Green-nomics

If you are thinking of making some eco-conscious changes to your home but would like to weigh the cost benefit there is a great site devoted to spelling out the pay back of going green. Green and Save saves your money and the planet one home at a time.

is it really eco?

Eco Timber provides an informative overview of standards for sustainably-harvested and reclaimed wood products. In addition to providing great shots of wood flooring options in various room settings, their wesbite is quite educational for the layperson trying to maneuver their way through the forest of eco-friendly information out there.

GALLERY: Hand-Scraped Hickory Mocha, Woven Bamboo Honey Color, and White Tigerwood Honey.

Prefab at the Moma

Five architectural teams will present their concept of a full scale prefab dwelling at the Museum of Modern Art’s show titled, “Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling” on July 15th. One of the five teams, chosen from nearly 400 applicants, will be Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier ’s Burst*008 house. Designed to be assembled on site from laser-cut pieces, the Burst *008 house is a computer-designed remake of the typical prefabricated box. Working from a computer formula that automates the specific pieces needed to create the house desired, the project is based on a system that can be adapted to a changing set of criteria. The 2003 prototype of the Burst *0003 project was built on Australia’s Northeast coast, and won the Royal Australian Institute of Architects 2006 Wilkinson award. As we know, prefab building minimizes waste and is a eco-conscious way to build in today’s environment.

I.V. Self watering planter system

My friend Ellie Bishop from vitaminliving.com, sent me this info on their new I.V. Planter that it's available for purchase now, while a slick limited edition black is also ready to ship. The lightweight fiberglass plant pot has a height adjustable metal rod, a refilable I.V. bag and a flow regulator that allows you to set watering rates to suit your plant. This self-watering plant pot's main feature is a medical drip feed. This unique characteristic allows the plant to be nourished with water and food as it is required.

jordi badia

kambiz

skye

Lookout Mountain Studios

Ben Benschneider architecture photography

Ben had a very early introduction to art and photography, and was always supported in his interests. His father was a commercial photographer and teacher, his mother a painter and sculptor. Ben grew up in Colorado, in remarkable natural surroundings, and frequent hikes led him to a genuine appreciation of the interplay between light and landscape. He was aware that he wanted to develop his craft in order to portray that interplay in his photographic images.

extra seating edition

Always one to get ahead of myself, Im thinking about extra seating in my dining room. Yes, thats right - I don't have much regular seating. Cart before horse and all that.

To give you a bit of background: Before doing the reno, we worked the layout of our house to allow for a large table that seats 10-12 people. There isn't enough room to keep that many chairs and an extended table open comfortably all year - but the room is big enough to squeeze when the occasion calls for it. (Not that we often have 10 of our closest friends over for dinner but we do host Christmas dinner and hope to do at least one other big dinner party a year -we'll see if we ever get around to that). So this Christmas will be a hell of lot more comfortable than prior years where we crammed the whole family onto a too small folding table in our too small house. Just talking about having a table large enough to host a proper Christmas dinner this year is making me giddy with excitement! So back to my point - while the dining room table will have 6 chairs on a normal day, I need to have at least another 4-6 chairs at the ready for holidays.

So that brings me back to the cart before horse topic. I can't yet find dining room chairs (or a table) that I like enough to buy right now but I would like to have some extra chairs so that visitors can sit down if I invite someone over for coffee. So I'm thinking of buying my "extra" guest chairs now while I hunt for the perfect everyday chairs.

Ive looked around and found that Ballard Design has some really nice folding chair options.

But at $100 a pop not including a cushion or shipping - thats a little rich for my blood. After all, these chairs will only see the light of day a few times a year once I get proper furniture. The rest of the year they will spent in the corner of the basement.

So as plan I'm considering getting some Chiavari chairs. Im awaiting shipping estimates but Ive found them as cheap as $45 each INCLUDING

They are stackable although not foldable (which would be more ideal if they weren't twice the price). The gold works nicely with the brass accents I have in the room. Plus the sight of Chiavari chairs always make me think of beautiful parties.

So am I crazy? I don't want my house to look like a banquet hall but Im hoping a few of these mixed in with heavier wooden pieces will help create an eclectic look that works.

What do you think?

