the slow death of yet another ethnic neighborhood

The Chinatown gate in Boston. No, no it's not in Boston, this picture is Portland, Oregon, but it's the same story. There was a recent article in the Globe about pushback against development in Chinatown. As specialists in lost causes, towers of ilium is correctly identifying this as a lost cause. Eventually, Boston's Chinatown will be rebranded by a development company with some idiotic name like "Eastern Rim" or "Bright Sun" or "CTNP."

Chinatown has character, but no romance or nostalgia can be applied to its level of dilapidation. A recent water leak in the street revealed the profound age of the infrastructure. As a community, it no longer has the cohesiveness it once had. Many of the restaurant and shop workers commute in. Tourist traffic is limited.

a facade too far

Whether this is a rendering or a photograph has ceased to have any meaning in the modern age.
What is important about this building is that it cost an astonishing amount of money to build. That money will be passed onto consumers in the form of high drug prices for the next few decades.
But hey, that's good architecture for you.

It's impressive from the outside, but neither a rendering or photograph can do the facade detailing justice. The solar shading system attempts to answer the same question posed by the cathedral builders: Can we make stone float?

Sometimes, yes.

temporary facility

There are only a handful of sports venues that qualifty as "Ah-citecture" and one of them--the Coliseum--is no longer in use. The set built for the Chariot race in Ben-Hur almost qualifies as a sports venue.

Modern stadiums, despite being financed by taxpayer bonds, have the quality of being purely internal experiences. The functional characteristics trump all design gimmicks. The interior design is at a scale where it ceases to be interior. In fact, only the attendee seat and the bathrooms qualify as interior design.

health care and health insurance

Towers of ilium is confused. Are the ongoing debates about health care and health insurance in the U.S. two separate things? Does better health insurance lead to better health care outcomes? Will better health insurance lead to health care cost curve bending?

Given that all people in the country will at some point require massively expensive medical care (whether they want it or not in many cases) would it be better to refer to insurance companies and programs as savings/transfer agencies?

We should note an obvious truth. The most effective insurance companies depend on a large risk pool for success and quality of service. By extension, the most successful insurance organization is the combined wealth of a nation.

the end of oil is not in a big hurry

Would you buy this car? If only 1% of towers of ilium readership answers that question, then Tesla will stay in business for the next few decades. Oil companies, meanwhile, had best be prepared for some turbulence. This blog predicts a reduction in the size of the petroleum liquids energy sector of around 5% over the next decade--in other words not by much.

The electrical revolution is ongoing. Grid enhancements, renewable energy systems, and electrified personal transport are significant growth sectors. Transportation that depends on oil will be robust in the coming years. Electric motors are no good at propelling trucks, trains, or cargo ships.

asphalt roofing has no discontents

As usual, we have no statistics to back this up, but towers of ilium considers asphalt roofing shingles to be one of the greatest success stories of modern building products. What makes them so good is that the aesthetic character of the modern roof shingle is unique. Marketing attempts to equate it with wood and slate, but homeowners and roofers don't spend a second of thought on how it is visually comparable to historic products.

vinyl siding and its discontents

The term "maintenance free" is always a guaranteed generator of sales. Vinyl siding, in the context of the lifespan of building products, lives up to this claim. Architects and historic commissions, as a rule, hate it with a fiery passion. Arguments that wood siding can be maintained indefinitely are made people with the money and motivation to do so.

What is curious about vinyl, however, is that is used exclusively as a visual substitute for wood products. It has never been marketed for its unique aesthetic character. Ah, plastics.