The week on the net - September 08

The week on the net - September 08 - Page 4

Sunday, 28 September 2008 19:00

Page 4 of 4

Earlier this month...

Sustainable design overview from Gerard Lee Architects
Young in Architecture
"So how does sustainable or "green" design apply to your home? What is "green" design? Just doing a simple search on the internet will result in hundreds of thousands of references. All similar to a certain extent and yet different. Reading through some of them will make you realise that when it comes to "green" design, many experts and or architects who specialize in sustainable design differ in what they call "green" design.
For some, it means using natural materials, or waste products, utilizing the natural resources for fuel, lighting, recycling water and avoiding certain materials like steel studs that use high embodied energy through it's production. For others, it means that metal studs are good because they are an easily recycled material....

The Fate of BC's Carbon Tax
WorldChanging Team in WorldChanging
by Eric de Place
What Canada's tax shift means for the U.S.
British Columbia's recent carbon tax made waves in the US. (Sightline's written about it here, here, and here.) But it's not terribly popular in BC, as economist Marc Lee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives explains: While there are plenty of good reasons why the Liberals should get beaten up at the polls, one of the key reasons for the change is the carbon tax, due to an aggressive (if questionable) campaign by the NDP and poor communications by the government.
In some public opinion work I’ve seen, two messages about BC’s carbon tax come out loud and clear. The first is that revenue neutrality is a bust — people may be willing to live with a new tax on carbon but think that giving the money back is a dumb idea; they would rather have revenues spent on public transit or anything else that would reinforce climate action. Second, they want tough action on industry.

[murmur] & the Junction Arts Festival
Shawn Micallef in Spacing Toronto • understanding the urban landscape
[murmur] is pleased to announce we have launched our latest project in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood as part of this weekend’s Junction Arts Festival. We have installed 27 listening posts — those familiar green ears — throughout the neighbourhood (download and print out the map of locations here) with over 80 stories spread among them. More locations will be added in the coming weeks.

Palmyra House by Studio Mumbai
Kate Andrews in Inhabitat
Pitched as having over 800 uses, the Palmyra Palm (or Borassus) is recognized as one of the most important trees in Cambodia and India. Earlier this year, Indian born architect Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai illustrated the ecological potential of the palm when he designed and built the beautiful Palmyra House. Constructed entirely from locally sourced and sustainably harvested palmyra, the home is sited on a working coconut plantation in the East Indian coastal town of Alibaug.

The Secretive Story Behind Robert A.M. Stern's Hiring
mediabistro.com: UnBeige
Most of us know that starchitect and presidential library builder Robert A.M. Stern had landed the gig to do some new building on Yale's campus, but now the Yale Daily News has put together a fascinating piece on how the decision to hire Stern all came about, complete with sneaky, secret meetings and the University working with a small, tight-lipped team. What's even more interesting is although Stern was eventually brought in on all this secret talk, before he'd landed the job, he'd begun to get frustrated with Yale for utterly ignoring him while they made their plans internally: The School of Architecture alumnus desperately wanted to get in on the project to build two new residential colleges. He reached out to the University through intermediaries. His firm sent a portfolio to the University Planner's office, pulling favors to get it to the top of the pile. An aide even e-mailed a reporter to ask for help in getting his name in the mix.

Paul Overy RIP
owen hatherley in sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy
Yesterday, 6:34 AM
Fine obituary by Tim Benton - oh for the days when architecture correspondents regularly got sacked for getting too political. As an inadequate tribute, here's my short, over-compressed review for Blueprint earlier this year of his excellent Light Air and Openness, one of the very few serious theoretical books on Modernism published in Britain. Among the things not mentioned in here are the remarkable African prefabs designed by Ernst May, lost to history before this book was published, and a bit on the Magic Mountain-esque romance of sanatoria, which Overy interestingly places as the root form of Modernism...

A Skyscraper Grows on Randolph Street
Lee Bey: The Urban Observer
Outside my window at work, they're adding 24 stories to the top of the elegant Blue Cross/Blue Shield building at 300 E. Randolph. When I should be working, I find myself gawking. That's because lots of downtown highrises will get a penthouse or extra story or two, but how many almost double in height---while the existing building is still occupied and functioning underneath?

Sneak Peak: Venice Live/Work House
Preston D K in Jetson Green
How about kicking out a shout to the newly established blog by EcoSteel? I was emailing with EcoSteel's Kevin Findlay about their new projects and the blog came up. So I start looking through the first few posts and, of course, this Venice Live/Work home caught my eye. I mean, how can it not? Apparently the home is ready to go in California and EcoSteel is bidding out the contractor work at the moment.

Caligari Cubism on Sheridan Road
Lynn Becker in ArchitectureChicago PLUS
You may call it a delight, or you may call it an eyesore, but one of the most distinctive buildings along Sheridan Road - or in Chicago, for that matter - is the Granville Tower, at 6166 North, 29 stories tall and completed in 1965 to a design by Seymour S. Goldstein, Ltd.
Its weirdly contorted facades, which bring to mind Oscar Wilde's description of the Water Tower as a "monstrosity with pepper boxes stuck all over it", actually have a logical relation to the plan, which was made up entirely of duplex units with bedrooms on the upper levels.Seen from a distance on a day when bright blue skies put the structure into high contrast, all those zits broken out across its face destabilize your ability to see the tower as a stable, solid object; it almost seems to be folding and crumbling right before you eyes.

