Gettin' Hitched

Posts will resume around the 4th of July.

Update 07.03: Thanks for all the wonderful comments!

The wedding went off better than I ever could have expected. The photo below is by our friend Frank, who also has a great shot of the tree Karen and I are getting married under, in the courtyard of the Smart Museum on the University of Chicago campus.



And here's a cool shot of Karen and her Dad walking down the aisle, by another friend, Don.

Evolving Skyline

Found this image over at Chicagoist, showing Chicago with buildings now under construction or proposed inserted into the city's skyline. Many more images and views are in the Chicago Model Thread at SkyscraperCity.



Makes me think that this view won't ever really happen, because even if the proposed buildings are built, there'll probably be more towers under construction with their tower cranes dotting the skyline. Especially in times of progress, the city is never complete, it's always evolving.

Handrail Memorial

A new plan for the WTC Memorial has been unveiled, according to The New York Times. This plan is the first of probably many rounds of value engineering, in this case spurred by a cost estimate of approximately $1 billion for the memorial. This design comes in at about half that, though Tropolism points out the twisted arithmetic.

One of the biggest changes to the design is technically one of the smallest. Confused? Take a look at these images:


L-R: Before and After

The only apparent change is that the floating handrail has become a solid cap for the parapet wall overlooking the waterfalls and voids below. But if we take a closer look, we see the function of this cap:



Yes, now the names of the dead that were previously etched into the walls below grade, adjacent to the waterfalls, are inscribed into this continuous railing atop the parapet wall. To me this does a few (not good) things: 1. It diminishes the role of the subterranean spaces to a visitor's center, galleries, and places for respite; 2. It diminishes the meaning of presenting the names of the dead via a "two birds with one stone" gesture; and 3. It makes the names an oversight for many visitors who will go to the edge to lean over and look at the waterfalls below (note how they didn't even change the woman in the rendering to reflect the functional change of this piece; she's not looking at the names, but the water below).

Driven mainly by construction exec. Frank Sciame, the full report on the redesign is available in PDF form on LMDC's web page.

A Critic and a Chemist

Who knew?



Just kidding. Actually, it's B.Kamins Chemist, as in Ben Kamins. Looks like Blair Kamin doesn't lead a double life as a skin-care guru after all.

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Seewurfel in Zurich, Switzerland by Camenzid Evolution.

The updated book feature is The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward R. Tufte.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Lift, the London International Festival of Theatre
"a progressive international theatre festival engaging audiences and participants with the work of international and UK artists and which raises consciousness of contemporary issues relevant to our daily lives. Lift is a biennial festival supported with a series of year-round trailblazing events," its latest and current one being The Lift New Parliament, "a portable and transportable structure with a programme of events and activities curated by an international team of artists and producers who will be engaging with local communities on the issues that matter to us all in the 21st century."

Portland Art and Portland Architecture
Two great resources on everybody's favorite progressive West Coast city.

Blair Kamin visits Minneapolis and writes about three new buildings by Jean Nouvel, Cesar Pelli, and Michael Graves.

Five Wonders

It was quite a shock to see Mini Cooper partnered with Arcosanti in an insert advertisement in this month's Dwell Magazine.



Part of Mini's "Let's visit five wonders of the modern world" campaign (the other four being The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas; Santiago Calatrava bridge in Redding, California; The Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe in Plano, Illinois; and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania), the back of the ad asserts that the Mini uses the same design principles as Soleri and Arcosanti, specifically conservation of space and fuel. While it may be true that the Mini is designed with these considerations in mind, it's a far cry from the way those concepts work and inform Arcosanti (see an article I wrote for TENbyTEN for background on the place). Same words, different principles.

What I find hard to believe is that Paolo Soleri would endorse such a thing as an automobile, even though he located his pedestrian-only laboratory of Arcosanti in an area only reachable by car, a fact not lost on Mini who mention that "those desert highways along the way are a veritable motoring paradise."

So Mini appears to be twisting the main concepts of Arcosanti towards its end. It makes me wonder how the other four relate to Mini Cooper...

Tighten Up!

Some Friday fun for ya with Bateman365's animated video for Yo La Tengo's cover of "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & the Drells. It's a cut from Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics.



Everybody's favorite Hoboken, New Jersey-based band also has a cut from their upcoming album posted on their web page. That album goes by the bit less self-deprecating title of I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. Enjoy.

What's In a Name?

