February 27, 2007
Who says architecture doesn't pay? Foster + Partners are selling their firm for an estimated £300 million (thats over $US 0.5 billion) & Zaha Hadid had a 2006 profit of over £1m (that's US$ 1.6 million!!)
February 26, 2007
February 25, 2007
Totally useless and formulaic piece from NYTimes on Escape From New York
author can't afford Williamsburg, so author decides to move to the Midwest, selling off all her possessions (don't you need beds and kitchen supplies in the Midwest?)
12.5 Hours of Academy Award Nominated Movies.
Yesterday, I sat through all five Academy Award Best Picture nominated films in one sitting. Yes you read that right, five films in one sitting, for over 12.5 hours of Hollywood entertainment.
I thought about writing a full review of each movie, but that is boring, so here is a play-by-play recount of the day:
- 1030 Arrive at the movie theater, choose seats; not to far back, and not too much in the middle; a battle of wills begins on whether to sit in a central location to better enjoys the films, or sit toward the sides for easy egress over the 12.5 hours of film.
- 1035 Compromise is struck with a central-right position, 4 seats from the aisle.
- 1045 Fill up 1.5 liter cup with Sprite & fill up Bag #1 of Buttered Popcorn.
- Babel begins playing.
- 1100-1330 Babel. Pretty good movie, with beautiful effects and brilliant use of sound; storyline is tenuous, but the overall picture is enjoyed. 1.5 liters of Sprite is consumed, as well as 1/2 bag of popcorn.
- 1330 Run for bathroom break #1. Decline free refill of soda.
- 1345 The Queen begins.
- 1345-1530 I enjoyed The Queen more than I thought I would. As one of two period pieces nominated, this is the most contemporary. As evenhanded as an American can judge a foreign monarchical government, the portrayal of the royal family could have devolved into royal-bashing; but rather, the movie tried to humanize a family so reserved from the public.
- 1530 Bathroom break #2 & Homemade ham sandwich
- 1545 The Departed starts
- 1545-1830 The Departed. Beautifully shot movie with great characters. Alec Baldwin steals the show along with Mark Wahlberg. Well paced movie with great dialogue, cinematography and action; if you haven't seen this yet, you should.
- 1830 Another 1.5 liters of Coke finished, one banana & one apple.
- 1845 Bathroom break #3.
- Letters from Iwo Jima begins
- 1900-2115 Letters from Iwo Jima is a beautifully shot movie, which employs every war cliche known to man. I've been told that to appreciate Letters, Flags Of Our Fathers, but I'm not so sure.
- 2115 Bathroom break #4.
- 2120 Sandwiches from the Port Authority.
- 2145 Little Miss Sunshine begins.
- 2145-2330 Little Miss Sunshine. What a great little movie. In the form of a movie cliche, the road trip, this film inverts the form on itself. A film of joy,
- 2330 Bathroom break #5
- 2345 Fin.
All told, the day was a success.
February 23, 2007
Movie Sets turn Night into Day
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Rescue Me films in my neighborhood, almost monthly, and the church and a brownstone down the street evidently are one of the main character's main parish and house.
Used Beer Caps
Gallery of Used Beer Caps.
Design beauty.
Amgen Tour of California's Live Mapping
Amgen Tour of California's Live Mapping
This is the coolest thing: The Amgen Tour of California has a live map & video using Yahoo Maps which plot the day's stage course and provides live video and a Velo News feed. Very cool. To top it off, the map features Flickr photos tagged (apparently) with Amgen Tour of California.
Freakin' cool.
Why can't le Tour copy this? One can only hope.
February 22, 2007
February 21, 2007
China Aims to Shed Its Dirty Dragon Image
China to set up a carbon-credit exchange market
The Myth of 'Superstar Cities'
more on this, later...
Death of Williamsburg (again)
The Washington Post writes what Curbed has been documenting the last few years: Waterfront Brooklyn is now [so] totally over:
Much has been written about gentrification and its discontents, but in few places has the speed and finality of that transformation been more startling than in Williamsburg, a formerly working-class Brooklyn neighborhood of 180,000 people along the East River. A wall of luxury glass towers is rising for 25 blocks along the "East River Riviera." Wander inland and check out the needle condo towers with three-bedroom places retailing at $1,135,000.
