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Me As the Centre of the Universe
I suspect that egocentricity is an evolutionary tool for survival. We are bombarded daily by media reports on environmental and man-made disasters and we’d have an awfully difficult time with day-to-day functioning if we couldn’t filter the overwhelming and turn inward to our happy place. When disastrous world events happen we pull out our chequebooks…
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Grandma Craft On Acid
Don’t like your current home or apartment? Then crochet yourself a new one! New York artist Agata Oleksiak has crocheted fitted coverings for EVERY object in her “apartment”, including the real (but inoperable) sink, telephone, tv, walls and the clawfoot tub and hairdryer I’m demoing above. She incorporates text messages into her wall hangings, transforming…
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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…
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Bananas, Like Mr. Lovins
About ten years ago a foodie friend of mine from the south of France accused me and my fellow Canadians of being the heaviest energy users in the world. (Not exactly true and a tricky calculation at best – see http://earthtrends.wri.org.) It was early April and we were taking a picnic in the hills above…
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Nowhere to Go But Up
I am always left a little breathless when Mr. Fredericksson’s house lifts into the air with the aid of a million or so jellybean-coloured balloons.
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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,…
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Un-Done
Just as some guys don’t remove their facial hair during hockey playoffs, I decided not to wash my work jeans until my final energy audit was complete. Like a talisman, I slipped on those pants day after day – ragged, stained and holey – until they could almost walk by themselves. Today they’re headed for…
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The Trades As Art
Somewhere in the mid-20th century working with one’s hands lost its caché. As machines produced more and people less, it became déclassé to work as a tradesperson; the trades became a perceived dumping ground for those who lacked the capacity to reach a higher socio-economic level. About the same time, a great many people were…
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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…