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Westbund, Shanghai

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Flat Iron: High and Low

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Stations House

Chrome House

Endspace

Duration House

No Style House

J Shaped Glass House

Vittorio Plastici

Torus House

Double Dihedral House

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Mathamatics Daycare

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Bell Seong Architecture 

Founded in 2010. Eunjeong Seong joined Michael Bell to re-launch and expand the practice Bell founded in 1989. 
Bell had founded his practice at Berkeley basing it subsequently in San Francisco, Houston and New York City prior to 2010. 

Visible Weather 

A collaborative founded in 2011 to work with partners in energy, engineering, materials science and advanced manufacturing. 

Our partners have included Arup, Buro Happold, Transsolar, Lafarge, Oldcastle Glass and advanced manufacturing companies in the Bay Area. 

 
 
 
Michael Bell Sze Tsung Leong Robert Smithson Lars Lerup Stan Allen Steven Holl Jesse Reiser Rebecca Mendez Mark Wamble Dana Cuff
 
The design concept for a thermally sensitive cover - Slow Space -  by Rebeca Méndez, responded to the book's content and contributors. 

Released 20 years ago this year Slow Space was edited by Michael Bell and Sze Tsung Leong and featured writing and projects by: 

Lars Lerup, Álvaro Siza, Peter Testa, Robert Smithson, Michael Bell, Dana Cuff, Durham Crout, Sze Tsung Leong, Mark Wamble, RAAUm (Jesse Reiser, Polly Apfelbaum, Stan Allen, Nanako Umemoto), Greg Lynn, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Elizabeth Burns Gamard, Adi Shamir Zion, Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray, Yung-Ho Chang, Stanley Saitowitz, Steven Holl, Farès el-Dahdah, Karen Bermann, Jeanine Centuori, and Julieanna Preston, Rebeca Méndez and Aaron Betsky. 

Published by Monacelli Press with critical editorial support by Gianfranco Monacelli and Andrea Monfried. 

 
 
16 Houses: Owning a House in the City 

16 Houses opened at Diverse Works in Houston in 1998. 22 years ago. Working with the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation  (FWCRC) - a non-profit builder whose team had made incredible strides in housing in the neighborhood - we proposed 16 unique houses that could be realized by the FWCRC. With support from an array of partners we opened the exhibition, held community discussions, took seven of the works through contract documents and pricing and published the work for Monacelli Press. We were grateful to: the Graham Foundation,  the Local Initiative Support Corporation, the FWCRC founders Rev. Harvey Clemons and Stephan Fairfield, Mardie Oakes of the FWCRC who served as partner and client. And especially Emily Todd, Executive Director at Diverse Works (who mopped the floors with me on opening night). 

 

 
 
 
Dezeen, May 7, 2019. Jenna McKinight documents the newly updated Binocular House for Dezeen. LINK
Originally completed in 2007 the Binocular House is being updated and its grounds newly designed by Field Operations.

 
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong Binocular House Ghent New York MoMA
 
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong Glass House Ghent MoMA Philip Gefter Richard Press
 
Housing and Urbanism 

 

Michael Bell has focused on housing and urbanization over a period of more than 25 years. Bell has sought to bring innovation to housing and to open new paths for affordability and design in projects for Houston, Texas and New York City; and with Seong for sites in Tampa, Florida and in new prototypes developed with industry partners in Silicon Valley. 

Bell and Seong have been commissioned for housing design and research by the Museum of Modern Art and Bell's earlier Fifth Ward - Houston-based work was included in MoMA's "Un-Private House" exhibition. 

Bell was a frequent guest on Chris Hays "Up With Chris Hays" MSNBC program to discuss Bell-Seong work and issues of gentrification, walkable cities, energy and new forms of financing for housing. 

Bell directed the "housing studios" at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning for more than a decade and teaches courses that focus on housing. Seong focuses on housing and urbanization at Pratt Institute. 


 

Simultaneous City: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream
Commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art
Michael Bell, Eunjeong Seong, Visible Weather

 

Simultaneous City, Temple Terrace, Florida
"12 hours in 7 minutes 7 seconds"
Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong


Foreclosed : Rehousing the American Dream
The Museum of Modern Art









 

Simultaneous City, Temple Terrace, Florida
"Four months in 13 minutes  3 seconds"
Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong

Foreclosed : Rehousing the American Dream
The Museum of Modern Art




 

Simultaneous City: Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream
Commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art
Michael Bell, Eunjeong Seong, Visible Weather
A Ross Dackow directed short documentary on our proposal for Temple Terrace, Florida. 

