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2009-12-10T07:01:00.001-08:00

When the Salahi's crashed the State dinner, they not only created Washington's newest verb, to be Salahi'd, it looks like we have a new typeface as well. Sorry, we couldn't resist. Politico article.

Give me an "S!" Give me an "A!" Give me an "L!" Give me an "A", "H," "I!" What did we spell?!

Pursuit of Happiness

2009-12-10T05:59:00.001-08:00

Click to enlarge image

A terrific photo essay by Maira Kalman, who blogs once a month for the New York Times. The subject, Back to the Land, was a Thanksgiving reflection for her NYT blog "And the Pursuit of Happiness." We won't elaborate, but the innovative design graphic with text is a breath of fresh air. And, Alice Waters and democracy get involved.

"The United State of America could be less fastly, fastly and more slowly, slowly."

As far as moving back to the land, a theme in Kalman's essay, we are urbanists. We suggest: Stay in the city. Make your home greener; spend more on real food; enjoy life where you are. Others may differ.

How Not to Take on Climate Change Deniers

2009-12-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

His first words are, "Perhaps I ought not to have accepted the invitation." Gregory Norminton tells the story of appearing at The University of St. Andrews in England to debate climate change. As he explains, his confrontation with the opposition's distortion of known facts turned him into "a bug-eyed fanatic," a mirror image of his foes. We, too, recently confronted a denier at a local meeting and felt the same kind of extreme frustration. What to do? Mr. Norminton speaks:

I can now offer the following hard-won tips for anyone considering debating climate change deniers:

Don’t.
If you must, consider ingesting some form of tranquiliser.
Study the stagecraft of Bernard Manning.
Be up-to-date: know your Aristotle!
No matter the provocation, avoid Nazi analogies like the plague.
Bring plenty of friends.
Just don’t.

Not hopeful.

Advice to a Young Architect

2009-12-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

The brilliant and somewhat adorable, Ma Yansong, 34 year old Chinese architect of renown, and founder of MAD architects, was recently interviewed by DesignBoom. Ma's career is nothing but remarkable. Trained by Yale and Zaha Hadid, he seems to be creating the future with each new, amazing structure. When asked what advice he would give to young architects, he responded:

Don't hesitate.
Make a decision fast. Follow the first 5 seconds instinct.
If you think you need to compare and you hesitate,
then it must be a wrong decision. As in your life one
decision comes after the other and if you realize you do
something wrong, you know it is because of a previous
decision, which was a mistake. I think everyone should
follow their heart. Robert Stern, the Dean of the Arts and
Architecture at Yale says this to all the students on their
graduation day : 'You should forget everything you learned
from school and start on your own. No matter who said
what, you should believe only in yourself'.

We thought this suggestion that one have faith in one's instinctual response was particularly good advice in these cautious times. This "5 seconds instinct" taoism-like exhortation, could also reflect the kind of twitter-world we live in. However, judging from Ma's work, he is at the peak of his form...in some fabulous 5-second increments. We are passing his advice along, on an impulse.

Cut-Ups in New Zealand.

2009-11-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

"Going West" is a beautiful short film illustrating the worlds in a book, incorporating papercraft to make something dreamlike and wonderful. It was animated by Andersen M Studio.

The New Zealand Book Council has produced this intriguing video encouraging, what else, reading. We are told that there are NO computer generated effects! The entire stop-motion animated design is of hand-cut and manipulated papers, producing a dream-like world.

It is hard to imagine that this intricate design is completely handmade. In today's world of computer animation, we think it takes on a very welcoming feel, unlike the computer animation's more slick and forced images. What do you think?

Sarah Susanka Draws the Line

2009-11-18T09:44:00.000-08:00

Sarah Susanka

For all of you who appreciate Sarah Susanka's championing of the "Not So Big"house, you may be happy to know that she is expanding the brand. Susanka has taken houses from the "Not So Big" books and packaged the drawings of them. She is selling those drawings at the website houseplans.com.

Now you can build your own Not So Big house. However the Not So Big drawings are not so cheap, costing $5,000 to $6,500. For individuals who have no wish for a custom home, who can read detailed drawing, who know how to select and bid out a job to qualified contractors, who feel they know the wealth of fixtures and materials to chose from and who are savvy enough manage and respond to the contractor during complexity of construction, this may be a fine solution. For those who are less inclined to take on all of these responsibilities, consider hiring an architect.

