This is another interpretation of space use. A temporary yet contemporary use of empty spaces. This is a temporary Benetton store in Milan. What the brand did is simple. Open a store only for a period of time. Which is nothing new if you think about farmers market (a temporary use of the city), but here I guess is part of a marketing agenda.. Smart. Sell what you still have (maybe the last things of the summer collection) and wait for the new one. I wish I had this space for myself and just hang photos, writings, and stuff. Together with my virtual artist friends!

When I was living in LA I found myself wondering, from time to time, why can't we build in the so called "inbetween spaces". So much space in cities is just left there without knowing how to use it. Space, even if it is the tiniest one, has potentials. Either if you build in it or if you plant some green. Many ideas come to mind when talking about small inbetween space. How can you use it? This image is one solution: a building!! Two belgian architects (Pieter Peerlings and Silvia Mertens) found an interesting solution for an inbetween space in Antwerp. 2.5 meters to fill. And that's what they did. With a building composed by 4 containers. Each one is lit by a specific light during the night differentiating every single space (or container). Idea, space, light. The idea is not new, using container to construct a building, since already others have done it. The bast example is, in my opinion, the Freitag Store in Zurich. But here, in Antwerp, the beauty of the project, is about using a space that is left there with no apparent future.

Here is the news of the day: "dear participants at the architecture competition...you did not pass the first round...we are sorry ...blah blah blah".
I didn't pass the first round of a competition and the strange part of it is that I do not really care!!! I have to be honest though, I worked very hard on it, but I know how the architecture world works here in Switzerland. It's like a music contest that you already know before it starts who is gonna win it. Stupid me that I even did it! But it was fun, I had fun doing it and that's the important part of the entire experience. At the office we put a name in an envelope. We'll open it after the winner will be announced and guess what? I am sure the name in the envelope is going to be the same!
I hate this freakin way of doing things. In some part of the world they call it mafia. Here they call it open competition...

Are we architects? Are we artists? Are we designers? Are we all of that? My answer is yes we are! This lamp named Vortexx was made by the architect Zaha Hadid in collaboration with Patrick Schumacher. I think it is a very beautiful object, more than a lamp. Yet it is a lamp!Is this art? Architecture? Design? Again: I think it is everything combined. There is no way (Mel) that we have to categorize ourselves into architects. But yet we are!Confusing and strange world we live in!!

Is Zaha Hadid an architect or an artist? I think we are ARCHISTS...it sounds better!

I will try and stop smoking too... one day.

right now I feel like a bag of cigarette butts. and the only marks I make are these butts of cigarettes.

the only marks I make, I keep to myself, and share with you all.
for this image I placed a postcard on magazine article quote. this is a postcard I am sending out to you!
(the ones on my blog were secondary attempts with my slr. this one was taken with my sister's point and shoot! but really says much more, it's direct!)

To tell the truth I've never been on a camper. I've never liked the idea of living "on the move". But things change sometimes! Although I still prefer to sleep in a hotel and then drive a car and travel the day after, the other day I came across this idea. Wonderful!

It was announced at the Caravan Salon in Düsseldorf and apparently is already changing the concept of tourism. The idea comes from a thesis project developed by two architecture students of the Graz University.It is based on a cell-design (that's where the name comes from: Mehrzeller) that can be personalized by the client which is a brilliant idea since, like Freitag bags, there is not one same as another.I really love the architecture behind the idea but still I consider myself, in this specific case, a lazy tourist. I travel a lot, visit a lot of places, but on vacation I like doing absolutely nothing. No cooking, no laundry, no cleaning, no phone and no driving!!!

I guess I will have to go on vacation with someone who does because this camper is awesome!

Sometimes when I look at my blog I feel that I am just writing words on an old dirty wall. I feel that writing only about my life and its sourroundings isn't enough for my brain, and for my mental graffiti.
I see a lot in my life. I read a lot during the day. I capture a lot throough my camera. Yet, on this virtual wall what happens is just a fragment of the totality of my everyday, which, in a way, it is the point. But the point is also writing about stuff people read. Stuff that maybe some do not know about. Beautiful stuff. Stupid stuff. Poetic stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff.
Stuff that are here to stay and that hopefully will not be washed down at the first big rain!
So, beside my personl messy life there is also a lot to think about!

Expo 2010 will be held in Shanghai, China. The theme of the exposition will be "Better City – Better Life". I am already quite intrigued by the announced architectures from the different countries attending the event.

To be honest I was somehow disappointed by many of the projects. The Swiss Pavillion, to say what needs to be said...SUCKS big time!