Dackow's video was unscripted - members of the office each explain work in progress. 

 The project was supported by Roseanne Haggerty, Nadine Maleh, Peter Hance, Brian Loughlin, 
as well as Transsolar (Matthias Schuler, Erik Olsen), Buro Happold (Mark Malekshahi), and Arup (Zachary Kostura).

 
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong MoMA Museum of Modern Art Housing
Simultaneous City: Museum of Modern Art: 2012
 
 
Recent News and Lectures

 
 
 
 
SCI Arc has recently posted lecture archives on Youtube. In 1994 I had the honor of speaking at SCI Arc soon after moving from Berkeley and San Francisco to Houston. A move from the College of Environmental Design at Berkeley to Rice University School of Architecure. This lecture was introduced by Aaron Betsky. A later lecture at SCI Arc was introduced by Eric Owen Moss. Posted with apprecation of SCI Arc and its influence in giving space to work out ideas in a critical yet generous setting. 

 
New York: Michael Bell will speak at the AIA New York on November 19. The event will be a round-table discussion and launch for Log 47: Overcoming Carbon Form, a guest-edited issue that reevaluates architecture’s role in climate change. The discussion will be moderated by Cynthia Davidson, editor of Log, and will include Elisa Iturbe, guest-editor, Daniel Barber, Associate Professor at UPenn, and Michael Bell, Principal at Bell-Seong Architecture and Professor at Columbia University. Eunjeong Seong and Michael Bell contributed the essay “Encrypting the Sun: Housing after Banking” to Log 47.  LINK


 
New York: Eunjeong Seong will offer a lecture on our forthcoming book, Housing After Banking: Encrypting the Sun, at Pratt Institute on April 8, 2019. The lecture is followed by a panel discussion with professors Frederick Biehle, Lawrence Blough, and John Szot. LINK

 
New York: Pratt Sessions #14: Michael Bell + Greg Lynn, at Pratt Institute School of Architecture,  March 7, 2019. LINK

 
New York: Michael Bell will speak at the "Acts of Design: New Housing Paridigms in North America" at Columbia University, GSAPP. November 16, 2018. LINK

 
Ann Arbor: Michael Bell speaks at the "Shaping Future Cities" at the University of Michigan. November 9, 2018 LINK

 
Scottsdale, Arizona: Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong will join the Taliesin West Lecture Forum on January 30, 2018. LINK

 
Hudson Valley, New York: The Binocular House lanscaping has been expanded and completed with design by Field Operations. 

 
San Francisco: Michael Bell presented research at the California College of Arts confrence "Designing Material Innovaiton" on October 26/27, 2018. The conference accompanied an exhibition of the same name curated at CCA by Jonathan Massey. LINK

 
Detroit: Michael Bell presented new housing + mobility reseach by Bell-Seong at the Stanford University, Center for Design Research and Royal Dutch Shell "Futures Forum" at the North American International Auto Show. LINK and LINK

 
San Francisco: Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong offered a lecture titled "Engineering after Risk" at CCA. February 2017 . LINK

 
Detroit: Michael Bell presented new housing + mobility reseach by Bell-Seong at the Stanford University, Center for Design Research and Royal Dutch Shell "Futures Forum" at the North American International Auto Show. LINK and LINK

 
New York: Up with Chris Hayes: August 25, 2012.  Michael Bell was a guest with Ta-Nehisi Coates for Up with Chris Hayes. A discusison of gentrication in United States cities and the role of public policy in how cities change. LINK

 
The Art of Foreclosure
Alex Ulam, The Nation discusses
Bell Seong, Simultaneous City
MoMA
Fox Business News
April 9, 2012

 
International Design Conference Aspen: Poster by MADXS / Erik Adigard and Patricia McShane. The 1999 conference was organized by Aaron Betsky. I recently asked Erik and Patricia if they had an image of the poster and graphic identity they created. We all spoke at the conference and I recall in particular Bill Joy, founder, Sun Microsytems and Craig Kanarick, founder of Razorfish. Many of us had spent three days at a retreat hosted by SFMoMA in 1996 titled "The Mouse, the House and the City" -- Nolan Bushnell, founder, Atari, hosted us at Stinson Beach to discuss the emerging effects of the internet on the future of the city -- on urbanism. Erik at the time was helping design Wiredintroductory spreads and this poster shows the crossover. At Rice a great deal of work cities and architecture was being done by many of us who had moved from San Francisco and Berkeley.

