The visiondivision game

We have made you a Christmas gift; a game where you must fight pointless architecture that threatens to ruin our planet.

To play the game, go to www.visiondivision.com click on the extra button and then you will eventually see the game icon.

Happy holidays dear friends!

The visiondivision team

Two projects, Two old men

visiondivision are going to the Northern regions of Sweden to build two projects for two different clients. They have the thing in common that they have a site in a very delicate contact with nature and the clients are both old men.



AB is going to a harsh and isolated island to build a house for a fisherman/duck hunter; the house must shelter a boat during the nordic storms and also handle the occasional owerflows on the site. The building will feature new innovative doors and an overflow system among other things.
UM is going to the extreme north into the wild black forrests to help an old man fulfill his last wish in life, to be able to bath in his childhood forrest while waiting for the bear that he once met during dramatic circumstances.
The VD-team will live and work close with them to take advantage of their craftmanship and life experience to make the uttermost tailor made solutions for these two highly regarded old men.
We will brief you when we are back in civilization while filling up on the food suplies.

We have also made a Christmas gift for all you 10.000 people that has visited this site during this year. You will get it soon.

Early Christmas

Visiondivision has been doing a lot of competitions in various countries lately, and that explains the abscense on this page for a while now.
Finland, Holland, Dubai and Rwanda is some of the lucky ones to get an early christmas gift this year.
We havent forgotten about you guys though and we can promise you that a lot of architecture candy and wise words will emerge here very soon.


Christmas gift to Helsinki

Financial Crisis

The financial crisis has now showed its ugly face to the hardworking visiondivision team.
They are now living as outcasts at the outer rims of the known civilization to maintain a decent living standard as well as keeping up the highest quality of architecture production that the world has ever seen.
Take a look at the video and give a thought to your hero architects the next time you open that bottle of expensive champagne.
And Leif; keep your head up, everything is going to be all right.

Tornado

Entry for an opera competition in Taipei.
Competition in progress.

This is a powerful energy generating machine on the outside with a sensual, organic inside that transcends the visitors from the bustling city to a serene world of the performing arts.

One of the positive aspects of raising the building is that it creates a generous public space around it.
The square slopes gently towards the entrance, surrounded by pearls, the visitors descends fadingly into the building like entering an ocean.


A great spiral of pearls is the main focal point of the entrance hall, you can either take the elevator through it or the ramp around it, by foot or with the VIP Train of pearls, taking you all the way into the Grand Theatre.

The Grand theatre is embedded in pearls, creating a elegant and modern experience for the audience. The semi-transparent pearls are lit from behind and dim the light,
creating a glowing sensation. Depending on the performance, the ambience can be set into different modes.
A chandelier of pearls in the middle of the theatre drops seamlessly from the roof like a jewel, radiating an ambient light. The VIP Train is now converted into comfortable seats.

Reaching the roof terrace, the pearls subsides into clouds. Walking around among the clouds one can experience panorama views of Taipei.

The building performs on its own for the city, generating culture, urban life and pure sustainable energy for its vicinity.
This is all strongly manifested from the visual effect of its rotating facade.

The façade is covered with curved blades are attached on segments that rotate with the wind, generating energy to the building and to the city.

The pearls are non-toxic and non-flamable acrylic balls with a tint of reflection.
Pearls in different sizes is combined into various landscapes inside the building to enhance the theatre experience.

Flow diagram

Siteplan

Administration level

Theatre level

Roof terrace

Section

This competition was a collaboration with Markus Wagner, a member of Svensk standard,

http://www.svenskstandard.org/.

