It revolves, but I wouldn’t refer to it as revolutionary.

Florence based architect David Fisher’s novel idea for a skyscraper leaves me scratching my scalp. The structure will be constructed by factories in Italy, already gearing up for the project, as pods which will be transported to Dubai. Authorities in Dubai haven’t yet signed off on the deal according to The Independent, nor has financing been firmed up. Says the architect:

Today’s life is dynamic, so the space we are living in should be dynamic as well. Buildings will follow rhythms of nature. They will change direction and shape from spring to summer, from sunrise to sunset, and adjust themselves to the weather. In other words, buildings will be alive.

I admire the man’s desire to think outside of the box, but this project isn’t anything more than gimmicky in my opinion. I like it as sculpture, but as a building it seems to placate an impatient, technology saturated culture. Actually living in the thing — it’s being built as condos — seems impractical.

For instance, what happens if I want to watch the sunset from my 40th floor home? Will I have to walk along the outside wall as my floor turns in order to see the clouds change colors? What if there are interior walls that go clear to the exterior wall and I can’t stroll along like I want to? Can I turn the revolving feature off?

One idea I like in this project is the plan to put wind driven turbines in between each floor to generate energy. I’m worried about possible noise from such a feature, but a self-sufficient building is a good design to pursue on this scale. Solar panels will also be used on the “roof,” although I can’t tell where the roof is on the morphing tower.

I suppose, however, I’m not the target market for this kind of dwelling anyway. I’m confident it will be way out of my budget, and moving to the desert isn’t something I plan to do on purpose either.

I’ve thought in the past that I might enjoy being a bicycle courier in a large city. New Amsterdam Project is taking two-wheeled couriering to the next level.

This is a good idea regardless of gas prices. An NPR story on the company says they aren’t turning a profit yet, but I hope they manage to stick around in the long run.

This post elaborates on the link I posted two days ago to a CNN.com story titled Is America’s suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare? I’m going to look in particular at how the article relates to little Siloam Springs.

Change is knocking down the door and it’s for the best. According to Brookings Institution fellow Christopher Leinberger, “35% of the nation’s wealth has been invested in constructing this drivable suburban landscape.” I’d like to know how and where he gets this information (I’m always very skeptical about statistics), but it’s easy for me to believe.

The article goes on to cite “recent market research” that indicates 40% of households in metropolitan areas want to live in walkable places. Real estate in such areas is 40-200% higher than traditional suburban neighborhoods.

In my mind these trends come back to — whether this is collectively conscious or subconscious — two things. One relates to the unsustainability of the suburban landscape in its present form, the other to lack of community between the two environments.

Suburbia was created around the idea of the personal automobile. As I’ve said already this year, cars aren’t in and of themselves a bad thing; over-reliance on them is. Building cities to accommodate cars instead of people is a bad thing. Our car-culture contributes to laziness and health problems that previous generations weren’t familiar with. An auto-slash-petroleum based suburbia just isn’t sustainable.

Nor is it desirable. It’s just too easy to pull into your attached garage after a long, mostly sedentary day at the bureaucracy, pick up the battery operated hand and finger exercise machine (aka “remote”) and hunker down like a recluse. And even if we do go outside, we hide behind our privacy fences. I know this is an oversimplification, but it’s partly true. This isolation is a bad thing.

Siloam Springs isn’t exactly the stereotypical vision of American suburbia. There are some newer subdivisions on the outskirts of the community that look like typical suburban neighborhoods, but most of the 14,000 people live near enough to the center of town, to historical areas, that it’s hard to think of it in such terms.

The problem is that the center of town doesn’t function like the center of town anymore. I live in a very central location, but basic services are just a little outside of walking distance. To the south. The center is east of my house. The post office and two grocers (to the south) are just beyond a ten minute stroll, but they themselves are another ten minutes apart. They should be next to each other. And for anyone who lives farther north in Siloam Springs than I do — which is a lot of people — walking to any grocery store or the post office could end up taking a quarter of a day. Most of the city’s services are located, in typical suburban fashion, along the highway which runs through town.

I’m not certain of how many years Siloam has officially employed a city planner. Right now they have two. I’m guessing the city planning commission is an older institution in the community, which is made up of interested citizens, none of whom (as far as I know) possess any education in how to guide a city in its growth (or shrinkage). Regardless, the past officeholders would have done best to plan into the future, setting aside certain spaces for commercial and retail use to be surrounded by residential areas — and parks. For a ville like Siloam Springs, of 14,000 people at current density levels, I’m guessing three such nodes would suffice.

