Deuce Seven & Street Art Reconsidered

After laying low and working up a local following in the Twin Cities, graffiti artist Deuce Seven (aka: Deuse Sevin, Deuce 7, or just simply 27) recently made two trips to New York City, one in January of this year and then again in March, that catapulted his work into the national spotlight in a surprising way. Unlike other recent graff-world news to draw widespread attention (see the Splasher fiasco here, here, and here), 27's work is noteworthy for its creative merit and beautiful execution - as exhibited below.




photo: Surlygrrrl

I'd like to use 27's work to air out some thoughts on how street art is changing and invite you to do the same if you're so inclined. During 27's second stay in the Big Apple The Village Voice posted a short interview with him and posed the question: "Is a guy from Minnesota the new king of New York street art?" - proving that talent will always trump gimmickry and prolific output, even in the graffiti-saturated New York streetscape.

But there are two aspects of his work that have been yet ill-commented on that interest me most. The first is 27's apparent dedication to and embracement of the temporal characteristic of his medium. Where most graffiti is driven by some combination of 1) real estate of the public realm and 2) ease of accessibility in the cover of night, 27 seems to forgo the immediate limelight in favor of encouraging those interested in his art to seek it out in the liminal and often condemned space of the city.





[Sidenote: This isn't to say he won't paint well known spots. He hit the Williamsburg Bridge (a kind of graff-world landmark in NYC) with beautiful pieces both times he was there.]


photo: GammaBlog


photo: setstatic

The second aspect of his work that interests me is the way in which it has spread. His work is so well represented online that I will go so far as to announce the emergence of a new kind of "street art paparazzi", people compelled to scour urban outer realms, find his work - and the work of others, document it, and share it online.


photo: Luna Park



In this approach, it seems that 27 has at least partially sidestepped the most common argument against graffiti. Rather then "vandalizing" the public realm, he paints in buildings destined for demolition, or in other cases simply screws art into street sign posts. The hunt for his work often takes the viewer far from every day life in the city, but through his cultivation of the street art paparazzi, more people then ever before are able to see his art. It should be said that this is not an entirely new phenomenon, but I do think that 27 is doing it better then anybody else at the moment. At the vary least, the artist's work and recent notoriety in New York City provide a good segue into a larger discussion about the changing place of street art in the city...

... and of course provide me with an opportunity to display a little MPLS pride.

[Thanks is due to the numerous photographers on Flickr and elsewhere who make this often temporary art permanently available to a global audience. Check out their photographs: dancypants, TrespassersWill's, The Curse of Brian, Luna Park, and Artistikfunk and show them some love.

UPDATE: Or you could go straight to the source: Twenty~7's Flickr account via Format.]

New Urban Cartography

We have a couple of reports from the urban cartography department today, followed by some personal thoughts about the kind of futures this new urban cartography might be pointing to.

First up is truliaHindsight, which maps the growth of cities over time through a massive online real estate database. The image below (Las Vegas, NV) is indicative of the data overlay you will see over most American cities: a massive housing boom in the 1950's that begins a trend pushing the city edge further and further away from the core. truliaHindsight is just one example of how massive information databases are being used and re-used in new and sometimes very surprising ways. Imagine combining this overlay with 200 years of census data... a thesis project on environmental racism just waiting to happen.



The truliaHindsight website was designed by Stamen Design in San Francisco. One of their more abstract pieces of urban cartography is called Cabstopping. "The patterns traced by each cab create a living and always-changing map of city life. This map hints at economic, social, and cultural trends that are otherwise invisible."



Their map is part of a bigger project that works "across the domains of art, design, cultural geography, cartography, information design, sociology, hydrology, marine sciences, and history" for The Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception (a place that I apparently need to visit). Some very cool timelapse videos of these maps can be found here.

Going from abstract and invisible to concrete and very visible, we end with a new project from granddaddies/ mommies of all things searchable. The Google Maps team recently released a new hybrid web application called Street View in which you can navigate through the Google Map as if you were a pedestrian on the street. The people/ hours that must of have gone into this thing are staggering.

