April 7th, 2008

Neighborliness, Innovation and Sustainability
Alex Steffen in WorldChanging
Two approaches have tended to define the debate about sustainable prosperity in recent years. The first is conscious consumption, which manifests at the shallow end as green shopping (even greenwashing) but can prove out at a deeper level as strategic consumption. The second is green technology, which is a topic that we tend to cover here in great depth, and which covers everything from energy to transportation, housing to product design. Sometimes that technology is trivial, sometimes it is profound. These approaches are complimentary, and both have a lot to offer as we try to negotiate our way to a bright green future. But there is a danger in thinking that all we have to do is design better substitutes for the products we already consume, and then convince people to buy them.

Fellowship Opens Walker Art Center's Doors
mediabistro.com: UnBeige
Have a year to spend in Minneapolis and get in real good with the Walker Art Center? Now's your chance, as our pals over in the design department over there where kind enough to drop us a line letting us know that they've just started accepting applications for the 2008/2009 Walker Art Center Design Fellowship. It's a year-long, paid program where you get to work with their fantastic design group, creating identities for exhibitions, building whole campaigns and working on their print projects. It's a pretty incredible opportunity, should you be selected, so why not just give it a shot?...

Monday, Monday
John in A Daily Dose of Architecture
My weekly page update: Badajoz Congress Center and Auditorium in Badajoz, Spain by SeglasCano Arquitectos. The updated book feature is Architecture and Suburbia: From English Villa to American Dream House, 1690-2000 by John Archer, and Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness by Elizabeth Farrelly.

A Rundown on the Showdown at the Brooklyn Museum
mediabistro.com: UnBeige
A little round up of last week's fracas surrounding the Brooklyn Museum's star-studded event, honoring developer Bruce Ratner, which led to a large protest outside the museum, filled with people angry with Ratner's plans to bulldoze and build like crazy in Brooklyn and that the museum would celebrate such a person. And to get a full picture of the whole thing, we thought we'd take you on a little tour. ...

Solar America Cities Chosen
Ali Kriscenski in Inhabitat
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected 12 new Solar America Cities, bringing the number from 13 to 25 in total, and moving along the $2.4 million initiative to provide up to $200,000 per city to build solid solar infrastructures. The announcement came at the New Frontiers in Energy Summit 2008 in Denver, Colorado, which is among the 2008 Solar America Initiative (SAI) cities. The overall program goals are to facilitate adoption of solar technology by individuals and businesses and to make solar electricity from photovoltaics a cost-competitive energy choice by 2015.

AIA Convention 2008 in Boston
ArchitectureMNP
This year the AIA Convention is coming to the Bean! On behalf of the AIA and the Boston Society of Architects/AIA, we’d like to invite you to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in May to attend the AIA 2008 National Convention and Design Exposition. In our first visit to the East Coast in almost nine years – and our first to Boston in 16 years – the AIA will host its convention in one of the most dynamic cities in America. And what a perfect place to immerse yourself in this year’s theme, We the People, which will explore the power of architecture on behalf of all people and society. It’s the right topic for a growing profession that has been challenged to engage the public in designing a more sustainable world.

How Green Can Monster Homes Be? Topic Renewed.
Preston D K in [jetson.green]
The topic pops up every month or two.  Last month, the issue of big green homes came up in the context of eco-terrorism.  Five luxury homes priced over $2 million each were set on fire by the ELF, who left a sign saying: "Built green?  Nope Black!  McMansions + RCD's R Not Green"#  The luxury homes were advertised as green, but clearly the ELF disagreed.#   The burnt homes were about 4200 to 4750 sf in size, which isn't that bad, when compared to some so-called luxury green homes we've seen (this one being 9800 sf).#  The incident highlights the tension between big homes and sustainability.

Uptown Theater Rots as Rival Promoters Battle Over It's Future
Lynn Becker in ArchitectureChicago PLUS
In this past Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times, pop music critic Jim DeRogatis has a terrific account of the tangled story of efforts to save the 4,300 seat Uptown Theater. For years after its 1981 shuttering, it was the palace that no one wanted, trashed and decaying under the ownership of a succession of leading slumlords. When it became known, several years ago, that not one, but two major concert promoters, local Jam Productions and national Live Nation, reportedly had the hots for acquiring the historic venue, it looked like a can't lose proposition that would finally lead to the Uptown's rescue.

