Back in Edinburgh to see in the New Year with friends. Once all the snow had fallen I decided to start 2010 with some culture. My favourite gallery ‘The Gallery of Morden Art’ was covered in snow, making Charles Jencks Landform look other worldly. I have never seen it like this before, it was beautiful.
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Edinburgh Culture
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
My Designs on Sweden- Christmas Holidays 2009
The Copperhill Mountain Lodge was designed by a renowned American architect Peter Bohlin. Bohlin has Swedish ancestry and is today regarded as one of the best in his profession. The architecture firm of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson was founded in 1965 and now has offices in Wilkes-Barre, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Seattle and Berkeley. It has received more than 290 awards. (http://www.bcj.com/). The villa owned by Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, is one of their most notable projects in the last few years, where twenty other firms competed for the job. Copperhill is Bohlin’s first project in Scandinavia.
“For me, the intuitive is as important as the intellectual,” says Peter Bohlin. “However different the jobs may be, the challenge is always the same – to succeed in sensing what is unique and suitable for each specific place, and understanding how people want to live or work there. Then you have to realise those needs in a way that fascinates and inspires and works.”
The care for the environment really struck me as well. Sweden does not import oil and is self sufficient in energy with extensive hydro-electric, wind and cogeneration plants which as 99 percent fuelled by pure bio energy from forests as well as nuclear power stations. Even the Swedish approach to airports is impressive with a ‘green approach’ – this means that an aircraft descends towards the airport in a so-called continuous descent approach (CDA) with minimal use of the engine throttle, in order to reduce fuel consumption, emissions and noise.