informality – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Tag Archives: informality

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 […]

By Stephen | Posted in mammoth book club | Also tagged , , | Comments (1) | Permalink
November 2, 2009 – 1:08 pm

re-inhabited circle-k’s

[“Mini-Mart, Albuquerque, NM”; photographer Paho Mann documents the diverse array of stores that re-inhabit the empty shells abandoned by the national corporation Circle-K; the current lives of Circle-K’s include “a dry cleaners, a couple of florist shops, a tattoo parlor, a tuxedo rental place, several mini-marts and dollar stores, and Bridgett’s Last Laugh Karaoke and […]

By rholmes | Posted in asides | Also tagged , , , | Comments (2) | Permalink
September 14, 2009 – 11:48 pm

dialogue: finance, context, scale, and intervention

In a recent back and forth between myself (Stephen) and Rory Hyde in the comments of On Finance, Rory noted: To zoom out even further, are we just talking about ‘context’? To understand the context in architecture normally means literally to understand the site context – the two terms are used interchangeably – but as […]

By Stephen | Posted in dialogue, the-expanded-field, urbanism | Also tagged , , , | Comments (7) | Permalink
May 31, 2009 – 2:21 pm

on finance

I found this project by Andrea Brennen, which Rob highlighted here, incredibly refreshing.  Considering the vital role money plays in Getting Stuff Built, discussion of financing and its repercussions is absurdly rare in critical discourse on architecture and urbanism.  This is problematic – it’s not as if designs are hatched in a capital vacuum, funding […]

By Stephen | Posted in architecture, finance, infrastructure, the-expanded-field, urbanism | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments (11) | Permalink
May 5, 2009 – 11:16 am

the city we have

In a recent feature on Archinect, Will Galloway of Front Office (they have a blog here) discusses the predilection of architects for the wholesale urban renovation (which, despite the prominence of theoretical frameworks that intend to offer alternatives, remains the dominant tendency of designers, even those working within frameworks — such as landscape urbanism — […]

By rholmes | Posted in infrastructure, the-city-we-have, urbanism | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (6) | Permalink
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 […]

By Stephen | Posted in architecture, landscape, urbanism | Also tagged , | Comments (11) | Permalink