buildings
We’ve just returned from a visit to Helvetia, West Virginia where two dear friends had passed away within a couple of weeks of each other. Both lived long amazingly rich lives that touched a great many people. We came home tired, thoughtful, amazed, sad, inspired…and slowly started back to work on ‘the improvised life’. As often happens, we stumbled on something that resonated deeply with what we’d been thinking about: Candy Chang’s public art project Before I Die. Chang found a derelict building in New Orleans, painted its sides with chalkboard paint and stenciled the question “Before I die I want to____________” ; she left spaces for people to fill in with chalk. Says Chang:
“It’s a question that has changed me in the last year, and I believe the design of our public spaces can better reflect what’s important to us as residents and as human beings. The responses and stories from passersby while we were installing it have already hit me hard in the heart.” read more…
04.04.11 |
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in art, buildings, community, family + friends, identity, inspiration blogs + sites, outside, paths + processes, projects + play |
Charles McFarlane, a Junior at the Rudolf Steiner school, is an avid scholar of 20th Century American social and military history. He recently sent us images he’s collected from his research that he thought would resonate with ‘the improvised life’. In an email he wrote:
“Necessity is often the mother of invention. This is no more apparent than in the situation of war. War is often said to be 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror. During the long stretches of boredom soldiers have often tried to improve their situations, to make their lives more bearable.
…In my study of historical photographs I am constantly on the look out for the odd and strange things in history that make you think “what was that person’s train of thought?” I think you can see that in the photos I sent you.” read more…
03.15.11 |
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in buildings, elements, inside, outside, paths + processes, reimagine, repurpose, road warrior, strategies |
Yoshie Nishikawa
The Interventionist’s Toolkit, Mimi Zeiger’s long and illuminating essay in Design Observer, tracks the effect the recession has had on inspiring frugal, improvisational strategies for urban spaces around the world. When there’s no money for traditional architecture projects,” Provisional, Opportunistic, Ubiquitous, and Odd Tactics in Guerilla and DIY Practice and Urbanism” take root. We’ve excerpted the sections of Zeiger’s piece that are chock full of examples, with links to explore.
“These days vacant lots offer sites for urban farming, mini-golf, and dumpster pools. Trash recycles into a speculative housing prototype (see the Tiny Pallet House). Whether it’s The Living’s Amphibious Architecture or Mark Shepard’s Serendipitor, the built environment speaks through mobile devices. Retail spaces hit by the recession are fodder for reinvention, as the art organization No Longer Empty transforms unleased storefronts into temporary galleries. Even the street itself is reclaimed. REBAR’s annual initiative, Park(ing) Day, urges global participants to use a pranksters wit to turn parking spaces into pocket parks, one quarter at a time. (If you don’t feel like reading much, just click on the links, or scroll down for our favorites…) read more…
02.23.11 |
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in buildings, cheap + great, community, outside, projects + play, resources blogs + sites, sightings, strategies |
Sally Schneider
This is the front door of some friends who live in Brooklyn. They didn’t any ‘real’ house numbers when they moved into the house, so they made these artful numbers out of thin masking tape. Because the doorway is somewhat protected, the impromptu numbers have survived wind, rain, sleet and recently even a tornedo. Now they like them so much, they’re gonna leave them: odd and beautiful in the midst of landmark perfection read more…
11.02.10 |
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in buildings, cheap + great, materials, outside, sightings |
Here is the challenge: Build a structure that is…
…temporary
…has at least two and a half walls
…is big enough to contain a table
…has a roof made of shade-making organic materials through which one can see the stars…
…
What would you build?
