After Corbu

Sadly, today my hopes that public transit would be a panacea for anti-social behavior were, once again, dashed. PT: not a sufficient condition for people to develop enough affinity for their fellow man to avoid being mean to beggers.
Today, as I left the metro a woman was asking for money for food. […]

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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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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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The reason the Venice canals have a steep vertical rather than a gradual slope: ducks pooped on the slope, and “…who wants a slimy, defecated slope instead of a nice one you could moor your boat against.”
Sounds reasonable, but I wish we could have arrived at a better solution to a problem animal than habitat […]

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Crazy shit from 2006 from my wife’s research into racism in LA housing:
I am 34, married with 2 kids and have accepted a new job in Los Angeles. I’d like to live in a White suburb, do you have any recommendations?
Oh no he didn’t!  And then:
I turned down the job.
After seeing those Mexicans […]

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From the Bad Futurist Pantheon: The End of Tall Buildings
Not that they don’t make a convincing case, but if anything we have entered an accelerated period of tower construction since 9/11. Even in LA, home of the earthquake, we’re racing up as fast as we can. An example of the wonderful city of […]

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It’s on fire again today, and while I hope everyone got out safely, it seems like a good time to remember: The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.

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The International Dark-Sky Association (warning: garish site design) defines light pollution as:
Any adverse effect of artificial light, including sky glow, glare, light trespass, light clutter, decreased visibility at night, and energy waste.
I first heard about these guys when a commenter in Architectural Record complained that a picture caption that lauded a building for “lighting up […]

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…except, possibly “U2 Tower.”  <Cringe>
It’s like the gods could tell I was looking for content and sent Pax Corey, prophet that he is, along to proclaim the wonder attrocity that is this planned Dublin development.  Of course it’s not so much phallic as cheese-grater-ish, but regardless represents a huge departure (at least in this rendering) […]

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I realized I neglected to quote Alexander’s actual design pattern about building height during Christopher Alexander Day, so here it is:
In any urban area, no matter how dense, keep the majority of buildings four stories high or less.  It is possible that certain buildings should exceed this limit, but they should never be buildings for […]

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To continue my skyscraper hating, here’s a humorous song quoted in A Pattern Language to allow the children of Glasgow to explain why tall buildings are less than ideal. Note that “to fling a ‘piece,’ a slice of bread and jam, from a window down to a child in the street below has been […]

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I make fun of skyscrapers a lot, so I thought I should back up my scorn with some substantive arguments. Here they are:
Their is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make people crazy.
High buildings have no genuine advantages, except in speculative gains for banks and landowners. They are not cheaper, they […]

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This is a hilarious email forwarded to me by a friend, who received it on their grad school listserv. My only comment is that Cameron Millard better watch out, as he stole Harry Reid’s nickname. I am very sad I missed it:
THE THROWDOWN IN TINSELTOWN

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And here’s the picture of Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin for Paris that I was just talking about:

Also,the Affordable Housing Institute (from whence this picture comes) has a nice (if old) blog post on Reinventing Public Housing.

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Today I’m feeling a little guilty* about the fact that I named this blog after Le Corbusier and have yet to write about him (this smidgen in my very first post hardly counts). I’ve been trying to compose an epic that actually ties together modern architecture and radical politics, which is my (heretofore not […]

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From Radiant City: A Documentary About Suburban Sprawl:
“people who live in suburbia know backwards and forwards the critique of suburbia, yet they still live live in the suburbs”
Exactly. People are aware of the problems with the suburb housing choice, but make the choice anyway because it is a rational decision given their options. […]

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