The VD Guide - part III

Visiondivision gives you a brief tour of inspiring projects and phenomenon around the world.If you have more suggestions, dont hesitate to contact us at: visiondivision@gmail.com For more VD Guide >>> http://www.visiondivision.com/----------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Multihalle Mannheim -An exhibition space with a genious structure-
Birth: 1975
Location: Mannheim, Germany
Architect: Frei Otto
VD says: Organic at its finest by a master of structure

Otto studied architecture in Berlin before being drafted into the Luftwaffe as a fighter pilot in the last years of World War II. It is said that he was interred in a French POW camp and, with his aviation engineering training and lack of material and an urgent need for housing, began experimenting with tents for shelter.
In the 60s Frei Otto developed a theory of using well curved surfaces with opposing curvature, minimal surfaces, with equal tensions under prestress. He extended the technology from fabric to cable nets and used this formfinding method to develop some structures that surprised the architectural world.
The Multihalle in Mannheim is an example of this with a doubly curved compression structure constructed out of 50mm square timber and spanning 60m.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Floating islands of Titicaca -artificial islands-
Birth: more than 500 years ago
Location: Lake Titicaca, Peru
Architect: The Uros
VD says: This is cool, very visionary for their time and it still is.

The Uros is the name of a group of pre-Incan people who live on 42 self-fashioned floating man-made islets located in Lake Titicaca off Puno, Peru.
The islets are made of totora reeds, which grow in the lake. The dense roots that the plants develop support the islands. They are anchored with ropes attached to sticks driven into the bottom of the lake. The reeds at the bottoms of the islands rot away fairly quickly, so new reeds are added to the top constantly. This is especially important in the rainy season when the reeds rot a lot faster. The islands last about 30 years.
The larger islands house about 10 families, while smaller ones, only about 30 meters wide, house only two or three.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Il Gesù -One of the most impressive interiors ever been made-
Birth: 1679
Location: Rome
Architect: Giovanni Battista Gaulli (interior)
VD says: A showdown of skills and perfection

Il Gesu is the mother church of the Jesuits.Its facade recognized as "the first truly baroque façade" and it was the model for innumerable Jesuit churches all over the world, especially in the Americas. But it is the interior of the church that makes it among the masterpieces in the vd-guide.
Giovanni Battista Gaulli's ceiling is a masterpiece of quadratura (architectural illusionism) combining stuccoed and painted figures and architecture.It is difficult to distinguish painted from stucco angels. The figural composition spill over the frame's edges which only heightens the illusion of the faithful rising miraculously toward the light above.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lake Nakuru -The highest concentration of flamingos in the world-
Birth: A long time ago
Location: Kenya
Architect: Flamingos
VD says: A visual frenzy in pink

Lake Nakuru is one of the Rift Valley soda lakes. It lies to the south of Nakuru, in central Kenya.The lake's abundance of algae attracts the vast quantity of flamingos that famously lines the shore, up to 1.5 million have been seen at a time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Druzhba Sanitarium -A Sci-Fi looking resort building-
Birth: 1986
Location: Yalta, Ukraine
Architect: Igor Vasilevsky
VD says: very Bond

The resort building’s cylindrical form stands on a hill overlooking a beach in what was then an exclusive resort town. To enter, visitors cross a bridge encased in a glass tube and then descend into the complex, which is supported on massive legs housing the elevators and stairs. Conceived as a “social condenser,” the building’s core is occupied by a cinema, dance hall, swimming pool and cafe. Circling this core are the guest rooms, arrayed in a dazzling saw-tooth facade orienting each room toward the water and sunlight, while giving the structure an eerie science-fiction quality.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Torres Blancas -An organic apartment building -
Birth: 1961
Location: Madrid
Architect: Francisco Javier Saenz De Oiza
VD says: Interesting plans, interiors and overall layout, really cool organic ceilings.

