Miranda Homes

Now here’s a story: a guy in Oregon has figured out how to turn the hulks of four to six former cars into cool little houses that cost between $100,000 and $250,000, depending on their size. The stories I read burble on to describe the incredible energy efficiency of the houses, how they are designed to be built by five workers in forty-five days rather than by the average fifteen workers in the average 225 days, and how rats and termites and carpenter ants and suchlike will curse and moan because they cannot chew their way through recycled steel, and how the houses take advantage of the biggest, heaviest recyclable product that pretty much everyone owns, and how the houses, called Miranda Homes, don’t look like gleaming metallic yurts, as you might think they would, but more like your regular old friendly suburban cottage, the kind where Donna Reed is beaming at the door and you can smell bacon and there’s a kid upstairs not doing homework, and I get so fascinated I track down the guy, and we have us a good talk.
– Orion Magazine

Fri, Oct 30, 2009  Permanent link
Categories: Recyle, Habitation

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Drop City

Drop City is a legendary microcommunity, it is a model, and, ultimately, an abandoned project. Drop City fascinates me and endearingly it reminds me of where I live. It started in a frenzy, it attracted famous artists and musicians, but after its height slowly fell into decay. After five years, it was abandoned, but many of the original structures remain today.

Fueled by thoughts of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War, Drop City flourished. Domes were built for domestic purposes – a kitchen, living quarters, a theater – out of recycled products (for which they won the Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion award). Ideas thrived – reuse and solar power, drone and early electronic music, creative community. Many "happenings" happened.



Located in Southern Colorado, early in its history this "intentional community" was a close relation to utopia. Anyone and everyone was welcome, forever free and open. It was naive, but worked for a time.

“How do they survive?”
“They just do. Go live there a while and see for yourself.”
“Anybody can just go live there?”
“Anybody. Drop City is Utopia.”
“Don’t believe it,” Frinki said.
“I don’t believe it. Nobody believes in Utopia any more. At least not in Colorado.”
“Okay, it isn’t Utopia,” Kugo said. “Utopia’s got rules. Drop City doesn’t have any rules.”
“Up is down and down is up. Isn’t that right, Kugo? And the tooth fairy leaves Thai sticks under everybody’s pillow.”

—Memories of DROP CITY

But with notoriety comes problems. The founders, the original artists, eventually got burned out and moved onto other projects. People eventually began coming to Drop City not to contribute, but to take away, looking for fulfillment. The land was sold, most of the domes dismantled, but the model continues.



These structures – community, openness, cultural cannibalism – persist into our present. Can projects or ideas persist beyond its founding generation? Should they?

Sun, Oct 25, 2009  Permanent link
Categories: Drop City, intentional community,

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Manual of Architectureal Possibilities

The first issue of MAP has cast itself upon the unknown, but also the very physical. Although the Antarctica has only been a building site for slightly over 100 years, the scenario is, to say the least, disastrous and marvellous at the same time. Building is almost impossible in some areas, but Mac Murdo Base Station seems a mining station with a vengeance, in size and appearance. In other regions, buildings are being literally devoured by the ice and spat out into the ocean. Just the mere climatic contradiction that the Antarctica (larger than Europe) is 70% ice, but a dessert at the same time, makes it an unavoidable subject to be studied. Brainstorms precipitate, MAP is the result.

MAP (Manual of Architectural Possibilities) is a publication of research and visions; research into territories, which can be concrete or abstract, but always put into question.
—MAP

Sun, Oct 25, 2009  Permanent link
Categories: Antarctica

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The Interlace, Singapore

The Interlace, one of the largest and most ambitious residential developments in Singapore, presents a radically new approach to contemporary living in a tropical environment. Instead of creating a cluster of isolated, vertical towers – the default typology of residential developments in Singapore – the design proposes an intricate network of living and social spaces integrated with the natural environment.

Tue, Sep 29, 2009  Permanent link

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Twitter Revolution
Project: Start your own revolution

NYT

The NY Times and WIRED are reporting on protests in Moldova against the communist government that were organized through Twitter and other social networks.

A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.

The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network.
–NYT

To read stories from the protests, check out the Twitter tag #pman.

Fri, Apr 10, 2009  Permanent link
Categories: Twitter, Protests, Moldova
Sent to project: Start your own revolution

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The $1000 Seastead Design Contest

Or open source design for independent micronations.

