on january 14th, 2010, massimo vignelli made a speech about his role as a designer and his relationship with alan heller of heller - furniture design company. the design meetup organized by designer pages and hosted at the heller showroom in new york city, also featured designer, zachary feltoon of davidzachary.
more event information:
phoenix-based architect, will bruder, designed the scottsdale museum of contemporary art in old scottsdale, which is now mainly a feeding ground for tourists. the building has a lot of potential despite its modest (read insignificant) location.
had the building been located in a bustling city center, the james turrell enclosed by the curvilinear walls of the bruder structure would not be as mysterious or intangible; but, had it been located in desert, the exhibitions would not be worth the trip. so, maybe the deserted downtown area on the comeback is in fact the right fix…
bruder’s details maintain a clunky and matter-of-fact presence throughout the structure. the doors, walls and edges of the building exhibit raw junctures with unfinished seams, as if making a point not to be refined or even celestial. however, rows of i-beams form a open roof that draw attention to the sky and heighten your sense of exterior versus interior space while adding to the chromatic affect of the orange walls complementing the blue of the sky.
it is clear that his industrial approach and sense of scale beckons large scale commissions of massive proportion, like his burton barr central library. i would like to see some of his residences in person - the murray residence is interesting because it seems far more polished than the byrne and cox residences which both have obvious rough and jagged surfaces, which i like (until that is, i bump in to one - ouch).
for more on will bruder see: http://www.willbruder.com/
“wind power can be a great supplement to our energy demand, but so far, it hasn’t demonstrated the ability to be a primary source of power generation, unlike nuclear power. for one thing, the article is deceptive when it states “wind turbines take up much less space than what is required for a single power station,” because it fails to put that estimate in relation to generating capacity. while they do say it provides “lower energy output” they really should put that in context of their claim of “less space is needed”. in reality, wind farms require vastly more space, in terms of surface area, for the equivalent generating capacity, when compared to nuclear or fossil fuels. the roscoe wind farm in texas, the world’s largest and highest capacity wind farm, covers near 100,000 acres to generate 781.k MW, whereas the beaver valley nuclear plant, chosen for the combination of “beaver” and “valley”, covers 1,000 acres to generate 1890 MW.
furthermore, claims like “wind power could account for 30% of energy production by 2020” often use current energy demand figures and ideas such as blanketing an entire continental shelf to fulfill that claim—both of which are foolish in their thinking. energy demand will always be increasing, but the land area suitable for wind farming is finite. additionally, the noise generated by the turbines tends to be very loud and low frequency, similar to the sounds whales and other marine life make to navigate the oceans, meaning that offshore wind farms (like many of those proposed) will likely have a very negative impact on already endangered species. ultimately, wind power serves as a good, clean “patch” to the problem; a short-term supplement that will have diminished future benefit as energy demand continues to grow at exponential rates.”
- a response by david burch (haptick)
a nytimes article about a remote texas retreat.
just my style. thanks gordoleupagus!
Email us.
Twitter
Vimeo
LinkedIn
Show a random post!