I took this picture a few weeks ago at a favourite spot…

From bochgoch

The picture is taken up through the centre of the keep at Dinefwr Castle, one of the seats of the kings of Deheubarth. Beautifully circular, striking when you consider it’s over 800 years old (although I’m not sure exactly how much restoration CADW have carried out and I seem to recall that the Victorians or their contemporaries messed about with the castle a fair bit turning it into more of a folly than a stronghold, so what we see here is probably considerably younger than 800 years old). I guess there was some sort of formwork involved… now that’s what I call architecture.

I thought I’d share this one as well.

From bochgoch

That’s Dryslwyn Castle in the distance, with Paxton’s Tower on the hill to the left, photographed down the Tywi Valley (the river is in the foreground) from Dinefwr Castle.

I spend most of the week in and around Cardiff. Anyone who spends any amount of time in around Cardiff and manages raise their eyes to the skyline can’t help but witness the impact that Marquess of Bute and William Burges had on the city.

William Burges (1827 – 1881) was an English architect and designer. Recognised as the greatest of the Victorian “art-architects”, Burges work strove to rise above 19th century industrialisation through the inspiration of an idealised medieval Europe.

Burges’s style was formed through twenty years of study and travel, during his relatively short career he applied the same vocabulary to increasing effect.

Burges’s most notable works, Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch were undertaken for John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute – a man variously described on Wikipedia as the richest man in the world and as the richest man in Britain – take your pick.

Cardiff Castle is an example of high victorian gothic romanticism, Castell Coch, that sits just outside the city is a fairy-tale gothic castle on the site of a 13th century fortification.

My personal favourite in Cardiff is his Park House – pictured right. The house was Commissioned by the Marquess in 1874 for his Chief Engineer, John McConnochie. It is a building on a more domestic scale than either of the Castles. A building of liveable proportions that still manages to impress, inspire and provide a glimpse of the escape through art and architecture that Burges sought.

Other references:
Arts and Crafts Home

I came across this quote from one of my favourite authors on architecture and design, Christopher Alexander, author of A Pattern Language in a book about software design – ‘Patterns of Software – Tales from the Software Community’ by Richard P. Gabriel (‘Patterns of Software’ is worth a read in its own right if you’ve any interest in software and is available free on the linked page.)

We have become used to almost fanatical precision in the construction of buildings. Tile work, for instance, must be perfectly aligned, perfectly square, every tile perfectly cut, and the whole thing accurate on a grid to a tolerance of a sixteenth of an inch. But our tilework is dead and ugly, without soul.

In this Mexican house* the tiles are roughly cut, the wall is not perfectly plumb, and the tiles don’t even line up properly. Sometimes one tile is as much as half an inch behind the next one in the vertical plane.

And why? Is it because these Mexican craftsmen didn’t know how to do precise work? I don’t think so. I believe they simply knew what is important and what is not, and they took good care to pay attention only to what is important: to the color, the design, the feeling of one tile and its relationship to the next—the important things that create the harmony and feeling of the wall. The plumb and the alignment can be quite rough without making any difference, so they didn’t bother to spend too much effort on these things. They spent their effort in the way that made the most difference. And so they produced this wonderful quality, this harmony … simply because that is what they paid attention to, and what they tried to produce.

* The house referred to is the House of Tiles in Mexico City.

So now when I look at my less-than-perfect lines and consider my easy-on-the-eye approach to tiling I can put a name to that previously unidentified factor that let me get away with it all … my tiling has soul…

Whilst bringing to mind images of ticks and leeches, parasitic architecture is an umbrella term, used to refer to self-contained new buildings that are attached to an existing structure. Parasitic because of the use made of existing infrastructure.

Personally, after the time and energy that have gone into my barn conversion project the prospect of picking a unit and dropping it on site is very attractive. A few examples…

spacebox >> spacebox.co.uk
Closely resembling storage containers of the type used to transport goods by sea and road, spacebox is a Dutch designed:

‘…high specification low-cost, studio-housing unit that can be installed and moved quickly. Site preparation is faster than traditional multi-occupant buildings. Each studio contains a fully specified kitchen, shower-room cum WC. Water, electricity, sewerage and telephone connections are fully integrated at the manufacturing stage.’

These rectangular blocks can be painted a custom colour to blend with their surroundings and can be quickly commissioned on site as they come preprovisioned with all the usual amenities and merely need coupling up to services. They are aimed a the ‘low’ end of the market – student / temporary accommodation.

Lift-Up House >> turnercastle.co.uk
Another example is the Lift-up House ia two-bedroom apartment seemingly flown onto the roof of an industrial building in Hoxton, London.

Las Palmas Parasite >> kortekniestuhlmacher.nl
A striking protuberance on the lift shaft of a building in Rotterdam.

The Las Palmas Parasite was a prototypical house aiming at combining the advantages of prefabricated technology and the unique qualities of tailor-made design. The limitations imposed by the size of the elevator shaft demanded a compact plan and volume.
The object was supported by the walls of the existing building. Services like water supply, sewage and the electric installation had been linked to the existing installations.

loftcube / Werner Aisslinger >> aisslinger.de
Werner Aisslinger is a German furniture designer who also designed the loftcube, a ‘modular living unit’ that can be tailored internally and externally to the desires and needs of the residents. The module can then be lifted into place.

In my haphazard stumble through the world of architects and architecture, I came across Robert Venturi. Whilst not perhaps directly appreciating his work when seen on the page in print (his emergency service building for Disney World in Florida is a Fire Department HQ straight out of a Mickey Mouse cartoon), I do appreciate and agree with his concept of “vernacular” architecture. In simplistic terms it entails taking the building and design trends of a country or locality and using them as an architectural guide.

In his 1972 work “Learning from Las Vegas” he highlighted the common architectural features of neon lights, advertising hoardings and false shop fronts found in LA and advocated them as an alternative to sometimes stilted architectural rationalism.

As can be seen from Mickeys fire-station there is a degree of irony, humour and a powerful sense of appropriateness in his work – all of which appeal to me.

The tying of architecture to the reality of a place, rather than some idealised or fictional notion is what appeals to me. There is a view of how agricultural buildings should be converted to dwellings that is sometimes at odds with my own sensibilities. Rendered walls with stone dressing, gravel drives and varnished window frames present a disneyfied view of the countryside and don’t represent the true beauty and sense of place that I seek. Venturi’s vernacular architecture recognises this and presents an alternative approach.