urban planning

Cornelia Oberlander lecture on landscape architecture and biodiversity

November 11, 2010

Renowned landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander will be giving a lecture Thursday November 18 at the University of British Columbia’s Beaty Biodiversity Museum. From the site:

The environment is not the same to a landscape architect as it is to a biologist.

Peter Zumthor chosen for 2011 Serpentine Pavilion

November 2, 2010

Peter Zumthor has been named the architect for the 2010 Serpentine Pavilion in London, having just won the Pritzker Prize in 2009 and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale in 2008.

Categories: architect, architecture, design, favourite, Uncategorised, urban planning

Ruin Academy

October 17, 2010

You may have seen the work of architect Marco Casagrande here before—his Walking Barns series in Finland or his Chen House in Taiwan. He is now involved in a project in Taiwan called Ruin Academy.

Categories: architect, architecture, art, design, furniture, Uncategorised, urban planning

Spring’s weltschmerz

March 17, 2010

The strange, familiar oppressiveness of falling cherry blossoms in Vancouver.

Sorry about the quality.

Categories: art, humour, landscaping, Uncategorised, urban planning, Vancouver

Oldest temple in the world found in Turkey

February 23, 2010

The Göbekli Tepe temple near Şanlıurfa, Turkey, about 20 miles from the Syrian border and not far from Mesopotamia, was discovered by a Kurdish shepherd. It turns out to be 11,500 years old, many thousands of years older than any other known human temple building, and apparently it is radically altering archeology’s understanding of the origins of human civilization.

Categories: architecture, art, design, landscaping, politics, Uncategorised, urban planning

Once Upon A School – Dave Eggers and his Pirate Supply Store/Tutoring Centre

January 24, 2010

Most people have probably seen this video, but it’s worth watching again. Dave Eggers won the 2008 TED Prize for his education and literacy work with kids, and in this entertaining acceptance speech he provides a brief history of his project.

Categories: design, humour, Uncategorised, urban planning

Paris Shoes sold logging boots and ladies shoes to Vancouverites

November 13, 2009

Paris Shoes at 51 W. Hastings, in Vancouver, possibly 1919. Maybe if shoeboxes still looked this beautifully white you wouldn’t have to have salespeople constantly disappearing into the back. I somehow doubt that the uniform whiteness of this bank of shoe boxes could every happen again, though, and if it did it would be twee rather than pure utility.

Paper architecture for Habitat 1976 by Arthur Erickson

August 13, 2009

This is the paper-based pavilion designed by Arthur Erickson for the UN Habitat Conference on Human Settlements that took place in Vancouver in June of 1976. The pavilion, part of Habitat’s exhibit, was erected in front of the old courthouse (now the Vancouver Art Gallery).

How rooms and architecture affect mood and creativity

May 2, 2009

Jonas Salk claimed that it wasn’t until he left his basement lab in the States and went to clear his head in a monastery in Assisi that he was able to solve the puzzle of polio.

Categories: architect, architecture, art, cities, design, green, interiors, landscaping, Uncategorised, urban planning

Functional weavings by Diane Thorp

September 9, 2008

It would be a cliche but probably also true to say weaving is an endangered or at least increasingly uncommon art, so I’m always excited when I see being done, especially locally. Diane Thorp is a weaver from Vancouver Island whose work has been widely exhibited and has been featured in Fiberarts Magazine and other places.

Categories: art, design, interiors, textiles, Uncategorised, urban planning

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This blog is a long, somewhat messy photo essay on the history and politics of design. Design's socio-historical context—that is, the constraints and influences on the way we make objects, dwellings and cities—seems too often ignored. We no longer know where our styles, tastes or objects really come from, and this damages our creativity and sense of meaning. Historical knowledge is so fugitive in the New World, with everything so decontextualized in the rapid flow of commodities and images. Don't even get me started on tumblr and pinterest. As Fran Lebowitz said, "Designers now, they all have these things called mood boards. I suppose they think a sense of discovery equals invention. It would be as if every writer had a board with paragraphs of other writers—'Oh, I'll take a little bit of this, and that, he was really good.' Yes, he was really good! And that is not a mood board, it is a stealing board." As for the sort of design I'm personally interested in, full disclaimer.....read more ____________________________________

To read about my book project on Vancouver's UN-Habitat Forum event of 1976 concerning just and sustainable urban settlements, click here. Few know that Buckminster Fuller, Margaret Mead, Mother Teresa, Paolo Soleri and Maggie & Pierre Trudeau, along with many thousands of others, came to Vancouver in 1976 to talk about better, safer, fairer and greener cities worldwide. In fact it was the founding conference of UN Habitat, an agency built around a foundational document called The Vancouver Declaration. My book is about what happened that year and is a snapshot not just of Vancouver but of how people around the world began to view cities and themselves differently in the wake of, among other things, the first oil crisis. ____________________________________

urban planning

Cornelia Oberlander lecture on landscape architecture and biodiversity

Peter Zumthor chosen for 2011 Serpentine Pavilion

Ruin Academy

Spring’s weltschmerz

Oldest temple in the world found in Turkey

Paris Shoes sold logging boots and ladies shoes to Vancouverites

Paper architecture for Habitat 1976 by Arthur Erickson

How rooms and architecture affect mood and creativity

Functional weavings by Diane Thorp

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