green

Why aren’t we using Aerblock when we build?

September 29, 2013

Why aren’t we using building materials like Aerblock instead of wood? Habitat Forum 1976 alumni Michael Baron is involved in manufacturing this safe, lightweight, storm-proof, insulating, healthy-air concrete material that mimics ancient pumice building blocks.

Categories: architecture, British Columbia, design, DIY, green, politics, Uncategorised, urban planning, Vancouver

Beautiful re-usable Codd-neck soda bottles still in use in India

February 21, 2012

This is a poor photo of a very interesting bottle, despite the fact that the boy running this soda cart in Mysore was being super helpful. (Below, some clearer photos of this type of bottle, courtesy of Wikipedia.) This is known as the Codd-neck bottle and you can read a full history and explanation below, but in short, the bottle is sealed via the use of a glass marble held in place by the pressure of the aerated soda; pressing the marble down either with a thumb or wooden plunger releases the seal, dropping the marble into the curved cavity and allowing the soda to pour out.

Categories: craft, design, green, Uncategorised

Ice Cube narrates Ray and Charles Eames in L.A.

December 7, 2011

“Charles and Ray Eames, husband and wife team… They were doing mashups before mashups even existed.”

Ice Cube studied architectural drafting before becoming a rapper.

Thanks, Krista Jahnke for finding this on archinect.

Categories: architect, architecture, cities, design, music, Uncategorised, video

Weekend Cabin by Mark Osburn of Osburn Clarke

November 15, 2011

Beautiful simple cabin by my architect friend Mark Osburn and his firm Osburn Clarke. Via Adventure Journal.

I heard another architect say lately that the cabin form is the vernacular architecture of British Columbia, and that is probably true.

Citroen Kar-a-Sutra

May 25, 2011

Living room on wheels designed by Italian designer Mario Bellini in 1972 as a collaboration for Citroen and Pirelli. It’s a combination conversation pit/sleeping area. It was introduced to the US later that year in a show at MoMA – Italy: The New Domestic Landscape.

Categories: design, favourite, green, Uncategorised

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.

Landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander

October 4, 2010

Cornelia Oberlander, the pre-eminent Canadian landscape architect noted for long collaborations with Arthur Erickson and Moshe Safdie among other things, designed the landscape for Erickson’s famed Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

Rain chains or kusari toi

April 21, 2010

Kusari toi (sometimes translitered “doi”)—the Japanese characters are 鎖樋 which translates literally as “chain gutters”—are known in English as rain chains. They are used in Japan as downspouts to direct rain from a gutter to the ground, where it either flows into a gravel or pebble bed or into some sort of catchment.

Categories: architecture, design, green, landscaping, Uncategorised

Matlo, based on the traditional water cooler called matka, by Doshi Levien

February 8, 2010

“Most Indian households use a rounded terracotta drinking water vessel — a matlo — that cools water to 14° below ambient temperature without refrigeration. Our matlo is a slip-cast version which has evolved to incorporate filtration and could be batch-produced from a mould.

Categories: design, Uncategorised

Furoshiki – Wrap holiday presents in the green, Japanese style

December 18, 2009

This is a Japanese tradition we desperately need to adopt in North America – re-using textiles to wrap presents. It’s an art form, but it’s worth learning because it dispenses with all the annoying and wasteful tape and paper and ribbon, it’s a fun skill to learn (for kids too), and it’s an educational conversation piece – you might have to explain to the recipient what it is, but that’s probably worthwhile.

Categories: design, Uncategorised

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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. ____________________________________

green

Why aren’t we using Aerblock when we build?

Beautiful re-usable Codd-neck soda bottles still in use in India

Ice Cube narrates Ray and Charles Eames in L.A.

Weekend Cabin by Mark Osburn of Osburn Clarke

Citroen Kar-a-Sutra

Cornelia Oberlander lecture on landscape architecture and biodiversity

Landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander

Rain chains or kusari toi

Matlo, based on the traditional water cooler called matka, by Doshi Levien

Furoshiki – Wrap holiday presents in the green, Japanese style

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