When it came time for Martha Stewart to name the newest magazine in her ever-growing, post-prison empire, a magazine to fit alongside such titles as Martha Stewart Living, Everyday Food, and Body+Soul, what did she choose? Well, Blueprint of course!



What, that sounds familiar? Well, it should. It's also the name of the 20-year old British publication (left in the image above) that bills itself as "the international authority on contemporary architecture, design, and culture."

Does this mean that Martha is aiming to supplant that old rag as THE authority on those subjects? Probably not, as the subtitle of Martha's magazine is "Design your life," indicating that it's yet another in that fast-growing segment of weeklies and monthlies: lifestyle magazines. A search at magazines.com yields 175 titles in this broad category with, naturally, Oprah's self-titled one the most popular. Perhaps Martha has her sites on this other female-run empire and not some narrowly-focused, oversized magazine from across the pond.

Martha's Blueprint says to me what most architects have always known: that design permeates our lives in pratically every aspect of it, from where we live and work to the cars we drive, the products we buy and use, the toilets we sit on, the clothes we wear. I've always found Metropolis Magazine to be the most overt illustration of this fact, but in an intellectual and critical, rather than consumer-driven, way. Most of the time we "design our lives" not literally but by choosing what to buy, so that our clothes, our houses, our cars are an extension of us. It looks like Blueprint will be another magazine towards this end, with page after page after page of suggestions for what to buy in the guise of creating a new and unique you.

Most Prestigious?

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this advertisement on a visit to Europaconcorsi earlier today.



Most prestigious in the world? See for yourself.

Googling that phrase, it looks like somebody over at Archinect beat me to the punch, once again.

Architectural Connections

Maybe I'm reaching a bit too far on this one, but as soon as I saw the design for Donald Trump's modestly-titled Trump Soho by David Rockwell, I immediately thought of an unbuilt project by Tadao Ando in the same city.



These doctored images try to illustrate where I see the similarities, namely in the only two overt design gestures by Ando in his penthouse renovation/addition, a glass bar capping the existing building and a diagonal glass bar appearing to pierce the building (it comes out on the other side, not apparent in the rendering below) a few floors below. Perhaps the latter element has a stronger connection with Rockwell's design where -- even though it's all new construction and is protruding from a glass wall instead of stone -- it's treated as a strong, linear gesture in front of a muted and repetitive background.



Feel free to tell me if I'm full of it, though keep in mind that I'm not saying Rockwell was inspired by or copied Ando's design (they're physically not that similar) but moreso that our minds make some interesting and unpredictable connections owing, in no small part, to the limitations of architectural imagery.

"Of course the budgie is the bird of choice for architects"

"Of course the budgie is the bird of choice for architects."

Find this drawing and many, many more at Mattias Adolfsson's blog, Mattias Inks, and The home of Mattias O Adolfsson, a repository of many wonderful drawings, sketches, doodles, and comics, including some especially beautiful drawings of rural Sweden.

(via Drawn)

Bike 2015 Plan

Following up on its Bike 2000 Plan, the City of Chicago has released its Bike 2015 Plan.



According to the 56-page document (4mb PDF link):

The Bike 2015 Plan has two overall goals:
:: To increase bicycle use, so that 5 percent of all trips less than five miles are by bicycle.
:: To reduce the number of bicycle injuries by 50 percent from current levels.

The plan has eight chapters, each with a specific goal:
:: Bikeway Network -– Establish a bikeway network that serves all Chicago residents and neighborhoods.
:: Bicycle-friendly Streets -– Make all of Chicago’s streets safe and convenient for bicycling.
:: Bike Parking -– Provide convenient and secure short-term and long-term bike parking throughout Chicago.
:: Transit -– Provide convenient connections between bicycling and public transit.
:: Education -– Educate bicyclists, motorists, and the general public about bicycle safety and the benefits of bicycling.
:: Marketing and Health Promotion -– Increase bicycle use through targeted marketing and health promotion.
:: Law Enforcement and Crash Analysis -– Increase bicyclist safety through effective law enforcement and detailed crash analysis.
:: Bicycle Messengers -– Expand the use of bicycle messengers; improve their workplace safety and public image.

If you like numbered lists then you'll love the above document (best read in html as that version provides many links on what the city calls "Best Practices", meaning other places providing for bikes better than Chicago). Me, I couldn't make it through the thing if I tried. But I did read the below table, and it helped temper my initial excitement at hearing about the plan and its far-reaching goals.



