Schwarz
View current page
...more recent posts
LEGO new york
from curbed
back yard brick oven
via zoller
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.
small wind turbines (only chop up small birds?)
2nd floor facade paint.
meet carl...
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.
that big pile of dirt in LSP
building up from the roof
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)
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.
SUBURBS: Exurbanization and Gentrification: How the Two Patterns Have Been Linked Since the Beginning of Urban History
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.
Special Edition of the Katrina Index: A One-Year Review of Key Indicators of Recovery in Post-Storm New Orleans - The Brookings Institute
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.
design*sponge hawking crapola on the HG
werent we the first ones to point out this waste of commercial potential ?
house and home archive from modern mechanix
via justin from the fabprefab message board
caretaking glass house
tempohousing (pdf warning)
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.
back yard coasters
via zars
missile base
silohome
via zoller
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.