 
 
Selected Projects

 
Foreclosed MoMA Rehousing the American Dream Michael Bell
 
 
Shanghai, China
Westbund Galleries, Shanghia, China. One of twelve new galleries that comprise an extended museum and the first West Bund Biennale.  The twelve new buildings are sited along the Huangpu River adjacent to the new DreamWorks animation campus. Bell and Seong were commissioned along with Wang Shu, Anton Abril, Yung Ho Chang, Atelier Bow Wow, Li Hu, and Mark Lee/JohnstonMarkLee.

Visible Weather - Reserach, Materials and Structure

 
 
Post Construction Analysis - Assembly
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong Housing After Banking Encrypting the Sun
Housing After Banking (forthcoming)
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong Housing After Banking Encrypting the Sun
Housing After Banking (forthcoming)
Housing After Banking (forthcoming)
bell seong glass solar energy pre fab
Housing After Banking (forthcoming)
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong Shanghai Yung Ho Chang Glass Westbund
Westbund Gallery, Shanghai, China
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong MoMA Barry Bergdoll Reinhold Martin Foreclosed MOS Work AC Jeannie Gang Buell Center Hypothesis Visible Weather Columbia University Zago
Simultaneous City, Museum of Modern Art
Michael Bell Architect Glass House Metropolitan Home
Glass House @ 2 Degrees: Fifth Ward CRC, Houston, Texas
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong Richard Press Philip Gefter MoMA Glass House Mark Armenante Young Sohn
Binocular House
Mihcael Bell Architect New Mexico
Double Dihedral House: La Cienega, New Mexico
Michael Bell Far Rockaway Housing New York City
Arverne by the Sea: New York Department of Housing, Preservation and Development, New York City
 
 

California, Texas, New York is a collection of projects assembled in 2002. This folio was the precursor to the later book project "Space Replaces Us". 

 
 
 

Binocular House 2018: Assembly and Components

A post construction study of the assembly and components with a focus on assembly process, part count, weight and materials. 


 

 
 

FEA: An Analysis of Villa Bianchi, 1936, and Palazzo Littorio, Scheme A, 1934 (Giuseppe Terragni); and the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris (Henri Labrouste) using finite element analysis. 

The analysis focused on major and seemingly minor aspects of the architect's work and shows where structural and mechanical/material concerns are conflated as design, material and engineering. 

Did Terragni in effect design within the imminent and potential energy of a literal and optically failing structure? Does the leaf pattern in the iron work of Herni Labrouste’s masterpiece delimit stress in the iron and in effect render the structure as an arch? 

Research presented at: 

The Museum of Modern Art, March 28, 2013, in conjunction with the exhibition Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light.

The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, October, 8 and 15, 2013. 

Pratt Institute School of Architecture in a joint lecture with Greg Lynn. March 7, 2019. 


Research by: Michael Bell, Eunjeong Seong. Team: Hyon Woo Chung and Junggu Kim.  Thanks to Zachary Kostura. 
 


 
 

Publications - Books



 
Michael Bell, Author's Page, Amazon

 
Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong MoMA Tesla housing after banking encrypting the sun
forthcoming: Housing after Banking: Encrypting the Sun by Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong

Permanent Change Michael Bell MoMA GSAPP Colummbia Eunjeong Seong Greg Lynn Slyvia Lavin Mark Wigley Beatriz Colomina  Bill Peason North Sails Felcity Scott Francois Roche Johan Bettum

Permanent Change: Plastics in Architecture and Engineering, by Michael Bell and Craig Buckley.  Princeton Architectural Press, 2014.


Michael Bell, Eunjeong Seong, Craig Buckeley, Post Ductility, Metals in Architecture, Columbia GSAPP, Rafael Moneo, Steven Holl, Laurie MOS, Ana Miljacki, Steven Holl, Mark Wigley, Sylvia Lavin, Jorge Otero Pailos

Post Ductility: Metals in Architecture and Engineering, by Michael Bell and Craig Buckley.  Princeton Architectural Press, 2010.


Solid States: Concrete in Transition Bell

Solid States: Concrete in Transition, by Michael Bell and Craig Buckley.  Princeton Architectural Press, 2010.


