Stephen – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Author Archives: Stephen

May 19, 2009 – 6:06 am

chart of the day

Total energy use in the United States traced from source, through use, to total waste vs utilization. via https://eed.llnl.gov/flow/02flow.php

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May 12, 2009 – 6:51 pm

a carfree suburbia

Carfree suburban living in Germany, as described in the New York Times.

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May 10, 2009 – 9:04 pm

49 utopias

I agree with all this. Big Bang Urbanism – what a great term.  Those ground up utopian visions are the lifted trucks of the architecture world – often technically proficient, yet generally ridiculous, public displays of ‘boldness’ or ‘vision’.  (Sadly, this isn’t a problem only suffered by select urban schemata, coughcalatravacough.) A couple of weeks ago, I […]

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May 2, 2009 – 8:35 am

fool me once…

Brutal takedown of the Berlin iteration in Libeskind’s Jewish Museum franchise.  A pressing concern of many young architects fresh from school looking for their first job is getting pigeon-holed into doing work they dislike like for the rest of their career due to early choices.  But, perhaps even more tragic is the architect who gets to do […]

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April 26, 2009 – 8:45 pm

this is your brain. this is your brain on architecture.

I haven’t read this yet, but it looks remarkably interesting. The lede: Architects have long intuited that the places we inhabit can affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Now behavioral scientists are giving their hunches an empirical basis. Scientists are unearthing tantalizing clues about how to design spaces that promote creativity, keep students focused and […]

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April 18, 2009 – 5:11 pm

The Endurance of Cities, pt.1

I went to an interesting lecture put on by the architecture league Monday night. From the description on their website: “Eric Firley will discuss his recent research for the book The Urban Housing Handbook (Wiley, 2009), co-authored with Caroline Stahl. Exploring the relationship between architecture and the urban fabric, the handbook provides graphic representations and […]

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April 16, 2009 – 7:15 am

materials, thrillingly

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/surfacestructurefold.html Architects, more like this, please. Script corporeal properties, not falsely determinist “energy flows”.

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April 15, 2009 – 2:44 pm

new books!

New Books! On the left (The author’s blog is absolutely worth reading regularly as well.) On the right Has anyone else read either of them? I’ll post some thoughts as I work my way though. UPDATE: Speaking of books, this one has just been added to my must-buy list, and I’m on the waiting list […]

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April 15, 2009 – 8:54 am

the dubai slave state

 In Dubai, everyone is a slave: Expats to their remaining sources of income, and themselves; Emiratis to The State; and the Workers, to everyone. Tragic, a must -read piece of reporting. Via Sullivan

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April 10, 2009 – 12:15 pm

don’t mess with my trains

The dearth of funding for enhancing existing public transit infrastructure must be one of the stimulus bill’s biggest shortcomings. This story about the T hits particularly close to home for me, as I regularly depend on the Worcester/Framingham line out of Boston to get into the city, and to Logan Airport.  As some commenters on […]

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