Bike Superhighways and Some Mysterious Signs

[Via Good Blog]

I recently saw in Good that London is making way for bikes on the roads and dramatically altering the blacktop to make the point.



Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, some mysterious illicit street signs have shown up in various locations. Not quite as effective, but it's a start. It's also a good use those ugly gray electric boxes--perhaps taking a page from White Mike, with his shark campaign.


[Via Good Blog]

[Via White Mike]

Meet Meat Architecture

Meat House meat model via Mitchell Joachim Archinode Studio.]

Mitchell Joachim was featured on TED expounding the virtues of building with organic matter, meat being a primary one. He has also discussed this in interviews in Harper's and the magazine, Meatpaper. Yes. there is a magazine dedicated to "art and ideas about meat." Who knew?

While the Smiths may have sung, "Meat is Murder", in this case a "victimless shelter" would be produced from the laboratory cultivation of pig cells mixed with other ingredients commonly used in the food industry. No murder necessary. No need to go out and kill and skin your own domicile.


[Section of Meat House via Mitchell Joachim Archinode Studio.]

So far, no one has actually commissioned a Meat House and there are of course a host of issues to be dealt with before putting a fleshy structure on that piece of Malibu land you have been holding onto. What happens to them in brush fires, for example? While this proposal is the perfect target for ridicule, such as this, the people at TED thought there was enough validity to the concept to make Joachim a TED Fellow and have him present it to the world.

The numerous posted comments his presentation invited inevitably point out the flaws in his system. While it is easy to engage in reasoned critique after the fact, the initial leap Joachim took to conceive of a structure generated from pig's tissue is not entirely unrealistic and there is sound science to back it up. The proposal raises interesting possibilities for architecture based more on the principles of biology and takes bio-mimicry to another level.


[Rendering of Meat House via Mitchell Joachim Archinode Studio.]

Looking beyond the shock of its literalness, Meat House raises many questions that are worth asking. Is it possible to conceive of architecture that does not involve steel framing, drywall, or concrete? Is it possible to literally "grow" a home over time? Is this an effective solution for the homeless crisis or refugees? What does it mean to be innovative in architecture? What is the value of such innovation? Is it worth doing something, or drawing something, just because you have the software to do it? How far can the concept be pushed before it collapses? While the proposal seems absurd on many levels it provokes serious inquiry and possible investigations into its underlying premises and assumptions. In this way it functions a lot like art by raising serious issues via a "shock of the new." Damien Hirst comes to mind...but to my knowledge you can't live in any of his pieces.

Thinking on Architecture

[1684 Depiction of Vitruvius (right) presenting De Architectura to Augustus. Via Wikipedia.]

Browsing Lapham’s Quarterly, I came upon an interesting little article under the heading, “Practice and Theory.” Then I noticed the date, c. 25 BC, Rome—hardly current for online content. I soon realized I was reading a passage from Vitruvius’ On Architecture, one of those texts in the canon of western architecture that I should supposedly be familiar with—or at the very least know about. This might come as a shock, but I have not actually read his ten-volume treatise. On another note of disappointment, the man’s life remains obscure and I have no intention of making it any less so here. Be that as it may, the passage quoted in Lapham’s Quarterly, reproduced here, seems relevant in this era of increasing specialization and professional insularity.

The architect should be equipped with knowledge of many branches of study and varied kinds of learning, for it is by his judgment that all work done by the other arts is put to test. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory. Practice is the continuous and regular exercise of employment where manual work is done with any necessary material according to the design of a drawing. Theory, on the other hand, is the ability to demonstrate and explain the productions of dexterity on the principles of proportion.

It follows, therefore, that architects who have aimed at acquiring manual skill without scholarship have never been able to reach a position of authority to correspond to their pains, while those who relied only upon theories and scholarship were obviously hunting the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men armed at all points, have sooner attained their object and carried authority with them.

In all matters, but particularly in architecture, there are these two points: the thing signified, and that which gives it its significance. That which is signified is the subject of which we may be speaking, and that which gives significance is a demonstration on scientific principles. It appears, then, that one who professes himself an architect should be well versed in both directions. He ought, therefore, to be both naturally gifted and amenable to instruction. Neither natural ability without instruction nor instruction without natural ability can make the perfect artist. Let him be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens.