living in the trees
This green home in Santa Monica is absolutely stunning, don’t you think? Freshome posted its Top 5 Green Homes with a Modern Look, and sure, this one has “zero energy, zero water, zero waste, zero carbon, and zero emissions.” But Brink’s favorite feature? The “EnviroGlas recycled glass countertops” ! Totes stellar.
Small footprints
Jay Shafer, a designer who specializes in sustainable architecture and urban planning, believes in living simply. So since 1997, he has lived in and built houses that are just under 100 square feet, focusing on energy efficiency, warmth and space conservation.
His Tumbleweed Tiny House Company offers homes that range in size from 70 to 850 square feet, and in price from $20,000 to $90,000. They can be used for anything, including a summer getaway to a studio space in your backyard.
On the Tumbleweed site, Shafer also provides a bunch of links to resources about tiny living spaces. First on the list is a site for the book Little House on a Small Planet, which has this picture. See, all you really need to be happy in life is a cozy space and a well-fluffed down comforter.
(Via Boing Boing)
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
From the High Line in Chelsea to Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, New York’s in the midst of a citywide reinvention. And to put that process into perspective, The Architectural League of New York is featuring an exhibition worth taking a weekend afternoon to check out.
New New York: Fast Forward, the fifth in a series of exhibitions examining these changes, will be on display through May 5 at The Urban Center, Madison Ave. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a huge, gallery-sized aerial photograph focusing on what the city will look like in the future. There are more than 500 building projects already in progress or being planned, changing the way we see and think about New York.
The League also looks into three projects more specifically: the High Line District, which is turning the former railroad into a spot for luxury housing; the Bronx River Greenway, a 23-mile path to be used for bicyclists, pedestrians and people living along the river; and Spring Creek Housing in Brooklyn, which hopes to provide more than 800 affordable homes on a 45-acre plot.
Along with the map and the case studies, you can watch a series of videotaped interviews featuring a range of New York architects, from David Benjamin to Wendy Evans Joseph to Hugh Hardy.
Mario’s German cousin rules
The Design Museum in London is featuring a retrospective of the work of German transport and architecture designer Luigi Colani through June. Titled “Luigi Colani: Translating Nature,” the exhibit will cover his work from the past six decades.
Colani, also posterguy for the gnarly handlebar mustache, has been creating new ways to think about transportation, design and style since the 1930s, when he studied art and aerodynamics. He began his career developing cars, and eventually moved on to planes, boats, furniture and commercial products.
?I am not a designer,? he says on Discovery’s ?FutureCar? series. ?I am a three-dimensional philosopher of the future.?
Check out a feature about him from this weekend’s Times. (Via The New York Times’ DriveTimes)
Speaking of philosophy: Jean Baudrillard ? or as The Guardian put it, his “simulacrum” ? passed away recently at age 77. Julian Baggini raised some interesting points about his death in The Guardian, particularly this one:
News of the death of Jean Baudrillard provokes mischievous and possibly disrespectful thoughts about how he would have reported his own passing. “It never happened” would be the obvious choice. For those of us who didn’t know him personally, the “death of Baudrillard” is an entirely media event, one which we only observe through the filter of news, the internet and television. To believe otherwise is to fail to recognise the nature of our “hyperreal” society, in which we are no longer able to distinguish between reality itself and its simulation.
Lots of people thought Baudrillard was a bit out there, but his work on simulacra and the hyperreal start making a lot of sense when you look at things like MySpace, Second Life and LonelyGirl15 ? especially LonelyGirl, who blurred the line between real and not real, not only with the medium (YouTube), but also with the narrative itself. Baudrillard is heavy reading, but enlightening.
Get your build on
P.S.1 and the Museum of Modern Art just named the five finalists for the eighth annual Young Architects Program, a competition that invites emerging designers to submit designs for P.S.1’s summer courtyard pavilion in Queens.
The finalists include Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues of Ball-Nogues in Los Angeles; Mark Foster Gage of Gage/Clemenceau Architects in New York; Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of MOS in New York; Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott of IwamotoScott in San Francisco; and David Ruy and Karel Klein of Ruy Klein in New York.
Thirty five designers and architects were recommended by folks in the design world, and curators from the museums selected the final five. The winner, to be announced March 23, will design the pavilion with a budget of about $70,000. The space is used for the museum’s Warm Up series, which has been featuring DJs every Saturday from July through September since 1997.
Pictured above is Gage/Clemenceau Architect’s competition design for the Tsunami Memorial in Khao Lak-Lamru, Thailand ? just to give you a sense of the kinds of work these guys do. Check out the finalists’ sites ? they make some pretty cool stuff.
Yet another reason to look forward to summer.
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