...
Overnight, another preserve of working-class American culture is rendered unaffordable to thousands of families -- and to the hipsters themselves...As Williamsburg turns urban Disneyland, those who own homes, a small fraction, see values spike and pass the dough to their kids. Everything becomes safer, hipper, there's better sushi.
This article dovetails very nicely with the The Myth of 'Superstar Cities' linked to yesterday:
La Guardia or Truman understood that great cities become so, in large part, due to the strivings of the upwardly mobile middle class and families, not the elites of any stripe. It may well be true, as Mr. Gyourko argues, that as the nation grows to 400 million or more there could be a niche for 10 to 20 such "productive resorts" serving as "enclaves of the wealthy." But the urban future — today as in past generations — will belong mostly to places that continue to draw and nurture the middle class, which has driven the rise of most successful capitalist cities.
The game, however, is far from over. Some larger superstar cities, like New York or L.A., may still possess enough economic and social diversity as well as the physical space to shift direction. Despite their dysfunctional political systems, radical changes in tax, regulatory and education policies, including a new emphasis on practical skills training, could restore their historic attraction to those who wish to start a small business, or maintain a middle-class family.
I have no doubt that in less than 5 years, my days in Greenpoint will be numbered.
February 20, 2007
Bike Messenger Tricks
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This weekend the New York Bicycle Messenger Foundation's had their annual Monster Track competition which is basically a mad-dash race throughout the city. One of the side events was near my house which, from the website, drew over 200 participants and spectators to compete on the following events: Skids, Polo, Trackstands, Backwards Circles, Rampant Boasting, etc.
Much loudness and boasting was had.
See all of my Monster Track 8 Photos.
February 17, 2007
The Times published on a subject we've been talking about for three years: More Girls Take Part in High School Wrestling. Previously on girls wrestling
February 16, 2007
-
it begins...
On the rise of ultra-small homes: BLDGBLOG: With nothing else to do but sit here and grow old & Think Small
Georgia State House Rep. Ben Bridges (R) & Texas Rep. Warren Chisum (R) both sent out a letter claiming, the earth is not rotating, nor is it going around the sun, and theories to the contrary are the works of a Pharisee Sect of Judaism - oh, and evolution is derived from
Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia
your Republican lawmakers at work...
"Inside Iraq"
Mosque, originally uploaded by nukeit1
The former Knight-Ridder - now McClatchy's Baghdad Bureau has a blog, Inside Iraq, and it is heart-wrenching:
I was called from home to be told that a nephew of mine was killed in the explosion in the city center. The explosion went off in a central, much frequented market, so there was no doubt it was targeting civilians. Then they called me to say it may not be him after all because there was no way to identify what was left ... only his cell phone in the pants' pocket.
Now I'm waiting, fearfuly, for confirmation either way.
The problem doesn't end there.
If it isn't him, it's someone's son anyway. But if it is him ... whom are we willing to risk going to the Morgue to receive the remains?? If and when we receive him ... where do we burry him?? Almost none who take the path to Abu Ghraib Cemetary return unscathed.
Hollywood has nothing on real life.
February 15, 2007
Cast Concrete Speakers using the lost-wax technique
cool idea, but the end product doesn't do the process justice
Music video using infographics: A Tried And Tested Method (via Kottke (of course))
Beer Can Ephemera
America loves beer. And the graphic design of beer cans is another way to love beer. Brought to you by Tavern Trove, a clearinghouse of beer and tavern ephemera. (via We Make Graphics - letterpress beauty)
February 14, 2007
Getty Conservation Institute investigates Paints’ Mysteries Challenge - oil-based paint's properties are well tested, but acrylic and other contemporary materials are less known
Some Valentine's Day Links: Marian Bantjes: 150 hand drawn Valentines & The Comic Valentine of mid-Victorian England
Happy Valentine's Day
Shirt by Busted Tees - via Chuck
February 13, 2007
On Conservatives Propensity to call for Assassinations
...we once again see conservatives (or in Reynolds' case "libertarians") displaying an almost childlike faith in the competence, honesty, and efficacy of the federal bureaucracy insofar as that bureaucracy is tasked with dishing out lethal force that they would never in a million years ascribe to, say, the people in charge of the Endangered Species Act.
