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photoshopping around katie


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blank generation


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what kind of pickle are you?


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giant dinosaur bone and zombie garden sculpture

via zars
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supertherm ceramic insulating paint


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eat flaming death fascist media pigs!


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>>pop<<

"If You Push Somethinig Hard Enough, It Will Fall Over."

from the new york times

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Even before the storm, New Orleans’s economic ship was powered not by a couple of whales, but by a school of minnows. The city estimates that 95 percent of the 22,000 businesses here before Hurricane Katrina employed fewer than 100 workers (fewer than 25, in most cases). These included not just shops, but also the artists and manufacturers and wholesalers that supplied them, and the accountants and lawyers and cleaning companies that served them.

About 60 percent of the businesses within the city limits have probably not reopened, according to a recent study by Louisiana State University, which tried to call about 8,500 of the 10,000 businesses registered with the state. At about 5,000 of the businesses, the phone had been disconnected or was not answered after five calls.

Long term, more than 40 percent of those businesses are likely to disappear, said Timothy P. Ryan, an economist who is chancellor of the University of New Orleans. As residents return and the city rebuilds, new businesses will eventually open, but Dr. Ryan predicted that they would not be the same kind of businesses as their predecessors. “Many of them may be in Sheetrocking,” he said.

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walker evans approximately

A PHOTOGRAPHER snaps a picture. If it’s a camera with film, a negative is made; if it’s a digital camera, a file is produced. A printer, in a dark room using chemicals, or at a computer screen, can tinker with the image, crop it, enlarge it, make it lighter or darker, highlight one part or obscure another.

In other words, the image produced by the camera, whether it’s a negative or a digital file, is only the matrix for the work of art. It is not the work itself, although if the photographer is a journalist, any hanky-panky in the printing process comes at the potential cost of the picture’s integrity. Digital technology has not introduced manipulation into this universe; it has only multiplied the opportunities for mischief.

I dawdle over this familiar ground because the digitally produced prints of classic Walker Evans photographs, now at the UBS Art Gallery, are so seductive and luxurious — velvety, full of rich detail, poster-size in a few cases and generally cinematic — that they raise some basic issues about the nature of photography.

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Curators Bob Bailey and Peter McMahon have put together a sleek, handsome show that follows the rise and fall of the functional geometries of modernist houses in Provincetown, Truro, and Wellfleet. Photos in color and black-and-white and models made by Ben Stracco portray simply built summer homes with broad planes, angular outlines, and modest materials that echo and update the Cape's vernacular saltbox houses. Squatting low among the scrubby pines or projecting like an extended balcony over the dunes, these buildings harmonize with the landscape, providing still focal points around which the constant shift and swing of nature pivot.

Jack Phillips , a Bostonian and follower of Walter Gropius who owned a lot of acreage in Truro and Wellfleet, invited intellectuals from MIT and Harvard to come and make use of the land in the early 1940s. Architects such as Marcel Breuer , Serge Chermayeff, and Paul Weidlinger took their cues from Bauhaus design, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier.

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In 1956, several young architects from England, France, the Netherlands and Italy were charged with organizing the 10th meeting of the influential International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM), a formal gathering of proponents of Modernism.

Questioning some of the fundamental tenets of Modernist doctrine—among them, a strict adherence to functionalism, a preference for high-rise buildings and ideals of a socially and structurally stratified city— the organizers of the 10th CIAM created a new forum to explore ways to restore a human scale to urban design and to reexamine the role of the architect within society. Adopting the name “Team 10,” the renegade group agreed to meet regularly, each time at a different location. In their open-ended discussions, in advance of Jane Jacobs’s historic “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” Team 10 championed the unique complexity and diversity of the city landscape, heralding a new age in urban design and planning.

Deliberately informal in tone and organization, the meetings took place in a variety of European cities and towns, from the first in 1960 in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, France, to the last in 1981 in Lisbon. Drawing on a range of resources and media that includes correspondence, transcripts, tape recordings, photographs, drawings and film, “Team 10: A Utopia of the Present,” brings alive the intellectually charged gatherings of this pioneering group.

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In McDonough's world, there would be no "trade secrets," which allow corporations to legally pollute in the name of profit. His world is a transparent one, where the Constitution still reigns, but "freedom" is not reinterpreted as the right to pollute, endanger, or destroy -- and our intentions are not measured by what is not against the law.

"Imagine an economy ... that purifies air, land, and water ...!" GreenBlue's website boldly claims. If only we'd listen to him, the growing crowd of acolytes wails, we'd have a chance of saving the planet and ourselves! We can have it all!