These are some of the Talmudic constraints that twelve design contest winners worked under to make their versions of a sukkah, the ephemeral, rough-hewn dwelling built to celebrate the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. The twelve unique structures are on display for two days in Union Square Park in New York City. Alerted by a friend, we ran over to see them, and to learn about the amazing idea of a sukkah, about which we knew nothing, and which expanded our ideas of both “shelter” and “celebration”. read more…
09.20.10 |
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in buildings, celebrations, community, cool spaces, family + friends, identity, outside, sightings |
Tiffany Chu/Dwell
When we read that Centre Pompidou in Paris was offering a Cardboard Carton Workshop, we wanted to beam ourselves there, a la Star Trek, to see what more we could add to our overflowing file and minds about this wonderfully versatile material. We were stunned by a photo of an archway made of cardboard sheets combined in layers and compressed; it flies in the face of the usual ways of building with cardboard, of using the flat sides as walls. It is the work of Tadashi Kawamata who is known for the spare structures he builds out of humble materials – pine boards, cardboard, packing materials, chairs – in unlikely places. They seem impromptu (though they take a great deal of work and planning), and speak of temporariness and informality; they somehow question the spaces and structures we take for granted. Now wonder his workshop has lines around the block.
When we saw pictures of Kawamata’s art at the Pompidou’s site, we realized we had seen his work before and had a vivid unattributed memory of it: of beautiful, odd, slapped together-looking nests and houses perched high up in the ancient tress of Madison Square Park, in the center of New York City. They made us LOOK with wonder and, for a moment, imagine ourselves hiding out in one of them but we never stopped to find out who had made them. Now we know, and are inspired by a central theme of Kawamata’s art: read more…
08.09.10 |
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in art, buildings, cool spaces, inside, materials, outside, people, projects + play, resources, strategies |
We love David Galbraith’s post about his search for EXACTLY where the World Wide Web got started. He spoke to visionary computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee who wrote the original proposal and early coding for “the global hypertext product that would allow people to work together by combining their knowledge in a web of hypertext document”. If you enlarge the photo, above, you’ll see a tiny notation scribbled at the top of the proposal: “Vague but exciting”. That was in 1989, over twenty years ago.
It all took place in ordinary-looking surroundings at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva. What’s curious and strangely charming is Berners Lee’s acute memory of the color of the linoleum on each floor of the building, which was not so ordinary after all… read more…
07.11.10 |
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in buildings, community, inspiration blogs + sites, paths + processes, people, why not? |
When we wrote about clipped-together cardboard box shelving a while back, we mentioned wanting to paint the cardboard boxes – coat them with something to change their look (we were thinking rubber paint) – knowing that the cardboard would swell slightly and become….something else: not smooth but sculptural, possibly even stronger once it had dried. After a few comments to the effect of: “bad idea…YOU CAN”T paint cardboard”, we put the idea aside. Then we saw Andrea Zittel’s wonderful cardboard construction, with its cryptic blurb:
“For the last year there has been a teetering pile of cardboard boxes precariously stacked against the dining room wall. Today the masterpiece was finished and installed…. Walla!”
Look at that!!! we thought as we sailed from one website to another discovering Andrea Zittel. FOR YEARS she has been following her imaginings and exploring ways to define and organize space, question assumptions about it, experiment with new ways and systems for living.
