

The level of activity in Dubai for example in the last five years is on a scale unprecedented since the building booms of the last century in cities such as New York and Chicago. The desire to live and work in a concentrated area where everybody wants a sea view has meant that high rise development has been seen as the way forward. Available financial resource and a desire to diversify the local economy away from a dependence on Oil and Gas have meant that the drivers for this development boom do not fit many of the recognized parameters for development experienced in mature economies elsewhere in North America and Europe .This combined with the extreme nature of the climate and environment in this erstwhile undeveloped region has created a range of unique issues to be addressed.

Let us explore these in more detail:

Technical Issues

Since the advent of significant Oil and Gas extraction in the early 1960’s there has been a constant process of improvement and acclimatization to the design and engineering standards required in this environment. High temperatures and high concentrations of aggressive natural salts played havoc with early concrete structures. The use of concrete was always preferred due to the presence of local resources and cost implications. Necessity is the mother of invention and over the years sophisticated concrete mix designs and construction techniques mean that the gulf region and the companies that operate here arguably lead the world in reinforced concrete technology.

For example the use of micro silica and sophisticated mix designs combined with a high level of understanding of how to control hydration in high temperatures have enabled the region to push the boundaries of concrete technology. The Burj Dubai currently under construction will not only be the Worlds tallest building when completed at over 700m but is also built of reinforced concrete. In future we can expect to see greater use of pre-cast techniques and steel as the economics of these materials becomes more viable with local production and distribution.

The unique nature of the climate in the region has led to new standards of wind design. The Shamal winds which can blow for 3 to 40 days at a time often have peak intensities at high levels. Where this occurs at say 400m it is loading structure the size of Burj Dubai at half its height so traditional near ground level wind surveys are not adequate and have to be replaced by sophisticated wind tunnel modeling and so forth.

Regulations have been and are constantly being reviewed by regulatory authorities to address many other issues for example fire regulation ,the use of composite cladding materials ,escape strategies and so forth.

Infrastructure

Problems associated with the implementation of infrastructure to harmonise with the pace of development which is traditionally the economic driver are not unique to the Gulf region. Many major cities have been through a process of major urban regeneration over the last two decades and there are good and bad examples. The delays to the construction of the Jubilee Line in East London had near disastrous consequences to the success of the Canary Wharf development which now mature is enjoying a high level of occupancy and success. In Yokohama fast rail links were built before the bulk of the major redevelopment was instigated thereby ameliorating many of these problems.

In Dubai time has not been a luxury enjoyed by urban planners and infrastructure has lagged behind the pace of development leading to problems of congestion and so forth. However vast sums are being spent on road and rail infrastructure and it is to be expected that not unlike Canary Wharf these problems will resolve themselves within a fairly short period of the development life cycle.

In Abu Dhabi which in any event enjoys a more open location with fewer constraints on infrastructure longer lead in periods and master planning mean that much of the new infrastructure requirements for large offshore island projects will be in place in advance of development activity. For example on Al Reem Island over $5Bn are being spent on infrastructure provision.

Utilities and Environmental Issues

High on the agenda of new developments are Green Building considerations and these are being fostered and promoted by Government organizations such as the Emirates Green Building Council. A new Awards scheme has been introduced along the lines of the U.S LEED Green Building Awards. Some schemes such as the Wafi City District Cooling Plant have already won Awards in the international forum.

Utilities such as district cooling systems and combined cycle power plants are efficient uses of energy.

New projects are turning to more efficient designs .The Ibis Bay scheme in Dubai Business Bay is a good example where an ergonomic design incorporates many features such as photovoltaic glass panels, natural cross ventilation, green micro climate zones and so forth.

Human Issues

Building an Iconic Skyscraper is not necessarily a recipe for a high quality living and working environment. Lessons have been learnt from the mistakes of the past and the vertical cities of the Gulf are setting new standards of performance and amenity.

Intelligent buildings are commonplace with every possible amenity included in many schemes. Yes your fridge will now also tell you what you need on your shopping list! The inclusion of green zones within tall buildings creates an improved microclimate and the reduction of building densities allows for increased external amenity space. Schools, medical centres, shops and other essential services are increasingly part of the new masterplan.

