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An Effort to Save Flint, Mich., by Shrinking ItFlint, long the poster child for rust-belt urban decline, is closer to accepting the inevitable--amputate to save its own life. A plan of contraction will reduce strain on city budget, lessen blight, and hopefully create a smaller, more sustainable city.
Treehouses of the WorldA preview gallery of treehouses from the new book, "New Treehouses of the World".
Mmm ... Milky Way tastes of raspberries"Astronomers searching for the building blocks of life in a giant dust cloud at the heart of the Milky Way have concluded that they taste vaguely of raspberries."
Interview: Flora GrubbDesigner and owner of San Francisco's Flora Grubb Garden, focused on water-wise landscapes. Also see L+L "Vertical Tillandsia Garden" from 2/20/2009.
Pond Scum Gets Its Moment in the Limelight"An Algae Collection in Texas Is a Big Hit With the Biofuel Crowd."
An international embarrassmentThat's what the ASLA’s Blue Ribbon Panel said of the current state of the National Mall in Washinton D.C. Ouch.
Interview: Jun AokiThe Tokyo-based architect avoids the news, the radio, and likes Gehry, Koolhaas and Corbu.
'Ecological Urbanism' - exhibit at Harvard GSD...including a smelly (or should I say "smelling") display of air samples from 200 neighborhoods in Mexico City by artist Sissel Tolaas. "TALKING NOSE" is only one of dozens of exhibits in the show which runs through May 17.
COOLHAUS: ice cream sandwiches for architects and design nerdsCustom-built modern architecture inspired ice cream sandwiches with "prefab flavor" names like Frank Berry and Mies Vanilla Rohe.
Gehry on L.A., art (and Gehry)Frank Gehry seems to be talking a lot lately... what else is a starchitect to do during a recession?
Dune: Arenaceous Anti-Desertification ArchitectureMagnus Larsson, a student at the Architectural Association in London, has proposed a 6,000km-long wall of artificially solidified sandstone "bio-architecture" structure architecture across the Sahara Desert offering a combination of refugee housing and a "green wall" against the future spread of the desert.
Bamboo BikePretty sure I've seen Nico riding one of these... he's quite the cyclist, and word is a tree-hugger to boot.
Architectural One-Night Stand..."The Ty Unnos scheme - literally "house in one night" - hopes to provide wood-frame starter homes. Its backers, the woodland charity Coed Cymru, have been invited to show a design at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC." Taco trucks will have to introduce night shifts...
East Germany, Up Close and Personal"West German photographer Karlheinz Jardner took fascinating photos during a trip through East Germany in the spring of 1990, capturing a world that would soon disappear forever." You have to remind yourself that the year is 1990...
Arts and the Stimulus Package$50 million in US stimulus money has been designated to the creative community, or .006% of the total stimulus package. But news about available money is better than news of budget cuts.
Should Banksy be nominated for the Turner prize?Critic Jonathan Jones says, "The reason I don't like street art is that it's not aesthetic, it's social. To celebrate it is to celebrate ignorance, aggression, all the things our society excels at. For middle class people to find artistic excitement in something that scares old people on estates is a bit sick."
Urban gardening in Skunk TownNeighbors in the Windy City (sorry for the skunk comment) have created a gardening club to improve the quality of life for the whole neighborhood. They clear snow and mow lawns for those for whom that's a hardship, they have planted a modest urban garden, and they act as a rake-wielding neighborhood watch.
Artemide SaleArtemide is offering a 40% discount on selected lamps to future entrepreneurs until the end of April. Sounds like a fabulous idea to us!
Vancouver Convention Center’s Six-acre Green RoofThe largest non-industrial green roof in North America. Deisgn by LMN Architects.
Private yards become community gardensCommunity garden space is at a premium in Santa Monica--try years on a wait list. A new program proposes to match willing homeowners with gardeners.
TRASH HOUSE in Joshua Tree"Randy Polumbo renovated his Mojave Desert house with rocks and steel and filled it with what he calls “obtainium,” from junk shops and Dumpsters, eBay and swap meets." We might have to check it out on the way to Coachella...
An American Passion"Camilo Jose Vergara has been photographing America's urban neighborhoods for more than 30 years. ...Vergara is interested in how places change -- how storefronts become churches, and how churches change identity from one religion to another. In going through his archives, something else caught his eye: images of Christ from all over the country."
Guinness 250 Anniversary StoutI've said it before, but I'll say it again: mmmm... beer. The limited-edition US release celebrates Arthur Guinness' signing of a 9,000-year lease in 1759 at St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, still (at least for the now) the company's flagship brewery.