Keeping with the pattern I started last week, today is the day I am going to spotlight an app for the iphone that specifically is helpful for the architecture and design community. This week I am shining a spotlight on StonePedia brought to you by Marble & Granite, Inc. This app, which showcases over 500 different types of stone, seems like it should be more helpful than it is. While there are over 1,400 photos of stone in the app, they are no where near as nicely presented as the wood images in I.D. Wood.; these images are not full screen close ups of the stone, instead they are images of large slabs of stone in a warehouse. In addition, the program is set up as a resource directory by stone name and as such it is difficult to browse for a stone sample based on color or grain; this makes it hard to stumble across material options for projects. Instead, this program seems as if it has been designed for someone looking to provide an image to a client or distributer of an already selected stone type. I do want to stress that there are some beneficial applications to [...]
Here are some links to stories that I have found interesting over the past week: The Solar Decation is coming back soon – This semi annual contest amongst architecture and engineering schools to create off grid housing and transportation is set to take over the National Mall on October 9 – 18. I’ll be taking a trip down there and writing about it. The Philadelphia Free Library System is Closing – This is not only regrettable and sad news but totally avoidable, if tax payers were not so dead set against higher taxes in exchange for social programs. Archipreneur has a post highlighting planning “art” – These images of imagined distopian subdivisions are quite striking, not only because they are digital creations done without the use of photo manipulation, but also because of their dialogue concerning the insular nature of suburban communities. Clips … A Daily Dose of Architecture highlights a SLR lens that can eliminate the Dreaded Parallax … Design Public has a post on an interesting wall texture … The Wall Street Journal has an article about starchitects crossing over into fashion … The Architect’s Newspaper has a post about the downside of geothermal energy … The White [...]
I love cities, I love the daytime hustle and bustle and the ease of access of everything. I also love the myriad of things to do at night. Yet, my interactions with cities have been largely shaped by the New York City of my Childhood and the New Orleans I knew as an adult. In the 1980s and early 1990s when we used to drive into New York from Long Island it was always a place of mixed emotions. It was tall and grand with countless places to see and visit, but danger seemed to lurk around the corner. We didn’t take the subways, we took busses, and we never walked down dark alleys or empty streets. When someone asked you something on the street you kept your head down and kept on moving, you never knew if they were really in need or pulling some sort of grift. In addition, you never went into Central Park at night, nature was not to be trusted — it provided wonderful places for people to hide and attack you. When I moved to New Orleans for college my conception of a city changed. The fear and danger were still there, but I [...]
I was going through my RSS feeds today and I came across a post from the Washington Spaces blog indicating that Yesterday was Consumer Day at the Washington DC Design Center. On this day, the showrooms that are normally open only to the trade (architects, designers, etc) were open to everyone. While this sounds like a rare opportunity, it’s not really: showrooms that are not open to the public are a rarity in the building. In addition, most of the things that you can see in the show rooms are available to browse online, plus you can find out more information without having to interact with a sales clerk. Sure, its nice to have a lot of vendors in one place and be able to see and feel their products instead of having to shop from a catalog, but I wonder about the viability of this market model in today’s world. The Design Center is located mid-block in Federal Southeast, far removed from any of the major architecture and design hubs, like Dupont or Georgetown, and out of the way for most aspiring home owners. On my first and last visit to the Design Center the building was practically empty; [...]
On yesterday’s Kojo Namdi Show Nir Buras, head of Buras Architecture, spoke about his proposal for a new Anacostia River. Mr Buras, who is a Classical Architect, suggested the narrowing of the river and creating of European style quays on both banks of the river. His proposal also included the creation of a Naval Museum and a shopping district and marina development. I have to say, that this is something I could really get behind. I’ve always felt that the waterfront on the Potomac was wasted. The river is too wide to be a focus for development, not to mention that there is the hurdle of getting two different municipal planning bodies to agree. In addition, currently the Rock Creek Parkway extension does a tremendous job of cutting the steps at the end of the mall off from the river. The South bank of the Anacostia, on the other hand, is ripe for development as a new urban node, with its easy access to downtown through the Green Line and the proposed streetcar lines in Southeast. This part of the city has maybe suffered the worst from mid-century urban renewal, with the destruction of the historic waterfront and creation of [...]