Though this priest is preaching hope and harmony, a prophet has appeared who is making people distinctly uncomfortable. He is preaching that the church of sustainability has gone astray by placing its faith in technology and valuing human life above all others. He believes the priests have become corrupt, and has nailed his theses to the door.

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tin lantern house moscow


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"It was heart-wrenching," Lindstedt says today. "The park sat there all closed up. They auctioned off some of the stuff, but ... the things that were left were just rotting away. It was kind of sad to see this place all decrepit and failing."

Today, a good portion of Frontier Village is a city park -- not a bad use of the land, in Lindstedt's opinion. But you can hear the cringe in Lindstedt's voice as he reports that the other half is home to a large condo complex. Worst of all? The developers had the nerve to call their development "Frontier Village."

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greenwashing


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auburn univ / rural studio : katrina response 2

The purpose of the project is to provide FEMA with research, precedent and feasibility studies as well masterplans, models, and schematic designs to establish an array of 'container housing' communities of 100 to 10,000 inhabitants.
im looking for follow up information on this project. knowing fema... (!!!)
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schwarzstudio is duking it out with the professionals on the container-bay message board at fab prefab.


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Photo Doctoring


Modern technology--like digital cameras and sophisticated editing software--makes it relatively easy to alter photos. But the art of doctoring images is nothing new. On today’s show, Willis Hartshorn, director of the International Center for Photography, and Robin Kelsey, professor of art and architecture at Harvard University, look at the long history of manipulating photographs.
on lopate
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LEGO new york

from curbed
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back yard brick oven

via zoller
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The hybrid solar lighting technology uses a rooftop-mounted 48-inch diameter collector and secondary mirror that track the sun throughout the day. The collector system focuses the sunlight into 127 optical fibers connected to hybrid light fixtures equipped with diffusion rods visually similar to fluorescent light bulbs. These rods spread light in all directions. One collector powers eight to 12 hybrid light fixtures, which can illuminate about 1,000 square feet. During times of little or no sunlight, a sensor controls the intensity of the artificial lamps to maintain a constant level of illumination.

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small wind turbines (only chop up small birds?)


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uncle floyd


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2nd floor facade paint.

meet carl...
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the domino effect:

Powerhouse 'historic' no more
Thursday, August 17, 2006
By JARRETT RENSHAW
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
The Jersey City council yesterday officially stripped the historic designation from the Powerhouse Arts District and removed it from the oversight of the city's Historic Preservation Commission.

The changes were included in the amendments to the Powerhouse Arts District Redevelopment plan approved yesterday by the City Council. The amendments passed by a 7-2 vote, with Councilman Steve Fulop and Councilwoman Viola Richardson opposing the changes.

The changes are a result of the controversial 111 First St. settlement, which allowed New Gold Equities to bypass the district's historic protections and build high-rise residential buildings.

"This is a domino effect that we feared," said Daniel Levin, president of Civics Jersey City, who argued that the lifting of the protections will lead to other developers building high-rises in the zone.

The judge in the lengthy legal battle invalidated the Warehouse Historic District - which shielded the area's historic structures from wreckage - and forced the city to make the changes, said Jersey City Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis.

He also added that the changes do not impact the artist housing included in the plan.

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that big pile of dirt in LSP


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building up from the roof


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right now, in 105,7 FM Campinas-SP, Brazil, we are re-transmiting your internet stream.
we are rádio muda, a free radio ! today was a special day! some people got together and during the intire day there were events related to zapatism, the ezln and la otra campaña. rádio muda was a part of it and got in touch with a free radio from mexico city called radio zapote, and also with el CML - centro de medios libres. they made special shows knowing that we were re-transmiting their internet streams here in Campinas-SP, Brazil! it was our "first time" in doing this kind of international transmission and dialogue! at night we sent to our internet stream the sound of a band that was playing live in front of rádio muda and people from other brazilian free radios from other cities were listening, and also from mexico! it was great. also people from new york and toronto got our transmssions and re-transmissions.
anyway, i wanted to tell you that at the end of all that, when everybody left the radio, we left the wfmu stream sintonized and we are transmiting it now (3:03AM) in 105,7FM in Campinas-SP Brazil and also in http://orelha.radiolivre.org:8000/muda, untill the next person comes to rádio muda to start his or her show !
exploring the internet and its endless possibilities is great!
thats it, saludos desde rádio muda and brazil! [please reply to pauletsz@gmail.com)