Susanka, one of the innovative thinkers in the field of home design, has always emphasized quality over quantity. That's a good reason why many follow her. She has also changed the way people think about the value and integration of space for daily living. Her skill in using color, enhances space in way that is hard to match. Susanka has brought so much to the housing scene. Her success is a tribute to her manner of communicating ideas, as well as the usefulness of them. Susanka is a big gift from the not so big design genie.

Artificial Bio-diversity

2009-11-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

Don't miss the pleasure of Christoph Niemann's newest contribution to his "Abstract City" op ed series for the New York Times. This one has the tongue-in-check title of "Bio-Diversity." It's good news in a world flooded with bad and sad.

Via Guido Reni 10 00196 Rome

2009-11-16T09:20:00.000-08:00

MAXXI Interior

15.11.2009 Rome - Museum of 21st Century public opening

Zaha Hadid, Architect / Designer

Rome's National Museum of 21st Century Contemporary Art and Architecture, whose acronym is MAXXI, was opened to the public yesterday, 15 November 2009. Its official opening will be sometime in 2010, but by all the first reports the space is stunning. Baghdad-born, London-based, and first woman to win the coveted Pritzker Prize, Zaha Hadid, is the building's architect. To some, this seems like Rome's Bilbao moment.

The building required 51,000 tons of concrete and steel, and $203 million of construction dollars. This wonderful Flickr slideshow gives you a good look at the structure from the eye-popping photos it has already inspired. Jay Merrick of The Independent in the UK (which actually has a daily section devoted to architecture), made these comments in this article after a recent visit:

The sweeping geometry of its form and its internal configuration are almost baroque in the way they modulate volume, light and glimpsed views. Exterior spaces are intertwined, sometimes dramatically, at other times with an almost graceful restraint. Inside, the drama is much more visceral. Heavy black staircases, underlit by white lightboxes, rise as if in flowing oriental brush strokes into the overlapping volumes of the gallery spaces. We seem to be in an Expressionist film set.

I have read that the sometimes languid, sometimes fiery, Hadid dislikes handrails. In some of the photos, you can detect the recessed handrails she brought to the design in the main halls. This comment is not meant to be trivial. It is an attempt to consider the mind-busting thought that goes into the details of ground breaking projects like this one.

Hadid was awarded this project over a decade ago, long before she became an international icon for architecture, much like Gehry's relationship to Bilbao. There will be more news to come on this project, but you can say, for now, that Hadid has taken Rome.

New York Times article
Design Museum, British Council, Biography/Comments
Design Boom article
Lofta.com - good review and photos
Zaha Hadid Project: Painting as Building
Wiki: Zaha Hadid

Monday Morning Graffiti

2009-11-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

Holding up the city’s shaky infrastructure.
You can find Argentine, Gualicho’s website here. (Photo by celso_nyc.)

Get to Know a Graffiti Artist:

"Gualicho was born in Buenos Aires. Though he has lived in this city all his life, he’s one of several artists constantly on the move. He has recently traveled and painted walls all over South and Central America. He began painting graffiti in 1998 and, from 2006 onwards, he’s been using the pseudonym “Gualicho”. His art is very distinctive and colourful. He creates new worlds by inter-connecting animals, plants and machines, also retro-futurist cities and ambiguous characters which reflect archetypes within human beings. He draws upon influences such as folk art, religious icons, comic graphics and 60s psychedelia, together with his own urban heritage on graffiti culture, comic, tattoo, skate and rock. He defines his style as post or neo-graffiti, though he also works vastly on canvas, paper and other materials. Since 2001 he co-manages Barfuss, an animation studio, where he has created pieces for several international companies."

via Escape Into Life
Flickr photo stream slideshow here

Don't let green get you down.

2009-10-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

credit:stephencaver.com

Friday thoughts: If you are like us, some days you get tired of fighting the green fight. There is a sense of despair when you see the people in the car in front of you heaving their fast food wrappers and cups out the window as they drive through your city at 50 miles an hour. There is the sense of anger when you watch one more cigarette butt tossed on the sidewalk, because you know it has a biodegradable life span of 400 years and it is going to wind up in our oceans. Plastic bottles? We can't even go there. Restaurants packaging food in Styrofoam? Why?! Then there is the unfathomable results of a recent Pew study showing that the number of Americans who believe there is solid evidence for global warming is at its lowest point in three years. These things wear you down little by little.