Comparing the current state of things on the left with the 10-year plan on the right, those totals look good (185 miles) but the gains appear to fall primarily into two categories: Bike Lanes (46 miles) and Signed Routes (85 miles).

Bike Lanes are "five or six-foot wide corridors for the exclusive use of cyclists" and are located between parked and moving cars. A lot of drivers don't respect the lane and double-park their cars, forcing bikers into moving traffic. Furthermore, bikers have to be extremely careful of people opening drivers-side doors into the lane.

Signed Routes don't have dedicated bike lanes, but are merely connections between streets with actual bike lanes. They direct bikers to nearby lanes but aren't any safer, since many times they are too narrow for bike lanes.

So approximately 70% of the new Miles in 2015 will be the extension of already risky and dangerous conditions. That might explain why about four or five (depending on how you look at it) of the eight chapters of the plan address the second goal of bike safety. So the City's saying, "since we can't layout and design safe routes, let's just figure it out some other, cheaper way." Regardless, I'm looking forward to those Raised Bike Lanes and Bike Boulevards.

Half Dose #25: Belmont/Thurman Lofts

These two projects by Portland, Oregon-based Holst Architecture are mixed-use, urban developments of roughly the same size in the firm's hometown.


Belmont Street Lofts

Each treats the exterior wall as a porous, screen-like zone that gives each a strong presence in its context while also giving the occupants a reasonable amount of shade and privacy.


Belmont Street Lofts

The Belmont Street Lofts offer 27 loft/condo apartments ranging from 850-1,000 s.f., located over 4,000 s.f. of retail and some parking. In addition to its exterior rainscreen/sunshade, the building also features radiant floor heating aimed towards increased energy efficiency.


Thurman Street Lofts

The Thurman Street Lofts -- the more recent of the two projects -- extend the articulated, wood exterior towards a more sculptural end, with windows almost carved from the dark wood facades.


Thurman Street Lofts

(Thanks to Jeremy G. for the head's up!)

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Cantina Ghidossi in Cadenazzo, Switzerland by Aurelio Galfetti.

The updated book feature is Cruelty & Utopia: Cities and Landscapes of Latin America, edited by Jean-Francois Lejeune.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

LayerMag
"A platform for interaction, exposure and participation of South Asian designers, at all stages to experience and share their ideologies, which will help evolve the present status quo."

Archfarm
"Publication focuses on the analysis and diffusion of initiatives and collectives that have no space in other communication channels: critical thinking, theoretical discourse and the latest proposals on architecture and tangent issues." (added to sidebar under online journals)

Phylotaxis
"An exploration of space where science meets culture."

S.Pellegrino Archive

In the process of research for my next weekly dose, I came across the Architecture & Design archive of S.Pellegrino. Yep, the Italian company with that bubbly water. Each article describes a usually Italian exhibition, building, piece of furniture, design object, with explanatory text and numerous images. The archive has 26 pages with four articles, making for hours and hours of learning and eye candy.



The latest article is Three Days with Carlo Scarpa (above) regarding "an unprecedented series of events in honor of this famous contemporary architect on the occasion of his centenary birthday."

Now with Fries

As part of Chicago's newfound quest to sell itself to the highest bidder, the Millennium Park Bike Station is now the McDonald's Cycle Center. Unlike the other pieces of Millennium Park with corporate names, such as the BP Bridge, the bike station (I can't yet call it a cycle center, sorry) is not named for the corporate entity that donated funds to made it happen. This is well after the fact and is focused on naming rights and probably long-term maintenance and service costs.



I can't help but wonder if these doctored images are the future of the park. It's a small step from naming to signage.



(via Gapers Block)

UGLY Rant

The May/June issue of the Boston Society of Architects/AIA's ArchitectureBoston publication revolves around the theme UGLY. One of the highlights includes a roundtable discussion, "Pretty Ugly" (PDF link).



As their web page indicates, "Unlike many other architecture publications, we are an 'ideas' magazine rather than a 'picture book.' Our stories connect architecture to social, cultural, political, and economic trends. Provocative and passionate, always clear and sometimes witty..."

Now for my rant.

This is news to me, and I gotta say that the more I see AIA chapter publications -- first New York's and now Boston's (humorously each chapter bills itself as the largest AIA chapter) -- the more I realize that Chicago's chapter newsletter (Focus) is but a fraction of what