April 5th and 6th, 2008

MATERIALECOLOGY at AIANY
Neri Oxman in MATERIALECOLOGY: Neri Oxman
Neri Oxman will be giving a talk at the American Institute of Architects, the New York Chapter.
The talk is titled: Making Difference and will cover MATERIALECOLOGY's most recent work and research now on display at the MoMA, Museum of Modern Art.

Book Review: Pocket Gardens
John in A Daily Dose of Architecture
Pocket Gardens: Contemporary Japanese Miniature Designs (2007) by Michael Freeman
Universe. Hardcover, 224 pages
The term "pocket garden" brings to mind pocket park, those roughly lot-size public spaces scattered about Manhattan that are small in stature yet have a wider impact that makes them successful urban design elements. Perhaps the most well-known is Paley Park in Midtown Manhattan. The tiny space is defined by ivy-covered walls on the sides, a canopy of trees overhead, and at its rear a waterfall drowning out the noises of the city. Although small it successfully creates an oasis from the city -- perfect for workers on their lunch hour, as they try to relax for that all-too-brief hour. While this book does not reference pocket parks, the pocket gardens present here work along similar lines: providing residents small oases within their houses.

Meow Cottage, Franklin, Tennessee
Zolton in Lost At E Minor: Music, illustration, art, photography and more
Draped in a charming rustic veneer, the Meow Cottage at the Old Marshall House in Franklin, Tennessee, is a self-contained cottage situated on the grounds of a sprawling — and quite beautiful — B&B. (more…)

[Video] Peter DeMaria Talks About Cargo Container Design and Sustainability
Preston D K in [jetson.green]
In this super informative interview, G Living sits down with Peter DeMaria to talk about his work using containers in modern home design and construction.  I was really impressed with DeMaria -- he tells you everything you ever wanted to know about container architecture and talks about scalability, sustainability, mold, termites, insulation, design, etc.  If you're thinking about using containers in your project, the ones mentioned in this interview cost about $900 - $2500 and are about 320 sf per unit.  Great video! Peter received significant exposure for his design of the Redondo Beach House, a modern home built with containers.  He's also working on Logical Homes and explains in the above video that Logical Homes will be launching soon.  The images below are of a multi-use, container project in Venice under construction right now.

Canada Unleashes First Carbon Tax in N. America
Clayton B. Cornell in Green Options
British Columbia will be the first in North America to institute a comprehensive carbon tax on nearly all fossil fuels. It’s a groundbreaking move that could prove the feasibility of taxing greenhouse-gas emissions. Beginning July 1st, 2008, businesses and residents of British Columbia will be taxed $10 per metric ton of carbon emitted by fuels [...]

Tower Building Competition Using Sugar Cubes
admin in mirage.studio.7
 For those that are not familiar with Curtin University’s Architecture building, here is a photo of the interior known as the blue carpet, according to the lecturers; it was blue many years ago but not any more. Last year I had a conversation with a non-architecture friend of mine about Curtin University, during the conversation, another friend of mine asked which block am I studying in, when I was about to reply him, the other friend of mine shouted: “The ugliest building in the University.” And the best part is, he understood.

Pineapple Paper Furniture by Yothaka
Tylene Levesque in Inhabitat
The Nut Bench is fun, colorful and made from pineapple paper to boot! Bangkok-based Yothaka International creates hand-woven, modern Asian designs using local natural fibrous materials available in Thailand. The firm that pioneered the use of water hyacinth and Yan Lipao (a fern-like vine found in the South of Thailand) in furniture making has introduced a Pineapple Paper collection made from locally produced pineapple paper fiber. Pineapple leaf fibers are pressed, dyed and made into eco-friendly chairs, stools and benches.

Today's archidose #195
John in A Daily Dose of Architecture
CFIA_JMNZ_003, originally uploaded by monarqui.
Federal College of Engineers and Architects of Costa Rica in Curridabat, San José by Hernán Jiménez (1980).

Denver_Modern
Harry in MoCo Loco
Angelo wrote us yesterday to let us know that he and Nancy are building a compact modern home in Denver, Colorado. "This house project is for our family, and in our mind a great test in realizing the many concepts we’ve been intrigued with. Angelo’s background is architecture and Nancy’s is historic preservation/ adaptive reuse.". The website has all the details from interior and exterior renderings (seen at different times of day) through to the latest construction, the cedar siding installation above. Thanks Angelo!