Hope you had a wonderful christmas! I know mine was great! It was a bit hectic, with my family and extended families living all over the place and us doing some hardcore traveling, but I had so much fun. I laughed so much and so hard I totally got a couple of asthma attacks (not kidding!)!
And it only got better when I discovered on Saturday that
WE MADE THE ARCHITIZER GINGERBREAD COMPETITION TOP 10!!!!!!!!
And it only got better when I discovered on Saturday that
WE MADE THE ARCHITIZER GINGERBREAD COMPETITION TOP 10!!!!!!!!
Let me explain. Last year, we made this:
Upon seeing a photo of this little gingerbread house on Facebook, my friend Max commented I should enter the Architizer Gingerbread Competition next year. Architizer is the largest online platform for architecture and design. I'm an avid reader of Architizer, but somehow I missed the Gingerbread Competition notice. I was a bit bummed, but decided I should enter in 2013.
And so we did.
I had a difficult time deciding what we should make, as last year's winner made such a beautiful and very cool gingerbread house. One of our favourite buildings is the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, so I thought we should just make that. Only a more christmassy version ;)
And so we did.
I had a difficult time deciding what we should make, as last year's winner made such a beautiful and very cool gingerbread house. One of our favourite buildings is the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, so I thought we should just make that. Only a more christmassy version ;)
This is the Barcelona Pavilion from the inside, photo taken last year...
The Barcelona Pavilion is a bit of a pain to make, because in real life it's about 50m long and only 11m wide, which makes scaling difficult as you easily get a model that's either too long (what in the world should you use as a base to make it on?) or too small in general. Also, I couldn't find a proper drawing with dimensions on the interwebz, so we had to draw everything ourselves.
Then I made about 2kgs of gingerbread dough from scratch
Made cookies from leftover dough. Then overbaked them, so did not get to eat cookies :(
 |  |
Then made all the furniture and trees and stuff from fondant. I tried to make a Santa as a fun reference to the statue outside, but I made it too small and realised quickly how fidgety making a tiny Santa really is and got impatient and frustrated so gave up on Santa haha.
Made some white + blue icing (and found some red icing in a cupboard) annnndddd, finally it was time to assemble the thing!
Yes, there's snow inside of the pavilion :P
Finished result!
To be honest.. I didn't think we would finish it. It took so much longer than I expected, and we had so little time (what with all the other christmas preparations, grocery shopping, gift shopping, dinner hosting). I also imagined it with more trees in the background and maybe some ice skaters, but quickly gave up on those ideas. And then the roof (about 20x30cm) was collapsing and gave me a slight heart attack!
I was pleased it was finished enough to send it in though, haha.
To be honest.. I didn't think we would finish it. It took so much longer than I expected, and we had so little time (what with all the other christmas preparations, grocery shopping, gift shopping, dinner hosting). I also imagined it with more trees in the background and maybe some ice skaters, but quickly gave up on those ideas. And then the roof (about 20x30cm) was collapsing and gave me a slight heart attack!
I was pleased it was finished enough to send it in though, haha.
And then we made the top 10! We didn't win (obviously, I mean, this year's winners made the Guggenheim! Absolutely gorgeous, ours was enormously less detailed and... pretty), but I was so excited to get a mention!
To be honest: to get mentioned on Architizer, even if it's not for a proper architecture project, makes me a tiiiiiny bit proud, haha. And to read that the jury thought our Barcelona chairs were adorable makes me so happy! So yeah. This christmas was a pretty succesful one!
And next year... We reeeeally have to up our game!
To be honest: to get mentioned on Architizer, even if it's not for a proper architecture project, makes me a tiiiiiny bit proud, haha. And to read that the jury thought our Barcelona chairs were adorable makes me so happy! So yeah. This christmas was a pretty succesful one!
And next year... We reeeeally have to up our game!