The sustainable masterplan will be a key to the success of many of the proposed schemes in Abu Dhabi and other Emirates such as Ajman. Here densities and heights of buildings are strictly controlled using restricted Floor Area Ratios (FARs).Great attention has been paid to preserving the delicate local ecosystems and authorities such as TDIC in Abu Dhabi are to be commended for the sensitivity of large schemes such as Saadyat Island and others where natural resources such as Mangrove areas, fauna breeding grounds and marine environments are carefully protected which in turn improves the global environment of the area. Culture and education feature prominently in many schemes with world class facilities such as The Guggenheim Museum planned in new Cultural Quarters that include Opera and the performing arts.

Conclusion

The high rise communities of the Gulf region are not an Orwellian nightmare. The opportunities for developing new sustainable model living conditions for the 22^nd Century are being developed in a way that sets the pace for the rest of the world.

Good strategic masterplanning and the use high quality expertise are the keys for the provision of the essential ingredients of good infrastructure, environmentally friendly buildings ,quality services and a living and working environment that embraces not oppresses the human spirit.

Philippe Starck: Revolutionizes Wind Turbines

Image & Text by Inhabitat

Two highly-anticipated wind turbine designs for home use! Dubbed “Revolutionair,” the sleek turbines were officially debuted after a lengthy 2 years of research and work. The “Revolutionair” turbines will be “revolutionary” in that they are designed for domestic use by homeowners. That means that ordinary individuals can put them in their yards, gardens or on roofs to generate power for their households. The clear quadrangular 400W WT model has a power output of 400W and the helicoidal 1KW WT one will be able to generate 1 KW of power.

Phillip Starck who is better known for his whimsical philosophical presentations of luxury designs, than for the pragmatic,has come up with a beautiful and functional wind turbine more applicable to individual users without a huge upfront investment that most wind turbines require. More importantly the turbines truly look unobtrusive and could be an attractive addition to any yard or roof top. Now he explores the ecofriendly world of energy saving wind turbines bringing us a technical object in a beautiful form. - Ecomanta

LIFEWALL: Modular Vertical Garden Panels Clean the Air

Creating vertical gardens just got a whole lot easier thanks to these modular garden tiles by Spanish firm Ceracasa. Their Lifewall product, which we just saw over at Jetson Green, is a modular tile that can support a number of different plants and is drip irrigated for water efficiency. Since it’s modular, the designer has the ability to place these in whatever pattern they want, which could create some really fascinating designs. Lifewall tiles also interface with another Ceracasa product called Bionictile, which is able to suck pollution out of the air

Lifewall was developed by the architect Emilio Llobat of Maqla Architects, Azahar Energy and Ceracasa, and it is now being marketed globally. Each tile is one square meter in size and can accommodate a number of different plant varieties. The Lifewall tile works in conjunction with the Bionictile, which is a porcelain tile that uses the sun’s UV rays to break down nitrous oxide in the air, improving the local air quality.
When used together the two products create a symbiotic relationship, where the Lifewall has plant matter that soaks up CO2, and the Bionictile converts NOx to fertilizer which is used by the plants. Tests show that Bionictile ceramics are able to decompose 25.09 micrograms of NOx per m2 per hour, and if 200 buildings were coated by ceramic BIONICTILE, an equivalent volume of 2,638 million cubic meters of air per year would be decontaminated. In other words, more than 400,000 people could breathe air free of harmful NOx from vehicles and industries in one year.
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LEED Platinum Rated Eco House

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LivingHomes Founder Steve Glenn has knocked the socks off the eco-conscious world with his modern homes that emphasize beauty + environment. As I've been thinking about how I want to blog about this company, I've noticed a flurry of posts and press releases regarding this Ray Kappe-designed abode that was just awarded LEED-H Platinum. It's such an incredible home, with that undeniable confluence of modern and sustainability. Hard to beat that. This is the first residential building to receive the USGBC's Platinum LEED-H rating and it's raising the bar for residential construction: zero energy, zero water, zero waste, zero carbon, and zero emissions. LivingHomes received a total of 91 out of a total possible 109 points, to barely skirt past the 90 point threshold required to obtain a Platinum rating. It will be 80% more efficient than similar sized home and was constructed with 75% less waste than a traditional one.
Factory-built v. Stick-built: With your typical stick-built home, there's generally about 30-40% more excess materials ending up at the landfill. There's almost none with a factory built home, so these modern prefab designs are going to get real popular. The factory prefab movement is taking the waste out of the construction function and making the process better. And this is all happening in a sexy way.