That’s if the planning commission had wooed development into a well-structured pattern. It’s much more difficult and expensive to change a city’s landscape after it’s been built, but what would it look like if Siloam Springs wanted to redesign itself, turn itself into a walkable, less car-dependent and more beautiful, therefore, community?

Making Siloam’s residential population more compact is probably not a realistic option at this point. An easier idea, it seems to me, would be moving existing businesses into newly designed nodes. Under present circumstances, four or five such commercial/retail spaces should suffice, each located in a different sector of town. Each such district should include a number of basic services. Were I to, off-hand, follow this line of thinking, I might center three nodes around existing grocers: Wal-Mart on the east side, IGA in the middle and Price Cutter on the west side. This still leaves a large part of the population on the north side unserviced, however. A decent place for a new hub on this side of town might be at Hico and Cheri Whitlock.

All of this wrangling over nodes and hubs is useless, though, if there aren’t sidewalks and trails leading to them. Siloam Springs has dropped the ball in the sidewalk department. I have friends within three blocks of the IGA who are scared to walk over there with their young children in tow because there are no sidewalks, and the roads are narrow besides. What an insane waste to drive three blocks when you don’t have to!

Even if ideas like the one I’ve just proposed are easier than complete upheaval in a community (i.e. residential rearrangement), they are still complicated, drawn out and expensive. People in town become very defensive when these kinds of proposals start flying around. I’m convinced, though, that changes like the ones I’ve brainstormed here will only improve the community.

Siloam Springs just released their 2030 plan in March. I haven’t looked over it yet, and even though I have faith in our long-term planner, Ben Rhodes, I’m not sure I’ll like what I see in the plan. A lot of planning is taking into account what those pesky residents suggest, or deter. Ben and I might want something very different from a lot of people in town. And a lot of the more powerful people in town are more likely to be “established,” and “established” citizens are stereotypically against change of most any kind.

And then there are the politics of such things.

Hypermilers miss the point. Some do it for environmental reasons, others to protect the pocketbook. Regardless, if they are really worried about either of these things they will seriously consider — and if at all possible apply — lifestyle changes. That is, they will move closer to work, walk, bike or even buy a scooter. They don’t have to get rid of their cars altogether, but the extremes they are going to, some of them, merely dance around the issues.

The Vatican is looking for new artists. The Roman Catholic church is trying to recruit new artists “In an attempt to ‘lead by example.’” Their Council for Culture is setting up a committee “to find ‘world-famous’ contemporary artists it can commission to produce new religious and spiritual works.” Via Iconia.

Save yourself from MySpace. A new Firefox add-on warns you if you’re about to navigate onto a MySpace page. Too funny. Via TechCrunch.

The price of gas seems to have become reasonable filler for news reports. The following are a few observations from these reports.

* Ridership on public transit is going up, up, up.
* Sales of scooters are on the rise.
* A California man decided to bike 42 miles one way to work for a month — partly because he’d always wanted to, but in the process he’s saving about $400.
* One investigative story found that the price of fuel is artificially high. Yes, there is more demand than ever worldwide, but what Americans are paying now is more a function of other bureaucratic and speculative nuances than simple supply and demand.
* GM is closing four manufacturing facilities, all ones that produce large vehicles. And, heaven forbid, they may also discontinue the conspicuous Hummer.

In April I asked “Will the financial strain actually change the way we live?” So it seems the painful price of petrol is forcing people to make adjustments, positive adjustments. My next question is, then, will this change be long-lasting? If the price of gas returns to the low *cough* neighborhood of $2.00/gallon, will Americans stick with the changes they made when costs were high? Will those who moved closer to work move back to the burbs? Will trains and buses have empty seats again? Will General Motors bring back the big cars?

The prices don’t effect my wife and I quite as much as some. I already bike to work whenever I can — because I like to — and the drive from home to office is barely a mile as it is. This whole ordeal interests me, instead, because of its relationship to how we live and design/build our communities in the United States. I would love to see a cultural shift take place. If the cost of gas is the impetus for this change, great. I’m convinced that a pedestrian/transit oriented culture is better for community and also better for the visual environment. I don’t expect cars to go away; they are a useful technology. But they are also overused in our culture, so much so that they have, in essence, taken over.