It starts out looking like the familiar Google Map, but within the space of a few clicks, you are standing at the intersection of Liberty and Church Streets, looking out over void at the World Trade Center from the comfort of my tiny apartment in St. Paul, MN.



Once in Street View mode, you're free to walk up or down the streets, turn in full 360 degrees, and zoom in for a closer look. Below, I do a 180 and go into full screen mode:



How is this achieved? Let's just say keep an eye out for one of these, coming soon to reflective glass near you.

--- Begin personal thoughts on the topic here ---

What all of this brings to mind is William Gibson's early cyberpunk Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive - all excellent novels). This body of fiction, as well as much of Gibson's other work, revolves around his extrapolation that the internet (in its infancy at the time - mid to late 80's) would move beyond information on a screen and become an inhabitable place. In fact, Gibson ended up coining the term "cyberspace" to name his then fictional invention.


Gibson's "cyberspace" literally translated in the film Hackers.

If the Google Street View is any indication of what is to come, we can begin to imagine all manner of information being mapped onto a virtually inhabitable simulacrum of our world. Unlike the cyberspace that Gibson describes in Neuromancer:

"...a graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding..." (69),

this new cyberspace will be much more familiar to us. It will look and behave in ways we understand - dangerous because the line between real and virtual will be that much more hazed. As the possibilities for exploration, learning, and knowledge building expand - so too will the potential for surveillance, misuse, and abuse.

"Emergent technology is, by its very nature, out of control, and leads to unpredictable outcomes." - William Gibson

Can Google Life really be that far off?

Chernobyl Fungi Feed on Radiation

Today we have a science fiction-esque follow up to my previous post about Chernobyl tourism in Prypiat, Ukraine. National Geographic reports that three types of fungus have been discovered to grow larger and faster when fed radiation. Scientists were inspired to further study after observing strange fungus growth on the ruins of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

From the paper, published and available at PLoS ONE:

Melanized microorganisms inhabit some remarkably extreme environments including high altitude, Arctic and Antarctic regions. Most dramatically, melanized fungal species colonize the walls of the highly radioactive damaged reactor at Chernobyl and surrounding soils.

The melanin in the fungi apparently gives it a blackish hue. This "pigment may play a role in the fungi similar to that of chlorophyll in plants." The paper points towards further study of melanin and its future potential for energy capture and utilization. In an interview with Ira Flatow on NPR's Science Friday today, lead scientist Ekaterina Dadachova said that this could mean the farming of melanized fungus as a bio-fuel in areas too extreme for conventional farming. Possibilities include underground or even in radiation abundant outer space.

Sadly, I haven't been able to turn up any images of the Chernobyl fungus online. Anybody up for a holiday in Prypiat?

Friday Photography | Visualizing the Numbers

Photographic artist Chris Jordan is doing an interesting series called "Running the Numbers" that means to visualize the sometimes abstract statistics that define American material culture.

Depicts 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour.

Partial zoom:

Detail at actual size:


Depicts 75,000 shipping containers, the number of containers processed through American ports every day.

Detail at actual size:


Depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day.

Partial zoom:

Detail at actual size:


Very sobering. In any case, Happy Friday!

Darfur & the Representation of Atrocity

I conceived of and put together the images in this post almost exactly one year ago. It would have continued to collect dust in my hard drive had it not been for the latest issue of NEED magazine which also featured the artwork of war-afflicted children.



The concept began simply enough. I was researching the genocide in Darfur for a post and wanted to find the appropriate imagery. But the more and more I saw, the less and less I felt capable of coherent comment or action. To make matters worse, new death tolls were coming out almost weekly at this point, each new figure more and more humbling.

The problem I had was that none of the photographs coming out of Darfur could convey the emotion behind the circumstance. There was something missing. Then I came across a website that was publishing the drawings of child refugees in counseling. The children had reportedly not been prompted to draw images about war or strife, this was their subconscious doodling.



