When I was in India in February, I stayed with a designer friend in Mumbai. He has lived for 20 years in a beautiful heritage building that was originally built as an orphanage.
Mumbai, Vancouver, same complaints
May 18, 2012
architecture
Custom pendant lamp at Gudrun Restaurant, Steveston
May 17, 2012
Beautiful lamp commissioned by my friend Patrick Tubajon, proprietor of gorgeous Gudrun Restaurant in Steveston, BC. Steveston is a historic and still operating fishing and cannery village in the mouth of the Fraser River, just half an hour S.
Tags:
B.C.
British Columbia
Gudrun
Gudrun Restaurant
history
Jon Erik Johansen
perspex
plexi lamp
restaurant
Steveston
white
wine bar
wooden boat
Categories:
architecture,
art,
British Columbia,
Canadian design,
design,
DIY,
furniture,
interiors,
Uncategorised,
Vancouver
The Limits of Density
Low-rises in Vancouver’s S. False Creek
Quebec City, successful lo-rise/high density combination
This short essay by Richard Florida in Atlantic Cities magazine has been making the rounds.
Categories:
architect,
architecture,
British Columbia,
Canadian design,
cities,
politics,
Uncategorised,
urban planning,
Vancouver
“I’ve been told that the tallest building in hell has an awesome view of the emerald city”
May 14, 2012
Heard those lyrics over the car radio last week. I did not know that the Emerald City was close enough to hell that you could actually see it from there, but that whole geography sounds a lot like Vancouver.
Tags:
Dorothy
Emerald City
Greenest City Initiative
highrises
L. Frank Baum
Land of Oz
real estate bubble
real estate speculation
skyscrapers
tall buildings
The end of the Age of Tall Buildings
The Secret of Oz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Toronto
unaffordability
Vancouver
Categories:
architecture,
book,
British Columbia,
cities,
design,
politics,
Uncategorised,
urban planning,
Vancouver
Nothing happens in good weather
May 3, 2012
Great Vancouver public art work titled “Nothing Happens in Good Weather” by the Instant Coffee collective, curated by Barbara Cole of Other Sights. Photos by Kate Armstrong and Kelly Lycan via the Goethe Institut’s Goethe Satellite.
Categories:
architecture,
art,
cities,
graphics and signage,
landscaping,
Uncategorised,
urban planning,
Vancouver
Handmade Houses: A Century of Earth-Friendly Home Design
April 22, 2012
I have been looking forward to the publication of Richard Olsen’s book Handmade Houses: A Century of Earth-Friendly Home Design, and it has now been released by Rizzoli.
Lloyd Kahn on Tiny Houses – lecture in Vancouver
April 19, 2012
Lloyd Kahn, Editor in Chief and founder of Shelter Publications, is a North American authority on the handmade house. Visit Shelter for a full list of his book titles on this topic.
Tags:
Emily Carr University
handmade house
hippie houses
Lloyd Kahn
Pacfic Northwest
Shelter Publication
tiny houses
vernacular architecture
west coast
westcoast
Categories:
architect,
architecture,
book,
British Columbia,
Canadian design,
green,
interiors,
landscaping,
politics,
Uncategorised,
urban planning,
Vancouver
On Rize (Or Forcing A Luxury Highrise On A Neighbourhood That Really Doesn’t Want It)
April 5, 2012
UPDATE: This disastrous, precedent-setting development was passed by our City Council, dominated by supposedly “green” Vision Vancouver, in a 9-1 vote. It was not sent back to design; only vague requests to the developer to make it smaller and less ugly were uttered.
Tags:
big business
developers
developocracy
human scale
Lewis Villegas
lo-rise density
rampant development
Rize
Rize Alliance
Tim Stevenson
urban planning
Vancouver City Council
Vision Vancouver
Categories:
architect,
architecture,
art,
British Columbia,
cringe list,
design,
green,
politics,
Uncategorised,
urban planning,
Vancouver
In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
April 4, 2012
Essay below reprinted from In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki (Leete’s Island Books, 1977)
What incredible pains the fancier of traditional architecture must take when he sets out to build a house in pure Japanese style, striving somehow to make electric wires, gas pipes, and water lines harmonize with the austerity of Japanese rooms—even someone who has never built a house for himself must sense this when he visits a teahouse, a restaurant, or an inn.
Antarctica
April 2, 2012
Above: abandoned Norwegian whale oil station
My mother went to Antarctica recently. She had always wanted to go, largely to see the penguins. She’s surprisingly penguin mad and as a child was known for singing the Peter Penguin song incessantly.
