Alex Dent

Stories by Alex Dent

Alex Dent is an avid crafter with an undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of Cincinnati. Although he has worked in New York, Copenhagen and Los Angeles, he now spends his days in Guntown, Mississippi working, taking classes, and plotting revenge. He is excited about the future.

SHoP, the Future and the Past of Penn Station

Before we talk about the future of Penn Station, we have to briefly consider its past. In 1963, the Penn Station above was demolished. This was after much protest by the architecture community and historic preservationists. The original 1910 structure by McKim, Mead and White exemplified Beaux-Arts architecture and it was razed to make way for the squat concrete cylinder that is Madison Square Garden. This week, the Municipal Art Society of New York released the results of their challenge to four teams of architects to imagine a new future for the site.

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Alex Dent

June 10, 2013 - See more posts by Alex

Your New Handmade Heart

Earlier this month, I watched a team of medical professionals crowd around a table and perform a lung biopsy. When that was finished, the team migrated to the adjacent operating room and completed a coronary bypass procedure on another patient. It was my first time to watch such complex operations, and I was worried that I’d feel lightheaded or get sick at the sight of an open human. But it was awesome.

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Alex Dent

June 7, 2013 - See more posts by Alex

The Draftery

The Draftery is all about contemporary graphic work as it relates to architecture. Mostly concerned with drawings (as distinct from models and renderings) that may be touched up with digital tools but are mostly executed using manual ones. In the Draftery’s own words, their goal is to “promote graphic works by lesser known architects, artists, students, and other practitioners. It is a place for the analysis and presentation of architectural drawings—a place to learn how each practitioner’s personal reasoning develops a distinct process.” And it’s where I found these fantastic watercolors– er, watergrays- by Mentor Noci.

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Alex Dent

June 7, 2013 - See more posts by Alex

Ball-Nogues Studio in Nashville

This past March, Ball-Nogues Studio consumed nearly one million linear feet of metal chain. Well, they didn’t eat it, they used it in their projects. I’ve been thinking about the studio’s work since we posted about the handmade work of THiNG THiNG, which reminds me of B-N’s paper pulp experiments. More broadly, the firm has an approach to craft that seems appropriate to point out during a week devoted to things handmade… plus they have a great new project.

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Alex Dent

June 6, 2013 - See more posts by Alex

Making Crystals, Making Music and Making a Flamboyantly Saturated Universe by Hand

To follow-up on the watercolor music video that Bobby posted earlier this week, here’s another music video that uses colored water in a completely different way. It’s actually a fun experiment that involves mixing together Jon Hopkins, Linden Gledhill and Craig Ward. You might not hypothesize that the three men (a musician, a biochemist turned photographer and an art director, respectively) would mix well together because of their distinctly different expertise, but what comes of their collaboration is really stunning.

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Alex Dent

June 5, 2013 - See more posts by Alex