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Emmett was a masterful character actor and brilliant in a lot of ways, but he was eclectic -- he tended to take from people what he needed. One of the seminal guys, but who was not in the Mime Troupe, was Billy Murcott. Billy was this quiet, uncharismatic, very smart guy that he'd grown up with. He always had graphs and charts of different historical events up on his wall. And I think Emmett created the appropriate personality to embody the insight that Billy had. It was Billy, as I remember, who crystallized something that was in the air, the notion of Free, I think, and the articulation of autonomy. And it was radical enough and extreme enough to take us even another step farther out than the Mime Troupe. That real power was autonomy and that all ideologies had some degree of bullshit in them. And that the left, the socialist left, was no longer a model of anything. It had degenerated into a bunch of old men yapping theory and ideology. That what was required was for people to be forthright and straightforward and to take responsibility for doing what they felt ought to be done, regardless of ideology -- just do it. And that people like us were not going to be any more comfortable in a leftist nation-state than we were in a rightist nation-state. Billy wrote the first Digger Papers. The very first manifestos were written by Billy, as far as I remember. Billy was the unsung genius behind the Diggers.

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SUBURBS: Exurbanization and Gentrification: How the Two Patterns Have Been Linked Since the Beginning of Urban History


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Hurricane Katrina was the biggest natural disaster in US history - and its aftermath became the biggest management disaster in history as well. A year later, Fortune lays bare this surreal tale of incompetence, political cowardice...and rebirth.


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Special Edition of the Katrina Index: A One-Year Review of Key Indicators of Recovery in Post-Storm New Orleans - The Brookings Institute



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This is the principle that guides his most famous essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” now canonical text in art history, film studies, and related fields. In it Benjamin argues that traditionally, a painting or sculpture was endowed with something he calls “aura, deriving from a recognition of its absolute uniqueness. That is why thousands of people line up every day for a quick, obscured glimps of the Mona Lisa: not just to see it but to be it its quasi-sacred presence. In the age of technology, Benjamin perceived, this uniqueness is diluted by the ready availability of reproductions, which makes it possible to see a work of art without ever having seen the original. Furthermore, in the twentieth century’s characteristic art forms, photograph and film, there is no such thing as an original.

Surprisingly, Benjamin welcomed the idea of art without aura. He reasoned that aura was a kind of aristocratic mystery, and that its disappearance should herald a new, more democratic art: “The social significance of film, even—and especially—in its most positive form, is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic side: the liquidation of the value of tradition in the cultural heritage.” This rhetoric, with its enthusiasm for “destruction” and “liquidation,” sounds distinctly odd coming from Benjamin. How, the reader wonders, did the great champion of Proust and Kafka end up decrying uniqueness and originality? How could the man who compared “In Search of Lost Time” to the Sistine Chapel ceiling also believe that “contemplative immersion” in a work of art was “a breeding ground for asocial behavior”?
The answer lies in Benjamin’s exceedingly awkward embrace of Marxism. Like many other intellectuals of the time, he came to feel that only Communism could save Europe from war, depression, and Fascism.

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design*sponge hawking crapola on the HG

werent we the first ones to point out this waste of commercial potential ?
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house and home archive from modern mechanix

via justin from the fabprefab message board
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caretaking glass house


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tempohousing (pdf warning)


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this isnt going away because we wont let it. do-it-yourselfers push back against the pros.

It's great that we have some professional designers, architects and builders on this list to give us advice on our dreams of building our homes for something less than custom-built, market-rate prices. What we should remember, however, is that the professonals may be looking to make a buck off of us as they offer their input. It may not be in their best interest to tell us that we can do a lot of this ourselves.

I noticed that one of you suggested that it makes some sense to have our containers modified by a professional located 3000 miles away because they are the experts at container modification. I have no doubt that the folks in Florida are real pros at the job, but the thought of shipping 8 or 9 containers from Florida to Southern Washington where I want to build seems a little like the old saying of "hauling coal to Newcastle." Both Seattle and Portland have thousands and thousands of clean, used containers just waiting to be converted...I'd be astounded if I couldn't find someone in the area who is capable of cutting a hole in sheet metal and welding in a simple frame and then painting the whole thing with a few coats of Supertherm. I've looked pretty closely at the containers that were modified for the Redondo House and I don't see anything that couldn't have been done in LA or Long Beach.

I have nothing against any of the professonals on this list, but suggesting that we should expect to pay the same price for a container home as we would for a custom-built is self-serving at best.

We certainly need professionals who are willing to offer their advice, but please folks, help us make this list work without turning it into a free medium to market your services.

