Munich - 2010-7-3

Just a random lazy walking around day.

Germany beating the crap out of Argentina in the World Cup.

Berlin - 2010-6-28

A cemetery in Kreuzberg - Friedhöfe vor dem Halleschen Tor... I think.

The Velodrome - self portrait.

Munich Dachau - 2010-7-2

I went to Dachau. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting - it just wasn't that horrifying, that is, until I went to the cremation sheds.

The "shower."

Among the upsetting things about the whole camp was the obvious amount of technical prowess that went into building something like this. This combined with that fact that Dachau is really not that far from Munich makes it seems rather obvious that the whole country knew what was up.

Work makes free.

Munich - Day 27 - 2010-6-27

Marienplatz in Munich late at night. I just like their UBahn system.

Brandhorst Museum by Sauerbruch Hutton, the same firm that did the GSW building. I really like this firm. This building has colored vertical strips of terracotta cladding covering a perforated metal rainscreen underneath.

This is the most complex shading system I've ever seen. It even tops the GSW building. Vertical fritted glass panels rotate to regulate incoming light while a metal grating provides a fixed shade, ventilation, and a walkable surface...

... then on the inside automated louvers that wrap around both vertical and horizontal surfaces, in this case the ceiling, adjust to bring in the perfect light. A very impressive feat of both engineering and design.

The inside is muted (which I think is great for presenting art), very well lite, the rooms are all the appropriate size (unlike a certain addition in Chicago by Piano), and the detailing is well done - down to some mitered edges on a continuous running vent near the wall that wraps around the room.

This is Funf Hofe Shopping Center by Herzog and De Meuron. It's a bunch of old buildings combined, refitted, and added to new buildings to form a partly covered partly open shopping space with multiple looks.

Munich - Day 26 - 2010-6-26

Frei Otto's and Gunter Behnisch's 1972 Olympic Games Tent. The entire roof is a sort of plexiglass held up as a tension net or tensegrity.

We may have hopped a few... "barriers."

This is year old student housing that I found really interesting. In an area no bigger than 4 or 5 acres there was enough housing for 1,200 people... so about 300 people per acre. That's the same density as Hong Kong but done with dual story single residences.

It's all precast concrete. The units are small, most have green roofs. The pathway between the buildings in no more than 2 m wide.

BMW Welt (world) by Coop Himmelblau.

Allianz Arena by Herzog and de Meuron. The outside is inflated bubbles that can be lit from the inside and change color.

My crazy Brazilians in front of the Munich Rathaus (town hall - I know, the irony). They're a blast.

Cologne - Day 25 - 2010-6-25

A department store by Renzo Piano.

This is a suspended glass staircase designed by James Carpenter inside of Deutsche Post.

Murphy/Jahn's Deutsche Post building.

Interesting retro photo website called Myparentswereawesome about peoples parents before they got married.

Apple is getting sued over a typical design flaw-cover up that they're denying. Basically when held a certain way the new iPhone 4 drops calls and Apple is refusing and sort of refund at the moment.

France is trying its hand at a sort of affirmative action that would bump the number of underprivileged/minority students from 10 to 30% at its top Ecoles. Which, by the way, if you get into you're basically guaranteed a good job for life. What I find interesting is that throughout the article the French repeatedly refer to their country as the most fair free place on earth... really? I got a real sense of racism and caste there - even from the young - that doesn't exist in the US.

Scientists have made the worlds most powerful xray that they are using to probe single atoms. They're trying to essentially take time lapse videos of how atoms behave in a number of ways but currently are running into problems of you know... the laser vaporizing the atom. This has huge implications for science though.

Wired runs an interesting series of cockpit photos.

Google purchases a travel search data aggregation company started by MIT scientists that is used by Bing, Kayak, and the like... oh, for $700 million. The FTC still has to okay the deal.

Munich - 2010-7-1

Marienplatz with the rathaus (government... civic center?) in the background.


I actually saw people doing this to their beer to keep it cold.


Beer garden at Andechs. It's an ancient monastery on top of a really large hill in the Bavarian countryside. Their specialty is a doppelbock served in the typical beer garden "Mass" - that is - 1L.



Beer garden in Munich.