Dive into the archives.
- Hygeia: A City of Health, 1876
[Hygeia: A City of Health Re-Imagination of the 20th Century by Joshua Arnold, completed under Norman Klein while at SciArc, 2005.]
Dr. Benjamin Richardson conceived of a city of health called Hygeia in 1876. Dr Richardson is an M.D., and he calculated a death rate for Hygeia of 8 per 1,000 in the first generation and [...]
- Inverted Infrastructural Monuments, pt. 3
[The Escondida Mine in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Image courtesy NASA GSFC, MITI, ERSDAC, JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.]
The nationalization of the Chilean copper mines, originally pioneered in the 1950s, was built around the considerable dependence of the Chilean economy on copper exports–some 60 to 75% of the Chilean GDP comes from copper exports. [...]
- Oil + Water
[Oil+Water Conference April 8-10, 2010.]
The Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UC-SB is presenting a series of fantastic events this year on the theme Oil+Water. With this event they turn to their own backyard: the case of Southern California. Oil + Water commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil spill, and provides an opportunity to [...]
- Frozen Cities Liquid Networks: Re-rigging Aumanil
[Arctic nations, continental shelves and territorial limits]
[Ed note: this work was produced in the Frozen Cities Liquid Networks studio.]
At 162,000 km (including the Arctic Archipelago), Canada is the country with the longest Arctic shoreline – ahead of its compatriots Russia, Norway, Greenland/Denmark, and the USA. Arctic Nations have been racing to chart their respective under-water [...]
- 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 [...]
- Islands of Speculation/ Speculation on Islands: Spray Ice
[Large Ships spraying Water to manufacture Ice Islands]
Editors Note: File under Glacier / Island / Storm, a studio run by BLDGBLOG at Columbia University GSAPP. Glacier Edition.
Islands fabricated from ice are becoming more prevalent as offshore oil speculation in the Arctic gains more interest. Ice has been a strategic building material in the Arctic for [...]
- LandFab, or Manufacturing Terrain
[Zealandia topography. Considered by many a lost continent (micro-continent), Zealandia sank after separation from Antarctica some 130 million years ago. Separated or future originary?]
Editors Note: File under Glacier / Island / Storm, a studio run by BLDGBLOG at Columbia University GSAPP. Island Edition.
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Gilles Deleuze, in "Desert Islands," distinguishes between two types of islands, continental (separated) [...]
- Student Works: Thermarium
Processing Water Overflow
The Thermarium envisions a new beach typology for the Toronto Waterfront. Responding to the lack of swimming at Toronto’s new urban beaches and consistent CSO (combined sewage overflow) closures at surrounding swim areas, we offer new possibilities for water immersion and activity that are enabled, rather than prohibited, by the polluted run-off instigated [...]
- Snow Drift
[First signs of the real stuff yesterday as truckloads of transfered snow still roll in to Cypress Mountain, Vancouver. Photo: Paul Chinn / Chronicle.]
[Ed note: Inspired by the mounting concern over a dry unprecipitated Winter Olympics, an earlier version of this sat in our post-box for several weeks, though finding the time to complete it [...]
- The Spectatorium, 1893
[Steele MacKaye's Spectatorium was intended to re-create the landing of Christopher Columbus, complete with mini-ocean, waves, and an island.]
With seating for 10,000, an eight foot deep concrete tank under the entire stage complete with wave machine and wind machines, railroad ties to aid in the shifting of three dimensional scenery behind a "light curtain," the [...]