Having just poured through hundreds of photographs depicting the conflict, I was immediately stricken by the raw immediacy the drawings possessed. The photographs I kept seeing portrayed genocide in a past tense, but in the drawings, the atrocities being committed were happening before my eyes, as if in real time.



When I put drawing and photograph together I began to see a more complete story, both present and past, both real and imagined, and somehow so much more then the sum of their parts. And I suppose that is what led me to finally putting them up today: thinking about how we represent and relate to such atrocities when they are happening, right now - in the present tense, half way around the world.



Looking at these again, the question I asked myself was “Why did I feel so ashamed by the juxtaposition I had created, enough so to pack it away, not able to think about it again for a full year?” I think I might have an (at least partial) answer:

By making the relationship between what had happened and what was presently happening more understandable, I had subconsciously realized the difference between "I could have done something", and "I should be doing something."

The photographs in this post were all taken by Brian Steidle, the drawings are by the children of Darfur.

Odegard & AFH:MN Present an Evening with Travis Price

If you live in the Twin Cities area and are looking for something to do this Thursday evening, look no further. The environmentally and socially conscious local carpet and design firm Odegard Inc. and Architecture for Humanity Minnesota have teamed up to bring you what is sure to be an inspiring and lively evening with architect, philosopher, and author, Travis Price.

". . . pioneering architects and designers are going back to the earth with what critic Vincent Scully calls a 'reverent appreciation for the political landscape.' . . .'such a sustainable world architecture,' says Christopher Alexander , may represent the pursuit of a 'spiritual purity of maker and artifact' . . . Mr. Price designs in both the spiritual and material worlds."

Timothy Jack Ward,
The New York Times

Mr. Price's "intellectually and visually robust" presentation will be inspired by his new book The Archaeology of Tomorrow: Architecture and the Spirit of Place.

EVENT DETAILS:
Thursday, May 10th
Wine & Hor d'oeuvres at 6 pm
Presentation begins at 6:30

Odegard 210 North 2nd St
Minneapolis, MN
612.455.6100

For more information see the online flier. Hope you can make it!

MoPo 2007, Splitted

Well, about 3 weeks have passed since Eikongraphia released their take on "the twenty-five Most Popular Architecture Blogs of this moment." Titled MoPo 2007, the list was updated 5 days later and more accurately titled MoPo 2007, Splitted. It seemed there was quite a bit of confusion surrounding the first list, something the author tries to clear up in the second list:

The MoPo was actually meant as a satirical joke, as a comment to all selections, lists, awards, prizes, and medals out there. I thought the OMA-AMO reversing of PoMo (Jencks’ Post Modernism) made that clear. With 34 comments, and about the same amount of blogs republishing the list, we can clearly say I am not that good a comedian.

The list seems to have helped to bring some transparency and organization to in the small world of architectural blogging. And maybe more importantly, as others have already pointed out, the list serves to separate ourselves from the rest of the blogosphere and to hopefully give more visibility to us all.

The list is, by the authors own admission, not complete nor fully accurate. His methods for creating the list are as follows:

The mapping of popularity remains the same, with valuing the popularity of architecture blogs by linking blogs (Technorati), subscribers (Bloglines), and hits (Google, and Google Images). As a method it is still not perfect, but these parameters are objective, so it works at least partly.

