After Corbu

I should never have poked fun at the new Thom Mayne building and the poor engineers that have to design it; today I was put on a new project team for one of the starchitect’s towers.  It has a crumpled facade.  The steel is kinked at every level.  The diaphragms are discontinuous.  Almost every one […]

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When he runs through the numbers and facts, rather than make proclamations based on his gut, Chris Bowers is the best election analyst on the web.  So, when he makes a convincing case, I feel comfortable believing him.  Therefore: barring an act of god, the underdog doesn’t just beat the spread, but wins outright.
The great […]

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Reminiscent of a Norman Foster building broken and twisted by a kinetic event and then frozen in place, Phare Tower:

I’ve had my share of vitriol for Thom Mayne in the past over the hostility and anxiety that his buildings exude, so I was excited to see that he had taken my criticism to heart for […]

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Apparently all the cool kids are running for President (Despite being an academic, nonhuman, and British respectively — not exactly a group that screams electable, or even “legally electable”), but I’m going to take a different tack and declare for National Zoning Czar. True, it doesn’t have the same aura of “President” — or exist […]

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Detroit’s beautiful/desolate architecture makes me want to buy an old Kahn building and turn it into an urban commune. In honor of the coming Detroit resurrection, Sufjan Stevens playing Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWen_lkrM1k

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So this is disappointing, but I have no doubt Lessig will resurface doing exciting things elsewhere, with his Change Congress movement just the beginning.

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The impressive facade stylings of Thom Faulders:

Airspace Tokyo
I like looking at architecture models, but check out the designers’ website above for the as-built version. This skin was developed for a new building, but what’s most exciting is its potential uses on existing structures. In LA, we love us some low-rise stucco box apartments, […]

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Seth at Posting and Toasting:
…if both sides got Thunder Stix, we bitter Knick fans would surely be compelled to attack our own players with noisy distraction as an indicator of our discontent. Limit it to one side, one half, and the opposing team is the only viable target. The Dolan regime is censoring you in […]

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Two firetrucks just roared down my street (Why?  Well, where there’s trucks, there’s fire, as the saying goes, but no inferno is apparent), setting off half a dozen car alarms, and seriously sapping my faith in the fundamental goodness of humanity.  There ought to be a law…

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I mistakenly stumbled into the bad side of the internet today when I clicked on Steve Sailer’s name in a comment thread. For those who have been blissfully ignorant of his recent musings hack job: Michelle Obama is stupid, a clear beneficiary of affirmative action, and hates white people. It’s real hardhitting journalism.
This […]

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My crack legal team is busy holding meetings and issuing memorandi to fight this cartoon, which violates the terms of use of the ‘Quixote’ handle.  My namesake never tilted at abolishing the income tax!  Moreover, I have it on good authority that the Don is backing someone else:

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Even though I was told recently that real engineers design buildings not bridges (the view a side effect of the long standing structures vs. civil schism) — and I have a strong disdain for Dubai’s nouveau riche gaudiness — it would be a fun to work on one of these super-bridges.  Long-span structures make it […]

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I’ve been desperately searching for a contractor blogger who I can vent work-related frustration on by harassing endlessly. Unfortunately, all I’ve managed to find is Tom Gerdy at Huffington Post shilling for Habitat for Humanity, so here’s my guilt-absolving link. And I’m sure most contractors have hearts of gold, but my antagonists today […]

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In my former life as a high school debater, I once faced a guy who kept accusing me of possessing “audacious audacity” to forward some argument (presumably meaning the words in the pejorative sense).  I’ve long since forgot the matter in dispute — but not the ridiculous word choice! — and so it was hard […]

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Not Switzerland, as that country is known for its superior engineering*, and they’d probably scoff at this kind of patchwork, but Swiss Cheese. Below you see a beautiful concrete shear wall, essential for taking wind and earthquake loads from one level of a building to the next — helpful for people not dying! — […]

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Manufacturing Nostalgia:
Maybe Professor Rheingold momentarily forgot that democratizing media inherently diminishes the aura and authority of any so-called experts. Or maybe not even media democracy will stop academics from being pretentious tools.
That ‘media democracy’ was your last, best shot against the scourge of academic pretension should make it clear that you are doomed to lose […]

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