Stimuli 0802

Public Records Building in Basel, Switzerland, by EM2N.

Zumthor's Vals Thermal Baths in Switzerland

I still haven't met anyone that doesn't love Peter Zumthor, his published books have the largest resale value of any architecture book I have ever seen. I love his work simply because his views on architecture are so similar to mine, phenomenologically speaking of course. He overloads your senses, not only with light, texture, and sound, but gives his buildings a personality, an ego, a history, that makes them feel almost organic, as if it was an organism that was here to learn a become better than when it was created.

I don't know who made these videos, but Offensive77 is hosting them in his You Tube page, along with many other architecture videos. Enjoy these, I sure did.

Cumayasa Project

On Monday a new project on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic was announced. As far as I know it is the first proposal within the tourism real estate industry that uses a globally recognized contemporary language for its architecture.

The location towards the booming eastern side of the island, between The town of San Pedro de Macoris and the already recognized Casa de Campo complex.

The complex lies on 1,400 hectares (14 million square meters or 3,459.5 acres) of land on the coast, and consists "of more than 3,000 luxury villas, 3 hotels, 4 golf courses and a marina, providing a place to enjoy a variety of water sports, tennis and ecotourism". These ideas of luxury and ecology bundled together are unprecedented on this scale in the Dom. Rep.


Joaquin Torres at A-Cero Estudio de Arquitectura claims that the project is to be green as this text taken from the World Architecture News website, and translated from A-Cero's own website says:

"The main idea was to create a settlement of high environmental quality and low density, which incorporates native vegetation. The landscape design follows a contemporary style that embraces the houses, scattered on a stair pattern, softening the impact of their presence and creating a dynamic appearance to the whole."

I can't help but wonder how a firm from Madrid can successfully design a project in the Caribbean, I surely hope that they have a tropical architect on their staff. Although they are on the right track, natural ventilation, a lot of open spaces, less use of glass exposed to sunlight, and lots of water to reduce temperatures and increase the "cool feeling" factor.

The extensive use of natural materials, of local craftsmanship, and tropical plant species helps reduce the impact of the project on the land.

Aside from the news article on WAN and the news feed on A-Cero's website, I haven't found anything else on this project on the web. So I have no info on pricing or exact location, and I understand that there are a lot of properties in Cumayasa that are having legal problems regarding titles and speculation, I'm assuming that this project is not included in that bunch.

Putting aside the secrecy and blurry areas I think that the designs put together by A-Cero are damn sensual, it could come out to be a nice Tropical Architecture example if they play their cards right.