a rundown

Since I don't have time to do any of these topics justice in a full posting, here is a rundown of some things that I've been exploring.

Habitat 67 - I saw it first in a big, softcover architecture book under the heading: Clusters. People still live in Habitat 67. The designer is architect Moshe Safdie, a Palestenian-Canadian.

Container Bay - A collection of projects built from shipping containers. Some have been built while many are only planned. FYI: I've been working on my own container home in SketchUp. I'll get some stills up here once it's ready.

Rights & Obligations - Berlin's Hauptbahnhof (The new main train terminal) is about to get a judicial renovation, "The Berlin District Court has ruled that Deutsche Bahn must rebuild whole sections of the new Hauptbahnhof according to the architect's plans, setting a spectacular precedent."

Urban Rail . net - This is neat.

Green Real Estate Portfolios - The Slatin Report covers the trend.

the internets are eating themselves

In today's internet rumormill: the $1Bn purchase of facebook by yahoo!
Add in the mix the concept of visual searching and you might end up with more and more editorials that sound like this or this.

ps: If you've never seen Penn & Teller's Bullshit! I suggest you watch a few online (google video).

Kennecott, Rem, & Architecture's Scientific Revolution

A lot has happened in the last two months. Part of what has inspired me to revive Toponymy was a wealth of links that caught my attention. Without further ado,

• Kennecott Land is a branch of a copper mining company in Utah. The company also owns one of the largest unbroken tracts of land in the continental United States. So why should I mention it? Because they want to build a "a 20-mile string of densely packed, 'walkable' communities framing the rural west side of Salt Lake County. The communities would be laid out along a planned highway and light-rail lines connecting to Salt Lake City."
• Rem Koolhaus is a cool cat. Der Spiegel just did an interview with him. They brought up the Palace of the Republic in Berlin, which I wrote about earlier.
• Seed has a nice article about Architecture's relationship with Science.
  
• Point and Click Census Data + Google Maps.
• Detroit Sold for Scrap (Thanks Ken!) "Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper."
• Pittsburgh's Green Building Alliance boasts the nations first LEED certified residence hall (at Carnegie Mellon) and the first LEED certified convention center (David L. Lawrence)
• Kinda dense but neat housing article in Metropolis Mag. Worth a read, or at least a cursory glance.
  

Rebuilding Above, Selling Out Below

Two practically unrelated topics this morning: a rebuilt church in Germany and a nuclear fall-out bunker for sale in the UK.

No other city had received the wrath of the allied counter-offensive in Europe quite like Dresden. Controversy about the choice of Dresden as a target, a culturally significant city with relatively little industrial activity, has been a sore point for many Americans and British. One of the places that was destroyed by the fire-bombing raid was the Frauenkirche. 60 years later, it's been rebuilt (be sure to check out the slide show). It's a truly amazing structure.

A 240 acre underground nuclear fall-out bunker is going on the market in England. Like most cold war designs, this enormous facility was designed to protect the royal family and the government in case of a Soviet nuclear attack. Of course, once everybody realized that 4 minutes would be the longest warning possible from an intercontinental ballistic missile, the whole concept of retreating to a "safe place" became obsolete - nobody can evacuate that fast. So not the British have to unload this property to the private sector. Proposed uses: wine cellar, rave-party scene, data storage? Hey, if you've got a better idea it's only £5,ooo,ooo.

Four Great Links from Things

Radical Cartography is a treasure trove of fascinating maps. Click on Projects and Yummy to get to the goodies. 'A Different Atlas,' 'Art & Language,' and the 'Boy Scout Camp' are a few of my favorites (don't forget to read the descriptions on the left.

Check out both galleries on Lori Nix's page. Her scenes of imminent destruction seem almost warm and comforting because they are easily dismissed as "models."

In Place of Berlin - scroll down for some good photography and observations about Berlin.

Reused Big Boxes. Yeah, there are a bunch of mega-churches, but there's also the Spam Museum.

Also (not from Things) Building Green's 10 point plan for New Orleans. Ambitious but informative proposal.