Anthony Bourdain discusses Food Network (via)
Ace of Cakes is my newest favorite cooking show, while Giada De Laurentiis can basically tell me to cook whatever (I don't care...)
February 12, 2007
Paris has a new surface light rail called the Tramway des Maréchaux who's route follows Adolphe Thiers' boulevards in the 13e, 14e & 15e arrondissement and often are on grass right-of-ways
The new corporate logo: Dynamic and changeable are all the rage. Identities such as Pentagram's new Saks identity and Google are explored, but the best (so far) is the The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics which has a logo that changes every time it is used, see also pdf on the design (via)
Transit Gratis: Should transit be treated as a inaliable social right, or a material system? See also Comparative Analysis of Transit Bandwidth and my riff on Adam's ideas, Transit Policy: Whole Cost of Transit
Museum of Aircraft Recognition
Check out the Museum of Aircraft Recognition, where silhouettes on playing cards and miniature models aided service members in discerning who was friend or foe.
SHoP's Distributed Airport Terminals
Top: proposed high-speed rail. Bottom: New JFK terminals. Renderings by SHoP architects
Speaking of transportation paradigms, this week's New York Magazine features a rethinking of airport travel from SHoP architects:
It’s a high-speed-rail loop, in which trains would serve both as a means of conveyance to the airport and, in effect, as the airport. In a bold new check-in paradigm, passengers would get their boarding passes and go through security at special stations in Union Square and Red Hook (and Astoria and Grand Central and …), then hop on trains that would let them out directly at their plane. Such an approach would have the added benefit of reducing the airport space devoted to terminals, making room for more runways.
While their proposal to double the amount of runways at JFK is nigh impossible due to the limitations of airspace and safe airplane taxi regulations, this proposal is certainly interesting. A precedent (on a smaller scale) is undoubtedly Eero Saarinen's Mobile Lounges featured at Dulles International Airport, but on a grand scale. This is a grand gesture in the manner of Daniel Burnham, and because of that, it has zero chance of happening in New York City. However, this plan could be executed quite nicely at a tabla rasa, such as all of those cities China is building.
mobile-lounge, originally uploaded by kumokasumi
Transit Policy: Whole Cost of Transit
Piccadilly Circus, originally uploaded by Mizz Amontillado
Interesting article by Adam G regarding Transit pricing relating to public policy:
...it strikes me that there are really two and only two fully defensible positions on this question, with maybe the ghost of a third struggling to find form between them. Either (a) you regard transit as an absolute social good and opportunity multiplier, and you subsidize its use fully and for all, or (b) you understand it as a material system which sustains real operating costs, and believe that it is only sensible to recover some of that cost from the system’s direct beneficiaries, the riders.
Adam raises some interesting points, but I would like to step back and look at all transit options, not just mass transit.
Continue reading "Transit Policy: Whole Cost of Transit"February 10, 2007
New York Congressman Anthony Weiner Rips the "Republic Party"
more like this, please
Helvetica Stars
February 9, 2007
More Super Mario Brothers Music: Super Mario Brothers Beatboxing Flute
Thierry Gomez plays Super Mario Brothers on guitar
DeCadence (an A Cappella group at UC Berkeley) sings Bitches Ain't Shit - A Capella in the manner of Ben Folds
the market for white people singing rap/hip-hop seems endless
Guess the Type
Yes, I might have a typography obsession. Per the last post about type, can you guess which of the above typefaces are what?
No cheating!
US Interstate Network Diagram
Check out this cool US Interstate Network Diagram.
February 8, 2007
24: Aqua Teen Hunger Force
YouTube - 24: Aqua Teen Hunger Force
O-H-I-O
The Ohio State University has a O-H-I-O Photo section on their website.
O-H (A-H...??)
Landmarks Districts as Gated Communities
The blue tower, originally uploaded by Goggla
John Lumea has makes a pretty good case about NIMBYopolis, or, Height Restrictions in the LES are Bunk, how the coming "contextual" rezoning of the Lower East Side is a very bad thing.