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The time has come for America to consider cutting waste and maximizing energy usage and carbon emissions. For those who cannot afford a custom home - prefab structures are now an economical way to get a fantastic home while keeping cost low and increasing all aspects of sustainability. These homes should be encouraged across the nation and even be considered for export. For too long the US has been able to waste our valuable resources unnecessarily while the rest of the world forges ahead with far more efficient homes and developing methods of energy conservation. Steven Glenn has taken the prefab home and created a viable and attractive modern home that meets platinum Leed qualifications - not an easy task. As more and more homes develop the technology for sustainable building the cost will begin to decrease making them ever more affordable and cost and energy efficient. One questions the efficiency of the double volume spaces throughout the structure in terms of cooling and heating - but spatially it adds a wonderfully dynamic flow to the overall composition. Prefab structures have come a long way both in terms of design and efficiency. - Ecomanta

Hampton"s House is one with Nature

This ephemeral house by Kanner architects, has expansive walls of glass create a see-through house from almost every direction even for rooms relegated towards the back. Each individual room is given multitudinous views as well. This visual transparency translates into a physical model for natural cross-ventilation in almost every direction thru-out the house. The office, considered one of the more important spaces, sits front and center with 180 degree views of the ocean while overlooking the livingroom’s 20 feet high space. Framing the entire house is a delicate steel “exo- skeleton” that ties the exterior together into an implied cubic volume. Privacy is softly regulated by shear white PVC mesh or “veils” attached within the framework, especially in the more exposed areas. At night, the house becomes a glowing white lantern with brief glimpses of domestic activity beyond.

The pool deck is integrated into the house extending out from the living room interior and has limitless views of the ocean, even though it is situated towards the back. A glass “portal” in the swimming pool wall allows views into the pool from the courtyard. Garden walls made of steel fabric woven into light-weight frames are applied to the exterior base providing protection/privacy as well as to hide the somewhat heavy nature of the structural columns.

Ross Lovegrove: Cosmic Landscape

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'cosmic landscape' is a collection of lighting designed by ross lovegrove for artemide. an installation of the lamps are being presented in the artemide showroom in milan during the 2010 design week.

'the cosmic landscape appears to have emerged from a digital laval flow of light...out of a ceiling, out of a wall, out of a floor... releasing its complex shape as algorythmic air... liberated into free space it seems to cool into a complex three dimensional sponge of light... appearing dematerialized so its edges blur becoming dimmed and soft on the eyes, changing its color, enjoying its nebula nature.' - RL

the 'cosmic landscape' table lamp, wall / ceiling and suspension models are made from a transparentmethacrylate structure, with an injection-moulded opal methacrylate diffuser.

the 'cosmic rotation' pendant are made from painted aluminum lighting unit injection-moulded opal methacrylate diffuser. when the lamp is turned on, the diffuser is colored externally due to the light transmittance, conferring an extremely light volumetric effect. the 'cosmic rotation' wall / ceiling lamps are made from a painted metal structure with injection-moulded opal methacrylate diffuser.

'the cosmic mugg has its own direction... it seems to want to swim in its own tchnological light ocean... it projects light downward and outward light some strange new marine species... defining a new kind of relationship with the emotion of form and space, very very free in its concept and application.' - RL

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Ross Lovegrove takes lighting into the unknown territory of non-structural form. Unlike most lighting the envelope is synonymous with the structural support. The blurring of lines of light source, wrapper and structure is exquisite in its execution. The viewer cannot determine where the structure stops and the skin begins. This subtle nuance is the genius behind his new "cosmic" - simply out of this world.