Overall, I think the list was a gutsy but necessary undertaking and I commend the author for taking it on. It has turned me on to quite a few great blogs that I probably would not otherwise be reading. And likewise, I have definitely seen BLYGAD's daily hits increase since it's inception, as I'm sure many other lesser known blogs on the list have found. For those two reasons, if no others, the list has been successful. So without any further ado:

Top 25 Individual Architecture Blogs
1. BLDGBLOG
2. City of Sound
3. Pruned
4. Tropolism
5. Archidose
6. Gravestmor
7. Jetson Green
8. Eikongraphia
9. A Barriga de um Arquitecto
10. Subtopia
11. Anarchitecture
12. Mirage Studio 7
13. Life Without Buildings
14. Missrepresentation
15. Brand Avenue
16. Architecture.mnp
17. Archispass
18. Architechnophilia
19. Part IV
20. Bird to the North
21. eCar 2.0
22. Archlog
23. Progressive Reactionary
24. Blog Like You Give A Damn
25. Arkitekturbloggen

Top 25 Collaborative Architecture Blogs
1. Worldchanging
2. Inhabitat
3. Archinect
4. Things
5. Edgar Gonzalez
6. Dezeen
7. Plataforma Arquitectura
8. Dezain
9. Urbanity
10. Noticias Arquitectura
11. Death by Architecture
12. …

You'll notice the blogroll to the right has been appropriately updated. Happy reading!

Friday Photography | LincolnWay Energy

This week Friday Photography takes a road trip about 3 and a half hours south from the Twin Cities to an ethanol plant outside of Ames, Iwoa. I made the trip a with a group that was part Architecture for Humanity: Minnesota and part Solutions Twin Cities (a new project of mine, but more on that later) to participate in a conference called BIGe (the little "e" was for energy), put on by the newly formed Architecture for Humanity: Iowa.

On the last day of the conference, we took a tour of the nearby LincolnWay Energy ethanol plant. As we donned our soylent green hard hats a thick fog rolled in, setting the stage for a surreal tour through the nearly year old,and still pristine, power plant. The process for making ethanol is similar to brewing beer. So much so that they actually refer to the 200 proof corn alcohol they create brew as "beer" throughout the process. Seeing vats labeled as such combined with a strong smell that unmistakably reminded me of childhood tours through the Miller Brew Plant in Milwaukee had me expecting a free sample by the end of the tour.

But enough chit chat, on to the photos!









More photos from the ethanol plant, a passive solar house we visited, and the rest of the conference (with a cameo appearance by the back of Cameron Sinclair's head!) can be viewed here.

Some bonus ethanol fun facts:

• One acre of corn can produce enough ethanol to run a car for some 72,000 miles on E-10 Unleaded.\One bushel of corn yields about 2.8 gallons of ethanol.
• A typical 40 million gallon ethanol plant creates 32 full-time jobs and generates an additional $1.2 million in tax revenue for a community.
• Ethanol production results in a net energy gain – producing 67 percent more energy than it takes to grow and process the corn into ethanol.
• Ethanol production consumed about 13 percent of the nation’s second largest corn harvest in 2005 - some 1.43 billion bushels.

Happy Friday from St. Paul, MN!

Travel Notes from Sri Lanka | Day 2: Five Houses

Sishir Chang recently spent 5 days in Sri Lanka. His travel notes are reproduced here: raw, unedited, and uncut. One post for each day.

Day 2: Five Houses
The second full day in Sri Lanka started out early with the consulting engineer, Amitha, for the Sri Lanka Student Association project picking me up at 7:30 to go Kalathura to see their project. The drive to the site was through beautiful rice paddies and bustling towns. At one point we passed through a school group and saw several boys in white school outfits climbing onto a moving truck with a Sri Lankan flag.


["Minnesota Happy Structures"]

As we drove I talked to Amitha about a variety of subjects. Amitha is a civil engineer who works for a factory run by Koreans. One thing that he mentioned that was very interesting was that his factory hired a lot of Indians because Sri Lankans wouldn't do the dangerous steel work for as low a wage rate as the Indians. Also that Sri Lankans would unionize and ask for more benefits. This struck me as interesting for my knowledge of Sri Lanka was that they exported labor to work construction in countries like Singapore and Dubai yet here they were importing labor also for work that Sri Lankans wouldn't do. We also talked about the education system in Sri Lanka and that one big problem was that most education was being done in Sinhalese so that there were few English programs and also few people qualified to teach them. This made such programs very in demand but also was hampering Sri Lanka's development. I asked him about if Sri Lanka was developing an IT sector like India and he mentioned they were trying to and were sending people to India to study IT. One big problem he felt that hampered Sri Lanka was the ongoing Tamil insurgency which he blamed both on the Tamils but also do-nothing politicians. He also felt that corruption was a big problem.