Zittel’s not-quite-finished website is all about her work as a – WHAT? -, an installation artist-designer-sculptor-lifestyle thinker and investigator… She is the driving force behind A-Z West,”an institute of investigative living” read more…
07.06.10 |
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in art, buildings, cool spaces, dream houses, furniture, identity, inside, inspiration, paths + processes, people, reimagine, strategies |
Sally Schneider
Aside from endless design ideas, last summer’s trip to Finland has yielded a several part series at Atlanic Onlines’ Food Blog, starting today. The Atlantic posts will be ongoing for the next few weeks and will be mostly food-centric – woven through with cool design – until we get to the home of a Finnish farmer and an island shack that will knock you out…(we’ll post those stories here as well). In the meantime here are some examples of Finland’s wonderful everyday design, starting with the Alvar Aalto stools stacked by a snack stand in Helsinki’s outdoor market by the port, set up under bright orange-red tents.. read more…
03.15.10 |
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in buildings, outside, sightings, travel |
Slack 12/Flickr*
In the often-surprising “Lives” page of last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Robin Black told the story of how her family’s dilapidated home was scouted by a reality tv producer for a show about houses so “spectacularly unkempt” that they make their neighbors mad. At first Black and her husband are shocked and somewhat embarrassed, then they warm to the idea. Caught up in the idea that “our failings would turn us into stars”, they convince themselves of a pat sitcom-ish pitch for the audition tape as to why their place is so untended: of good-natured overachievers – lives rife with interest and accomplishment – who couldn’t possibly do it all. It was a far cry from the actual reasons for their house’s disrepair, which she and her husband see all too clearly when they weren’t chosen for the show after all:
read more…
01.05.10 |
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in buildings, identity, outside, paths + processes, sightings |
William Kamkwamba was fourteen and living in drought-stricken Malawi when he stumbled on a library book called Using Energy, and saw a picture of a windmill. He thought that if he could make one, he could provide electricity for his family, pump water and irrigate crops, and power light for reading at night, as well as a radio. So William set about to make his windmill out of spare parts and scrap he found: wood, a bicycle frame, a pulley, a piece of plastic pipe, some wire read more…
09.30.09 |
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www.dinnerwithjulie.com
Once the door to an idea opens, information often miraculously seems to appear. There’s some sort of attunement that seems to happen when you hold a question in mind and start trying to figure it out; perhaps it’s simply a shift in awareness that makes us see the answers around us.
Right after I wrote about d-i-y pizza-ovens, I started to stumble upon books and websites with in-depth instructions and resources for building and using wood-fired ovens, a change in name that expands the content considerably (beyond pizza – just about any food benefits from being cooked in a wood-fired oven). Even if you don’t actually have a space to build a wood-fired oven right now, these resources can help you formulate ideas for when you do, or for when you’re out camping and want to apply some of its principles to a make-shift oven. Some books, like the definitive The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens
, will even guide you to achieving some of the effects of a masonry oven, using an ordinary gas or electric oven. read more…
09.29.09 |
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Spencer Tirey/New York Times
Philip Besonen was a remarkable man who most people hadn’t heard of until he wrote a piece for the New York Times about the mokki he built in his back yard. A mokki (rhymes with hokey) is a small unassuming cottage much beloved in Finland, where Philip had roots. “Mokkis …were invariably off by themselves near lakes or trees, in settings where you could find peace. The feeling of serenity was the most striking thing about them.” wrote Philip.
He’d wanted to build a mokki because he was about to retire and couldn’t bear the idea of not having an office, and because during his entire life of living in a large family (first as a child, then as a married man with children), he craved privacy: a place of his own.
Knowing that this wouldn’t go over too well with his wife who opposed “frivolous” expenditures, Phil had to use stealth in building his mokki. read more…
09.28.09 |
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in buildings, cool spaces, family + friends, paths + processes, people |
Catherine Tighe
Remodelista posted some terrific pictures of my friends Suzanne Shaker and Pete Dandridge’s perfect summer house on Shelter Island, 2 hours from New York City. Suzanne, an interior designer and stylist, and Pete, an art conservator, worked with Deborah Burke & Partners Architects to build the 1250 square foot from-scratch house. It seems incredibly spacious, due in part to large glass doors and picture windows (one whole side of the house) that bring in the surrounding woods and nature, and a 20-foot dining/living/kitchen area. Ample storage keeps the minimalist house from looking cluttered.
What Remodelista doesn’t mention is that the house was made on a strict budget – less than half of what a house in this part of the world would normally cost. Every design decision was meant to be both beautiful and practical, if not always easy; the budget demanded that Suzanne and Pete give up some ideas they’d seen as essential, and become more resourceful in finding solutions. They went with inexpensive materials in many places, to spend more on others. read more…
09.23.09 |
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in buildings, cool spaces, dream houses, inside, outside, resources blogs + sites, solutions |