Two Pavillions though, really came out beautifully, at least on screen! The Polish and the Danish.

Great job! Let's hope reality is as good as these virtual images!

I received this video link to youtube! Really funny Nike commercial with Roger Federer!

I was talking about this "saying" with Mel: Just do it!

I have to apply the same for a different reason! So, as I said we had a blast of a weekend. Just one thing went actually wrong. I have the flu (which, thank god is getting better) with a cough that got evil on me and transformed itself into a kind of asthma.

I had a really major attack on saturday that I sooooo freaked out that I started wondering...

I know I shouldn't have been smoking with cough...but hey!

But let me tell you...I really got scared I couldn't breath...so I decided to try to quit smoking (again). Starting today!

I have to Just Do It!!!

I had an excellent weekend! Family, my friend Aris, good food and great wine.

Foie Gras, fiorentina, risotto with sea food, goat cheese (9 different ones!!!), and again foie gras! I adore it! I would eat it day and night!

We had, as usual, the apéro, and then a variety of wines that perfectly accompanied the food. Gattinara, Morellino di Scansano and so on!

And after all that...relax on the big terrasse facing the lake, with tons of magazines, a hot Nespresso (what else??) and a cigarette.

We'll do it again, hopefully next week.

I am still playing with my camera, still playing with my figurines, still creating what in a previous serie I called "Unvulnerable Grounds".

This time they are travelling through oceans, ads and who knows!

When we go to the lake we always go to have an aperitif down at the boardwalk. We always order either a Negroni or a Americano. The house is in Cannobio Italy and of course, when you order, they know exactly what you are talking about since Italians invented these two drinks.

But when you go here in Switzerland and order the same thing they look at you like you come from the edge of Hell!

so, here are the recipes for those freaky-waiters who do not know what Negroni or Americano are!!! In case of they come into this blog!!!

The Negroni cocktail is made of 1 part gin, 1 part vermouth, and 1 part bitter (normally Campari). It is considered an aperitif, or a pre-dinner cocktail intended to stimulate the appetite.

The Americano is a cocktail composed of Campari, sweet vermouth, and club soda.

So, this friend of mine had a brilliant idea. And a brilliant idea should not be shared with the public right away! Still the idea got me really excited and extremely happy. I guess good ideas always make people happy!

As I said I have a really bad flu, but since I got involved in "the idea" I suddently felt better, creative, thoughtful, imaginative, delirious, rythmical, asymmetrical, and completely insane! I feel like all the noises around me transformed themselves into a beautiful sound. Voices became sounds. And I just let the musicscape relax me!

Did I take too many medications?? Ah ah ah

I thought my cough was gone but it came back...with a vengeance! It came back stronger with a close friend called "Flu" and together they are killing me!

I am really tired and sick but I am extremely happy (or "violently Happy" as our friend Björk would say!). Writing, taking pictures, sharing and discussing ideas on Mel's blog, are things that make me really happy. Tomorrow I'll go to the lake. It is going to be a cool weekend and hopefully I'll be a little less sick... maybe a mojito and a Negroni would do it!!! Just kidding (yeah right!).

I'll go to bed now. Must take all meds to calm down all the freakin symptoms. It was a good day today (beside the flu). I ended up at my mother's home since she was alone tonite and we chatted, ate salmon and drunk some wine. I drove my dog crazy making him jump all over the place. Funny dog! A sickly happy dog! When I left my mom's home he was eating a kiwi! sickly-happy-crazy-dog!

It's early today, I just got in at work since I was was at the doctor at 8 Am. So I started thinking about trust. It's a word that I usually do not use because I guess it is psychologically implied in every action, every relationship. You trust your self, trust your friends, trust your decisions because you ultimately believe they are the right ones. What if they are not? Ah Ah Ah! Who cares! But at the end of my thoughts I think I still do not believe I would use the word trust. Too complicated, too intense, it implies too many things that it's better to let it beused by someone else!

I don't trust my friends enough to actually give the word its real and deepest meaning...therefore it is disrespectful to use it in an appropriate way! Better to just trust your own self and let the rest just be...

The other day I found this book in a trash can. Do not take me wrong! I do not usually get stuff from trash cans but this ... I couldn't let it there!

It's a french version of "The Godfather", Mario Puzo's awesome book dated 1970 (year of the translation). It's very nice, it's cover is all thorned and it gives the book a sense of maturity! The cover is designed as many pieces of articles from an old newspaper. So, I took it home and today, as I was already playing with my camera and my little figurines, I decided to recreate the scene of a funeral. Mario Puzo's french book's funeral. Amen!