Earth Walled Home

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This truly stunning home in Scottsdale, Arizona offers a great lesson in site-appropriate design. The large roof overhangs and massive rammed earth walls help keep it cool in a desert environment. Designed by architectural firm Kendle Design, the home is open to the desert light and views but maintains its privacy from the surrounding neighbor’s traditional European knockoffs. The space is both austere and grand.

At 8000 square feet this is not a modest home. It is split nearly in half – one part for the owners and one for guests and family. While having a large footprint, the design significantly reduces its impact by using soil from site to construct the walls. These massive earthen walls can dramatically reduce the need for AC, and can be cooled at night by opening the windows. The generously cantilevered copper-clad butterfly roof keeps the home’s floor-to-ceiling glass in the shade and provides ample outdoor space to relax in. A rain catchment system is also used to water the garden. One green building mantra this home excels in is “a green building is a beautiful building.”

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Zaha Hadid's "Aura" in Palladio's Villa Foscari

Text & Photo's by Dezeen

“Aura” is an experiment in translating Villa Foscari’s Palladian design, which relies on a definite set of harmonic proportions, into a contemporary space whose elegance and dynamism is generated through a process defined by a non-linear set of rules elicited from Palladio’s theories.

Since the Renaissance architects tried to embed in their compositions the musical concept of harmony and the mathematical relations that underlie notes, intervals and chords while producing a sound. Palladio used this concept of Harmonic proportion to link his villa’s rooms, aiming for a global system of harmony.

I have been to Villa Foscari by Palladio while on tour with Colin Rowe author of Mathmatics of the Ideal Villa, and it is truly stunning with most of the adornment done only in 2 dimensional frescos. Zaha adds an entirely new dimension picking up fantastic curves from these decorative paintings. In essence the structure itself is almost Modern in nature. Her latest venture into curvalinear furniture cum abstract sculpture emphasizes her passion for the sensual forms of organic asymmetrical form.

Zaha has achieved the impossible - finding the one fabricator in Italy capable of manufacturing these exquisite pieces of weightless art, she has executed her fantasies in a flawless exhibition of mans mastery of materials and form. Not since Michaelangelo's David has sculpture seemed so fluid and transcendent. The gloss and reflection of light in the polypropelene resin only further delineates the artists true abilities as an editor of forms and a self-critical creator.

Both indulgent and inspiringly disciplined these "benches" take the idea of furniture to an entirely new realm worthy of close inspection and praise. - Inson Wood

Tom Ford's Andy Warhol sells at Sotheby's for $32.6 million - Double the Estimated

Classic American images — a Warhol self-portrait, a Rothko red canvas and a Pollock painting rich with the artist’s sinewy drips — blew the lid off Sotheby’s sale of contemporary art on Wednesday night.

Andy Warhol's 1986 “Self Portrait” sold for $32.6 million on Wednesday, well above its $15 million high estimate.

"Buying was totally global,” Tobias Meyer, head of Sotheby’s contemporary art department and the evening’s auctioneer, said after the sale. “There were many new collectors who came into the market tonight.”

Many of those bidders helped push the sale beyond Sotheby’s expectations. Of the 53 works on offer, only three failed to sell. The auction totaled $190 million, above the $168 million high estimate. The sale offered a commercial selection of work by blue-chip artists, and prices were strong throughout the evening.

All eyes were on the 1986 Andy Warhol “Self Portrait,” which sold for $32.6 million, well above its $15 million high estimate. That and the Mark Rothko canvas each brought more than Jasper Johns’s “Flag” from the much-publicized estate of the best-selling writer Michael Crichton, which fetched $29.6 million at Christie’s on Tuesday night. Christie’s however, did better over all in its postwar and contemporary sale, with a total of $231.9 million.

The seller of the Warhol was Tom Ford, the fashion designer, movie director and collector. He was not at the Sotheby’s sale, but was said to be watching it on the Internet from his London home.

The competition made for good entertainment. Six bidders wanted to buy the painting, which ended up selling to Gregoire Billaut of Sotheby’s in Paris. Mr. Billaut was bidding by telephone for an unidentified client.