Agrotourism and Architecture
Michelle Linden in Atelier A+D
This design of an observation deck in Pinohuacho Chile is remarkable not only for its simple and lovely design... but also for the story behind the design. The region has been shaped by years of timid recovery after a 1971 volcanic eruption. With the land losing its value, villagers have been forced to move to the city. Not wanting to lose his way of life, Miguel Vázquez talks to his father about the possibility of agrotourism, where the land will be carefully cultivated to be enjoyed by villagers and visitors alike. The whole family has begun to take part, as well as the rest of the village.

John's Landing to parachute landings: John Gray is Architecture Foundation of Oregon's latest honoree
Brian Libby in Portland Architecture
The Architectural Foundation of Oregon has announced its annual Honored Citizen. And no, this doesn’t have anything to do with a discounted meal at Shari’s restaurant and pie house. Instead, it’s a kind lifetime achievement award for those who have made a lasting contribution to the built environment, either here in Portland or elsewhere in the state. Past honorees include urban naturalist/advocate Mike Houck, architect Robert Frasca, philanthropist Jean Vollum, and landscape architect Barbara Fealy. Although he won a Bronze Star in World War II parachuting behind enemy lines with the Army’s famed 82nd Airborne division, locally developer John Gray is best known for resort projects like Sunriver in central Oregon near Bend and Salishan on the coast just south of Lincoln City. Each is a remarkable and lasting demonstration of how Gray patronized talented, noteworthy local architects like Van Evra Bailey and John Storrs, the latter of whom designed Salishan.

Retro: Urban Sustainability, Mega-City Leapfrogging
Jamais Cascio in WorldChanging
The future of the city is a fundamental concern at WorldChanging, and is a topic we return to regularly, and for good reason: the planet as a whole is on the verge of becoming a majority-urbanized world. The question of the city's future takes two primary forms: How can the cities in the developed world become centers of sustainability, reducing the citizens' environmental footprint with smarter transit, energy and resource options? At the same time, how can the rapidly-growing cities of the developing world become both sources of sustainable economic growth and engines for ethical, democratic development? Alex's Urban Sustainability, Mega-city Leapfrogging brings these issues into focus, and shows how they are tightly linked.

i vant to live in a båthus
Justin in materialicious
Benita and Per-Olof converted the upper floor of their old boathouse into a living area and guest quarters, and have plans to maybe convert the lower area into a snack bar and/or bakery. Hell, I’d live upstairs and dock my old Riva Ariston downstairs!

Sullivan Shines Again
Lee Bey: The Urban Observer
The former Chicago Stock Exchange entry arch is seeing the light of day again. The sadly beautiful relic, which rests in a courtyard along Columbus Drive on the northeast side of the Art Institute's campus, has been hiding beneath a protective wrap for several seasons during construction of the museum's Modern Wing. Construction is winding down; the intricately-ornate terra cotta arch can enjoy a little sun before the dark fall sets in.

Oakland’s Stunning LEED Platinum Margarido House
Bridgette Steffen in Inhabitat
Mike McDonald and his wife Dr. Jill Martenson decided to build their home on a steep lot ravaged by a fire in the Oakland hills back in 1991. The 4600 sq ft Margarido House is by no means a small home, but with the addition of a plethora of green building features it will become the first LEED-H Platinum certified home in Northern California. It will also be GreenPoint rated, which is a separate third party rating system administered by Build It Green. The Margarido House will feature almost every green strategy you can imagine and will be 55% more efficient than California’s Title 24 energy standards.

A simulated Baltimore
Dan Hill in cityofsound
The Believer recently published a fascinating interview with David Simon, creator of the magisterial TV show The Wire. Among the many intriguing insights delivered in the interview, the following passage struck me as particularly interesting, in the context of a day job increasingly concerned with formulating simulations of cities, and particularly urban models which begin to layer in the more intangible aspects of city life, such as culture and creativity. "The show would instead be about untethered capitalism run amok, about how power and money actually route themselves in a postmodern American city, and, ultimately, about why we as an urban people are no longer able to solve our problems or heal our wounds. Early in the conception of the drama, Ed Burns and I—as well as the late Bob Colesberry, a consummate filmmaker who served as the directorial producer and created the visual template for The Wire—conceived of a show that would, with each season, slice off another piece of the American city, so that by the end of the run, a simulated Baltimore would stand in for urban America, and the fundamental problems of urbanity would be fully addressed."

Brazilian Architecture, Pearl River Tower, both at IIT Today
Lynn Becker in ArchitectureChicago PLUS
The fall season of architectural events is revving up with a vengeance. Today, Wednesday, September 3rd, the Illinois Institute of Technology has two worthwhile events. Pearl River Tower - at 3:30 P.M. in the Rem Koolhaas-designed, McCormick Tribune Student Center, Roger Frechette of Skidmore, Owings & Merill will talk on the firm's Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou, China, a 71-story skyscraper designed as a "zero-energy" structure that produces as much energy as it consumers.

Metropolitan Home article by Karrie Jacobs
lavardera in LamiDesign Modern House Plan Blog
Tuesday, 10:28 PM
Karrie Jacobs has been writing a series of articles for Metropolitan Home magazine, all under the theme of "How We Live". In the October 08 issue she wrote about our house plans. We've not seen the issue yet, only this scan from friend Jeff "jake" Jacobs.