Modern Beauty in Healdsburg
The amazing little house my wife designed in Healdsburg, California, that won an AIA Honor Award is the April 2007 House of the Month in the online Architectural Record.
April 21, 2007
The amazing little house my wife designed in Healdsburg, California, that won an AIA Honor Award is the April 2007 House of the Month in the online Architectural Record.
March 15, 2007
NYC Architecture Photos
Just discovered this site of NYC Architecture photos. Mostly classic older landmarks, more center city-centric. Largest collection of Penn Station photographs and prints that I have ever seen (not that I've extensively searched...), and lots of other lost buildings.
November 28, 2005
Animated Deconstruction
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has a great animated video showing how the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank building downtown will happen.
October 29, 2005
Playing The Building
David Byrne has a sound installation currently in Stockholm, Sweden, called "Playing The Building." An organ console is attached to the various structural and other elements of the interior of a building which are used to make the sound.
October 11, 2005
Crumbling Infrastructure
This is not exactly new news, which is why I guess it is in the Arts & Leisure section, but Nicolai Ouroussoff has written a great article on the pumps that were supposed to keep the water out of New Orleans and the general deterioration of urban infrastructure in this country over the past several decades.
September 06, 2005
New York's Best Skyscrapers
The Skyscraper Museum took a poll to establish the top ten skyscrapers in New York City. (New York Times)
June 07, 2005
Super City
Douglas Coupland has an exhibition in Montreal on building with Legos and Super City building sets. He wrote briefly about Legoland and is pictured in it on the cover of microserfs.
March 01, 2005
Healdsburg House
My beautiful fiance designed a house that won an honor award from the AIA Redwood Empire Chapter last year, and there are finally a couple pictures of it online: Healdsburg House - 2004 Design Award Winners
July 14, 2004
Project for Public Spaces
Project for Public Spaces is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities.
April 28, 2004
My Own Little Forbidden City
I guess this is what you do if you are rich, Chinese, live in Texas and feel like leaving a mark in the landscape. Texas' Little-Known 'Forbidden City'
April 01, 2004
Inefficient Building
In the April Metropolis Magazine Peter Hall reviews Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake’s Refabricating Architecture. The book is basically about why the building industry is still so inefficient with everything done on site by different contractors generally in sequential order, if in so many other industries technology and productivity have made them more efficient. The authors produce several of their own examples as to why it doesn't work, mainly the complex intersections of building codes, trade unions, liability, etc. They also have several success stories.
Something occurred to me when reading this review. What would prefabrication and efficiency mean to a nation that seems to depend on the inefficiency and labor intensiveness of construction. Housing starts and major construction projects are often given as (at least temporary) signs of increased economic activity and sources of jobs. But what if construction didn't require that many people.