A slight diversion
So built architecture sometimes starts out in a professional design studio as a series of models and drawings that explore potential solutions to the design issues at play. Some of it turns out transcendent and some of it turns out, well, irresponsible. Here at IIT, in the final semester of the master’s program, us students … Continue reading
The privatization of public art
So how public is our public art anyway? With the case of “Dawn Shadows”, an exuberant steel sculpture by Louise Nevelson at 200 W Madison St. in Chicago, it depends. It was outside, now it’s inside. Is it still “public”? The building at 200 W Madison was designed by SOM and completed in 1982. Nevelson’s … Continue reading
Three Planes and a Bench
02.29.2012 So I’ve been spilling a lot of words all about how (mostly other) people create buildings, spaces, and urban conditions that are not what I loosely define as “responsible”. This is a personal pursuit of mine to learn from the mistakes of others, ostensibly to help me create more thoughtful, responsible architecture. I know … Continue reading
The Many Illusions of Security
02.22.12 “I am tired of learning from my own mistakes.” -Andrew Bayley, 01.2012 This week is a double. Its about an irresponsible architecture student as much as it is about irresponsible architecture. And then its really about irresponsible use of architecture… I had my laptop and digital slr camera stolen from studio over the weekend. … Continue reading
overcooked candy bars
So candy bars should be cool when you buy them, right? Well IIT has figured out a terrifically inefficient method to fail to deliver cool candy bars. Jam a bunch of vending machines in a room with no ventilation. It also makes the Pepsi machines work harder to keep the Pepsi cool, and it just … Continue reading
Update!! Parking Garage Turbines Spin!!!
I rode my bike right by this parking garage yesterday, on my way from the bank to the post office running errands, and to my astonishment the big white turbines were spinning! Well, about half of them were spinning. The two at the base were really going. So there, I was wrong. I said the … Continue reading
Irresponsible Governance
01.25.2011 Please allow me a quick diversion from the subject of architecture. It is my passion, and my future profession. I chose this path, in part, because of my love of the City. Just because I have chosen to focus on this pursuit professionally does not mean I pay no attention to other things that … Continue reading
The Humble Arch vs. Neo-Mannerist Queen Anne Revivalism
01.17.2012 The Bloomsbury Estates, Raleigh, North Carolina. I think that this is the building that set the seed for this blog. Just one look at it made me seethe with rage. Where do I begin? How about with the arches? Arches, in a conventional load bearing masonry wall, are used to create window and door … Continue reading
Parking as an Earth Friendly pursuit
01.10.2012 The Greenest Parking Garage ever!!! It is said that the most sustainable, or “green,” building is the one that is never built. The same idea can be applied to parking garages. If you don’t offer hundreds of newly available, cheap parking spots, then hundreds more cars are discouraged from driving to the area. The … Continue reading
When improvements improve nothing
The DEARBORN HOMES, a C.H.A. property. So when I started graduate school at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in the fall of 2010, I began exploring a part of the city I hadn’t been in much before. IIT’s campus is located in Bronzeville,a neighborhood with, among other distinctions, a long history of public … Continue reading
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