The idea is this: The Seasteading Institute, a non-profit organization conceived about a year ago by Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich, is proposing a framework that would make it possible to permanently settle on the ocean. Their vision, inspired by the culture of web 2.0, is to crowd-source the development of government.

seasteading

What they have done is designed a bare platform, called a seastead, that is about the size of a city block. They are encouraging everyone to share their idea for a permanent civilization on the ocean through The $1000 Seastead Design Contest (submissions due May 1st, 2009). Contestants are to expound upon the platform in any way they see fit – "It may be a hospital, a casino, a residential community, a cricket stadium, or something entirely different." The idea is to share and to collectively reach this goal. Designs for the seasteads will be released under a Creative Commons license.

Wendy Sitler-Roddier

[They are] hoping to create a platform in the sense that Linux is a platform: a base upon which people can build their own innovative forms of governance. The ultimate goal is to create standards and blueprints that can be easily adapted, allowing small communities to rapidly incubate and test new models of self-rule with the same ease that a programmer in his garage can whip up a Facebook app.
–WIRED and BLDGBLOG

As compared to other projects of this nature, The Seasteading Institute is trying to build a modular framework which allows for many different ideals. Because they don't focus on one specific model that could fail, the project is much more sustainable. Although I do not particularly subscribe to Libertarianism, I have interest in projects like this for their forward thinking ideas. The Seasteading Institute is not responding as much to climate change, but to societal change. Maybe there is something we can learn from their model.

Wed, Apr 8, 2009  Permanent link
Categories: Seastead, Floating

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Waterpod Project – A Floating World

Waterpod Project (renderings by James Halverson of Lux Visual Effects)

A recurring theme for the future seems to be alternative housing. The Waterpod Project intends to be a model for the future of architecture and living. It is concerned with the same basic problems as other projects, climate change and increasing world population, but takes a different approach. Where Polar Cities and Lilypad are primarily concerned with physical survival, Waterpod is interested in creativity and expression.

The Waterpod is inspiring because it has moved past the hypothetical, it is currently being constructed in New York. Being a model for future building, sustainability is the key. The Waterpod is being built on a retired industrial barge using salvaged materials. It features three domes to be used for artistic space, sleeping quarters, and agriculture.

It is currently scheduled to launch in New York in May, 2009, from the Newtown Creek between Brooklyn and Queens, navigate down the East River, explore the waters of New York Harbor, and stopping at each of the five boroughs it will dock at several Manhattan piers on the Hudson River, then beyond.
–Waterpod Structure

Waterpod artist residency building

To begin with there will be five residents who will live and work and be completely sustained on the barge. They plan to travel around to teach, give tours, and have exhibitions. They hope to be a model and inspiration for the future, to prepare and to encourage innovation.

This forces me to focus on certain things that I have been putting off for too long, and forces me to live like we will probably all need to live sooner or later.
–Mary Mattingly

—————

Update: Two people have been living on the Waterpod full time since June 12. — NYT

Thu, Feb 19, 2009  Permanent link
Categories: Global Warming, Floating, Waterpod

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Vertical Farming

The Vertical Farm Project, led by Dr. Dickson Despommier of Columbia University, aims to deal with the problem of feeding the growing world population. The idea is to build vertical indoor farming structures within urban centers.

The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

This second rendering looks like an eco-friendly data center.

I am deeply interested in projects that make an effort to take waste out, the least power needed for the most beneficial outcome, that way things work more efficiently. This concept of simplicity in design can apply to many different things, Gentoo Linux (optimized and customized flavor of linux), fixed gear bicycles (less parts, less weight), or farming. We must learn to farm efficiently and locally because "by the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers."

Self watering containers remind me conceptually of The Vertical Farm. The self watering container takes out the effort of that goes into the watering and maintaing of a garden, and work well for urban or apartment living because they are compact and self-contained.

We must have a solution for the future and the Vertical Farm Project has many good ideas. And as they point out, "we cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on earth."

Thu, Oct 9, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Vertical Farming

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Happy International Polar Day

Today is a very special day, a day to celebrate People. I almost missed this celebration, but SpaceCollective user LED gave me a heads up. I launched a virtual balloon to show my participation. International Polar Day is a part of a bigger campaign lasting all of 2008, International Polar Year (IPY). IPY aims to focus many scientific efforts on polar regions to study the effects of climate change on Atmosphere, Ice, Land, Oceans, People, and Space.

Join us around September 24th in learning more about People and the Polar Regions. Using the sidebar on the left of these pages you can find many ways to get involved including having local and global discussions, tuning in to radio broadcast from Arctic Canada, and launching a virtual balloon.

Wed, Sep 24, 2008  Permanent link

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My repurposing of NASA

I was working on my portfolio recently and I came across this project that I made for a graphic design class. The requirements for the project was to conceptually redesign an ad campaign. I decided to prepose a more esoteric view of NASA. The quotes are some of my favorites from Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, and Buckminster Fuller.

Wed, Aug 20, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: NASA, Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Buckminster Fuller

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