RETURN

Yeah, it's been a while since you last heard from me. And, I can't promise my return will be anything but fleeting. In any case, here are a few little nibbles from the past weeks.

This guy's globes are amazing. And he was born in Dortmund, who would've guessed. The name is Igno Günther.

Perhaps the Duck Billed Platypus is some kind of repository of obsolete evolutionary improvements that other mammals have shed. I was unaware it had the keenest electroperception sense of any mammal. (Yes, that means it uses electricity to locate prey.)

Currently, Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay is practically vacant. It's purpose as a military base has expired and there have been few serious proposals to develop it. Until now. A group has laid out a plan for 20,000 residents to live there in a car-free district that is powered by renewable energy sources. SF seems like the perfect political environment for an idea like this to get support. Let's hope it happens.

All I've got to say about this is yikes. Urban Renewal Zimbabwe style.

post for the heck of it

Keep an eye out for him: Hopkin Green Frog.

I spent way too much time reading this: Exit Mundi - ways the world could end. The astrological ones are insane. [note peak oil is mentioned]

Go ahead, try to read it "front to back" : Implementation, it's a novel written in stickers placed all around the US and Western Europe.

SimCity article with some honest analysis of the game, its evolution, its reflection on planning, and GIS.

"Cities are crucial to the U.S. economy. In 2002 metro economies were responsible for 85.6 percent of gross domestic product, almost $9.1 trillion in goods and services."
Why can't exurban/suburban America take off their eyemasks and realize this: Our cities are the cores of our nation. Revenue generated from all urban areas in the US goes to subsidize all rural areas. Period. Why don't we treat our cities better?

Do we let the military plan our towns? - Fire that one off at your next ZBA meeting. Use this as ammo. [Okay, the first part was a little over dramatic.]

Spyros Capralos [and so much more]

is about to become either synomous with a development catastrophe of world-scale proportions or coming a hairsbreadth away from said catastrophe. [link].

"Tackled by Face the Facts presenter John Waite, the general secretary for the Olympic Games, Spyros Capralos, admitted he had no idea how many workers have died constructing the games."

Now for today's news. [a whole lotta links from all over the place]

More from the B. Blogging the DNC is hot now [link]. Revenge of the Sith [link] has been chosen as the title for the next Star Wars film.

Silly Duke, giving iPods to freshman isn't going to make them better students. Oh, wait. Did you say iPods? Really! Well, where do I apply. [link]

I've been half-heartedly tracking the stories about the marshes in Iraq. Well, here's some news, apparently the UN is going to get involved [link].

"The wetlands were drained as punishment after the Marsh Arabs gave sanctuary to rebels fighting the Saddam regime. About 250,000 Marsh Arabs now live in refugee camps and Iraqi cities. It is estimated that during the Saddam period, around 95% of the marshes dried out, largely due to the deliberate diversion of water."

At a loss for words: [link]

"At least 46 children in Peru have died during one of the coldest spells in the Andes Mountains in 30 years."

I saw this on CBS this morning [link]. A little historic preservation, a little peacekeeping, a little religous tolerance. Voila.

How can you read this and not laugh. [link] below.

"INDIA'S railways minister has absolved himself of blame for accidents plaguing the world's largest train network, saying the fate of its 13 million daily passengers rested with the Hindu god of machines, Vishwakarma."

Holy Cow [no pun intended], India has over 100,000 kilometers of rail lines [nearly 60,000 miles based on the rough 100km/h = 60 mph conversion I do in Canada]. They better get on their knees cause apparently it's all in Vish's hands now.

On the topic of leadership: What President Bush is Not. [You can google search any of these quotes and find where they came from.] Here are my picks, but you really have to read the whole list [link]. via Harpers.

"The President of the United States is not a fact-checker... I’m not a very good novelist... I’m not an emailer... I’m not an Iraqi citizen."

It doesn't get any easier than this. Censorship doesn't always come from the government: List of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks [link].

Quite possibly the most interesting single post I've read from Defective Yeti. The Pioneer 10 Plaque [link].

Fuel Cell Breakthrough in Houston [link]. 60+mph jet powered go-kart for sale [link].