Cardboard Office
Jay would have love this.
March 15, 2009
November 08, 2007
M Hotel
December 11, 2006
In Praise of Chain Stores
November 28, 2006
The Bubble Building
The official swimming facility of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, will span 7.8 acres, house five pools, and seat 17,000 spectators, yet it doesn’t contain a single steel cable, concrete column or structural beam.
November 15, 2006
Arte Kuntshotel
October 04, 2006
Habitatz
A company in South Africa provides a network of furnished business centres, shared work spaces and meeting rooms in South Africa and all the major business nodes in Africa. They also throw in professional back-office services including the most advanced virtual office services, call answering, administration, payroll processing, accounting and technology support.
October 02, 2006
Minihome
September 27, 2006
Office in a bucket
April 24, 2006
Mobile Office
March 08, 2006
The Virtual Office
Gee, this Fortune Magazine article suggests that the mobile office might not be such a bad idea after all.
March 02, 2006
Chiat/Day Virtual Office
Somebody was asking me what the Chiat/Day New York virtual office looked like, which inspired me to scan in these photos from a magazine article that appeared at the time.
Enjoy!
February 17, 2006
"Virtual Office" car
Take a gander at Nissan’s concept car, the Terranaut. It’s designed for “scientists, geologists, archaeologists or adventurers” whose office is the great outdoors. The interior is modeled after a U.S.S. Enterprise shuttlecraft. The “spherical laboratory” is accessed from a seat that swivels 360 degrees to give any intrepid scientist access to all of the vehicle’s workstations.
January 02, 2006
C/D LA building trifecta
I was in Los Angeles just before Christmas and while bopping around in my rented Jaguar, I decided to grab some photos of famous C/D buildings from Christmases-past.
I knew that the original building was on Olympic, but I couldn't remember the street number except that it had a "300" in it. I thought "Sharon Stanley would know," but didn't have Sharon's phone number. So I tried Adelaide Horton. She said her husband, John Fraley, knew it to be "1300 Olympic Boulevard," because he worked for Cannon Mills and that's where they had their offices, too, at some point.
So here is the 1300 Olympic Boulevard building, where I worked from 1977 until we moved into the Biltmore, which must have been around 1979.
The building is in Koreatown and one of the main occupants of the building now is "The Whole Nations Presybyterian Church." (I wonder if they realize there is supposed to be an apostrophe at the end of "Nations?") Another occupant is a nursing school, the Genova H. Institute. They have spared no expense in their signage. That may or may not be duct tape.
Just for fun, here are pictures of two of C/D's other offices in LA, the Biltmore Hotel downtown, and the famous binocular building on Main Street in Venice. I don't know who occupies those buildings now.
I also had lunch with Laurie Coots and her son, Christopher, who is an adult now (zounds!) and is working for an ad agency in New York called Strawberry Frog. Also at the lunch, was Louise Hoven, Laurie's long-time assistant. We dined at Chayas, just down the street from the old binocular building. The dijon chicken with fries is every bit as delicious as it was ten years ago.
I could kick myself as I had my camera with me and forgot to take pictures of Laurie, Christopher, and Louise.
October 15, 2005
Solar Houses
After all of the rain the Northeast has endured this week, it's nice to (you should pardon the pun) reflect upon the 2005 Solar Decathlon, a competition among 18 teams from universities to design homes that produce as much energy as they consume.
April 17, 2005
The Basket Building
Jay would have loved this. My friend Bud Lavery over at Ross Culbert & Lavery Design says a friend of his shot this picture in Ohio a few weeks ago. It's the headquarters of the Longaberger Company in Newark, Ohio. And what does this company make? If you have to ask, you didn't work at Chiat/Day.
As a side note, the Longaberger Company, led by CEO Tami Longaberger, was recognized as the 18th largest woman-owned U.S. company by Working Woman magazine and one of the ten most generous U.S. companies by Newman’s Own, Inc.
February 22, 2005
Architectural Mercy Killing
When the makers of a new British TV series about Britain’s ugliest buildings invited viewers to nominate the eyesore they would most like to see demolished they were hardly prepared for a request to flatten an entire town.
February 17, 2005
Tiny Houses
Architect Jay Shafer describes why he founded Tumbleweeds Tiny House Company ...
I live in a house smaller than some people’s bathrooms. I call my tiny home Tumbleweed. My decision to inhabit just 100 square feet arose from some concerns I had about the impact a larger house would have on the environment, and because I just do not want to maintain a lot of unused or unusable space.
December 09, 2004
Public Places
The Project for Public Places, a non-profit organization dedicated to the design and management of public places, has just named the The 20 Best North American Districts, Downtowns, and Neighborhoods. Is yours one of them? They also go on to identify unique public places in other cities in the world.
June 08, 2004
Seattle Public Library
You don't have to go to Seattle to see renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas' Central Public Library. All you have to do is visit the website for the Seattle Times. They have links that will let you take a 360-degree tour.
March 16, 2004
Glidehouse
Frank Gehry it's not. But it is "green." And it's prefab, so all those pesky design decisions have been made for you.
January 12, 2004
Vernacular churches
Claudette Chambrun Goux, a graduate art history student at University of California, Riverside, takes photo of small buildings devoted to prayer in the inner-city neighborhoods of Houston and Los Angeles. They are not churches, in the traditional sense of the word. They are "vernacular" churches, humble buildings transformed by a simple cross or steeple.
December 29, 2003
Fab Pre-fab
November 14, 2003
Architects on film
I grew up in America's most satanic contribution to modern architecture: a trailer. View image (Yes, I'll admit it, I'm trailer trash!)
Any interest or taste I now possess for architecture is a direct result of Jay's influence. Today's JayDay feature alerts you to the fact that there are currently two independent films about architects playing in theatres now.
""My Architect" is a documentary about Nathaniel's Kahn's quest to discover the hidden life of his father, the architect Louis I. Kahn, who, when he died in a men's room at Penn Station in 1974, left behind many beautiful buildings (such as the Bangladesh National Assembly (above) and, it was learned later, several illegitimate children.
"A House on a Hill" is a fictional drama about an architect, Harry Mayfield (played by Philip Baker Hall), who is asked to develop a house on the site of what was to have been Harry's own dream home, which he lost in a tragic fire that also claimed the life of this son.
October 18, 2003
Falling Water
June 10, 2003
The Tofte Project
This beautifully designed website is devoted to the concept of "sustainable architecture. " It builds a story around the idea of connecting and respecting all who are touched by an architectural project — before, during, and after construction.
Best viewed with a high-speed connection and a fairly current version of a web browser.
June 03, 2003
The RemoteHome
One apartment, two cities. How can this be? Oh my God, it's the Virtual Apartment!
June 02, 2003
Arcspace
Arcspace is a stunning online collection of photos and articles about some of the greatest architects in the world. (The photo above is a cultural center in New Caledonia designed by Renzo Piano.)
May 21, 2003
The Bilbao effect
As the Walt Disney Concert preps for its October opening, the architect Frank Gehry discusses his career and admits to a weakness for ....Korean karaoke bars?
May 19, 2003
180 Maiden Lane
This apartment in the NYT Magazine is the virtual apartment. Take a look.
May 14, 2003
Spaces for the 21st Century
Euro Space? Nano Space? Space Space? Relationship Space? Dump Space?
Wired Magazine, in partnership with Rem Koolhaas, asked 30 architects to consider Spaces for the 21st Century. See what they've come up with.
May 12, 2003
Cranes swoop over London
The construction crane may be the U.K.'s national bird, for dozens of them are reshaping the London skyline. London is , in fact, contemplating building Europe's tallest building. It's designed by Renzo Piano.