I put more images on facebook.

just a fragment...waiting to shoot the big picture!

Today there isn't much to do since I am waiting for my associate to move his ass and start digging the hole for our new building I am playing around with my camera. I decided to put back in action my little figures I bought ages ago and let them create a new scape around the room.
A trip with a fictitious vespa inside an improbable super flat architecture.

They say every swiss person owns a swiss army knife. It's a must and apparently it is part of our national identity same as banks, chocolate, Heidi and Swatch! I do not have an army knife though! But I own something even better! The VictorInox SwissCard! I lost mine couple of years ago and today my father gave me a new one (he prefers knives with the swiss flag on them!!!). Beautiful!!

So, I am helping my mother doing some graphics for a conference. She will talk about urbanism/architecture/food! Quite interesting subject for a conference. My mother is a little nut like her daughter..I saw some of her drawings (I will post them as soon as she gives them to me) and they are quite impressive. So, I am doing couple of montages with photoshop and I was looking for images of plates I can later manipulate and I came across a website which sells and promotes funky "architectural plates and mugs". Soooo sweet...I want them!!!!

www.peoplewillalwaysneedplates.co.uk/

I was telling Mel that I just ordered 5 books from Amazon yesterday. I've been reading a lot since I came back to Switzerland. Mostly I read mysteries, thrillers and sometimes i put in also a theory book (the last is "The Wal-Mart Effect").
I am totally in love with authors from Scandinavia. Years ago, after going to Sweden for a conference I've realized how much I like that country! As I said, I love reading books from authors of whatever country I visit. I totally adore Henning Mankell, Björn Larsson ("Celtic Ring" is one of the best book ever written), love Jo Nesbo with his Harry Hole detective, Arnaldur Indridason from Iceland, Anne Holt and so on.
Right now though I am in a pause...no scandinavian author for couple of weeks (hopefully amazon will deliver my books sooner). I just discovered this french author named Muriel Barbery. Mel you will like her books (maybe you've read them already). Right now I am reading "Une gourmandise" which is really sweet. Everything happens in a bourgeois building on the left bank of Paris. A culinary critic is dying and...I am not sure what's happening, but up til now I love it!
I've already bought her 2nd book which is called "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" and I am dying to start reading it!
Alerady the back summ is quite intriguing:
"Renée is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building on the Left Bank. To the residents she is honest, reliable and uncultivated an ideal concierge. But Renée has a secret. Beneath this conventional façade she is passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives..."

Everybody leaves a mark in the world. Those who write a book, those who paint, sculpt. There are those whose philosophical thinking, mathematical awareness or chemical discovers are still present in our lives eventhough the left this world centuries ago! Still, they left a permanent mark in our society, in our books in our everyday actions. We all imagine that one day we will remembered for something. Not that we all expect to be included in books or discover a new atom or particle, yet we write in our notebooks, write on walls, and so on. We all leave a mark. Dogs who pee on a house, pasta on your new Burberry shirt, grass on your jeans. It's a duality though. We constantly leave mark in the world and the world leaves them on us.
Bottom line of this very deep thought???
I woke up this morning and since I live on the floor above the office I usually go down there to fix a good Nespresso. Well...As I wanted to check my email, still wearing my Abercrombie anf Fitch pyjamas and flip flops, and suddently I trip on something! I left a mark too this morning. Coffee all over the place!! My computer, my camera, on my bills and worst of all on my taxes!!
Unfortunately my mark in the world stayed there for only a couple of minutes. I had to clean it up!

i wished i was in hogans instaed. but they make me look like donald duck!

I love the rain. I relaxes my senses. I sleep wonderfully. And the city assumes a color, shades of colors, that makes its reality completely different. More inviting? Just different. But today the experts said it would be a splendid day. Sun, a little colder (yes! the summer is unfortunately over). Yet, as I opened the window this morning I didn't see the sun. People running to work with their anonymous umbrellas, grey or beige coats and the sky so gray that would make the most beautiful gray cashmere sweater jealous! Yet I wasn't that happy it was raining! For only one stupid superficial reason! I bought these shoes this past weekend and I was dying to wear them today! But I do not want to ruin them their first day out of the box. Guess what color are they? Gray, with shades and silver! Just as beautiful as the sky today! Well, after the rain comes the sun! And my new Hogan would stay home in my most beautiful corner of the apartment! I just put them there to make them feel a lttle artistic at at home!!!