Torres Blancas is considered to be one of the finest organic examples of architecture in Spain.
It was supposed to be built in marble, but due to economical cut-backs it was made in concrete.
The rooms in the apartments are cylindrical, with organic walls and ceilings.
Some apartments has two levels and on the top floor there is a restaurant and a pool.
To visit: Av. De América 37 subway 4, 6,7 & 9 station av. de américa

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kaieteur Falls -A massive waterfall in the jungle-
Birth: A long time ago
Location: Potaro River, Guyana
Architect: Water
VD says: An outstanding water curtain of pure natural force

Kaieteur Falls is about five times higher than the Niagara Falls and about two times the height of the Victoria Falls.It is 226 meters when measured from its plunge over a sandstone cliff to the first break.Its distinction lies in the unique combination of great height and large volume, averaging 663 cubic meters per second, combined with a dramatic setting in the jungle.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tengger Caldera (Mt Bromo) -A bunch of volcanoes inside of another volcano -
Birth: 820 000 years ago
Location: East Java, Indonesia
Architect: Earth
VD says: Mindblowing moon landscape

The 16-km-wide Tengger caldera is a volcanic complex that dates back to about 820,000 years ago and consists of five overlapping stratovolcanoes, each truncated by a caldera. Lava domes and pyroclastic cones occupy the flanks of the massif. This moon landscape is one of the coolest things you can see on this planet, preferably in the sunrise when the fog on the crater floor mixes up with the fresh rays of the sun.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
San Alfonso del Mar Resort -The biggest swimming pool on earth-
Birth: 2007
Location: San Alfonso del Mar Resort, Chile
Architect: Fernando Fischmann
VD says: Pharaoic scale always impress us

With eight hectares in size and contains 250,000 cubic metres of water, this artificial lagoon and swimming pool is the biggest in the world of its kind.The clear water artificial lagoons is transparent to a depth of 35 metres.The waters off of this part of Chile are cold and inhospitable,explaining why the resort's developer wanted to create an ocean replacement.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lingotto Factory -Avant-garde car factory with test track on the roof-
Birth: 1916
Location: Turin, Italy
Architect: Mattè Trucco
VD says: Great concept, a masterpiece of its time

Built from 1916 and opened in 1923, the design was unusual in that it had five floors, with raw materials going in at the ground floor, and cars built on a line that went up through the building. Finished cars emerged at rooftop level, where there was a rooftop test track. It was the largest car factory in the world at that time. For its time, the Lingotto building was avante-garde, influential and impressive—Le Corbusier called it "one of the most impressive sights in industry", and "a guideline for town planning".
The factory became outdated in the 70s and where remodeled into a cultural centre.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ministry of Transportation -Cantilevered building -
Birth: 1975
Location: Tbilisi, Georgia
Architect: Georgy Chakhava
VD says: admirable

A monumental grid of interlocking concrete forms rises on a steep wooded site in Tbilisi, Georgia. The project’s genesis might prompt most architects, so often at the mercy of clients’ fantasies, to swoon with envy. Mr. Chakhava was not only an architect but also the minister of highway construction. As such, he was not just his own client; he could also hand-pick the project’s site.
Rising on an incline between two highways, the building’s heavy cantilevered forms reflect the Soviet-era penchant for heroic scale. Yet they also relate sensitively to their context, celebrating the natural landscape that flows directly underneath the building.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Olympiastadion (Olympic Stadium) -An office building with a magic courtyard -
Birth: 1972
Location: München, Germany
Architect: Frei Otto & Günther Behnisch
VD says: Maybe the best looking arena in the world

Another Frei Otto project, this time with Günther Behnisch.
The Olympiastadion was considered revolutionary for its time. This included large sweeping canopies of acrylic glass stabilized by steel cables that were used for the first time in a large scale. The idea was to imitate the Alps and to set a counterpart to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, held during the Nazi-Regime. The sweeping and transparent canopy was to symbolize the new, democratic and optimistic Germany. This is reflected in the official motto: "The Happy Games".With a capacity of 80,000, the stadium also hosted many major football matches including the 1974 World Cup Final, in which West Germany beat the Netherlands with 2-1.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Villa Spies -A futuristic and hedonistic summerhouse for an excentric billionaire -
Birth: 1969
Location: Torö, Sweden
Architect: Staffan Berglund
VD says: The house with the most Bond Villain feeling in Scandinavia (that is a good thing)

