The Cat's Pyjamas

Congratulations to our very own GALTstudio, winners of the Nuit Blanche People's Choice Award for their twofold project!

If you didn't get a chance to see it in person, you can virtually maneuver the intersections of time and space right here:



This win comes right on the heels of North House placing 4th in the U.S. DOE's Solar Decathlon, the City of Cambridge working with students to develop guidelines for core area revitalization, and the completion of the Grand House housing initiative.

One of our current students was just published in an anthology stacked with big-name Canadian writers, and a former student was chosen to design the medals for the 2010 Olympic Games.

UW Architecture is always making its mark on the world and we're so proud of our students for everything they've accomplished this year!

Not just another pretty face...

Bjarke Ingels, from Denmark's hottest architecture firm, talks about some BIG ideas in this inspiring and humourous lecture from TED:



Like what you see? Check out BIG's book Yes is More: An archicomic on architectural evolution in our collection!

Not just a pretty facade...

Zerofootprint has just announced the Z-prize. The "Zerofootprint Skin Renewal Award" will be launched at the Discovery '09 Conference this May in Toronto.

More than just an anti-aging cosmetic approach, this award will challenge designers from across the wold to come up with new solutions to an old problem...old buildings. The largest greenhouse gas emissions in cities come from buildings. Rebuilding cities is not an option and retrofitting can be inadequate. Re-skinning, however, has many advantages:
· It can be used to hide a cheap retrofit
· It is potentially non-invasive
· It can make a ho-hum building into a handsome green role model
· It can be used to engineer an energy reduction of as much as 70%
· Re-skinning can be smart — solar, thermal, media, vegetation etc.

More information, and tonnes of inspiration, can be found at the new Zerofootprint resource area for a limited time in the library.

You can also find more books about designing like you give a damn now on display in the library.

Haiku poetry / challenge for Architecture / play to win sweet prize

For Haiku Contest
writing will be rewarding
details next stanzas...

Submit your poem
before February 10th
Email or paper

Poems on display
in the library until
the contest closes

Then from all entries
5 winners drawn randomly
sweet and yummy prize!!!

-LF

You love us! You REALLY love us!

You may recall, once upon a time, the library invited you all to show us a little love...in video form.

Well, you did. Out of all 18 entries across the entire university, 2 were from our little School of Architecture...not bad at all. Even better, one of them took 1st PRIZE!

Congratulations Ray Wang and Eric Lajoie!
The Musagetes Library staff are all very impressed.


Knowledge For Free from Ray Wang on Vimeo.

Buildings get cheers and jeers

The Toronto Star's Architecture Writer Christopher Hume discusses the Pug Awards.

Voting results