February 10, 2009
Sometimes after seeing too many chichi, precious, and citified houses, too much shiny, overproduced design, and everything just starts to look too estranged from the materials it was made from, as an antidote I go look at pictures of handbuilt houses.
January 14, 2009
The new building for the BC Cancer Agency is a good addition to Broadway, one of Vancouver’s most ridiculously unattractive streets. The building’s most obvious feature is its round windows which are meant to reference the glass petri dishes used in cancer research.
December 14, 2008
Furoshiki is a traditional Japanese means of wrapping presents or carrying objects in a square of cloth. It’s waste-free, it’s practical, and it’s beautiful. As an art form, furoshiki is less known outside Japan than origami, but it is just as venerable – it simply uses fabric instead of paper.
August 16, 2008
On a hot day in Vancouver, I was thinking of this hotel. The Jukkasjarvi Ice Hotel in Sweden is rebuilt every year, always to a different design but always from ice and always with blankets of reindeer hide (sustainably produced nearby).
July 16, 2008
Outside the studio door: herbs, lettuce, arugula, chives, tomatoes, artichokes, peas, strawberries, chard and kale. For pest control reasons and to boost nutrients, they’re planted with yarrow, zinnias, clover, petunias and nasturtiums.
