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.
May 2, 2012
Students protests in Montreal, Canada, over Quebec’s plans to raise tuition fees. Photograph: Rogerio Barbosa/AFP/Getty Images
Via The Guardian’s article “Quebec student protests mark ‘Maple spring’ in Canada: A revolt against a government tuition fee hike is growing into Occupy-inspired dissent against austerity and inequality”.
April 28, 2012
The Children’s Safety Village in Ottawa, Canada, closed a few years ago. Due to asbestos. via Reddit.
Pretty hard not to read this as metaphor.
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.
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.
April 8, 2012
In 100% agreement with this speech (video) by designer Ilse Crawford—”Being Human.” Only 1.27% of our DNA differs from the DNA in chimps, and design has to keep that in mind.
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.
April 4, 2012
Superb Nasa data visualization of ocean currents. So many whorls and circular shapes and so much rapid flow along the equator. Beautiful. Also see the wind map of the USA if you haven’t already, and the satellite video of the earth at bottom.
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.
April 3, 2012
This reminds me of Irish comedian Dylan Moran at the Edinburgh Festival in the 90s, before he was famous. Semi-famous. He was decoding the emergency exit signs in the theatre: “First: cut off hands and feet, then head down stairs.”
Apologies to creator and photographer whose identities are now lost in time.
