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juan carlos casas on Accessibility Watch: Navigating New York’s Building Code i recently heard from a contractor who was working on an apt. renovation in the nyc that the original plans were rejected because it did not include a handicapped bathroom. i thought that was strange since i thought those restriction didn’t apply to residential use. here is the catch, the apt. building is a walk-up. right. exactly. have you heard of such a thing if so do you think we’ll ever be able to differentiate the applicable codes and actual environments?? thanks
Christine M French on Design Activists: Raise Your Flag High! Susan, I admire the way you have followed this debate and become involved on so many levels. Let’s keep working together! Chris on Twitter @TrustModern, National Trust for Historic Preservation
Maureen K. Calamia on Refreshing Times Square Wouldn’t it be great to incorporate biophilic design and feng shui principles. That could be a great space. But need to balance with the fast moving energy of the roadways.
ian on Who Designed the Classic Thug Shooting Target? where can i buy the thug and have sent it to europe to put it in a frame? thank you ian
Elemental LED staff on Slow Is the New Fast Whatever happened to the good old sailing ship/boat voyage? The original green form of transportation!
Elemental LED staff on Q&A: Florian Idenburg on This Summer’s Pole Dance in Queens This installations seems to fit perfectly with PS1’s approach, which is art that draws one in with fun and lightness, and offers a lot of thought-provoking content. Thanks for the look behind the scenes.
Luver on The Yale Building Project, Week 16: A Sneak Peek I would not have refused such a beautiful bathroom at home
Kimball Office on Transdisciplinary Design 101 This should lead to some interesting ideas once all the minds are put together. By harnessing each designers’ experiences and skills, to develop solutions to real challenges, the results should be exciting and innovative. Looking forward to seeing what happens with this.
Joe Giddings on How Are Architects Responding to the Haiti Disaster? Heres what happened at the Oxford Brookes over the past two days: http://ilikefings.blogspot.com/2010/02/haiti-how-to-shelter.html it was intended as an educational exercise for survivors in Haiti, and is being made into a PDF or a short film with photographs and footage, and hopefully being sent over the internet to the people that matter. As a first year architecture student it was an eye opener in two ways, it showed me how incredibly fast and simple it is to put up a basic structure that can act as a home, and it also demonstrated how it is possible to make a difference in situations like present without leaving the country, in a slightly different way. will be posting more photos very shortly, and links to the finished ‘instruction manual’.
Katherine Bennett on Ear to the Ground Chord of Columbus, the latest phase, seems an eloquent re-siting of an otherwise (a)voided space of significance in the transport-driven development of the Audible Dwelling’s origin city — greatly anticipating the opening event tomorrow evening.
Donald Leach on Wright by Women It should be noted that Marion Mahoney was married to Walter Burley Griffin (Tim probably never heard of him) and was, no doubt, a factor in all of his work. Also, she was in charge of and carried on the work of Wright’s office while he was on his infamous European odyssey. Don
Barnegat Blummis on My Banal Neighborhood My dad was a member of an Irish boys gang in the 1890’s and early 1900’s. They were tough and often mean. After serving in WWI in France and Belgium, he became a NYC cop and served for 30 years. Some of the other boys in the gang ended up in SingSing prison or on death row and three ended up as attorneys and judges. I had a great time listening to his stories about those interesting times
Rony Joseph on India’s 21st-Century Model T The Nano is a good example of appropriate design. Its perfect for Indian conditions, especially the price point and the mileage, both of which are very important to Indian consumers. It will be a landmark in India, marking a transition from families traveling unsafely on two-wheelers to the all round protection afforded by a four wheeled, fully enclosed unit. The other remarkable feat is that it manages to provide sufficient interior room while taking very little space on the road. Truly a remarkable design achievement which finely reflects the adage, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’. The Nano heralds the birth of Indian design and innovation.
Kimball Office on Castle Envy These images display the beauty of mixing old world landscapes with new world interiors and design. Great inspirational photos.
Kara Lindstrom on Underground Inspiration The underground is only dark and dreary when it hasn’t been optimized by design. I designed a similar project for a 5 block underground space in Philadelphia – the future is about reuse of space, wherever it may be found. http://tinyurl.com/PHLconcourse
Leni Schwendinger on Underground Inspiration Underground urban spaces have been too little explored. I believe that they are a resource for luminous, creative and useful habitation! Please see my current blog post, ostensibly about the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in NYC, but really about the vertical layering of cities http://tiny.cc/AtlanticTunnel
Steven S. on Denise Scott Brown’s Advice to Young Architects To put this short snip from the Daily News interview in a larger context of the Yale symposium on Robert Venturi and DEnise Scott Brown’s works/writings in Jan. 2010 : Where’s your rigor? Denise Scott Brown asked the doctoral/graduate level students at the Yale seminar before this interview took place. What she’s saying here is in addition to her comments about academic rigor, which she thought was lacking in doctoral level research these days. Also, after she stated the difficulties of being an architect (as quoted in this snip), Venturi and Scott Brown added: “ARV: You have to be very dedicated. DSB: If you’re not drawing all day and doodling plans, don’t do it. But if you do, give it everything you’ve got.”
Rachel on Sky Lanterns and Wind Choreography I really like Janet Echelman’s artwork, thank you for writing about her! The slideshow of images was great! Here’s a link to her website again: www.echelman.com , and her studio is also on Facebook and Twitter, just search studioechelman
Atim Annette Oton on How Are Architects Responding to the Haiti Disaster? You missed out what the National Organization of Minority Architects have been doing: http://www.noma.net/local/NOMA4Haiti.htm
Elemental LED staff on Q&A: Amale Andraos and Dan Wood on the Edible Schoolyard wow, what a program! If only my school had had this instead of “home economics”!