Engineered Transparency Michael Bell Architect

Engineered Transparency: The Technical, Visual, and Spatial Effects of Glass; Michael Bell and Jeannie Kim.  Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.


Michael Bell: Space Replaces Us: Essays and Projects on the City. The Monacelli Press, 2004.


16 Houses Michael Bell Fifth Ward MoMA

16 Houses: Designing the Public's Private House by Michael Bell. The Monacelli Press, 2004


Slow Space Sze Tsung Leong Houston urbanism planning

Slow Space, Edited by Michael Bell and Sze Tsung Leong. Monacelli Press 1998.


Stanley Saitowitz Michael Bell Architect

Stanley Saitowitz: Architecture at Rice, 33. Edited and with an introduction by Michael Bell. Princeton Architectural Press


 
 

Selected Design and Research Publications


 
 
See Research

“Ten Points on a Projective Economy and Architecture” by Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong. Under Pressure, Essays on Urban Housing

Edited By Hina Jamelle, University of Pennsylvania and Routledge, 2021 


 
Log: Overcoming Carbon Form Bell Seong Davidson Iturbe Energy House Tesla
Log: Overcoming Carbon Form Bell Seong Davidson Energy Tesla
Michael Bell reviews Lateness, by Peter Eisenman with Elisa Iturbe for CAA and Taylor and Francisc. 2021. LINK

"Encrypting the Sun: Housing after Banking" by Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong is published in Log: 47: Overcoming Carbon Form.  
Edited by Cynthia Davidson and Guest Editor Elisa Iturbe. Available November 2019. LINK

“Encrypting the Sun; Housing after Banking” completes a trilogy of essays that preview a book of the same name -- Housing after Banking. The essays include:

“Cities of Clarified Energy: Houston and Palo Alto” as published in TAD: The Journal of Technology | Architecture & Design,  Taylor and Francis. Issue 1, April 2017. LINK

“Standardizing Heterogeneity: Public Housing and the Absent(ed) Architect” as published in Architectural Design: Mass Customized Cities, edited by Tom Verebes, London, 2015. LINK
 

Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong Technology Architecture Design TAD Tesla Powerwall Stanford Richard Bender Amale Andraos Mike Pilliod Wills Sweney
TAD: The Journal of Technology | Architecture & Design, Issue 1 | VIRAL: Information Technology as Prophet, Panacea, or Pariah? “Powerwall” | By Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong

Michael Bell Eunjeong Seong Glass House MoMA Bergdoll Martin Simultaneous City Kostura Schuler ARUP Buro Happold Columbia GSAPP
Architectural Design: AD: Mass Customized Cities, Fall 2015, edited by Tom Verebes. Includes essay by Michael Bell and architectural and urban design by Michael Bell and Eunjeong Seong.

Michael Bell, Eunjeong Seong, Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, Foreclosed, Simultaneous City, Buell Center, Committee on Global Thought
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream is an exploration of new architectural possibilities for American cities and suburbs in the aftermath of the recent foreclosure crisis in the United States. During the summer of 2011, five interdisciplinary teams of architects, urban planners, ecologists, engineers and landscape designers were enlisted by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and MoMA PS1 to envision new housing infrastructures that could catalyze urban transformation, particularly in the country's suburbs. Drawing on ideas proposed in The Buell Hypothesis, a research publication prepared by the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University, each team focused on a specific location within a "megaregion" to come up with inventive solutions for the future of housing and cities. This publication presents each of these proposals (exhibited at MoMA in Spring 2012) in detail, through photographs, drawings and renderings as well as interviews with the team leaders. With texts by Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, Henry N. Cobb, a founding partner of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Reinhold Martin, Director of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center, Foreclosed examines the relationship between land, infrastructure and urban form, exploring potential futures for America's extended metropolises.

Michael Bell Architect Casabella Glass House
Casabella, Volume 777. "Una casa sull' Hudson," By Joan Ockman.
Gefter-Press House included with Double Dihedral House and Glass House at 2 Degrees.
Milan, Italy.

Photography by Richard Barnes and Bilyana Dimitrova.

