This book actually made my day when I received it in mail this Wednesday. It’s not only the colors (eye candies) and the short introduction made by the author , but the interview itself was created in a manner that could make me forget for a moment that I’m an adult. As you can see in the image above, the book was printed in 25 different color background, and as we are already accustomed from allied operations the intention was to make the each reader think different.

The Review

I loved the short note found on the book and I take the liberty to post a part of it here since I believe it should have made it in the actual introduction of the book:

IF YOU LIKE “THE LITTLE PRINCE” THEN YOU MAY LOVE MY STORY

The above statement was so strong, and it actually prepared me for the read, expecting something a little abstract, and funny and of course sensitive and creative. I was not disappointed. I actually remembered how I was as a kid: strange, with my own world and always creating my own mind games and toys…

Interviewer and DS

The one interviewing Delicious Storm (DS), is “Socrates” (a persona resembling the well known greek philosopher that used to ask a series of questions not only to draw individual answers, but as well to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand).  Although Socrates asks only 17 questions, it is enough to discover a different way of thinking, and to get into the brains of the Delicious Storm, and his vision on architecture, and thought creation.

[Show as slideshow]

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Likings

What I liked most in this short book (only 37 pages with lots of images and aired spaces) is the fact that in a world conducted by egotism, greed and money, there is still a honest interest found in some individuals that try to look at the world from a different perspective(s) every time they work on an architectural project, showing people that “HOW we live in our houses is as important as the furniture we fill it with. It all has to do with degrees of perception.” – DS

The whole concept of this book is in my opinion to get the reader (mostly architects) to rediscover their creative side, a side that can become “dumb” as we grow old and forget to PLAY, and let their imagination fly.

Dislikings

What I didn’t like … because there is a side that’s very ugly about this book… is the fact that it ends so fast, I read the whole thing in 25 minutes (time including gazing at the pictures).

Final Thoughts

But even though the book is short, I think it will change you as an architect, and make you think different about our job, not only as designers of buildings, but as storytellers. Because each and every project, is in itself a story we have to tell the world (a story they hear every time they look at our creations).

This book can help you become a better storyteller, so give it a shot, you won’t regret you did.

Allied Operations, a group of design professionals based in New York, is selected as one of the Bathing Beauties.

Their beach hut model “Magic is in the Air” will be featured in Bathing Beauties’ exhibition at the Scarborough Art Gallery in the UK, 13 March – 20 Sept 2010

For more information about exhibition, check out Scarborough Art Gallery

Allied Operations - "Magic is in the Air"

Organization: Allied Operations
Design team: Sangmok Kim, Si-Yeon Min
Location: Lincolnshire coast, UK
Program: Beach Hut
Site area: scale less sqm
Building area: 110sqm
Total floor area: 110 sqm

Project description and concept:

‘Magic Is In the Air’

A beach is magic: water, waves, sand, grass, sun, and wind collectively conjure up an ethereal landscape, where  everything is in motion.

So – why should a beach hut alone stand still against all of this? Can it stop being a lonely, man-made artifice and become part of the magic movement of nature?

We propose a tumbling beach hut, shaped as a crooked conical hat. Its form derives from the magic hat of a wizard – a wizard of the old English myths.

With a single D20 stainless steel spiral pipe covered by high-performance PTFE textile (a lightweight fabric woven entirely from high-strength polytetrafluoroethylene fibers), it will constantly tumble while balancing itself against the wind. This is the moment when the hut begins to take on a magical life of its own.

It becomes nature.

During the off-season, the temporary nature of the fabric provides users with the flexibility to demount and leave the bare structure behind.

The spiral tumbles on, shifting its identity from private to public. It becomes nature again, open and free for all.

About Allied Operations

Allied Operations began with a few graduates from GSAPP (Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation).

We were hoping to design exercises to keep our brain stimulated after our day-job. Also we were hoping we wouldn’t be CAD monkeys once we were off the clock.

As you may know, most of the Nobel Prizes resulted from people dedicating their lives fully to what they loved, not simply because of some state-of-the-art laboratories.

In keeping with this spirit, we turned our homes into a forge for creativity.

A/O exists on the premise that compounding residual hours of operation in different time zones and extremely cohesive Internet communication is the best way for this design team to execute a project.

We love to say, “Quantity is failure of efficiency, and efficiency, the failure of capitalism.”

A/O operates between these two parameters. We are a humanist operation. As architects, we are brutal, crazy and unconventional.

We approach projects according to their own unique demands and not to some predetermined style requirement.