Yesterday I finally took the plunge, deactivated my blackberry curve and bought an iphone. For months, I had nothing but trouble with my blackberry, it crashed constantly, I had to empty my mail and texts off of it weekly so that it could have enough memory to run, and on a regular basis the google sync service I had set up would stop updating my contacts and calendar and leave me with an empty address book and schedule. It boasted the ability to use an 8gig SD micro card for music and media storage but couldn’t store any e-mail, sms messages or applications on it; instead those had to all fit in the resident 32 mb of onboard memory. This phone just did not suit my needs anymore, especially as someone trying to get their own firm off of the ground. I had promised myself that If I could hold out for my license then I would buy an iPhone, but as week 10 of Score Report Watch is here and there is no license in sight, I decided that I had had enough. I know some people may think of this as a vanity purchase, but all of the [...]
Here is a collection of links that have caught my attention this yesterday. Check some of them out, I’m sure you’ll find them intriguing. Bloomframe in Production – I’m excited to see this actually becoming a reality, though I’d still be nervous about it supporting that much weight. OIL ROCKS – The first thing that I thought of when I saw these images was steeplechase roller coasters. White Roofs? Too simple? – This post hypothesizes that white roofs have not taken off as a cultural sustainability move is that people do not trust the simple measures, but rather have much more trust in complex measures. The Architect 50 – The Architect magazine prepared their version of the top 50 architecture firms in the world. It’s intersting, none of these firms are based out of DC though some have offices here, though there is one out of Richmond.
I took a day trip up to Old Town Winchester, VA on Saturday. Winchester is what I would call a village, but i guess in Virginia’s terms it s a city. Old Town has a 3 block long area that is closed off as a pedestrian mall, which seems like it is the tourist focus for the whole city. The oldest buildings there probably date to the middle of the 19th century, with many of them having unfortunate 1950′s ground floor storefront renovations. But if you look to the second story you’ll be surprised by some of the wonderful architectural details. The thing that I found as completely odd was that we arrived around 3 on Saturday of Labor Day weekend and most of the stores and restaurants were closed. In addition, there was a large number of vacant storefronts. There was quite a few people walking up and down the strip, but with only a handful of boutiques and two open restaurants there was a general feeling of disappointment. The strangest part about this was that as we drove away from downtown we started finding more and more open stores and restaurants.
Tonight I saw Julie and Julia, which after my bout of malaise this week was the perfect impetus I needed. I heartily identified with the character of Jules, I too am in my late 20′s and also feel like I never finish anything I start. Unlike the main character of this movie, I am not blogging to a deadline or a goal, so instead for me to be successful in jumpstarting this blog, and the two columns I should be writing weekly, I need to set a new series of deadlines and commitments. Starting Monday I will be posting something 5 days a week and these posts need to be up before noon. This should accomplish two things. One, it will get me up earlier, because I will need time to find something to post about and also be able to write coherently about it will require me to have a few hours of waking time before I post it. Second, this will also get me in a regular routine, which should combat the malaise I’ve been fighting. I am hopeful that getting myself into a real schedule again will be beneficial for not only this blog and my business, [...]
Lately I’ve discovered that the greatest enemy of the unemployed architect is not a bad economy, but malaise. Over the past 6 months I’ve managed to pull together some work to get my new firm off the ground, but not enough to make a profit yet (what with the cost of startup expenses). I would love to say that these jobs have come my way through genius marketing and relentless pursuit of new clients, but it has been more a combination of networking and chance. But hey, I’ll take work any way I can get it right now. Couple this stream of work that doesn’t feed me with my ineffable ability to bite off more than i can chew (I am now officially writing for two different blogs, also unpaid) and you can start to understand why I see the ugly specter of malaise around every corner. It is not that I am lazy, jut not motivated. When faced with the option of overcoming inertia and starting work on a project or giving into Newton’s first law of motion I am more likely to choose the latter out of sheer lack of motivation. Obviously, I need to find a way [...]