Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Westbeth Thoughts


Westbeth Courtyard II, originally uploaded by R. Duke.

Thanks everyone for your input last night!

Here is a short "my take" on comments received last night for an artist-supportive development (above is the precedent of Westbeth suggested by Phillip). While the Parkwood development is not necessarily an "artist community" per se, a starting point for programming and creative development is a concept. Concepts are not pristine things you order online. They grow organically from ideas that get batted around. So let's just engage "artist community" and see where that gets us next.

Big Take:

1) honor the disciplines - sound-proof walls for music/performance, expansive floor area for dance, kiln and arable messy room for throwing clay, as examples.

2) insulate the artists from each other -- related to this: privacy; security; ability to shrink into one's oyster shell; escape; meditation; light; water; serenity; quiet; meditative space; secret escape hatch/back door access away from public areas.

3) affordability: shared living space, shared kitchen for economy units

4) artist condos: basic; adaptable; light everywhere; well-ventilated; concrete floor; "spacy"; no need to finish (except for perhaps bamboo cabinetry); will be partitioned/finished by owner

5) courtyards: one public, one for residents only - an atrium garden

6) water as a special feature

7) green roof (w/ amenities)

8) flexible common area for producing work w/ tool shop, etc

9) no need for designated ground floor "gallery space", focus on sustainable retail like coffee/deli shop and office space

Sunday, May 25, 2008

The Power of Design


A wonderful essay by KT Meaney has been posted over at Design Observer.
This piece very nicely points toward a behavioral economics approach to influencing buyer's choices (at the buying point - in supermarket aisles) with the powerful aide of design.
There's some powerful thinking here!

Friday, May 23, 2008

Everything they didn't teach me enough in college...


seastead[2], originally uploaded by bldgblog.

....I get brom BLDGBLOG:

The declarative/constitutionalizing architecture of seasteading.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Innovation Circle


Geothermal Energy, originally uploaded by Alliat.

An MIT study is describing the amazing possibilities here...basically its a sheer untapped resource

Monday, May 19, 2008

Reusable Art


Art CUBE_graphic skin, originally uploaded by n:dL.

I found this essay by Maja and Reuben Fowkes compelling:

The Principles of Sustainability in Contemporary Art

They explain the need to transition from "Environmental Art" towards "Sustainable Art"...Artists have tended not to focus on the reuse of things, which is actually - next to energy innovation - is probably the single most important service anybody can do to advance the goals of sustainability. We need to focus here on process. And I don't think they are talking about adopting hippie lifestyles. I think we need to create recycling systems for everyone. We need to make on-site complete life-cycle process (like bamboo cultivation) both usable and attractive, culturally as well as economically. (The Art CUBE is a good example of a start.)

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Beavers in Manhattan??

Don't think of it as housing for the homeless, but restoring the displaced to their original habitat.

Mobile roofing systems


Art_wodiczko, originally uploaded by MC Hammerheadshark.

I find the fact that the homeless are appearing in our "roofless" photo feed (on the right) quite interesting. It immediately brought to mind the homeless vehicle projects of my former art professor Krzystof Wodiczko.

How can our roofless project benefit the homeless? How can its rooflessness contribute to their "mobile conditions"....Can we create a mobile roofing system in place of a traditional roof? What if the roof was still put in...but in mobile capacities? A roof that reassembled in the evening or during dinnertimes...dispersed in the morning.

...I'm a student of Krzystof, what can I say? :)



Saturday, May 17, 2008

Green Building with trees Top in Vancouver British Columbia Canada

park and kudzu

Thursday, May 15, 2008

gorgeousness

Nice detail


Parque da Cidade #16, originally uploaded by Isa Karps.


Not sure if RB Marx did this...but I thought this was a shining moment. Only a landscape artist can treat the water that way.

California Academy of Sciences


What lies beneath the bulge...intrigue


Here's a shot of Phillip's precedent project.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Bamboo River


Bamboo River, originally uploaded by amirjina.

Uses bamboo for water conveyance.

Thought this was cool...

Sunday, May 11, 2008

bouça, alvaro siza


bouça, alvaro siza, originally uploaded by zeneize.




My precedent project. Sorry for the modernism...but I'm an architect.

What I really love about this housing typology is the way it addresses all the layers of habitation of the traditional row house and brings different possibilities to the foreground. Siza treats each layer as a unique habitation zone and plays with layers of privacy. He does this not only vertically but horizontally in subtle moves. I see similar play in Rome's older residential quarters - which is why I am infatuated with that city.

How can Siza's layered architecture inform our approach to green design? How can artists find refuge in it and work and commune in it?

Sites:Blogs for the Urban Warrior

There a lot of great blogs and resourced sites I've started to keep up with, here are a few. Nothing big, it's just nice to keep tabs on them through my Netvibes feed page (If you have not a Netvibes page going what kind of an urban warrior are you!):

Green Building Elements : a part of Green Options Media
Urbanworkbench : interesting husband-wife civil engineer team committed to green design
WorldChanging : my top resourced site overall

Inhabitat : green urban chic by some really hot & green urban chicks...(now is that doubly hot or wut - I'd take any one of them)

You can also just troll through my del.icio.us tabs, I tag all I find worthy.



Sunday, May 4, 2008

Let the DREAMS begin...

So you are an artist...What would your ideal place to live, work and entertain look like?