This cruise came up as a Modernism Week offering in Palm Springs. We've seen a lot of the things on the itinerary but if we're ever around this area I would love to see this building! It seems part of the design is to have the air circulating like in a traditional casbah. I'm sure it works brilliantly.
We stayed with a colleague of Jim's in Mexico and the house had a inner courtyard and it was all designed to get the air circulating up the three floors of the house. It was an old house and we were amazed how well this system worked. The bedroom we had was on the ground floor. Our hosts had renovated their bedroom at the top and told us they had ruined the natural circulation in doing so. They were sweltering!
We're into our first summer in our new place and things are working out quite well with fans and the cross draft and using the vertical blinds when the sun is beating in on certain windows. It's amazing what you can do with low tech. In Palm Springs we rarely turn on the AC but we do have ceiling fans in all rooms and we have overhanging roofs that serve to cut out a lot of the heat. Of course, the AC would have to be used constantly in the summer...after all, it is a desert!
https://www.modernismweekly.com/2018/07/05/modernism-week-at-sea/
Projecting from the cliffs on the border of the Mediterranean in Spain, La Muralla Roja (The Red Wall), is a bold apartment block with breathtaking seaside views. Completed in 1968, Ricardo Bofill designed this playfully erratic fortress and almost 50 years later it’s still stealing our attention. At first glance it’s easy to get lost in the labyrinth of this haphazard design, layers of geometric stairwells, winding thoroughfares and castle-like turrets jolt the eye from one architectural element to another. However boisterous its personality may seem, its layout strictly confirms to the precise typology of the Greek cross. Each arm of the cross intersecting at the service towers that contain kitchens and bathrooms. Heavily influenced by the architecture of the Arab Mediterranean Area, this housing project is a modern interpretation of a typical casbah – think nostalgically back to Disney’s Aladdin and its walled citadel housing style. Characterised by its modern take on the traditional circulation of a casbah, a playground of interlocking stairs, platforms and bridges provide access to all 50 apartments in the complex. The apartments are varying sizes of 60, 80 or 120 square meters and contain one, two or three bedrooms.
Source: https://www.yellowtrace.com.au/ricardo-bofill-la-muralla-roja-spain/