A few past posts on petrol pain from The Aesthetic Elevator:

Will costs really force a change?
Gas prices cause Dallasite to move
Ethanol a Symptom: Get to the root cause

If only we had need for something like this in the states.

Who pays for environmentally friendly design? asks Architecture + Morality’s Corbusier:

“As I seem to be inundated with new information, advertisements or appeals to make buildings in a green-friendly manner, I find it more and more difficult to ignore the aspect of money in evaluating it all. Somehow I fail to suppress my sneaking suspicion that there’s more than just simply wanting to use resources more efficiently or limiting a building’s carbon footprint - that in reality the green movement in the industry of architecture is eyeing for potential new sources of fees and income. I admit it’s a cynical posture, but om so many places one looks, money is an important consideration when practicing the green way of life, especially when it comes to who is expected to pay for the extra expenditure.”

MoCoffee has opened an Etsy store. See his wares for sale at Mo Coffee’s Art Cafe, such as the following plate titled “George has brains.”

Adding: Coincidental to see the Sally Forth cartoon today (25 April 2008) suggesting part of the reason everything’s going green is because business has discovered how to profit from it.

The Guild is a very professional looking website that sells artists’ art. I was glad to see they offer a variety of ceramic works. Via TechCrunch, who reports that the “Madison, Wisconsin based The Guild bills itself as the ‘leading source for artist-made home décor products shipped direct from artists’ studios to customers’ homes nationwide.’”

A green remodel in D.C. Real Estate agent Amy Levin remodeled a historic home in Washington’s Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, and is hoping for a platinum certification from LEED. While gutting the house, she uncovered a hidden fireplace which is now the centerpiece of her living room, as shown in Heidi Glenn’s following photograph from NPR.

[The photograph mentioned above has been removed per the request of a representative of NPR. I didn't expect this at all, especially since I made a specific effort to give credit to the photographer. This is a personal web diary of my own, and from what I understand I was in the right despite NPR's protest. Regardless, I have no desire to argue over such details with the blind, "old media" and removed the photo immediately. I'm very disappointed, however, in NPR's reaction to what was basically free publicity. Do the marketing and legal departments not talk to each other in their organization?

The NPR rep offered up a "passive link" in place of the photo, which is amusing on a number of levels, not the least of which is that this post already contained such a link. Further, if I recall correctly this isn't the first time I've used an image from NPR's website. Oh well. Eventually big media will realize they won't be able to fight the changes the internet is making to information creation and dissemination. A reminder of this from an older TechCrunch post:

"Societal ideals around what constitutes ownership over art are changing. People who try to protect and silo off their work are simply being ignored. Those that embrace the community, and give back to it not only allowing but asking for their work to be mashed up, re-used and otherwise embraced are being rewarded with attention. At the core is a basic implicit understanding - if you want to be part of the community, you have to give back to it, too."

I expressed my strong disappointment in a reply to NPR's email. We'll see if they respond. Also see a post of mine from December on the ownership of art (photography, in this case) along a similar vein.]

An interesting excerpt from the story:

Green means easy on energy, durable and efficient, but not necessary natural. There are many synthetic materials throughout Levin’s home.

“There are some natural materials that are very appropriate for use in 21st century houses, but there is a lot of neat stuff we’ve made, particularly as it relates to energy efficiency, that does a better job than Mother Nature does,” Yost says.

Of all of the green virtues, the greenest is durability, he says. For people looking to build more environmentally friendly homes, Yost advises installing something that lasts a lifetime and consumes less energy, rather than something that’s more efficient in the short run but must be replaced several times.

I personally hope for the best of all worlds: Natural materials, durability and sustainability.

The price of gas is higher than it’s ever been.

The cost of rice went up 141% last year.

The cost of wheat went up 77% last year.

The ABC World News spot that prompted this post, not the first of its kind on this blog, played interview footage of a Texas man who is now using the bus. He used to put gas in his automobile seven or eight times a month — which is unimaginable for myself — and is now down to three fill-ups. I try and bike to the office as much as I can, although I’m not forced into this mode of transportation as much as I have been in the past. In truth I prefer to bike; the car is just too convenient.

