Dive into the archives.
- Terrestrial Discontinuities
[In 2007, an ill-conceived 6,000 mile network of energy corridors in the US West represents the collective ambition of Department of Energy, Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, and the Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service. The project is called the West-wide Energy Corridor.]
Following a trail from our Dust Bowl post last week, we [...]
- -arium: Weather + Architecture
[Arium: Weather + Architecture]
Is Weather the last vestige of nature in the City?
Do the forces in Weather systems hold the key to the energy crisis?
Is instability and disorder something that can be designed?
Is Weather the nemesis of Architecture or its best friend?
Is Weather becoming the last form of cultural specificity?
Does it all come down to [...]
- Vortex streets
[Alternating eddies of vortex street.]
[The Canary Islands as an eddy-creating obstacle via GSFC/NASA.]
Vortex streets emerge when the right wind and cloud formation encounters the right kind of obstacle. Theodore von Kármán, a fluid dynamicist, observed and documented this phenomenon. Swirling rings sequence along a street-like corridor trail beyond the obstacle. Each ring stems from an [...]
- HYDROCity Exhibition opens tonight
[HYDROCity exhibition opens tonight at the Toronto Free Gallery and features 30 projects on hydrology and urbanism.]
With almost 30 projects and proposals addressing the opportunities and challenges of water in/around/under/through the city, we are excited to announce the HYDROCity exhibition opening tonight at the Toronto Free Gallery (1277 Bloor St W).
HYDROCity features the work of [...]
- Petropolis
[A tailings pond is a toxic lake so dangerous that air cannon and scarecrows are used to deter wildlife. © Greenpeace / Eamon Mac Mahon]
One of my favorite films from this year’s TIFF has to be Peter Mettler’s Petrolis. Mettler, who was the cinematographer for Edward Burtynsky’s Manufactured Landscapes, takes on a directorial role on [...]
- Clean Urbanism / Dirty Realism
[Cover of issue #11 from Rotterdam-based MONU.]
The output of MONU (Magazine on Urbanism) continues to impress, and with issue #11, Bernd Upmeyer and company raise the bar. This issue is dedicated to clean urbanism and a range of responses, mostly antagonizing or shoring up sustainability and its discontents, come pouring in. An initial browse reminds [...]
- Landscape Infrastructures DVD
[Landscape Infrastructures DVD now available.]
This past October 25, 2008, The Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design hosted a symposium organized and curated by Prof. Pierre Bélanger, recently swiped up by appointed by Harvard GSD, titled Landscape Infrastructures. Bélanger rightly marks our time as witness to a unique convergence of infrastructure and landscape. The urgency [...]
- Northern Experiments
[Northern Experiments project map.]
Directed by 0047, Northern Experiments is an impressive, broad survey of the Barents region, which includes northwestern Russia and northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The project was realized as an exhibition and book.
[Barents region developing industries.]
[Map showing inhabtants within reach of a new northern IKEA in Torino and Haparanda.]
The project encompasses a [...]
- Harvesting Iceland
[Iceland is primed for Hydro and Geothermal energy autonomy.]
Probably no other country is considering such a significant (and potentially devastating) geo-engineering project as Iceland. With the entire country volcanically and geologically active, Icelanders are the most likely to achieve the world’s first hydrogen society.
We will be in Reykjavik in two weeks time, and before that [...]
- Student Works: An Infrastructural Lifeline for Palestine and Israel
[Torn Country, Thesis Cover Page, Christoph Hesse]
For Palestine and Israel, and undoubtedly for the rest of the world, the year 1999 was one of hope. A huge step towards a peaceful future in the Middle East was made in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, when the Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak and PLO Chairman Yasser [...]