[construction workers mixing cement]

At the project site itself the 5 houses in the project weren't quite completed. Three were nearly completed awaiting some finishing while the fourth one was getting its external finish put on and the fifth one was structurally complete but still had finish work just getting started. An official handing over ceremony though had been conducted on January 18th even though they weren't completed. The houses still lacked infrastructure and I was told that the government was planning on adding internal road access to them, currently access to the site was on unpaved paths but the site was adjacent to a new paved road. The government was going to provide water but the engineer felt that that might not be sufficient and so had dug a well at the site and was planning on building a central water tank for the 5 houses that could provide water during even the drought years. Amitha explained that well water in Sri Lanka was also of fairly high quality…

After visiting the site we headed back we passed by a large Buddhist monastery with a giant stupa in Kalathura. The story behind the temple was that a bridge crossing the river in front of the temple had been built a long time ago and at the time it was uncertain that bridge could be built. People prayed at the site and miraculously an island appeared in the middle of stream providing a middle support for the bridge. So the temple was built and people come to pray there for miracles.



We stopped outside of Kalathura to have lunch at a luxury hotel built on the ocean. I asked if this hotel had been affected by the tsunami and they said it had but only to a small extent and looking at the green yard leading to the beach it looked like if it did they had cleaned up quite well. He dropped me off in the early afternoon and later in the afternoon called a driver and headed out to check email. After I had finished checking email we went to a beach south of Colombo and I got to enjoy the sun setting over the Indian Ocean. This beach appeared to primarily cater to locals and there were several of them also enjoying the sunset, playing cricket or swimming. The beach itself was OK but wasn't white sand and seemed slightly dirty the water too wasn't particularly clear.

Travel Notes from Sri Lanka | Day 1: Arrival

Sishir Chang recently spent 5 days in Sri Lanka. His travel notes are reproduced here: raw, unedited, and uncut. One post for each day.

Day 1: Arrival
I arrived at about 5 PM local time after flying Lanka Air. The flight was OK although I wished I had a window seat to be able to check out Sri Lanka from the air. As it was I got some glimpses of the landscape below that looked interesting especially the central mountain range which while no Rockies or Sierras were larger than I expected and were mysteriously shrouded in cloud. The airport and much of Sri Lanka seems less developed than most places I've been in Asia. The capital of Colombo doesn't seem to possess the size of many other Asian cities and there doesn't seem to be a big modern commercial district. Most of the urban areas look like most other Asian Third World towns with rather narrow streets with small shops and stalls lining them and 3 wheeled tuk tuks on them. Driving in Sri Lanka is an adventure best left to skilled locals as it is in many developing countries. I'm amazed that like China I haven't seen many automobile accidents or even cars with scratches even though cars drive on the wrong side of the road regularly and cram by each other with less than inches to spare.

For the first full day in Sri Lanka I spent mostly in Colombo the capital. First getting a sim card for my cell phone, which appears to be the primary means of communication here, then checking internet and seeing some sights. Internet access is something that back in the US I take for granted but here in Sri Lanka I've been treating it as an almost precious commodity as there don't seem to be many Internet cafés and wi-fi networks almost nonexistent.



My driver dropped me off at a relatively modern shopping mall where he said there was an internet café. Unfortunately the mall didn't open for about an hour so I waited outside. While I was waiting an almost continuous stream of devout Muslims walked by. This was strange to see this as Sri Lanka is a predominately Buddhist society, with a large Hindu minority while the Muslim community vies with the Christian community for third place in size. Yet here in Colombo was a continuous stream of white clad bearded Muslim men wearing tight fitting hats of the kind commonly worn by SE Asian Muslims along with women in white or light colored hijabs toting along small children also white colored but wearing fanciful tight fitting silver hats. I'm not sure where they were going or what they were doing but I had the feeling there might've been a religious festival of sorts.