But we found some good news today. We thought we would share it to cheer you and ourselves up:

82 percent of Americans say they are still buying green products and services today, which sometimes cost more, according to a 2009 study commissioned by Green Seal and EnviroMedia Social Marketing.

More than six in 10 (or 66 million) U.S. homes currently use eco-friendly household products (Focalist, 2008).

U.S. consumers are looking at using more green products in everyday life, with more than one-third of adults regularly buying green products (Mintel Research, 2008).

18-34 year olds are twice as likely to buy green (EnviroMedia, 2009); 40 million baby boomers currently buy green (AARP, 2008).

And more intriguing good ideas here and here and here and here---we could go on!

These are small steps on the long journey. But, remember – though some countries, corporations and individuals - are trashing the earth without a second thought, we ARE making a difference. And we continue to make a difference every time we make a choice or take action for a green world. Also remember, it took 20 years for people to give up buttons...and use zippers. Fight on!

No Goat Jokes.

2009-10-29T09:03:00.001-07:00

Before

After

An old idea receives new attention. Individuals and organizations are choosing a new green option, using goats to clear farms, parks, roadways, ranches. No harmful chemicals are employed. No heavy machinery is needed. The goat's cloven-hoofs, that allow them to meander slops and cliffs, cause no harm to the earth. Also, goats are quiet.

This "innovation" has become rather popular. It was used recently, even, in Druid Hill Park---three days, one-quarter acre. Eco Goats in Donaldson, MD, provided the herd. What volunteers couldn't do, goats did. Additionally, goats will completely clear an area of invasive plants.

Rent-a-Ruminator in Seattle provides more information on the beauty of goats and a slew of before and after pictures.

Pretty Sweet Green Roof

2009-10-29T07:36:00.000-07:00

Japanese practice Atelier Tekuto has completed this aluminium-framed private residence in Kanazawa City, western Japan.

We especially liked this little green roof system. Other sustainable features include full LED lighting, rainwater harvesting and solar panels on the top for water heating. It is helpful to see the variety of green roof designs. We think this one is pretty sweet.

Architectural Review featured this house. For additional images of it, click here.

Our Trash is Killing Birds in Remote Places

2009-10-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

Chris Jordan has published a series of images identified as dead albatross on Midway Atoll whose bodies are filled with bits of plastic they ingested.

Midway Island is an anemic little line of sand and coral reefs, way out in the middle of the Pacific. Now, I don't know Mr. Jordan personally, and haven't fact-checked the story behind the photos -- but presuming it's all as presented, this really is a horrifying set of images.
Birds that live as far away from civilization as you can imagine, their innards packed with petroleum flotsam?

via Boing Boing http://tiny.cc/vhpqU

Polaroid, Lost and Found.

2009-10-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

Few things mark an era like a Polaroid photo. When Polaroid announced in 2008 that they were discontinuing the production of Polaroid film, hearts fell. A frenzy of bidding quickly heated up on Ebay for any remaining film, sparking scrappy bidding wars.

On Oct. 9, the last lot of Polaroid film passed its “use by” date, and the era of instant Polaroid photography is officially over, or at least for now. But there is hope. The Impossible Project is one of them. The Impossible Project has been founded with the aim to re-invent and re-start production of analog film for vintage Polaroid cameras. They have leased the Polaroid factory in Enschede, The Neatherlands that closed in June of 2008. They plan to produce an innovative and fresh product for all the artists who work with Polaroid film and all us common, die-hard fans who get goofy about it.

This from a New York Times recent comment :

The Polaroid was the only kind of contemporary photograph that could come close to the unique singularity of a painting or drawing, part of its charm being the unpredictability of its colors and marks on the print. The built-in frame is another major reason why people were attracted to them, giving the impression of a “finished piece” the moment they become visible.

May it always be.

The 60s swing again.

