Vertical Expectations - The Shard of Glass

[Video - Vertical Expectations by Simolab-Creative AV on Vimeo]

Expected to reach completion in 2012 the architect Renzo Piano's glass Shard at London Bridge will stand unrivalled on London's skyline at an imposing height 1,017 ft or 310 m. By that time it will be the tallest building not only in the UK, but also in the whole of the European Union.

In this brilliant new film Simona Piantieri of Simolab combines a visual document of its construction with a balanced cross section of expectation and critical opinion concerning the aspirations, architectural or otherwise, that seek expression through the construction of this improbable edifice.

So ask yourself again...do Crystal Palaces Cast No Shadows?

Great work!

Real Estate: From Antagonism to Utopia

[Video - Real Estate by Jonathan Weston on Vimeo]

Checking out the latest on Vimeo today I couldn't help chuckling when I saw Jonathan Weston's recent upload called Real Estate. Presented in the form of a standard architectural visualisation the film offers a caricature of the gentrification process in which the messy business of everyday life slowly degenerates into anarchy, leaving the area to be saved by the property developers who install their newly dubbed 'Utopia Apartments' behind gates and high walls protected by private security and CCTV. 

According to this caricature the turning point would be the riots that follow the police clampdown on growing crime. In reality the riots rarely come until after the gates have gone up. Rather the property developers play on the spectre of rising crime and the prospect of unrest to promote gentrification and justify the instillation of the gates. In doing so they foreclose the possibility that an agonistic street culture could flourish without degenerating into a Hobbesian state of nature. The challenge lies in imagining what that agonistic society would look like, despite our being conditioned to view life as a wager between two mutually exclusive states: anarchy or utopia.