Rather than more talk of issues like the local cost of labor, What we really need is for some enterprising entreprenuer to come up with a bunch of kit parts to make these things managable for an enterprising contractor or DIYer.

Make us a series of infill parts: an 8'x8' sliding glass door section that fits precisely into the end-opening of a container; a series of double-hung or casement windows that will fit into a weldable frame that is matched to the corrugations of the container wall; a window wall in a variety of widths; a selection of door inserts that come with their own metal frames; some sort of a joining material and gasket to fill the seams between containers; an adhesive that will work to hold wood to sheetmetal; a baseboard heating/electrical outlet that would fit a container; a mounting system for kitchen cabinets; a joining mechanism for attaching containers together and to a foundation; SIP roof and SIP infill pieces; skylights; an electrical wire harness; custom engineered posts and beams to reinforce our containers when we are cutting out walls; and most of all, a set of instructions on how to put it all together and meet the demands of the local inspections department. I could go on, but you get the point.

There are lots of different needs on this list. We have members who are building simple two-container homes, off the grid in the desert, and others who are planning 3000 sq. ft. beach homes. Each of us has our own needs that could be serviced by those who have special training and experience in the field. What we must remember, however, is that no one in this country really has much experience in container housing, and just because someone is an architect doesn't mean that they are expert in this endevor.

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back yard coasters

via zars
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long island fishermans shacks


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missile base
silohome

via zoller
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luc

orbino by luc deleu from 2002



the three containers forming the top floor complete a 20' x 24' room with the interior walls removed. its being used as an art gallery.


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kick ass batch of shipping container pieces in this thread. some familiar, but the freitag shop project was quite a surprise.

more on freitag shop
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total eclipse of the heart


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jk27
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landscrape


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Bollards — those ubiquitous waist-high steel posts — and concrete highway barriers meant to keep out bomb-carrying vehicles are giving way to barricades designed to blend with the appearance of streets and buildings.

Far from reassuring those they are meant to protect, fortifications of any design create "a climate of fear," says architect Michael Sorkin, director of the graduate design program at City College of New York. "It's creating a kind of culture of paranoia."

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33 photo les panograph by chalky lives on flicker


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I don’t really feel like talking about this,” Mr. Schnabel said one recent morning at the hotel, again evoking the often evasive Mr. Starck. He was pacing the crowded lobby in sneakers, baggy shorts and a Western checked shirt, waiting for the delivery of the hotel’s estimable collection of plus-size art (much of it his own), adjusting the placement of the chairs and side tables (also heavy on the Schnabels) and generally helping to put the finishing touches on the $200 million project that has transformed the old Gramercy Park from a bastion of musty authenticity with wall-to-wall carpeting and Swedish meatballs in the bar.

Mr. Schrager was there, too, with his in-house architect, Anda Andrei; his business partner, Michael Overington, vice chairman of the Ian Schrager Company; and other essential and long-serving staff members. But though Mr. Schnabel’s friend Lou Reed would drop in briefly to view and praise the artist’s latest work in progress, Mr. Schnabel had brought with him only a small and quirky entourage: an assistant imported from Paris to perfect the French dialogue in his forthcoming film adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s book “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” and his twin 12-year-old sons, Olmo and Cy.

Ever the rebel, Mr. Schnabel rejects the obvious term for someone who does what he has just done at the Gramercy Park Hotel. “I’m not a designer, but I’ve always built things,” he said. “Basically I’m a painter, and this is something that really isn’t that hard to do.”


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In the same way that skateboard style has influenced clothing and graphics, the new parks have begun to grab the attention of designers in other fields. Architect David Rockwell, designer of the Nobu restaurants in Manhattan and the set of the musical Hairspray, says skate parks, with their use of "the continuous ramp that leads you through a series of adventures," were an inspiration for a new playground he's working on. Joe Ragsdale, who teaches landscape architecture at California Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo, says that every year his students come up with different ways to provide ideal flight paths for intrepid skaters. "Skate parks have come of age," he says.

Skateboarding has been around since the late 1950s, when California surfers began attaching wheels to short boards so that they could retrieve on dry land just a bit of the feeling they got from a wave. In no time it had evolved into an acrobatic art form that derived, like ballet, from the eternal human impulse to part the air with style. Skate parks, which first appeared in the 1970s, started out as places meant to draw skaters away from the respectable concrete of downtown. But those early parks tended to be melancholy stretches of concrete with a few bowls and half pipes--that's a semicircular ramp--thrown in. The merest parking lot was more fun. Over the next decade many of the parks closed, victims of underuse and high insurance costs.

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