2009-10-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

The Beatles by Robert Whitaker, 1964
Robert Whitaker Archive
© Robert Whitaker

The National Portrait Gallery in London has assembled an exhibition of iconic photos of the musical groups who created "Swinging London" in the 60s. Beatles to Bowie: The 60s Exposed, 15 October - 24 January 2010, could only be fun. The Who, The Kinks...they're all there.

Huge cultural and social changes were reflected in the styles and imagery of the pop music scene. The classic rivalry between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones is played out visually by a variety of top photographers such as David Bailey, Gered Mankowitz and Robert Whitaker, who helped create and endorse their changing images.

Fact: Next year it will have been 50 years since the 60s. No way!

Mr. Sustainable!

2009-10-16T07:16:00.000-07:00

Rob Brennan, AIA and Carri Beer, AIA, LEED AP

Brennan + Company's founder and Principal Architect, Rob Brennan was featured in the October issue of Baltimore Magazine. Tapped as one of the region's reigning green gurus, Rob, along with Carri Beer, talk about how to make a home environmentally friendly. It's a good read, if we do say so ourselves. Here's the link.

The Future of Prefab. Where's it Going?

2009-10-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

Empyrean International, "Dwell House"

Marmol Radziner "Skyline House"

Michelle Kaufman's "Glidehouse"

Our stringer in Los Angeles sent us this thoughtful article by Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne. Hawthorne tells the story of the prominent prefab architects who are rethinking their efforts, some of whom are closing down their operations. Those closing their operations include Michelle Kaufman of Glidehouse fame, Empyrean International, the company that worked to develop Dwell's prefab models and Marmol Radziner, the Los Angeles firm known for smartly designed Neomodern houses, has mothballed its prefab factory in Vernon in what it says is a temporary move.

Prefab is foundering again. Most of this distress is, of course, caused by the freeze of credit. But even if you take away this credit problem, making the leap to high-volume business remains prefab's central dilemma.

One way to reach that point is by colonizing big swaths of flat land and building 1,500 identical houses at the same time. Without a doubt this kind of development is what has helped get us into our current dilemmas. Hawthorne and others have another solution. The solution resides largely in helping develop prefab infill apartment complexes and cooperative housing.

At the heart of this solution is the tricky sociological process of detaching modern prefab from the ideal of the single-family house.

Most people in this country -- even most city-dwelling, design-loving sophisticates -- still locate their dreams of residential bliss under the roof of a detached house. That roof might be pitched or it might be Gropius-flat, but it still covers a house and not an apartment.

We will have to see how the current financial crisis will effect this powerful, very American, expectation. This article last week in the New York Times, Real Estate section, "Owners No More," may be the first indication.

Urban Rust

2009-10-14T07:34:00.000-07:00

When you walk around a city, you don't expect to find Cor-Ten steel---weathered steel alloy with a protective coat of rust---on facades. You expect to see it in industrial areas or an occasional modern single-family home. A post on A Daily Dose of Architecture provides a nice opportunity to see Cor-ten steel at work on city buildings.

For more views of Cor-Ten, Flickr has a group dedicated to it!

The Paradox of Preservation

2009-10-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

The Century Plaza hotel, designed by Minoru Yamasaki, opened in 1966 and quickly began accommodating stars and dignitaries. New owners have revealed plans to demolish the hotel, no longer the VIP magnet it once was, and replace it with a $2-billion complex that includes two 50-story towers containing condos, offices, shops and a smaller luxury hotel.

Los Angeles is to modern architecture, what Rome is to Catholicism. However,"California modern" postwar architecture, for better or for worse, undermined the ideas of traditional architecture forever. Its reach is international. Its style immediately recognizable. For some, it is a reason to swoon, for others it seen as an egotistical force undermining the intrinsic value of meaningful design. As historic, modern architectural buildings begin to age, it is inevitable that the preservationists and the developers will collide.

While preservationists would argue for reuse based on green values, developers argue that 60s modern buildings are hardly energy efficient, sustainable or nontoxic. In his Sunday column, Christopher Hawthorne, LA Times architecture and design critic, makes this point:

Those two ideas -- that preservation is green and that postwar city building was not -- are now coming together in some contradictory, even absurd ways. The debate over the future of the Century Plaza has been a case in point. Both sides have tried to argue that they have sustainability on their side, the Conservancy because knocking down the hotel would waste its "embodied energy" -- the energy it took to construct it -- and Michael Rosenfeld, the developer, because his proposed replacement, designed by the architect Harry Cobb, would promote green urbanism, namely pedestrianism and use of mass transit.

