Category: representation

  • Urban Topographies

    From Urban Omnibus, Linda Pollak’s simple ‘Cuts & Patches’ explores remnant disturbances within the urban environment as ‘topographies’ (which more often than not tend to be coal chute covers from a long-gone infrastructure). Check out the great photos and interview. :: image via Urban Omnibus “As traces, these cuts and patches allow us to perceive…

  • The Beauty of Reading (Books)

    The lack of functioning monitor and wonder of summer have given me the opportunity to dive in and complete a few books that have been laying around unfinished. While I am intrigued by the Kindle and my sister espouses the merits of B&Ns’ Nook – I still am drawn to the written word – on…

  • Building Better Burbs

    Check out the finalists for the Build a Better Burb competition. Not that Long Island is your typical burb, but some interesting ideas to chew on. Also available is voting on the finalists for People’s Choice Award.

  • Portland Photographic Record – Places

    A completely different scale from the concentrated landmarks – and perhaps the antidote to the over-documented – comes from the great Portland Grid Project a photographic essay of the city using a loose framework of grid points in which photographers are unleashed to document the ‘other’ places in the community. The plan, photographers are directed…

  • Portland Photographic Record – Landmarks

    The ubiquitous nature of digital data offers unique opportunities to display data about places that tells us a much richer story about ourselves than the actual city. Case in point, spotted via A Daily Dose of Architecture – are these ‘Geotaggers’ World Atlas‘ maps generated from geographically tagged data of uploaded photos to popular image…

  • 3rd Coast Atlas

    Having resided in Portland for over 13 years, I now consider myself solidly ‘West Coast’ and an adapted non-native (as opposed to invasive) resident of the Cascadia Megaregion. But 20+ years living literally near the middle and continued explorations of some midwestern cities has given me an appreciation for the third coast – a term…

  • Walhattan

    An amazing if somewhat shocking graphic spotted on A Daily Dose of Architecture, “The above is from Jesse LeCavalier’s essay “All Those Numbers” at Places: Design Observer. In it, the architect investigates “the design possibilities latent not only in Walmart’s building types but also in the organizational practices — especially its unparalleled expertise in logistics.”…

  • Vertical Agriculture + Solar Access

    It’s been a bit since I’ve posted on Vertical Agriculture – but an architecture studio I’m helping with at Portland State has a number of students pursuing food production as part of their buildings relating to urban ecology – and has me again thinking of the practicality of these building-based growth modules. While intrigued by…

  • you hold the gun!

    A call from submissions for a student-run architecture journal KTISMA from the University of Oregon,with a focus on the temporal, changing, and dynamic nature of architecture, landscape and urbanism. ktismaκτίσμαktis’-mah: thing founded; thing created a publication edited by graduate students at the university of oregon’s department of architecture. a focused forum of discussion about environments;…

  • Hollywood un-der-lined

    An interesting proposal from a team comprised of Bart de Lege, Jan Bloemen, Frederique Hermans, Joep verheijen, Steven van Esser organized as Save the Sign. A brief description of the project is found below, with an eye towards merging of cultural heritage – the Hollywood Sign- and a valuable project area by tucking the installation…