In this painting, made a year before his death, Warhol’s face is cast in a purple light; he is wearing his signature fright wig and staring hauntingly straight at the viewer. He made five versions of the image in this large format — it is nine feet square — and each has a different color.

The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has two — one yellow, one blue; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has a green one; and Peter M. Brant, a newsprint magnate, has a red one. Another classic Warhol that also made a big price on Wednesday night was a 1964 image, “Flowers.” Nicholas Maclean, a Manhattan dealer, beat out three other bidders, paying $6.75 million, or $7.6 million with Sotheby’s fees. It had been estimated to fetch $5 million to $7 million.

David Martinez, a Mexican financier, was selling the Rothko. A telephone bidder, described by a Sotheby’s official as an American collector, was one of five people who tried for the painting. The buyer ended up paying $31.4 million, above its high $25 million estimate. The painting had belonged to Marguerite Hoffman, a Dallas collector, until three years ago. She sold it to Mr. Martinez for an undisclosed price through L & M Arts, the Manhattan gallery. Robert Munchin of L & M had bought it at Christie’s in 1997 for $1.8 million.

“Cold Mountain I (Path),” from 1988-89, the first of six paintings in Brice Marden’s coveted “Cold Mountain” series, was one of the few works that did not make its anticipated price. Only two bidders wanted the painting. It sold to a telephone bidder for $8.7 million or $9.6 million, including Sotheby’s fees, under its $10 million low estimate.

Abstract Expressionist works are still sought after: “Number 12A, 1948: Yellow, Gray, Black,” a drip painting on paper, shown in the famous 1949 Life magazine article, “Jackson Pollock — Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?,” ended up selling for $8.7 million, far above its $6 million estimate.

Two Calder sculptures from the early 1960s were on offer. “Yellows in the Air,” a 1916 mobile with a high estimate of $900,000, was bought by Paul Gray, the Chicago dealer, for $1.4 million. And a larger and earlier mobile, “Blue and Yellow Sickles,” from 1960, brought $3.7 million, above its high $2 million estimate.

As was true at Christie’s on Tuesday night, Sotheby’s sale offered no works by emerging artists, but a younger generation was represented. An installation by the Italian-born artist Maurizio Cattelan, a sculpture of the artist peeking out of a hole in the floor, brought a record price for the artist at auction, selling to a telephone bidder for $7.9 million, nearly twice its high $4 million estimate. The seller, William Acquavella, the Manhattan dealer, bought it for $2 million at Christie’s in 2004.

Charles Saatchi, the London advertising magnate and gallery owner, who has a reputation for buying the work of emerging artists and then selling them at a profit, was selling an oval wood panel depicting Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist and Civil War spy. The piece is by Matthew Day Jackson, a hot 36-year-old who was the youngest and perhaps least-known artist in the sale. Another telephone bidder paid $662,500 for the work, well above its $400,000 high estimate.

After the sale, as people were milling around Sotheby’s lobby, everyone was pleased that despite the roller coaster stock market, people still wanted to put their money in art. Francis Beatty Adler, a Manhattan dealer and co-chairman of the Drawing Center in New York, noted, “There seems to be very little people won’t buy at auction.”

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Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg Mark Rothko’s “Untitled,” from 1961, sold for $31.4 million.

Warhol created self-portraits throughout his career. In this painting, made a year before his death, he is posed against a purple background wearing his signature fright wig and staring hauntingly straight at the viewer. He made five versions in this large format – it is nine feet square – each with a different background color. The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has two, one yellow, the other blue. The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has a green one; and Peter M. Brant, the newsprint magnate, has a red one.

One of Mark Rothko’s untitled abstract red canvases, this one from 1961, also went for a high price: $31.4 million, also to a telephone bidder. The painting was estimated to bring $18 million to $25 million. David Martinez, a Mexican financier, was the seller.

