Spencer's moments in the woodsSpencer's moments in the woods - LiveJournal.comArticle: A bicycle built for exclusion- April 30, 2008 Image via SmartBike DC This past Sunday, The New York Times ran an article about bike sharing coming to DC (as did The Washington Post and The Associated Press.) I find it interesting that I had, not 4 days sooner, blogged about the Parisian and Viennese bicycle sharing programs. The program, named SmartBike DC, is only currently going to be implemented in the North West of the District; the article mentions that there will only be 120 bikes and 10 stations in the system, but that it is hoped..http://werecub.livejournal.com/166626.html Article: Gehry goes Geometric!- April 25, 2008 Image via Princeton University Frank O. Gehry&8217;s new building at Princeton University - the Lewis Library - is nearing completion. Princeton&8217;s website has an article describing the new building and giving us a sneak peak inside. Image via Princeton University I hate to prejudge this building, but from the pictures, I worry that this is going to be even worse of an occupant experience than MIT&8217;s Stata Center. The bright contrasting colors of the interior and the sharp...http://werecub.livejournal.com/166398.html Article: Teenagers Rejoice, no more fogged up windows!- April 24, 2008 Materialicious has a post about a new glazing product from Thermique. This architectural glazing system heats a float glass window up to 100 F to prevent condensation on the glass and provide a transparent source of radiant heat. My gut reaction was that this is a waste of energy and money. I can&8217;t see a way to direct the heat inwards only, so this means that a decent amount of energy (As heat) will be lost to the external environment. A hot air curtain rising from the floor could do a..http://werecub.livejournal.com/165993.html Article: Un velo a day keeps the traffic away.- April 24, 2008 image via anArchitecture via AP Horns honking, cabbies swearing, streets filled with a slow moving mass of metal particles, pedestrians choking on exhaust fumes: Traffic. Nothing says Urban center like a heaping helping of fossil fuel consumption, or does it Paris and Vienna have both rolled out free short term bicycle rentals (albiet at different scales) as a social experiment and attempt to reduce reliance on automobiles and ease traffic within the urban centers of these two European Cities..http://werecub.livejournal.com/165809.html Article: New Urbanism, is it old hat- April 22, 2008 <p> Originally uploaded to flickr byLaura Travels Whether you know it by name or not, most of America has at one time or another come into contact with New Urbanism. This anti-modernist anti-sprawl post-modern offshoot which has been with us for almost 30 years, since the development of Seaside, Florida in 1980 held a conference in Old Town Alexandria, VA. If you understood the nature of New Urbanism, the fact that their conference was being held in one of the oldest downtowns in...http://werecub.livejournal.com/165403.html Article: (Transportation Costs) X (Housing Costs) X (Mortgage rate increases) = Daiyanu!- April 22, 2008 Planetizen has an article about a new online mapping website by CNT that tracks housing prices and transportation costs as a function of the geographic median income. While I am leery that this information will always skew in favor of the urban centers, I do think that this website starts a dialogue about why the housing crunch is affecting so many people. When you overlay the data of housing costs and transportation costs in Northern Virginia alone, its easy to find areas where the total...http://werecub.livejournal.com/165230.html Article: Green Architecture is HOUSES!- April 21, 2008 This past week, the New York Times ran an interesting article about building green, not just in urban environments, but in suburbia too. The article deals with renovations as well as new construction and outlines some of the trials and tribulations home owners, architects, and builders can face when trying to build &8220;green.&8221; In light of tuesday being earth day I wanted to take a moment and discuss Green Residential Building (I wouldn&8217;t go so far as to say architecture). Lately...http://werecub.livejournal.com/164935.html Article: I want a unqiue home, just like everyone else!- April 18, 2008 Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky-tacky, Little boxes, little boxes, Little boxes, all the same. There&8217;s a Chinese one and a Indian one And a Turkish one and a Koreon one And they&8217;re all made out of ticky-tacky And they all look just the same an adaptation of Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds Suburbia, the American innovationscourge, like many other parts of American culture appears to appeal to the rest of the citizens of Planet Earth as much as it does to us..http://werecub.livejournal.com/164590.html Article: Urban Renewal or Malpractice- April 18, 2008 Image via curbed.com Curbed has an article about an early 20th century faade being torn down in Manhattan to put up a glass box (apparently, this project has been in the works for some time, but is just starting construction, see this other article for before and after pictures of the overall building). The preservationist in me cries out in disgust. This building is a great example of early 20th century architecture. The chicago style windows fitted between corinthian columns and thinner..http://werecub.livejournal.com/164201.html Article: Shoot for the stars, land in the gutter- April 17, 2008 Image via Curbed.com So it looks like another one of the major Lower Manhattan re-building efforts is facing budget problems. Santiago Calatrava&8217;s path station entrance may be looking at a major value engineering effort in so much that it may be another architect&8217;s rein-visioning of the station, according to an post on Curbed.com. This is bad news for the neighborhood, first the Freedom Tower has yet to start construction (lets not even talk about the deisgn process) then the...http://werecub.livejournal.com/164004.html |