These conflicting ideas deserve a thoughtful investigation in less charged venues. It seems that the guiding ideas of preservation-as-green, must be bold and vivid to win the day. The issues confronted in preservation are often more complex and broad than the arguments that are being presented in defense of green preservation. Is preservation always "green?" And, to throw a wrench in the works, we wonder, how preservationists, who typically hold a disdain for modern architecture, will wholeheartedly defend against its demise?

The starting line at the Baltimore Marathon this weekend!

2009-10-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

Photo by Arianne Teeple at the top of the Hilton Hotel

Click on this photo to enlarge it and enjoy all the colors. The Under Armor Company has done a good deed for the city by promoting this marathon. Bravo for Under Armor and bravo for city life.

Somebody call the design police!

2009-10-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

I think I need an aspirin. Thanks to one of our stringers in Florida, we were linked to this fascinating video of an animated building---the former headquarters of Bayer in Leverkusen, Germany. This is called a "media facade." It is composed of 5.6 million LEDs over a 17,500 square meter surface. We can't imagine having an apartment overlooking this enormous vision! Imagine a whole neighborhood of such facades.

The gargantuan advertising form creates an intense kind of visual pollution that curtails any ability to say "No!" Also, seeing a piece of architecture used in this way makes us weepy.

For a look at how the LED plates were constructed, here's the link.

Hat Tip to B. Eby

Talk About Adaptive Reuse!

2009-09-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

This 13th Century church in Maastricht, Netherlands, was re-purposed as a sensationally beautiful, contemporary bookstore. In the USA, we tend to tear buildings like these down because developers feel that the buildings are too difficult to adapt or that they are simply in the way of the developer's objectives.

Because of the dearth of historic preservation incentives, history and culture goes down with bulldozers and wrecking balls. Our own home town of Baltimore has demolished some fabulous old buildings to make way for such projects as high-rises and hospital expansions (requiring huge parking garages).

We do not oppose development, but we see projects like this as examples of the historical benefits and possible magnificence of reuse. The simple comfort of historical space and the urge to reflection they provide is immeasurable.

Glenn Gould Speaks About Music

2009-10-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Glen Gould (upper) Tim Page (lower)

We rarely have the opportunity to listen to a musician talk just about music. Musical genius, Glenn Gould, referred to as the "James Dean of classical music," did one last interview before his untimely death six weeks later at the age of 50. Gould is legend. Although we rarely post about music (we are aching to say something about Gustavo Dudamel but reserve our enthusiasm so we don't appear to be wandering) we thought Gould personified a kind of music, design-mind worth honoring.

It appears that Gould scripted the whole interview for New York music critic Tim Page and himself! A weird but intriguing aspect. They recorded it just after Gould's 1981, historic, re-recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations (a story in themselves).

When we heard the interview, we were so pleased just to hear Gould's voice. You may, too. Here's the link to the interview. Musicians, this is an exquisite gab-fest that begins to get really cool about 20 minutes into the "interview."

twitter: @glenngouldfndn

What happened to the Bromo Seltzer Bottle?

2009-10-05T09:08:00.000-07:00

Almost nothing today matches the impact of the colorful Bromo Seltzer image. It was a brand extraordinaire and a design triumph. This 1995 Baltimore Sun article we found fills in the colorful details.

The 51-foot-high bottle was fabricated of laminated steel. It was 20 feet in diameter, tinted blue to resemble the headache remedy's bottle and mounted on the very pinnacle of Baltimore's Emerson Drug Company headquarters at Lombard and Eutaw streets. What became known as the Bromo Seltzer Tower served as a potent landmark. The bottle even had a huge crown on the top.

So what happened to it? The revolving, blazing bottle lasted 25 years until January 1936, when winds and rain got the best of it. Adolph F. Nethen, general foreman of Claude Neon Lights of Maryland, climbed to the top and took the metal sheeting apart. The rusted, decayed materials were taken to the scrap yard. A sad demise for a great symbol.

We want that bottle back!