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.

Room for Improvement: Green Certification

Interesting and highly informative article from the Wall Street Journal regarding Green Buildings. It appears that the certification process that allows certain buildings to be dubbed "green" gives equal weight to features with wildly divergent prices and ecological outcomes. (Scroll to the bottom of the article for a quote from GR's own Progressive Architecture)

Under the current system, buildings get points for "green" features on the list, such as water management or use of natural sunlight. Builders get one point for installing a $350 bike rack or an electric-vehicle recharging station that few might use. They score the same one point, however, for promising to obtain 5% of the building's energy from renewable sources such as wind or solar power. To win a green seal from the council, a building needs to earn 26 from a total of 69 possible points.

Talking Trash Cans are encouraging Berliners not to litter. Oh, and they're solar powered.

Maybe Barb was onto something?

My aunt Barb recently visited Salt Lake City. I had never considered the place a haven of cutting edge innovation in the realm of urban development and planning - but perhaps I was wrong.

The Michigan Land Use Institute tells us how Mr. Grow (appropriately named) is getting things done in the name of regional, "quality growth" for the area. It sounds basically like Transit-Oriented-Design (TOD) but with sales-tax teeth.

"The region has built 19 miles of light rail transit lines, is constructing 44 miles of commuter rail, and has purchased enough rail right-of-way for a 300-mile regional transit system. Dozens of communities have rewritten their master land use plans, and several have new zoning requirements that prompt builders to construct new homes and businesses within walking distance of planned transit stops."

Ring Species make me think

Every field has situations where definite "lines" get blurry - where constants are questioned and not always upheld. One I hadn't considered much was the definition of species. While this might not surprise some biologically-oriented people it was very interesting to me. It's difficult for me to describe so please read the Wikipedia article and BBC article about it.

To some degree this cuts under stark boundaries between different animals. It shows how all life is a complex tapestry of diverse and co-existing organisms.

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.

Floating Home - Nonmobile variety

The Dutch have a way with water - everybody knows that. But I bet you didn't know they've built homes that will literally float in a flood. Yeah, they did.

Comparison of American Urban Disasters in the 21st Century

Columnists are leaping on the similarities between the WTC and NOLA events. Convienient timing may be a partial cause of this bizzare comparison - but not the whole reason. People are pleading, begging that NOLA (and the many other communities devestated by Katrina) learn the lessons of New York's rebuilding process. Given the dissatisfaction surrounding the current plans for the former WTC site - perhaps these loud warnings are justified.

Rebuild New Orleans

The city needs two new features to ensure its continued existance.

First: The city needs to be hardened against another natural disaster of this scale. This is a massive task that goes far beyond rebuilding a few levies. Serious and unprecedented infrastructure improvements will be needed to rehabilitate the area.

Second: The city needs an economic base other than tourism. While the charming districts that have kept the city on life support largely survived the storm - they should not become the only reason to visit New Orleans in future decades. My magic wand: sustainable energy development.

Now that the nation has seen how fragile and expensive our energy habits are - we should honestly work to building large-scale solutions to oil dependence. The city can be reformatted - re imagined and eventually transformed into a model of energy independence. This would have to be in spite of the massive oil industry prescience to the south (drilling in the Gulf) and west (Houston) near New Orleans.

The benefit of rebuilding New Orleans this way is three fold. First, a cultural and historic American city would be saved for future generations. Second, the current residents who now face unemployment as a result of the hurricane would have opportunities in the reconstruction efforts. Third, the process of economic and physical transformation would draw in professionals and capital from the most cutting edge industries in the world. (After all, everybody wants a slice of the New Big Easy.)

The tough question is always how.

A few links:
A Daily Dose of Architecture
Wall Street Journal
New York Times Infographic
Slate - Don't Refloat
"The Control of Nature" - John McPhee, excerpt

Subway Drawings

António Jorge Gonçalves' online gallery of drawings of people riding subways in 10 cities around the world. Stockholm, Tokyo, Berlin, New York, Lisbon, London, Sao Paulo, Moscow, Athens, Cairo. Good stuff.

Better than Recycling: Inverse Manufacture

This is genius - it could precipitate a revolution in manufactured goods. At its core inverse manufacturing means products whose components are interchangeable amongst various models and within the product line. For example: parts in your copier might also be used in your printer or your fax machine. And these same parts will meet specifications for future models, too. It is the opposite of obsolescence and forced replacement and the dawn of a "repair and maximize" approach.

Read more about it. (Note: I mentioned copiers because the only firm I know practicing this is Fuji Xerox.)