A young architect got the commission to design a summerhouse for the excentric billionaire Simon Spies, a hedonistic Dane with taste for women and good-life.
The house is made out of reinforced plastic and is all white, a red remote control gives the owner access to the abundance of technology in the house.
An elevator from the kitchen becomes a table in the living room and so on.
Simon Spies subscribed to a Danish newspaper that where air dropped every day by plane for the cost of USD$ 1000 per day.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roden Crater Project -A observatory of light inside a crater-
Birth: 2000
Location: Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
Architect: James Turrell
VD says: More of these kind of projects please


"I wanted to use the very fine qualities of light. First of all, moonlight. There's a space where you can see your shadow from the light of Venus alone—things like this. I also wanted to gather starlight that was from outside the planetary system, which would be from the sun or reflected off of the moon or a planet...you've got this older light that's away from the light even of our galaxy. So that is light that would be at least three and a half billion years old. So you're gathering light that's older than our solar system."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Laureate Lantern

Visiondivision got the commission to do a small recycling- and pump station on the campus ground of Karolinska Institutet, one of the most prestigious universities in the world with 5 Nobel laureates among other things.



The plot that is located just next to the student union building and two pedestrian streets, could easily be used to give something back to the campus environment, so we made a structure that is shaped as a screen, where the five faces of the Nobel laureates is drilled in the wood facade.



Being a recycling building for the waste materials in the nearby area, there is no need for insulation and the holes would function as ventilation as well.



At night time the small building will glow as a lantern of motivation for the students that walk home after a hard day of studies.

Barcelona exhibition

If you happen to be in Barcelona this or the next week, we could warmly recomend the 2G exhibition where visiondivision is exhibited with their proposal "The Merchants of Venice".
The exhibition will remain open from 25 September to 10 October.
If not, you could soak in some exhibition atmosphere below.



Opening: Wednesday 24 September 2008 From 8.00 to 10.00 pm Editorial Gustavo Gili. Rosselló 87-89. Barcelona Metro: Hospital Clínic or Entença (L5) Tel: 93 322 81 61

Superstar

Entry for the White House Redux competition.

Synopsis: The story takes place in the early 70s when a young senator tries to convince the congress of the United States of America to build a new White House.His ideas are radical and looked upon with a great deal of scepticism and the congress rejects his proposal unanimously.
Humiliated and disappointed, the senator flees the country to look for inspiration and to understand the symbolic value of Architecture.
Will the senator give up his ideas or will he succeed in his battle against the narrow-minded congress?

Follow this young man's struggle in this visiondivision production that deals with the very inner core of architecture and ambition.

Power Up

Here comes an additional text with images to the video posted under the "Collection" post earlier this month;

Visiondivision got the comission to give 8 power plants in gothenburg a new identity.We gave them a collection of projects, ranging from a small scale to pharaoic wonders.

The biggest part of the commissions was to renovate one of the city’s major power plants; Sävenäs. The plant is today a collage of different non good looking building parts. Our sketches vary from low-cost solutions with a big effect, to a more iconic brave architecture.

The first sketch was to paint the whole thing blue, It would merge the different building parts into one major complex mass. The blue paint also fades from matt at the lower parts of the building to glossy in its highest parts.

At night different projections forms a moving story on how the power plant is functioning, following the story the viewer will see how wood is turned into energy and then see the waste products going up the chimney as water vapour.

To manifest that the smoke is actually just water, we propose to project dolphins and other sea animals in it. Projecting in the smoke also gives a big visual effect and can be seen from miles around.

We also had to do a more brave proposal, after all we are visiondivision. So we made a true iconic wonder; a digital volcano. The construction is rather simple; a net is draped over the whole building with LED-light, starting at the 100 m high chimney. The LED-device is also a solar cell, making the system energy-independent. Each one of the devices can change color and therefor can the volcano take any visual expression.

The power plant has a great exposure potential due to its strategic location next to the highway and the railway leading in and out of Gothenburg.Advertisment, concerts or maybe digital art? The options are endless and the company will have a media icon unseened of in this part of the world.

