design challenge #47

Blog content detached from picture....I came across a style of residential architecture that has me completely puzzled: the single story duplex. Duplexes present a whole array of design challenges, but if they're multi-story you can at least put a unit on each floor. If it's single story, then you have a mirror image problem of room placement--does the kitchen go in the front of the house--or the back? Can the living room be next to it?

I've concluded it doesn't have a good solution in terms of layout.

new orleans with feeling

Bob Dylan said: "In New Orleans, everything seems like a good idea." I can't think of anything to say that more effectively sums up the city. As an architect, it was simultaneously wonderful and sad. The precarious condition of everything built by humans does much to justify the whimsy and flamboyance of the forms and details. With the certainty of destruction close at hand, the motivation to make a major investment in longevity and critical infrastructure seems to be limited, although that condition hasn't stopped the Dutch from  making a nation for themselves.

Heat and humidity are things that I am not that familiar with, and I occasionally felt trapped and dependent on air conditioning. Trees are critical to survival. I cannot describe the sense of relief that comes when you walk from direct sunlight to the blessed shade of an oak tree.

we built this

And guys like Herbert Hoover helped. Let me apply some context to this.

Towers of ilium does not travel often, but I just returned from a trip to Louisiana, where I visited my brother-in-law and his fiance. We spent an afternoon in New Orleans, and even more time in places to the southwest of the city. Before I went down there, a friend of mine, who was born in the state, told me: "It's like nothing you've ever seen." Rarely has someone described an experience more thoroughly. As a native of New England I was thrown for a loop by the endless, inexorable expanses of water--the graveyards with the tombs built on top of the ground, the flatness, the decay of the buildings, the indifference of most of the architecture, and the imminent sense of total collapse when the water finally comes and washes it all away.

I have more to say about New Orleans proper in another post, but the major experience was of the suburbs and stretched out development that consumes whatever space isn't completely water or completely swamp. The refineries and oil rigs were never seen up close, but they could be glimpsed on the horizon. In immediate view, alongside the main roads that led down to the coast there were endless metal warehouse with crazy collections of machinery. They had names like "Chevron Maintenance Facility" and "Lateral Hydraulics" and "Rig Fitting." Nothing I could call familiar, but all a critical part of the infrastructure that culminates in the experience of every America at the gas pump.

I did not see a single Toyota Prius. I saw many churches. There were few sidewalks, and what with the heat and humidity, there was not much reason to be outside anyway.

From what I saw, I must admit that James Kunstler was right--it is a geography of nowhere. Outside of a few parts of the city, everything I saw was authentic--with a terrifying sameness. All new construction was of the classic strip mall horror, and the vast parking lots were  full of big cars--some of them pulling up to drive-throughs that served 20 oz. strawberry daquiris (yes, we bought one). This is America.

half year review

Well, we've made it this far, but towers of ilium isn't feeling too cheerful about events on the world stage for the year.

I'm doing pretty well on some of the predictions I made in January--except for the notable fact that energy prices have shown a marked degree of stability. The fracking boom continues--hooray. I still need to insulate my attic.

The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are a shameful group of fools. Obama has been stumbling lately, but he's a far cry from Nixon (or Reagan, or Clinton). Our involvement in Syria will not end well--but maybe not as poorly as our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The European Central Bank, along with George Osborne, is a testament to the stupidity and stubbornness of self-righteous, myopic idiocy when it comes to the management of money. Ben Bernanke is an over-optimistic clown, surrounded by jesters, who is on his way out. His replacement will still be better than anyone in Europe.

And what the hell is going on Brazil?

Architecture seems to be improving, but the "good" times will not ever be back.

something pretty for friday

My last two posts featured thoroughly urban scenes--lots of concrete with not much greenery. So, today, I present  more natural. But wait, towers of ilium can never be trusted--this is a view of an abandoned stone quarry out on the English moor. Such a thoroughly man-made, ravaged horror of a landscape that is certainly without equal. I wonder if I'll go back there?

the long defeat

A little known fact of the Big Dig in Boston is that it created more miles of elevated highway than were torn down. So, if the city continues to expand, how will the physical and psychological barriers of the two interstates that still slice through the city continue to shape settlement patterns?

The Mass Pike feels like less of an obstacle than I-93. I don't think it will ever be fully covered by air rights projects, but critical intersections will eventually diminish its impact. A brave future of self-driving cars could result in some careful downsizing and rearrangement of critical traffic routes--to the extreme benefit of certain properties. Storrow Drive is one of the biggest puzzles out there. A few days ago, as I was travelling back from a client meeting, I saw the aftermath of a twelve foot high truck and an eleven foot high railroad overpass. The moral there: Don't trust GPS 100%.

bulger's boston

These twisted, shattered remnants of a building are all that remains of the Boston Herald property in Boston's South End. We can write it all down to the forces of progress.

I find it entirely fitting that Whitey Bulger is being brought to trial after such a long wait. The most severe punishment that the people of Boston can inflict on him is to bring him back to a city that is so utterly different than the one he knew. The ancient men brought to the witness stand are just as powerless and irrelevant as he is. They have some stories--some good, more bad--and they are stories of a city and a culture that moved on and faded. I never knew the old Boston, and the stories of read about it (All Souls, The Friends of Eddie Coyle) are accurate because they are fictional. I don't have an ounce of nostalgia for the misery that was Southie, and busing, and the barren streets of downtown before the reign of Menino.

The Boston Herald and Whitey Bulger are going down together and it is a fitting end. Bring on the dancers and the clowns, the sharp suits, the cheese shops, the wine tastings, the hipsters pushing baby carriages over the crack sidewalks where the Irish Mob once ruled.