With the working sim card in hand and email having been checked my day was relatively free so I settled on lunch. My driver took me to an upscale buffet restaurant with a sea view where I had an excellent lunch of Sri Lankan food. I invited my driver to eat which I'm sure isn't standard practice as he seemed relatively surprised to join me but I felt it was a good gesture and as that he could also give me some information about what I food I was eating. Had a meal of a few kinds of rice including a red kind that is popular in Sri Lanka, several kinds of curries and a few types of sambols (spicy sauces) some of which were thick and chunky like chutneys while others were almost like coleslaw. Dessert was a mix of custards, bread pudding, jellies, fruit and something that seemed exactly like a marshmallow.

Other than the food and the view the amount of security precautions at the restaurant stood out. Driving up to the building the car was examined with a mirror underneath and the trunk examined along with the drivers ID. After getting off the elevator we had to walk through a metal detector and have our bags searched. No doubt this level of security was due to the threat of terrorism from the Tamil Tigers and throughout Colombo there were reminders that an active conflict was ongoing with Kalashnikov wielding troops a common sight along with checkpoints.



After we ate, my driver took me to a see another hotel and visit the beach. The hotel was a fairly elegant European style hotel and the beach was decent although relatively deserted. I hiked a bit down the beach and a few hundred yards away the hotel property gave way to a fishing village. It somewhat surprised me that there would be a ramshackle fishing village right against a luxury hotel and also that such a ramshackle fishing village would still be in the middle of a major city. I was invited by a resident of the village to come and see it and he showed me around. The village was fairly small and mostly consisted of single story shacks made of a variety of materials. Running in the back of the village was the coastal railway that had been hit by the tsunami but since then had been fixed so the village was sandwiched on a narrow stretch between the railway and the sea. My host fetched a coconut from a tree and cut it open for me to drink from. Even though I've been to tropical places several times before had fresh coconut I had never had one plucked and cut from a tree right before me. The water within the coconut was warm and not quite refreshing but unlike the processed coconut that we're accustomed to it wasn't very sweet and even slightly salty. Not bad but not quite the thing on a very hot day. The villager also told me that the tsunami had hit the village and that the government had wanted them to move but had not done anything to enforce that order so they went ahead and rebuilt on the same location. As I left the villager made an appeal for some money for his family. I didn't give him the 1,000 Rupees he wanted but he settled for the 300 I did. I had figured he was going to ask me for some money and appreciated the tour and coconut but even 1,000 Rupees (a bit more than $10) is tight when traveling on a budget.



We next briefly stopped at a Hindu temple where they didn't let us enter for pictures and then went on to a small Buddhist temple. This temple was unlike most Buddhist temples I had been too and was octagonal in layout with brightly colored statuary dioramas depicting the Buddha and important events in the Buddha's life along with Buddhism relating to Sri Lanka.

Tsunami Recovery in Thailand | Parts 11 & 12: ONGOING NEEDS & LEAVING PHUKET

(Parts 11 & 12 of a 12 part series)

Five weeks after the Tsunami hit, Sishir Chang went to Thailand to see how the people there were recovering and to see how those concerned could help. The following segments are the final chapters of his first experience in the aftermath of one of the world's most devastating natural disasters. Originally published in the Southasian, the article is being republished here with the author's permission.
___

Part 11 | Ongoing Needs

From everyone I talked to and seeing for myself the recovery is going very well. There are some places much more damaged than others where it will take a long time to recover but in general reconstruction is progressing well. Almost all of the bodies have been recovered but there are still around a 1,000 still missing and also around a 1,000 bodies still waiting to be identified. There hasn’t been any major health threat from the tsunami and from what I found there is plenty of food, water and medicine available.

