A belated post for yesterday, January 17th, my mother's birthday, and an opportunity to show photographs from a trip to Seattle and a stop at the Chapel of St. Ignatius at Seattle University. It was designed by Steven Holl Architects and built from 1994-1997. It is an amazing space, curving ceilings and hidden sources of... Continue Reading →
This may wrap up my discussion on the M'Zab valley for the near future, but I wanted to talk about a visit I was able to take to a traditional courtyard house in El Atteuf (mentioned two days ago). To supplement my photos, I have come across a writing from the 1970s by David Etherton... Continue Reading →
Continuing from yesterday's description of Ghardaia, I want to briefly describe the way many families have been able to equitably divide water within the oasis. Rain events come very infrequently, and when they do it often results in flooding. The solution was a dam, of sorts, collecting the flooded river and dividing the deluge into... Continue Reading →
I am continuing the theme of medina quarters with a few photos of Ghardaia, a UNESCO heritage site located in the Saharan desert of Algeria. I was lucky enough to visit Ghardaia this past May, going with a carload of family from El Bayadh (about a six hour drive away) to stay with my uncle's old college... Continue Reading →
Chefchaouen is a small city in northern Morocco with a breathtakingly beautiful old city, where whitewashed walls are covered with indigo dyes to create a blue labyrinth. The history of the city includes a sizable Jewish and Morisco quarter during the 15th century, and Spanish occupation in the 20th century. This history created an urban... Continue Reading →
A brief post today, wrapping up documentation for the Medellin armature project. First, a bit of site analysis. At a certain scale the world plan seems inappropriate. Map would seen to indicate a bit more freedom, a bit more looseness resulting from trying to represent a territorial scale. Even design moves, taken at this scale,... Continue Reading →
A few weeks ago I visited a reservoir in Virginia, an artificial lake created to cool a nearby nuclear power plant. What the dam accomplished was to drastically raise the water level, creating a horizontal plane which cuts across the landscape and registers the topography as defined by the shoreline. As the water level rises... Continue Reading →
A few more photographs of a model representing an informal armature situated on a former mining operation site.
This past fall's semester culminated in the design of an armature, covering anywhere from a neighborhood to many square miles. I focused on a small quarry right on the border between Belen, a neighborhood in Medellin, and Altavista. The site is located directly adjacent to an Adventist University, a seminary, and middle class apartments. My... Continue Reading →
Spanning a few valleys spanning the southwest edge of Medellin, Altavista is a sparsely populated suburb home to farmland, a large brick factory and a majority of the mining activity in Medellin. Most of the approximately 17,400 residents are in the lowest two economic strata. Like most of Medellin, a good portion of population growth... Continue Reading →
Adam Achrati 