FYI: In case you are wondering what sort of chairs Ive used to host prior Christmas dinners, take a look at this beauty. Although this photo doesn' t show the beautiful legs wrapped in duct tape or the dried paint dribbles.

All at sea - libertarians and the market for governance

Last month, PayPal mastermind Peter Thiel pledged $500,000 to The Seasteading Institute. Co-founded by Patri Friedman (grandson of Milton), the Institute’s official mission is to

Establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems.

In an article for the Wired website, Alexis Madrigal zooms in on the original motivations of the Institute’s founders;

True to his libertarian leanings, Friedman looks at the situation in market terms: the institute’s modular spar platforms, he argues, would allow for the creation of far cheaper new countries out on the high-seas, driving innovation.

“Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry,” he said. “You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That’s a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it’s got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship.”

While over at the excellent BLDGBLOG, Geoff Manaugh has turned his mind to the potential implications of “seasteading”;

What interests me here, aside from the architectural challenge of erecting a durable, ocean-going metropolis, is the fact that this act of construction – this act of building something – has constitutional implications. That is, architecture here proactively expands the political bounds of recognized sovereignty; architecture becomes declarative.

Sovereignty for sale? Whether you see this as a laudable quest for self-government or - as China Mieville argues - a morally bankrupt flight from responsibility, there are definite echoes of a certain late-80s paperback. But who knows? $500,000 might just be enough to give this scheme some real momentum.

TOWER SPACE

“High-rise towers rarely develop the verticality of spaces they create, remaining instead only iconic objects in the urban landscape. Their interiors consist of stacked-up floor plates, maximizing leasable or usable floor area, and in urban centers where groupings of towers crowd to get her on the most expensive land, the spaces between the towers are ignored. No doubt, these conditions result from the single-minded interests of commercial developers and the isolation enforced by private property ownership.

The potential remains, regardless of the limitations of current attitudes, to invest the latent and actual verticality of towers with new programs of habitation that expand the meaning and experience of urban tower space.

This was the aim of the sixth semester design studio in the Graduate School of Architecture at Pratt Institute this past semester. It was realized in a one-to-one installation constructed by the members of the studio in the main space of a recent addition to the architecture building, designed by Steven Holl.

“The studio set out to explore a ‘proto-urban’ condition observed in cities throughout the world,” write the members of the studio. “Tower projects are rising to previously unimaginable heights, employing the very latest in technology, materials, design, and construction methodology. While many such endeavors enjoy great acclaim, the projects, typically ‘single point’ towers, rarely address the existing or emerging urban landscape. In this way, the tower, despite the use of expressive shapes and complex skins, is rapidly becoming the world’s generic building unit. Regulatory and economic realities often force this unit’s construction in a kind of non-contextual vacuum. Our studio explores what might occur if a complex of interrelated towers were to be commissioned. What types of relationships, physical or otherwise, might be formed? How might these new relationships change (for better or for worse) the ‘proto-urban’ environment?

Our proposal emerges from the spirit of research and is born of a commitment to an entirely collaborative design/build process. Our collective vision is the creation of four integrated towers. The structures are shaped and informed by a matrix of vertical urban planes based on an aggregate of the world’s many urban grids.Three of the emerging towers stand vertically while a fourth is set on a diagonal. The complex composition permits rich relationships between the structures and the ground plane while also giving rise to an entirely new form of public zone. The architecture will incorporate interactive experiences that fuse light, sound, and moving images in order to explore our studio’s interest in programs for verticality that relate primarily to the psychological desires and realities of ‘proto-urban’ dwellers.”

The results are visually powerful and evocative of new possibilities. What remains to be accomplished is a critical discourse about them, and a way to evaluate—or even answer—the questions invoked by “for better or for worse.”

LW

Pratt Institute Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design: Thomas Hanrahan, Dean; William MacDonald, Chair; Sixth Semester Design Studio: Liam Ahern, Tia Maiolatesi, Adam Grassi, Benjamin Keiser, Brian Choquette, Kurt Altschul, Johanna Helgadottir, Andrew Miller, Tapasi Mittal, Rob Jarocki, Drew Seskunas, Dhreiv Chandwania, and Lebbeus Woods, Professor; Guest critics: Narelle Sissons, Christopher Otterbine, Christoph a.Kumpusch, Steven Holl