Kenneth Frampton Binocular House Michael Bell
American Masterworks: Houses of the Twentieth & Twenty-first Centuries by Kenneth Frampton and David Larkin.
Gefter-Press House included in collection.
Rizzoli, New York

Photography by Richard Barnes.
Michael Bell Architect Glass House
Currents | Books: 11 More Great Homes by Elaine Louie, The New York Times, January 7, 2009


Robert Stern Michael Bell New York 2000
New York: 2000, Architecture and Urbanism from the Bicentennial to the Millennium by Robert A.M. Stern, David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove
The anthology and analysis of New York City presents Stateless Housing and urban design and planning for the New York City Department of Housing, Preservation and Development.

Michael Bell Architect Glass House Metropolitan Home
How We Live: Free and Clear By Karrie Jacobs.
Gefter-Press House with RU 128 by Werner Sobek and Philip Johnson Glass House.

Metropolis Michael Bell Stephen Zacks Gefter Press
The Gefter-Press House is featured in Metropolis, January 2008 and online at Metroplis. Article by Stephen Zacks. Photography by Bilyana Dimirova.
Philip Johnson Michael Bell Glass House Moleskin Sketchbook
The Glass House Moleskine Sketchbook produced for Philip Johnson Glass House in 2008.  Includes Gefter-Press House drawing.

Michael Bell Architect Bomb Magazine Far Rockaway Interview
Michael Bell interview by Andrew Benjamin; BOMB, New York; Summer 2004 
Bomb 88 Contents

Michael Bell Architect
Design Review: "Drop-Dead Beauty and Luxe, With an Intimate Index of Change" By Roberta Smith. Published: July 2, 1999

"It should be pointed out that there are exceptions to the general spare-no-expense atmosphere. Michael Bell's 900-square-foot ''Glass House @ 2degrees'' may resemble Philip Johnson's glass house, but it was designed to conform to the strict requirements of a Federal housing program for the Fifth Ward of Houston." "They are beautiful esthetic objects, but with the exception of Mr. Bell's glass house and possibly Mr. Denari's metal one, none could be a prototype for a larger community."




MoMA Un Private House Michael Bell
Glass House @ 2 Degrees, The Un-Private House, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
32 Holl Bell Chang Beijing New York Architecture
32 -  Beijing / New York. Issue 1-7: founding editors  Michael Bell, Steven Holl, Yung Ho Chang. Princeton Architectural Press.
16 Houses Michael Bell Fifth Ward MoMA
The Houston Press: Not Your Standard Issue: Architects design one-of-a-kind houses for the Fifth Ward, trying to prove that even lower-end houses don't have to be a cookie-cutter box.
By Lisa Gray. Published: November 9, 2000

Also see: Home Despots:
DiverseWorks, architects offer better living through architecture, By Shaila Dewan. Published on November 19, 1998

 





The Columbia Conference on Architecture, Engineering and Materials

A four-part collaboration and series of conferences / books and films examining the state of materials in architecture and engineering.
Convened by: The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), 
and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Department of Civil Engineering 
and Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University.
Michael Bell, Founder and Conference Chair

 
 
Permanent Change Michael Bell Architect Columbia GSAPP
Permanent Change:
Plastics in Architecture and Engineering
The Fourth Columbia Conference on Architecture, Engineering and Materials.
Permanent Change was convened In collaboration with: The Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK), 
University of Stuttgart, Germany. 
March 30 - April 1, 2011
Link: PDF of Program

 
Post Ductility Michael Bell Columbia GSAPP
Post Ductility:
Metals in Architecture and Engineering
The Third Columbia Conference on Architecture, Engineering and Materials.
September 30 - October 2, 2009
Link: PDF of Program

 
Solid States: 
Changing Time for Concrete
The Second Columbia Conference on Architecture, Engineering and Materials.October 1-3, 2008
Link: PDF of Program

 
Engineered Transparency Michael Bell Columbia GSAPP Oldcastle Glass Gefter Press House
Engineered Transparency: 
Glass in Architecture and Structural Engineering
The First Columbia Conference on Architecture, Engineering and Materials.
September 23-28, 2007
Link: PDF of Program: Documentary Film: Michael Blackwood Productions

 

Housing Studios

Columbia University


 
 
Columbia University GSAPP:  Project on Housing: Excerpt from ABSTRACT: GSAPP

Columbia University GSAPP:  Housing Studio: Fall 2010

Columbia University GSAPP:  Housing Studios: Archive of Selected Studios

Columbia University GSAPP:  Housing Studios 2008: Journal Square, Jersey City

Columbia University GSAPP:  Housing Studio 2009: Hunters Point South NYC