By Carol Vogel http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/05/13/nyregion/13auction_CA0.html

Warhol continues to dominate the contemporary art world with his work doubling set estimates selling for $32.6 million high above its $15 million estimated cost. Unlike the Rothko painting that sold for 31.4 million, Warhol's work although perhaps less time consuming to produce has become so recognizable that its status symbol qualities dominate artist's considered more talented and skilled. His art is less unique ( mass produced even ) and that which was considered to be a weakness, becomes its strength.

The images are so well known around the globe that to possess one has unprecedented prestige. Proof of Warhol's ability to impress his will and image into the collective mindset of the populace at large, to make the common man a connoisseur, that his pieces are instantly recognizable by all is the key to his success. That even the most naive high school art freshman can call out - "its a Warhol! "in art history class is a testament to his omnipresence. With a background in graphic design and advertising, by creating images of household named goods, Campbell's Soup, Coke, Mariln, and Elvis -- Warhol has become a house hold name himself. His associations with New York's elite and Hollywood's celebs elevated him to their level. The fact that something as simple as a self portrait photograph, slightly augmented, mind you, can sell for 32.6 mil is phenomenal in itself. For all of us its a comforting to find something familiar - and that familiarity sells in the millions as the advertising world knows all too well. - Ecomanta

Zaha Hadid Exibit at the Design Museum, London

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PHOTO: BRETT PATTERSON

The first woman to win the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in its 26 year history, ZAHA HADID (1950-) has defined a radically new approach to architecture by creating buildings, such as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, with multiple perspective points and fragmented geometry to evoke the chaos of modern life.

The opening words of the citation when Zaha Hadid was named as the first woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize for architecture in 2004 were: “Her architectural career has not been traditional or easy.” An understatement. All architects have to struggle, but Hadid seems to have struggled rather more than most. Her single-mindedness, her singular lack of compromise is the stuff of legend although, as one writer commented, like a hurricane, “the storms are all on the outside”. In part, it is simple artistic temperament, necessary, perhaps, to create forceful architecture like Hadid’s. And in part it is the survival mechanism required to create such architecture in what remains a distinctly macho profession. Diva, the critics call her, although as the T-shirts worn by Hadid staff replied at the opening of her first major public building, the Cincinnati Art Center, in 2003: “Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?”

Hadid’s forcefulness is both her curse and her blessing. A curse because strong character can make clients run for the hills. Until recently Hadid was more famous not for the buildings she had built, but for the ones she had not built — preserved only in her famously vigorous, dramatic images. Often, as in the case of the Cardiff Bay Opera House, these opportunities to build were lost quite spectacularly. In the end, though, her forcefulness is a blessing. Like architectural natural selection, it helps to weed out weak projects and weak clients, so that when architecture is finally built, it is as strong-willed as its creator.

Zaha Hadid was single-minded from an early age. Born in 1950 in Baghdad, she grew up in a very different Iraq from the one we know today. The Iraq of her childhood was a liberal, secular, western-focused country with a fast-growing economy that flourished until the Ba’ath party took power in 1963, and where her bourgeois intellectual family played a leading role. Hadid’s father was a politician, economist and industrialist, a co-founder of the Iraqi National Democratic and a leader of the Iraqi Progressive Democratic Parties. Hadid saw no reason why she should not be equally ambitious. Female role models were plentiful in liberal Iraq, but in architecture, female role models anywhere, let alone in the Middle East, were thin on the ground in the 1950s and 1960s. No matter. After convent school in Baghdad and Switzerland, and a degree in mathematics at the American University in Beirut, Hadid enrolled at the Architectural Association in London in 1972.

The AA of the 1970s was the perfect place for ambitious, independently minded would-be architects to flourish. Under Alvin Boyarski as director, it became the most fertile place for the architectural imagination, home to a precocious generation of students and teachers who are now household names, such as Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Will Alsop and Bernard Tschumi. It was a period when pre-1968 optimistic modernism was being abandoned amid economic uncertainty and cultural conservatism. In architecture too, democratic modernism was perceived to have failed and there was a swing towards historicist post-modernism and conservation. The AA’s theorists did the opposite. They rejected kitsch post-modernism to become still more modernist. Like snakes shedding their skins, they discarded the failed utopian projects of “first” modernism to think up a new modernism with a more sophisticated idea of history and human identity, an architecture embodying modernity’s chaos and disjuncture in its very shape.

