Last month I was commissioned by renown Toronto architecture firm Moriyama & Teshima Architects to re-photograph their city hall project in Surrey, BC. The architects wanted images that better showed the building in use, details of the west facade and during classic west coast weather, which I love since rain and grey skies can create atmospheric light that I find beautiful.
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The 80/20 rule is proving to be true. They say when you're a photographer you will spend 20% of your time shooting photos and 80% on business. This year I took some time to assemble and publish some of my photography from the past few years into a little book that I mailed out to some old and new clients. It's a good way to show what I've been up to in a way that deviates from a regular email. Sometimes it's nicer to flip through a book than scroll on a screen, call me old fashioned. Live/work extends beyond my living situation (I work out of where I live). This working vacation was purposely more vacation than the last working vacation to the Caribbean which ended up being work heavy. Not complaining in either case, I consider myself lucky to be able to combine my three passions: photography, architecture and travel. Influenced by the languages of propaganda and graphic art favoured by the Italian Superstudio from the 1960s, A Stable World That Will Last Forever is a constructed portrait of Vancouver. Rather than casually viewing architecture as a benevolent force, the members of Superstudio blamed it for having aggravated the world's social and environmental problems, while being equally pessimistic about politics. It is said that, the group's once radical theories about architecture's environmental impact, the potentially negative consequences of technology and the inability of politics to untangle complex social problems are now considered to be core concerns by self-aware contemporary architects and designers. Through examining the relationship between environment, architecture and society in the modern city, A Stable World That Will Last Forever addresses the complex role of their interconnectivity and dependency. By rearranging line, space and forms that communicate the power of architecture within the environment and how people interact with both, this piece is a starting point to help envision Vancouver from a different perspective while circulating through the city; to imagine a New Vancouver. It is the designer who must attempt to re-evaluate his role in the nightmare he helped to conceive, to retread the historical process which inverted the hopes of the modern movement. - Toraldo di Francia, Superstudio A Stable World That Will Last Forever, digital photo montage About HCMA | AIR
Hughes Condon Marler Architects (HCMA) Artist-In-Residence (AIR) program was developed by the firm in 2014 as part of a broad strategy to examine the potential of the practice’s work to contribute to social sustainability goals. This initiative continues the research started by Darryl Condon (Managing Principal at HCMA) in a course on Social Sustainability offered to students of UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in the Spring of 2014. HCMA | AIR is meant to stimulate discussion and challenge preconceptions about the limits of architectural practice. The program invites artists to investigate the interface between the public realm and people through an exploration of the boundaries between architecture and the artist’s creative field. Artists working in a variety of media are encouraged to participate, including visual arts, video, photography, theatre and writing. Throughout the course of the residency, artists collaborate with the staff at HCMA, discussing issues related to their work and to the project, and exploring themes related to social sustainability. Resident artists have access to the resources of the office (including computers, plotters, printers and model shop) and are supported with an honorarium and materials budget. For further information about HCMA | AIR or this project please contact: Hughes Condon Marler Architects 604.732.6620 hcma.ca I finally made it to Palm Springs, or as I like to call it Modernism Mecca. I was not disappointed and can't wait to go back. I rented a car so I was able to explore a few other places that were on my list. I went to the Integratron in Joshua Tree and had a sound bath which was pretty rad. South of Palm Springs is Salton Sea and Salvation Mountain, two anomalies worth checking out for anyone interested in seeing different desert architecture interventions. At the end of my trip I spent a couple days in San Diego and of course had to check out the thoughtful design of Louis Kahn's Salk Institute. I volunteer with the organization Women In Architecture Vancouver
and they asked me to be part of a panel presentation and discussion on career paths in architecture. Last month I photographed an outdoor installation for Matthew Soules Architecture in West Vancouver installed for this years Harmony Arts Festival. Recently I was in Toronto for a small shoot for an architect friend who just finished a restaurant project. But before that I took a little drive to where I grew up and visited some of the places I liked seeing as a kid. I went down to UBC for a site visit for an upcoming shoot and on the way home stopped at the Museum of Anthropology designed by Arthur Erickson to get a shot of the
building as the sun was setting. I had some time after a shoot today so I went down to Finn Slough in Richmond. I'd heard about this "shantytown" a few months ago and wanted to check it out. It was settled in the 1890s by some Finnish miners and loggers. An interesting bit, in keeping with Finnish tradition, one of the first buildings they constructed was a sauna. This place gives me ideas about design/build communities. It'll be cool to go back once everything's blooming again and see how it changes. |
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