I don't have the energy to respond to his main thesis, but one of his side points was this:
The fact is, New York's preservation culture has become a luxury the City can no longer afford. The example of the Upper East Side Historic District points to a set of questions that should — sooner rather than later — prompt a wholesale reassessment of the City's preservation / downzoning agenda:
- Why should City Planning and Landmarks Preservation continue to protect select neighborhoods from development and increase protections for others, when these neighborhoods can accommodate additional growth and while surrounding areas get buried in a thicket of oversized buildings?
- Why shouldn't every neighborhood have to participate in sustainability?
- Why wouldn't they want to?
Which struck me as an insight John should elaborate on; if by 2030 over 9.1 million (900,000 more) will live in New York City, this will create an enormous pressure on the city to find houses for the additional residents. This is, in fact John's thesis that continual logistical and commercial pressure will mean larger buildings everywhere.
Except, of course, landmark districts.
Who live in landmark districts? Well, in Manhattan many landmark districts - TriBeCa, the West Village, Chelsea, the Upper East Side - are playground of the rich. In 2005 Forbes listed 10013 the 13th most expensive Zip Code - this is TriBeCa, and 10013 is mostly the historic district. This makes TriBeCa the most expensive place in NYC - no small matter.
The dynamic the city is setting up is clear: rich people located in "desirable" (which landmarks districts are - I live in one by sheer luck) areas which will never, ever, change. Surrounding these low-rise enclaves will be high-rise housing which will be necessary due to the increased economic pressure.
Much like Gramercy Park these landmark districts will become gated communities - de facto or not.
As for a solution, I don't have one at the moment, but it is forthcoming.
Political Diagrams
Op-Chart: 31 Days in Iraq by Adriana Lins de Albuquerque in the New York Times
Interesting infographic, Op-Chart: 31 Days in Iraq by Adriana Lins de Albuquerque, appeared in the New York Times reported without snark or much commentary.
February 7, 2007
Creating type based on letter usage: Frequency of use typeface
The Accumulation Project is a curated assemblage of daily objects. Both the Public Transit Audio and the Daily Paper accumulations are projects I've wanted to do
Schuerman: Moynihan Station renovation & Madison Square Garden Swap on the horizon
Tyranny of the Zoned Taxicab System
Old DC Cab Map (pdf)
New DC Cab Map (pdf)
Urban living dictates that many simple necessities enjoyed in sub-urban and rural areas are controlled by large forces outside (or at best tangentially) your sphere of power. One such item is transportation; in order to navigate New York it is often required to interact with public transportation, tightly regulated taxicabs, somewhat-less regulated car services, personal transportation (car, motorcycle, bicycle) or walking.
Needless to say how you get places is always a prime topic of conversation in the region and with visitors. What is also a consummate conversation is comparing the NYC region's transportation mega structure with other city's (often meager) infrastructure. With that being said, consummate District-er Yglesias brings to attention the, seemingly minor, proposal that the new DC mayor will revise the taxi cab maps so that it is both:
- Oriented due North
- The correct fares will be listed
For those who have never had the pleasure to ride in a DC cab, there is no meter. The city is zoned so that every time you cross a zone you pay more money along with surcharges for extra passengers. Which is interesting because the Metro system is zoned as well (although I can't find a fare zone map the price per trip is between $).
To someone used to meters, there is only one response: zones are the most ridiculous way to regulate the taxicab market. I would rather have a meter any day versus guessing if I crossed that magic line on a map which (apparently) isn't even presented in the correct orientation or with the correct fares.
To be fair, my District compatriots say this is a superior system, which only needs a few rides to become accustomed to. But I don't buy it, principally due to the near-gerrymandered zone system. The only time NYC went to zones was during the 2005 transit strike, where the zones themselves were huge, and mostly drawn along major obstacles and political boundaries such as 59th Street in Manhattan, the East River, the Brooklyn-Queens border, etc. What made this plan tenable was the lack of transportation, minimum rider per car requirements and the simple geography. Perhaps since I don't live in the District, I'm not familiar enough with the boundaries, but it seems that the zone boundaries are somewhat capricious.
So, dear reader of this site, what do you think of the relative merits/demerits of a zoned system?
Old
February 6, 2007
Helvetica or Akzidenz?
Helvetica or Akzidenz? at WikiPedia
Helvetica or Akzidenz Grotesk?