If Hadid was drawn to any of her tutors it was Koolhaas, himself working out his ideas of neo-modernity in books such as 1977’s Delirious New York. When Hadid graduated in 1977, Koolhaas offered her a job as a partner in his and Elia Zenghelis’s new firm, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. But she didn’t last long there. Koolhaas described her at the time as “a planet in her own orbit”. Hadid had her own ideas on architecture to nurture. And it was a long incubation. She started teaching at the AA while developing her own brand of neo-modernist architecture, one which went back to modernism’s roots in the constructivism and suprematism of the early 20th century. Her graduation project, a hotel on London’s Hungerford Bridge, was called Malevich’s Tectonik, after the suprematist Kasimir Malevich who wrote in 1928: “we can only perceive space when we break free from the earth, when the point of support disappears.” Hadid’s architecture follows suit, creating a landscape which metaphorically – and, perhaps, one day literally – seems to take off.

You could call her work baroque modernism. Baroque classicists like Borromini shattered Renaissance ideas of a single viewpoint perspective in favour of dizzying spaces designed to lift the eyes and the heart to God. Likewise, Hadid shatters both the classically formal, rule bound modernism of Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier and the old rules of space — walls, ceilings, front and back, right angles. She then reassembles them as what she calls “a new fluid, kind of spatiality” of multiple perspective points and fragmented geometry, designed to embody the chaotic fluidity of modern life.

Hadid’s architecture denies its own solidity. Short of creating actual forms that morph and change shape – still the stuff of science fiction – Hadid creates the solid apparatus to make us perceive space as if it morphs and changes as we pass through. Perhaps wisely, she talks little about theory. Unlike, say, Daniel Libeskind, she does not say that a shape symbolises this or that. And she wears her cultural identity lightly. Noticeably, and uncharacteristically diplomatically, she has declined to comment on the situation in Iraq. Instead Hadid lets her spaces speak for themselves. This does not mean that they are merely exercises in architectural form. Her obsession with shadow and ambiguity is deeply rooted in Islamic architectural tradition, while its fluid, open nature is a politically charged riposte to increasingly fortified and undemocratic modern urban landscapes.

All of which would have been impossible without the advent of computer-aided design to allow architects almost infinite freedom to create any shape they wanted. Actually building these new kinds of spaces was another matter. Such melodramatic shapes required significant investment, both financially and in terms of engineering. In the 1980s, the first tentative steps were taken when architects such as Peter Eisenman and Frank Gehry began the long process of convincing the public to love them, and clients to invest in them. Hadid was picked as part of the seminal Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the first definitive survey of the new generation. Critics loved it, but most MoMA visitors found the new shapes, particularly Hadid’s, baffling. She presented her ideas in impressionistic, abstract paintings, designed to get across the feel of her spaces. Hadid explained that conventional architectural drawings could never convey the “feel” of her radical, fluid spaces, but paintings could. It took time, though, for people to understand them.

Slowly, curious clients emerged who were willing to spend money to realise Hadid’s peculiar new architecture. It was a stuttering start. Her first big success, The Peak, a spa planned for Hong Kong, was never built. Nor were buildings on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm, or an art and media centre in Dusseldorf. Hadid’s first built project, The Fire Station at the production complex of the Vitra office furniture group at Weil-am-Rhein on the German-Swiss border was a formal success but not a functional one. The fire service moved out and the building was converted into a chair museum.

The most notorious project, though, was Hadid’s 1994 competition-winning design for the Cardiff Bay Opera House, which was abandoned by the Millennium Commission after noisy opposition from local lobbyists, particularly Cardiff politicians wary of highbrow architecture being “imposed” on a Welsh city by London. Britain was still knee-deep in the conservative political and architectural culture that had emerged in the 1970s. Popular taste was gradually becoming more daring, but Hadid’s ideas were as yet a step too far. It was a sobering experience, which set back her office for several years, but one she learnt from. Hadid later became philosophical recently about Cardiff, seeing it as a turning point in her career. Without dumbing down, she has slowly learnt the politics of how to get her work built.

