Stephen – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Author Archives: Stephen

November 12, 2013 – 3:10 am

finance fundamentals i

Mammoth has long held an interest in the broad social, economic, and logistical systems which provide the context within which any infrastructure, landscape, or building is designed and constructed. One particularly important contextual component is the nature of a project’s financing. This is true for the Panama Canal Expansion, it is true for the Fresh […]

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March 10, 2012 – 9:57 pm

density

[NASA compares Manhattan to a neutron star. The infographic is a dimensional comparison — if scaled for density instead, Manhattan wouldn’t be visible. From wikipedia: “[the] density [of a neutron star] is approximately equivalent to the mass of the entire human population compressed to the size of a sugar cube”; link via Alex Ogle.]

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October 1, 2011 – 2:04 pm

psyttaleia island

[Psyttaleia Island, Alcatraz of wastewater treatment plants. Via the awesomely-named tumblr The Value of Garbage. Aerial photos from this slideshow of Psyttaleia construction images. For more, see this description of the island (in Greek).]

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May 11, 2011 – 8:26 am

matter battle sublime

[Gravity Probe B, the most perfect sphere humans have created, comes within 40 atomic layers of matching its Platonic Form. The litany of innovations it took to conduct a theoretically simple experiment – one which needed precise execution – is a testament to the wondrous complexity of meatspace.]

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May 3, 2011 – 9:08 am

splash house

A group of graduate architecture students from Parsons’ Design Workshop is attempting to (partially) fund an unsolicited project called Splash House using Kickstarter: The Highbridge Pool and Recreation Center is an invaluable place for kids to play and learn. Yet for several months every summer the Washington Heights community is denied this critical resource when […]

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February 27, 2011 – 2:23 pm

400 years of 124 Green Street

Go read this micro history of a block in New York City: We usually analyze Development at the national level. Why not other levels? At the other extreme, here is a short and surprising illustrated history of one city block […] Its history had been a series of unexpected events involving many actors, from Nicholas […]

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February 22, 2011 – 2:25 pm

the largest vessel of any type known to be in operation

Bridging the gap between mammoth’s interest in infrastructure, global logistics, economies, and really, really big things is this announcement from Moller-Maersk: Danish shipper Moller-Maersk, the biggest container carrier, confirmed Monday it has signed a contract for a South Korean shipyard to build it 10 giant container ships over the next three years… The new container […]

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February 11, 2011 – 12:58 pm

markets, constituencies, and infrastructure

I’ve been reading the blog Market Urbanism quite a lot recently. Writing recently about “the problem with “public” transportation” (and after noting the frequent use of ‘public transit’ where the broader ‘mass transit’ would be more appropriate), they argue: …although the [New York] Subway was heavily subsidized by the government, the truth is that it […]

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January 2, 2011 – 1:54 pm

watch patiently, with sound

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November 30, 2010 – 12:44 pm

silk moses

Esquire profiles Janette Sadik-Khan in their series The Brightest: 15 Geniuses Who Give Us Hope. Although it initially seems curiously focused on her personality instead of her accomplishments, the piece makes a convincing case that the two are inseparably linked, and as such, is a good example of the political and social acumen that designers […]

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September 30, 2010 – 10:28 pm

fake cyborgs

Readers who are both familiar with mammoth and the 50 cyborgs project are likely expecting a post arguing that cities are, in fact, cyborgs. It’s true. They are. And I’ll be happy to argue the point in the comments should anyone wish. But at the risk of straying too far from typical mammoth topics, I […]

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July 27, 2010 – 2:00 pm

reading the infrastructural city, chapter nine index

“Once a vast carpet of healthy vegetation and virgin forest, the Amazon rain forest is changing rapidly. This image of Bolivia shows dramatic deforestation in the Amazon Basin. Loggers have cut long paths into the forest, while ranchers have cleared large blocks for their herds. Fanning out from these clear-cut areas are settlements built in […]

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July 17, 2010 – 1:07 pm

risk

These are chapters eight and nine of The Infrastructural City; if you’re not familiar with the series, you can start here and catch up here. Thinking about the new urban landscape and public space and wondering where to start, I suddenly remember how, as a boy, I built my first crystal receiver […] You would […]

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July 5, 2010 – 3:05 pm

infrastructural city update

Just quick note to let you all know that last week’s chapter, Cell Structure by Ted Kane and Rick Miller, and the upcoming week’s Counting (On) Change by Roger Sherman have been rolled into a single post, which should go live sometime in the next several days. Polis have published their take on Cell Structure […]

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June 22, 2010 – 10:04 am

FAT, falcons

At Action!, Rory Hyde has written a great review of ‘extra/ordinary’, the national conference of the Australian Institute of Architects. Framed around a description of work presented by Elemental, Teddy Cruz, and F.A.T., the post raises some of the same issues we’re discussing in mammoth’s recent post on The Infrastructural City. On the necessity of a […]

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June 19, 2010 – 3:32 pm

inside svalbard

[For more about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, see our hyperbolically-named post on the best architecture of the decade]

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June 17, 2010 – 9:00 pm

starting from zero

This is week six of our reading of The Infrastructural City; if you’re not familiar with the series, you can start here and catch up here. It takes me a bit to get to discussing the chapter, but seeing as this post is already over a week late (sorry!) I hope you’ll indulge a few […]

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May 11, 2010 – 11:52 am

oildorado

You’ve arrived at week three of our reading of The Infrastructural City; if you’re not familiar with the series, you can start here and catch up here. It’s cliche to reference dinosaurs when describing the oil well pumps which are ubiquitous throughout the LA basin, but as a 5 year old obsessed with those prehistoric […]

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May 5, 2010 – 8:38 am

reading the infrastructural city: chapter two index (updated 6 may)

[A still from Gumball Rally, via motortrend.com. As high-speed races on the clogged freeways of Los Angeles have become increasingly implausible, the wide-open expanse of paved riverbed has proven irresistible to filmmakers.] SUPRbrains’ “The Lowline” hypothesizes futures for the river as a series of Tschumi-esque event-spaces. F.A.D.’s “Visual Histories of the Los Angeles River: Past and Envisioned […]

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April 11, 2010 – 8:00 am

I was the only one there

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