My wife tagged along to Wal-Mart with me last night and couldn’t believe the tiny amount of food we got for $70. I usually do the shopping in our household. Most all of what we bought fit in the child seat of the cart. $20 of the bill went towards meat and cheese from the deli, and I don’t buy the most inexpensive of the turkey. Further, local sales tax — yes, we pay sales tax on food — is quite high. Our checkbook is feeling the pain.

Will the financial strain actually change the way we live? Will we be, if I can put it this way, a more reasonable culture? Will we forgo the debt and consumerism that enslave so many of us? Will we adopt a more sustainable way of life all around?

Adding: A couple snippets from a book review by David Taylor:

The enemy to this vision is Suburban Sprawl. Call it the Anti-Urban Experience. Bess reckons it a manifestation of fallen modernity: a functionally secular, therapeutic, individualist, technologically enamored vision driven by an oppressive demand for novelty and the “bottom line.”

Suburban sprawl, Bess contends, dissociates daily communal life from physical place. It is environmentally unsustainable and unjust; it makes people slaves to their cars. Usually it is also ugly; useful and mostly durable, yes, but architecturally unbearably dull.

I might contest the “usually durable” comment, but that depends on the exact part of automobile-slash-suburban culture we’re talking about.

I’ve been fascinated with various forms of large-scale transportation since I was very young. I grew up in a non-descript western Nebraska community that boasts the worlds largest rail classification yards. And after my first time flying — first time old enough to remember, anyway — I became infatuated with commercial aviation. Any time an airplane, small props such as the Beechcraft 1900 in the case of the North Platte airport, flew within hearing I would look up. Thankfully this wasn’t very often in the small town, or I might have acquired a permanent crick in my neck. More reflection on my interest in aviation is in this post from June of last year.

I don’t fly all that much, but in the last five weeks I set foot in airports for two separate trips. My layover was in Memphis in both cases. The Memphis airport is a dreary place to be (the one point of promise was the real-live art hanging on the walls). In the concourses ceilings are low, corridors are narrow and the tiled walls are a drab brown-gray. It may be the ugliest airport I’ve been in.

But a lot of airports look like this, bland and uninviting. Situation Terminal, from The New Yorker’s website, tackles the question “Can anyone design a nice aiport?” The story lays out a bit of airport design history, suggesting the logistical nightmare that is a large airport and tight finances fostered a more or less pragmatic approach to terminal and concourse design in the last thirty to forty years. Attempts at reinventing the airport were, while perhaps visually interesting, failures in function. The New Yorker cites Eero Saarinen’s efforts at JFK and Dulles in this regard.

“Since then,” the story says, “airport authorities have been wary of letting any architect have a say on what should go where. Now most architects don’t get to do much more than give the main concourse a big, swooping space with natural light — like the one in the new American Airlines terminal at Kennedy airport — which acts as little more than a distraction from the banality of the rest of the terminal.”

There are, however, two shining examples of a better way to design airports according to columnist Paul Goldberger. Norman Foster’s Beijing Capital International Airport’s Terminal 3 is the airport rethought, successfully according to Goldberger. Apparently the space is intuitive and logistically more sound than the comfortable — even if archaic — model airports presently defer to.

I’m not so keen on the aesthetics from what I can tell in the architects renderings, though, or the 500+ photos uploaded to Flickr. It looks like a very large commercial building, like so many other airports, from what I can tell. Sure, it appears as though the architect specified some attempts to cover up the generally cold underlying structure, but based on the images I’m finding online the attempt was futile. The one exception is the Ground Transportation Centre. This space actually looks pleasant to be in.

The second example of a new airport architecture Goldberger’s piece cites is Terminal 4 in Madrid. The column doesn’t say much about function in Richard Roger’s Barajas Airport project, but the images lend me to believe this is, overall, a much more inviting environment than Terminal 3 in Beijing.

My own experience lies more with smaller venues, such as the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA) or Lincoln [Nebraska] Airport (LNK). In many ways these smaller airports are much nicer to fly in and out of, even if there aren’t as many restaurants to choose from. I often wonder if the hub and spoke system major airlines use to get people from place to place is less than optimal. I suppose — that is, I hope — the airlines have seriously considered alternatives to this model at some point in their history. With all of the financial trouble most of them are in right now, one would think this might be a good time to revisit a variety of innovative options in order to say afloat and gain and edge on the competition.