Elemental LED staff on Smarter Energy for New York I remember reading something about some Apple software that would give you a read on all the various appliance drawing power in the house, but don’t recall if this was something for the power company or the consumer. It seems like this would be perfect for scheduling personal electricity usage. And why would a city-wide system have to use wi-fi rather than cable anyway?
Info At on Underground Inspiration Because all of us in Boston want to spend more time underground in a dark dreary place! Let’s focus on the Rose Kennedy Greenway first… Something that involves light, air and living things. Here’s hoping the city doesn’t waste money on this and our uncanny politicians are canned!
Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson on The Design Revolution Hits the Road For those in the Baltimore/Washington area: Emily will be at the Maryland Institute College of Art on March 11 during her road trip and MICA, along with the D:center Baltimore and Urbanite magazine, is hosting an interesting panel on the future of design practice. DESIGN REVOLUTION: JOIN THE DEBATE Thursday, March 11, 6 p.m., Falvey Hall, Brown Center, 1301 W. Mount Royal Ave. Admission is FREE. Panelists include Emily Pilloton, founder, and Matthew Miller, project manager, of Project H Design; John Bielenberg, founder of Project M; and Julie Lasky, editor of Design Observer’s Change Observer section, which covers socially aware design.
Louis on The Active City “Now that green design has gone from a fringe concern to an absolute imperative for the architecture community” It has become propaganda and group think.
carol vanderkloot on How Tomorrow Looked, Yesterday susan–i’m so disappointed that I missed your talk and to learn that no copy is available of all your hard work. Bunky Knudsen was my great uncle and (William Knudsen, my great grandfather) I’d love to know if he completed any work in this incredible facility. The exhibition was fantastic and I particularly loved the short film about the GM design center. All best, carol
Kristi on The Street View: A Dog-Owner’s Lament Sadly, due to design and lot lines, the only place to store our bins is down a flight of stairs. Doable, but there’s definiitely a psychological barrier to walking into and through your building with a bag of poop, downstairs, and back out into a courtyard before disposal. Also, doesn’t solve the problem of where to throw the stuff on those long, empty stretches away from home.
Plumbing and Heating Pimlico on Smarter Energy for New York How do they know when people are at home or not ?
Ella on My Banal Neighborhood Wonderful series and commentary, please do more! And please come up to the Bronx, where several new condo’s sit empty and forlorn, if finished, like glassboxes parachuted in from Vancouver.
BoredWithNYC on My Banal Neighborhood Beyond banal actually – NYC has become such a poster child for American mediocrity and profit maximization that you might as well call this piece ‘My Pathetic Neighborhood’. (How much nicer would it have been to even see the facade of that 4 floor brownstone extended across the block … )
Kenneth Kimbrough on How Are Architects Responding to the Haiti Disaster? How Schools of Architecture could support Re development in Haiti The pressing need of the Country of Haiti to engage in the redevelopment of its housing stock is not only urgent but absolutely necessary for the health and welfare of the people of Port au Prince. The term Appropriate Development is used here to refer to development that is not only efficient but is also affordable. If the cost of the solution is too high we risk being unable to respond to the need in terms of the resources available. The collective resources of the government of Haiti, the donations of the world community, and all NGO’s that have stepped forward to respond to the crisis might simply be inadequate if we are attempting to provide solutions using conventional construction and development methods and means. In a real sense tents that have been provided to the citizens of Haiti are appropriate and efficient. They have been provided...
Christine Esposito on The Active City This phenomenon of therapeutic environments extends into landscape development. Designers are creating outdoor spaces that provide “stealth” exercise for seniors at retirement communities and provide nurturing environments for psychiatric patients — all the while using best practices in sustainable landscape development. Harvesting and recycling rainwater on site. Using native plants. Healing people. Healing the earth. See a sample project at http://www.wrdenvironmental.com/projects/NewAGE.html
Susan Skarsgard on How Tomorrow Looked, Yesterday At the moment, there are no plans for publishing this book. However maybe down the road there will be a publisher who may have an interest in producing it. Since we are in the business of designing cars, it’s not really our area of expertise. Thank you though for your interest. Best, Susan
Mark Zeh on How Tomorrow Looked, Yesterday This sounds like a fantastic book. Are there no plans for even a limited printing? I would love to have a copy! -Mark
Eleni Georgakopoulos on How Are Architects Responding to the Haiti Disaster? While researching Paolo Soleri and the dome house he built and also uses of styro-foam for building, I came across U-tube and found prefabricated homes made in Japan that are sustainable,energy efficient domes that withstand earthquakes, are inexpensive as they are mainly made up of polystyrene, and can be put up in one hour by only 2 people! What an amazing solutions to Haiti’s disaster!!!!
celetial elf on Burbs from Above some of us just need to escape the high rise horrors…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RpN87NJMN4
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Apparently most of the commenters have never spent an extended period in a wheelchair or empathize from that perspective. Instead I find it sad that Horace is under attack for making supposed false accusations rather than being asked why he chose to comment about Alagretti’s “ramp” in such a way. As a wheelchair user myself there are many issues with a “shortened ramp” in the photograph above. Due to the limited space in front of the door it’s a necessity to make a sharp turn, therefore tilting the chair in such away that could lift the chairs wheel off the ground(one wheel on the sidewalk, one still in the door, and two teetering back and forth), which when the wheel does make contact with the ground could launch you into the wall – which could be very humorous to onlookers but incredibly embarrassing to you. Another example, is pushing a chair out of the restaurant and down the ramp only to get your footrests caught on...