Slowly it worked. A ski jump in Innsbruck, then a tram station in Strasbourg. Somewhat ironically, it was traditionally conservative Midwestern America that gave Hadid her real break. The Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio was a chance to try out her ideas on a large scale and to conceive a stunning new take on curating and museum experience, imagined as “a kit of parts”, she says, which curators can customise for each show. The galleries are housed in horizontal oblong tubes floating above ground level, between which ribbon-like ramps zig and zag skywards. “It’s like an extension of the city, the urban landscape.” Literally so. It is designed like “an urban carpet”, one end of which lies across the sidewalk at the busiest intersection in Cincinnati to yank in unsuspecting passers-by. Inside, the carpet rolls through the entrance, up the back wall, marked with light bands directing you like airport landing strips to the walkways, up which you can clamber like a child on a climbing frame, bouncing from artwork to artwork, shoved about by an architect who piles space high into a tower of tightly controlled vignettes, throwing your eye from the most intimate of spaces, to trompes l’oeils and out of the building through carefully positioned windows. “It’s about promenading,” says Hadid, “being able to pause, to look out, look above, look sideways.” Her impressionistic new space was realised. The New York Times described it, without overstatement, as “the most important new building in America since the Cold War.”

Cincinnati silenced all those who said Zaha Hadid’s architecture was impossible to build. And the ideas developed for Cincinnati were already being refined in other large-scale projects, such as the MAXXI Contemporary Arts Centre in Rome (due to open next year), the BMW Central Building in Leipzig and Phaeno Science Centre in Wolfsburg (both projects in Germany and opened in 2005). Crucially, Cincinnati gave Hadid the confidence to win a stream of commissions for: a ferry terminal in Salerno, Italy; a high-speed train station in Naples; a public archive, library and sport centre in Montpellier; Opera Houses in Dubai and Guangzhou, a performing arts centre in Abu Dhabi, private residences in Moscow and the USA as well as major master-planning projects in Bilbao, Istanbul and the Middle East. Even in conservative Britain, her adopted home, Hadid has recently completed Maggies Centre, a cancer care centre in Kirkaldy in Scotland. This modest project marks the beginning of a plethora of UK based work including a transport museum in Glasgow, a gallery for the Architecture Foundation in London, a mixed-use development in Hoxton Square and the London 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre. Undoubtedly, Hadid has cemented her reputation as one of the world’s most exciting and significant contemporary architects. By transcending the realm of paper architecture to the built form, Hadid is certain to complete many memorable projects in the future.

(images and text via)

More than any other architect Zaha has been able to utilize her unbending will to facilitate building her visionary and expensive buildings. Her signature is distinctive and her drive unbending. Ask nearly any one, architect or lay person, for the top 5 most forward thinking architects of the past 50 years and her name will come up. Ask anyone to name another influential female architect and you will have a long silence - for the Diva reigns supreme unchallenged as a solitary icon of influence in the sphere of neo-modern architecture. Feared, Loved, Worshipped, Reveared she is a cult leader who has sacrificed everything to be at the top of her game - to spread her message. Zaha's influence reaches far into feminine fashion: Prada shoes, clothes, Louis Vuitton bags, accessories, boutiques yet she has built fire stations, sports facilities, sports car arenas, museums and designed race cars. She is a mighty sorceress casting spells on all within her gaze - building structures in far away lands - places normally not used to inviting outsiders Switzerland and the Bible belt of the US. All who meet her bend under her omnipotent and omnipresent power - but we are better off for it, for the world sees things differently after experiencing one of her buildings. Earlier in her career the models were mocked as wishful thinking, sketches and paintings ridculed as pure fantasy, now realized, her buildings are structures with gravity, both uplifting and inspiring. She has outshined her mentors such as Rem Koolhaas - as in the monastary, the student has surpassed the master. These pure forms of art as inhabitable structures defy budgets, defy gravity and defy common sense, but somehow bring us closer to the greatness of humankind. - Ecomanta