In the worst hit areas of Khao Lak and Bang Niang the most pressing need is housing as there are still a few hundred Thais living in refugee camps in that areas. Mental health specialists are also needed to help with the children and adults who are suffering post traumatic stress. According to Sophie Konnaris at the Tsunami Volunteer Center in Khao Lak how much mental health help is needed is difficult to determine because to her knowledge no major mental health evaluation had been done. Another problem that I heard from aid workers is that Western mental health specialist might not be able to help due to language and culture differences.

Also in Khao Lak many resorts were completely destroyed it will be a long time before they can be reconstructed, if ever, and open for business. Job retraining and other economic development is needed. The villagers of Bang Niang were primarily fisherman and they would like to replace the boats they lost in the tsunami to resume fishing and would like power tools to help with fixing boats and building houses.

In Patong and Kamala the biggest need is economic recovery in the form of tourists coming back. In Kamala there is still some need for housing but reconstruction is progressing both for houses and businesses. At both the Kamala health station and the Patong hospital they said that they were well stocked on medicines but still had a need to replace equipment.

Overall the message that I heard from everyone was to come visit and enjoy Phuket. Without tourism the Thais have no chance of economic recovery.

Part 12 | Leaving Phuket

As I was leaving I watched the sun set through the windows of the Phuket airport. Like every other sunset I had seen in Phuket this one was beautiful. I had come as a concerned American looking to see where my aid money was going and also out of curiosity to see the aftermath of one of the worst disasters in human history. As I watched the sun go down I was still trying to comprehend all that I had seen and heard. I had been expecting something simple, survivors and aid workers nobly struggling amidst ruins to save life and restore dignity, but had found a far more complex situation of ad hoc aid, sex tourism, tsunami commercialization, frustration and reconstruction. All of those thoughts mingled in my mind as I watched another day end in paradise.
___

This concludes Shishir's experience in Thailand. Sishir has recently returned from Sri Lanka, where he observed a country still rebuilding, over a year after the same tsunami. BLYGAD is happy to announce a new series from Sishir: "Travel Notes from Sri Lanka", to be posted in 5 segments. Stay tuned.

Friday Photography | Imaginary High-rise Landscapes

Almost a month with out a post? Criminal!

Truth be told, the AFHMNers have been busy: A community center in Sri Lanka nearing completion, a new project on the books (this one in the congo), a sleeping bag drive for our local homeless, and finally, a very exciting project that has been to blame for my absence on BLYGAD... but more on that later.

All of this recent activity means that BLYGAD has it's work cut out for it. I'll be reporting on the above projects, posting a new Sri Lankan travel diary from Sishir, keeping you up to date on all things humanitarian & architectural, and keeping good on that promise to freshen up the look of the place... hmmm, that's curious, rumor has it AFH International might be doing the same very soon...

In the mean time, enjoy these shots of Russian housing projects. (Thanks for the tip Jeffrey!) If anybody knows more about these curious neighborhoods, please leave a comment!











Happy Friday!

5 Things Meme

It’s a mashup of the icebreaker games that everybody hates, the old playground standby tag, and the chain letter… and it could only happen in the blogosphere. It’s the 5 Things Meme.

Paul Schmelzer, author of the always excellent Eyeteeth, has tagged BLYGAD (way back here) and who am I to break the chain? I’m supposed to reveal five things you don't necessarily know about me, and then tag five others who should do the same. In this case, the whole AFHMN gang will be getting in on the fun.

So without further ado: 5 things you probably don’t know about AFHMN

1. The first AFH seeds were planted in Minnesota soil in 2005 as Cameron Sinclair came to talk at the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota (which is now the more inclusive College of Design). The speech Cameron gave then was not so different from the one he gave at the TED Talks last year:

2. In fact, so many were inspired by that talk, the University somehow managed to convince Cameron to come back to Minnesota and find the time to teach a studio. This kick-started a new push, led by Dean Tom Fisher, to position the school as a leader in humanitarian architecture.

