Why not?

Things like this put a smile on my face.

Yes, the second richest person in the world lives in this little stucco house. He still resides in the gray stucco home he bought in 1958 for $31,500. Totaling about 6,000 square feet, in 2003 the Happy Hollow house was assessed at just $700,000 (though the value investor thought it was really worth about $500,000). He sold one of his two 'retreat' properties in Laguna Beach, Calif., but retained one valued at about $4 million. That's still less than one hundredth of a percent of his estimated net worth. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the private residence of Warren Buffett; estimated net worth: $44 Billion.

Simply fantastic.

[To put this in perspective he is flanked by Bill Gates(#1) whose residence is so large photos of it are taken from planes,


and Lakshmi Mittal the steel magnate who lives in something that looks like a castle, which is fitting since it is next door to Kensington Palace.

With Mute an Epiphany

I'm looking for work. Well I'm almost past looking and nearly ready to beat someone to death with a baseball bat so I can take their job. Anyhoo..... As I look at the latest postings on Workopolis I glanced over to the TV. Much Music is on in the background, on mute. I stared at it for almost twenty minutes watching music videos with no sound just watching a string of Pop-Punk bands doing their thing.

A long time ago in a class, David Lieberman presented the idea that architecture was a lot like being a chef - that it was a blending of ingredients... The lecture was quite bizarre but it stuck with me...

Historically music has been considered a high art form, based in mathematics, and containing an intangible quality. But as I sit here watching these videos the patterns are all too obvious. It all sounds the same. It even looks the same. Architecture historically has been declared a high art along with music - so does that mean that architecture could have descended to the same level as this culturally stagnant music I'm not listening to? Have the ingredients that make up architecture developed into a bland and predictable pattern of lyrics and choruses?

Do I need architecture based on improvisation and unpredictability? Do I need an architecture of Jazz?

"What do you think?"

The architecture community has been slightly abuzz lately over a major project along Toronto's main waterfront. Poor urban planning and land reclamation on Lake Ontario has resulted in a substantially disconnected city from a lake it is supposed to be built alongside. The main culprit is the daunting Gardiner Expressway an elevated highway which runs along the southern edge of the city - practically right along the water. A few other near-permanent industrial sites finish off the southern edge of the city with a flourish of train tracks, expressways, smokestacks, parking lots, and historical industrial waste dumps. Photos taken from the CN Tower looking almost straight down show this perfectly. Union Station [don't get me started on that one] is the large white thing and adjacent historical building just left of center; downtown is just to the left of the photo; Gardiner on the right; and Lake Ontario sneaking in the top right.
Honestly the site needs a project so large in scale it makes me think of Boston's Big Dig. But instead Toronto will get a timid half measure which is too little too late, and fails to resolve the problems people have with getting there: Crossing a gauntlet of dank tunnels, highways and various other unpleasantness.
So what do Toronto residents get? Well potentially a diamond on the other side of a mine field.
West8 took top prize in a competition which was closely followed by the architectural community and involved several people I have come to know over the past year living here [the chairwoman of the jury was my studio supervisor for my second semester]. Their project is distinctly Canadian yet smacks a little of cliche. Five teams of finalists were selected from a large hopeful group of firms to present their ideas to the jury:
1- Foster and Partners, London UK and Atelier Dreiseitl, Uberlingen, Germany
2- WASAW
3- Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, New York and Martínez Lapena-Torres Architects, Barcelona
4- West 8, Rotterdam and du Toit Allsopp Hillier, Toronto
5- And Team P.O.R.T. made up of: Snohetta, Norway, Sasaki Associates, New York, nARCHITECTS, New York, Weisz + Yoes Architecture, New York, H3, New York, Balmori Associates, New York and Halcrow Yolles HPA, New York

I'm curious what people who read this blog think of these projects as almost all of you are not architects. In my next post, after I read some responses from all of you, I'll talk about my favourite and why.