Category: Architecture & Design
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Building Model: Bensonwood Homes
According to New Hampshire builder Tedd Benson of Bensonwood Homes “we have a crisis of entanglement in our buildings.” In this 2010 video presentation to the College of the Atlantic, Benson discusses his Open-Built® Strategy for creating sustainable housing, and other buildings, that he expects to last several hundred years. Thanks to Andy C at… Read more
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Dust to Dust
What better day than a Sunday for some early morning reflection on our corporeal deficiencies and the fleeting nature of our built legacy? Take it away Percy Bysshe. Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,… Read more
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Thirty-Eight Years On
Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower A few years ago as my career jump was informing itself, I came across a yellowing black and white magazine-style… Read more
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More Than Pilgrims Coming to Mecca
Apparently, one of the holiest sites in the world is not immune to the worldwide scourge of homogenized and gaudy urban development according to today’s The New York Times article. “It is the commercialization of the house of God,” said Sami Angawi, a Saudi architect who founded a research center that studies urban planning issues… Read more
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All Moshe, All Afternoon
I remember when my eldest was about five and we headed to the National Gallery in Ottawa for some regular cultural exploration to keep me from going bonkers. D fell asleep in the van and I carried him into the building. Once inside he stirred and, looking up into the sweeping glass ceilings filled with… Read more
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A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Vancouver (and Montreal and Toronto)
Sure wish I had found this coolio little book BEFORE I got to Vancouver; I would have saved myself a lot of time in assembling architectural walking tours of the city. Read more
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Birds of a Feather
On the evening of the ninth anniversary of 9/11, the twin columns of light projected as a memorial over the World Trade Center site became a source of mystery. Illuminated in the beams were thousands of small white objects, sparkling and spiralling, unlike anything seen on other nights. Some viewers wondered if they were scraps… Read more