3. No grassroots organization is without its growing pains. As we recently made the transition to using Google Groups, we accidentally added our whole mailing list, 140 blessed souls in all, to our “working group”. Needless to say, many of them politely (in most cases) objected to being included in one morning’s nuts and bolts conversation (18 emails deep) about where we should hold the next meeting.

4. AFHMNers have day jobs, imagine that! Check 'em out on the web: Cermak Rhoades Architects, LHB, Swainhart Construction Services, Shelter Architecture, SmithGroup, & Perkins & Will... among others!

5. I’ve successfully gone a full year without using the word blogosphere, on this site or anywhere… until today. Thanks Paul.

And to keep the ball rolling, I tag:
Up Your Architecture
CRA Jotter (with just a smidgen of self promotion)
A Life Without Buildings
Vestal Design Blog
A Daily Dose of Architecture

Have fun!

Friday Photography | Bill Sullivan

Bill Sullivan creates situational photography. He started by creating a set of rules for himself:

1. The image or photograph must be candid
2. The context of the situation must be clearly established
3. The background behind every subject in a series must be the same
4. The photographer must always be visible to the subject(s) in the photograph
5. The moments the images are to be taken must be defined before the pictures are taken
6. Secondary image(s) can be attached to the primary image if needed to clarify an established context
7. The camera should not play a visible role in the situation unless its visible presence has a role in that scenario

He has created 3 scenarios thus far...

... one in the NYC Metro:


... one in an elevator lobby:


... and one in Times Square:

[Via Archinect]

Happy Friday!

Umoja: American Shantytown

It's resident's call it Umoja, the Swahili word for "unity" / the city of Miami calls it an illegal eyesore. Brainchild of activist Max Rameau, Umoja is part protest and part experiment. It's existence is a response to the growing housing crisis in Miami. A recent New York Times article reports that the Miami-Dade County planning department estimates Miami will need 294,200 new housing units by 2025, 42 percent of them for 'very low- or low-income households.

The shantytown has successfully fought for the right to exist using a 1998 federal district court ruling that says Miami can not criminalize homeless people for conducting “life-sustaining acts” including eating, sleeping, lighting a fire and building temporary structures on public land if local shelters were filled. Max keeps a blog documenting the project called Take Back the Land.

The small plot of public land is located in Liberty City, a neighborhood of Miami. The video below shows a makeshift city made up of about 16 structures. About 40 formerly homeless people call this place home. At Umoja they are off the streets; sleeping under a roof, cooking and eating with their neighbors, and taking care of each other when sick.

It seems the city has conceded for now:

The city commissioner who represents the area, Michelle Spence-Jones, had tried to shut the settlement down with an ordinance to require a permit for gatherings on public land. But after several visits to Umoja, she withdrew the ordinance and instead promised to arrange for trash pickup at the site three times a week.

Ms. Spence-Jones stopped short, however, at the group’s request for a mailbox. “That sends a whole other message,” she said. New York Times

It will be interesting to see how this develops. If successful, Umoja could prove to be a useful model for the homeless in other cities across the US.

If interested in doing more, you could watch more Umoja videos and then show support by signing Umoja's online petition.

TOMS Shoes

I just learned about TOMS Shoes over at FMCS and had to post about them here. They are a new company whose sole mission (excuse the pun) is to make the world a more comfortable place. Blake Mycoskie, founder of the company, plans to achieve this goal very simply:

For every shoe you purchase, TOMS Shoes will give a pair of shoes to a child in need.



Check out the video below for more information and (as in my case) some dusty eyed inspiration. (And please let me know if the video doesn't work for you, it's my first time posting one!)

More and more companies and organizations are realizing the power in worldchanging ideas. TOMS Shoes is selling more then just another shoe, they are selling the ability to make a difference, the ability to make your voice as a consumer heard, the ability to vote with your dollar.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a new economy forming right in front of our eyes, an economy based on values and reputation.