Enric Miralles passed away in 2000 at a young 44, leaving behind a rich body of architectural work and a wife, Benedetta Tagliabue. Her along with their studio EMBT, organized Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada to have tribute paid to Enric at a picnic for his friends and family in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of his passing. It’s a beautiful sand-painting, the very nature of which is fleeting serving as a wonderful memento mori.

[Photos by Ana Alvarerz-Errecalde]

This stuff by Joshua DeMonte is suprisingly not black, charcoal, or even ebony. It’s white. Go figure. Other than that it’s pretty architecturally inspired. It’s like if you had tiny elves build clothing for you and they reinforced it with arches, columns and masonry. Its a shame he used such anachronistic and dates architectural inspiration though – What would Calatrava think?

[Joshua DeMonte]

Santiago Calatrava bases a lot of his work on biology, fusing his engineering prowess and architectural sensibilities with bio-mimicry of naturalistic forms. Then he paints it all bone white. He makes no secret of this inspiration though some astute intellectuals would argue that nothing can be gained from attempting to mimic the beauty of a butterfly, for instance, since one can never succeed in actually coming out as the winner in such a comparison as one could never supersede or even match that beauty and elegance. Black + Blum did not seek inspiration from nature for their High + Dry dish rack though. They, more sensibly perhaps, looked to architecture for inspiration. Santiago Calatrava’s architecture. Ruh Roh. So now we have a dish rack based on a building based on a butterfly. Welcome to the future. It’s recyclable and folds completely flat for storage too. Too bad it’s made from plastic in the first place. Wood is recyclable too you know.

The LEGO Architecture series has some new entries thanks to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Brickstructures Incorporated. You can now get a set for Falling Water or the Guggenheim (pictured). According to the PR people, “With models developed in collaboration with architects, LEGO Architecture works to inspire future architects, engineers and designers as well as architecture fans around the world with the LEGO brick as a medium.” You read that, mom? I told you LEGO counts as a medium and that its serious business!

[PrarieMod]

Jack Schluze and Matt Webb’s design consultancy in London has produced Here & There (seen above) which visualizes Manhatan simultaneously as a map in bird’s eye view and as a projection at eye level view. They invert the curvature of the earth to create a horizonless view. It seems pretty effective in visualizing the environment both. Thankfully they aren’t silent about it too. If you check out their Blog they go in to detail to explain their influences and what they were thinking. They even go so far as to offer prints for sale.

[Schulze & Webb]
[Here & There]