Public Transit and Why a Zebra?

I’ve won­dered for a few years now while con­tem­plat­ing being car-less, and now being car-less if it would be pos­si­ble to travel to and from mul­ti­ple cities via pub­lic tran­sit. It turns out it is! Evan Siroky has assem­bled var­i­ous routes to prove the point. You got to love the efforts peo­ple make to share points on just how real­is­tic trans­porta­tion is with­out a car.

This oil spill is incred­i­bly awful, but in terms of its effect on the planet vs. our total con­sump­tion and demand for oil have. It does’t even come close. You may argue the point that man made cli­mate change is a hoax, and this is just the nat­ural cycle. Fine, I’m not going to argue that with any­one because I am not an expert. There are sci­en­tist and peo­ple see­ing it first hand that are bet­ter suited to do so. But for what it is worth the dif­fer­ence I see between man made devel­op­ment vs. a bal­anced ecosys­tem is visu­ally dis­turb­ing to me. If it weren’t for my stu­dent loans I would surly kiss this cap­i­tal­is­tic resource hog­ging world behind, and live with less out on the road.

Ok, back on topic. I really like this idea of pub­lic tran­sit being used to travel great dis­tances. Think about it, I could get on Trimet then con­nect with other regional tran­sit sys­tems and in a mat­ter of hours I am in Seat­tle. It may not be as con­ve­nient, but there is noth­ing con­ve­nient about sit­ting in your car all alone unable to share the expe­ri­ence with other peo­ple. We are social ani­mals, and while some of the peo­ple you may encounter on the bus aren’t the type of peo­ple you want to buddy up to. If more peo­ple ditched their cars the chances are bet­ter that you could meet some­one new on your com­mute to — for exam­ple, Seattle.

This is just another idea that a bet­ter planned urban area, that focuses resources on tran­sit of the foot, pedal, and mass-transit sys­tems could go a long way towards devel­op­ing stronger com­mu­ni­ties. So what am I miss­ing? I’m not sure human beings; despite our social nature are ready for that close of a com­mu­nity. Some peo­ple just don’t want to change, don’t want to lis­ten, and don’t want to give up on what they have come to believe is the Amer­i­can Dream. I wish it were dif­fer­ent. My inner hippy mel­low is being harshend, haha.

Cal­i­for­nia just banned plas­tic bags. Ore­gon, are you lis­ten­ing? Safe­way, you are the worst offender. My Safe­way store doesn’t even offer paper. So if I for­get my reusable bag, I have to take plas­tic. Boo!

Oh, check out this great audio visual bliss of five New York neigh­bor­hoods cap­tured in their full glory. No inserted out­side music, just a great ambi­ent sound­track and neigh­bor­hood blips. Sources: Archi­tects News­pa­per Blog and Urban Omnibus

Daniel, stop being such a gloat­ing flower power dude and show us a cool house. Ok, here you go.

This is the JD House. It is located in the for­est of Mar Azul, in the Argen­tin­ian province of Buenos Aires. Minus the Zebra skin on the ground, I really love this. The Archi­tec­ture is so inspir­ing. I also like the min­i­mal­ism of the inte­rior. Sure it could use some art and a bit of color, but that is really those per­sonal touches that are made by the inhab­i­tant. Here, have a look.

Sources: Con­tem­po­rist and BAK Archi­tects

Jun 04, 2010 | Architecture, Design, Interior, Personal, Travel | Leave A Comment »

Good News, New Stuff and Things to Share

First, the good news. Start­ing June 21^st I will no longer be unem­ployed! After more than 8 months of incon­sis­tent income, over­whelm­ing stress and gen­eral eco­nomic slumps — I will rejoin the work­ing class. Awe­some, and I have 3 weeks off until then to work on odds and ends with­out dwelling on the future.

I put up this weeks mix­tape. You can lis­ten to it, or down­load it on the side­bar to the right. Um, the lan­guage is NSFW. But so is leav­ing the win­dow open. I guess try it out with head­phones first before you start a dance party in the office. This will be a weekly thing, unless I find it to be too much to keep up on. For now, no prob­lem on that front. Enjoy.

30 Days of Cre­ativ­ity starts today. I made a mix to kick things off. I have a few ideas in my head and sketch pad that I am going to try and get more devel­oped. One of them includes a remodel exper­i­ment for my family’s house down in Flo­rence, Ore­gon.  It’s a really great mid-century ranch style house. Some other things will show up here before or after that. This 30 day project will be my moti­va­tion to really kick my port­fo­lio into high gear.

“30 Days of Cre­ativ­ity is a social ini­tia­tive encour­ag­ing peo­ple to cre­ate stuff, any­thing, every day for 30 days.

This is your excuse to buy that tub of Play­dough, unbox your Erec­tor set, or dust off your Holga. You might be work­ing on one huge project for 30 days straight. Maybe you are cre­at­ing some­thing new thing every day. (That’s the best way to par­tic­i­pate!) It could be as sim­ple as tak­ing a pic­ture of your out­fit for 30 days to some­thing as involved as a writ­ing a song or mak­ing a movie every day.” — MAKE Mag­a­zine Blog

#30daysofcreativity — A How To Guide from 30 Days of Cre­ativ­ity on Vimeo.

Finally, some­thing to share. I’ve been try­ing to share at least one project/design a week that inspires me. Today I am shar­ring the Palmyra House located in Nandgaon, Maha­rash­tra, India. This has been fea­tured on a few archi­tec­ture blogs. So it may look famil­iar. It was designed by Stu­dio Mum­bai Archi­tects.

What I like most about it is the inte­rior use of very dark and rich woods, along with nat­ural stone and con­crete ele­ments. It has a strong tex­tural aes­thetic — almost rough look­ing. Still though, the end expe­ri­ence that I observed from the images it that the the house has a quiet and soft feel­ing. The house has great East­ern Asian design ele­ments as well, to unify the mod­ern design with tra­di­tional fin­ishes. More images and obser­va­tions are avail­able over at Con­tem­po­rist.

Jun 01, 2010 | Architecture, Art, Film, Interior, Music, Personal, Work | Leave A Comment »

Time to Share

I went to the open house yes­ter­day for the house I had been work­ing on ear­lier this year. Of course I for­got my cam­era. It looked great with fur­ni­ture though, I swear. I am still busy look­ing for work, but I wanted to take a break and share some things that I’d come across over the weekend.

This first video is some proper reuse/adaptation to the fore­clo­sures and eco­nomic dumps of these crazy times. This may be a lit­tle con­tro­ver­sial depend­ing on how you look at it. I grew up skate­board­ing, and see no harm done. What do you think? If you are watch­ing at work, be care­ful. The lan­guage is NSFW.

Can­non­ball from Cal­i­for­nia is a place. on Vimeo.

This next item is a fan­tas­tic com­bi­na­tion of mod­ern archi­tec­ture and near per­fect inte­gra­tion into the house’s sur­round­ing land­scape. I call this suc­cess. Beau­ti­ful tex­tures, stun­ning lines, and so many inter­est­ing focal points. I would love to be a part of a project like this some­day. This gets me going.

Los Molles House / Olt­mann Ahlers W. + Olt­mann Ahlers G. + dRN Arqui­tec­tos — Source: Arch Daily

(more…)

May 17, 2010 | Architecture, Design, Film, Interior, Sustainable, Work | Leave A Comment »