Sävenäs power plant has many employees that now will experience the net as a big roofwith a ever-changing repertoire of visual delights.

Plan: volcano net

The second part of the commission was to renovate seven smaller power plants in the suburbs of Gothenburg. Visiondivision made a list of improvements that would be cheap, quick and function separately from each other. The tree major design concepts were to clean up the surrounding areas of the plants, design more visible signs and to surprise visitors by adding something new to the context.

To add a new and more positive design to the plants we decided to upgrade the building parts with the most negative associations; the surrounding fences. By filling the fences with Plexiglass we created a thematic image that can be seen from a distance.Parts of the image could also be projected at the facades by putting headlamps in front of them.

Drawing : Plexiglass filled fence

Fanmail

A fan has accused us of copying the OMA villa; Anish Kapoor house.

According to him, Villa Sondefors has the same shape, the same layout of rooms, the same program and a swimming pool located at the same part of the house as the Anish Kapoor house. ( 0-1 VD – OMA)



Well, we have to admit that the houses have some striking similarities, however we had not seen the resemblances before you pointed them out. A major difference is of course that Villa Sondefors is actually hovering over the water whereas the Anish Kapoor house is not. (1-1 VD – OMA). Well the case is simple; just check out the dates and you see that Villa Sondefors is designed one year before the Anish Kapoor house (2-1 VD-OMA) which according to OMA is designed in 2006. So don’t worry man, visiondivision do not copy other architects at least not deliberately.

hmmm wait a minute could it not be the other way around? It is time for some detective work.

At the end of 2005 AB send his portfolio to OMA. The second page on that portfolio has actually Villa Sondefors on it made in 2005. When AB starts working in OMA in the spring of 2006, Anish Kapoor House has already been designed. AB sees the model of the house in the office without noticing the resemblances. But according to the dates, Anish Kapoor house must actually have been designed just after OMA received a presentation of Villa Sondefors. A lot of funny coincidences in the small world of architecture? Or does OMA borrow shamelessly from their intern’s portfolios? Who knows? (Probably 2 - 0 VD-OMA)

Well if OMA copy pasted visiondivision, we just want to say that we couldn’t care less. visiondivision is a humble architectural firm that cares for the older generation, and if an old artist wants to play our music, we are more then willingly to hand over the notes. The outcome of this could not be more satisfactory for the vd crew. Villa Sondefors was declined by the Swedish building comity for being too odd in a Swedish landscape, but now Villa Sondefors hopefully will have a sister building in Bahamas instead. What a great surprise! And what a big mistake of that Swedish municipality. Good Copying can sometimes be ok. Declining good architecture will always be a crime!
Final score:
1-0 Bahamas-Sweden.

Venice Biennale and the 2G magazine

We told ourselves that we had to be exhibited at the Biennale before we turned 30, or leave the dirty business of architecture to commence a hot dog salesmen career in Solna Centrum.
With three years to go, we are finally there; not in Solna Centrum, but in Venice.
So if you plan to visit the Biennle this fall, schedule an important stop where the vd project The Merchants of Venice is exhibited.
More info about exhibition dates will come up later on.



Until then, why not buy the September issue of the 2G Magazine, they will feature visiondivision in it too. We also have an upcoming exhibition in Barcelona later this year, the date is not fixed yet, so we will tell you later.

Now the two youngsters are both in Stockholm, gathering speed and force for an outstanding fall, with an upcoming total makeover of the slow http://www.visiondivision.com/ and a bunch of competition entries full of wit, character and pure beauty.

Collection

2008-08-28

visiondivision got the commission to visually refine the appearance of eight power plants on the west coast of Sweden. The vd crew decided to make a collection of different low-cost proposals with a big visual effect. We broadcast a part of this collection so that you fans out there can get a glimpse of the ongoing process to build a brave new world.

visiondivision goes Facebook

Now you can be a fan of visiondivision on Facebook, just search for visiondivision in the searchbar and show your support to our troops.
Every fan will of course get special treatment and discount in the vd shop.