Ivan Himanen is an architect, urbanist, and researcher based in New York City.
To all my Cooper Union vets: what do you think of when you think of “9-square grid?” Well, what about this? This is a promotional sign for the Superilla, in Barcelona’s Poblenou neighborhood. Though I had seen propaganda about it for many months since arriving last September, the Superilla remained rather isolated in my head.…
Our Master in City & Technology class is as diverse as can be. We are different ages (23-32), we have different professional backgrounds (agriculture, interior design, fresh graduates to licensed professionals), a dozen languages between us (Mandarin, Arabic, Yoruba, and, you know… English), three-and-a-half religions…… Designing and debating with my new friends is exciting, because…
Every time we pass Spain’s most famous building, we have something to say. “La Sagrada Familia. More like La Sacada Familia. La Chingada Familia. La Putada Familia.” “It looks like someone bought one of those nozzle attachments for cake icing and decided to just try all the settings.” “There was a time when you had…
Picture you’re crossing a crosswalk, taking broad confident New York strides. The sidewalk curb up ahead is a full foot above the road, so you fix your eye on it and prepare to take that step up, knowing that failure to plan ahead will cause you to trip and look like a fool in front…
My first thought when I saw Black Friday posters ALL OVER the shop windows in El Born the day after Thanksgiving was “What? How on Earth did that American capitalist plague spread over here?” Then, my second thought was “Oh, look, another American capitalist plague has spread over here. What else is new?” (That last…
For the past couple of years I’ve been proudly cultivating a theory of architecture and sustainability which I believed bridged all of the gaps between my various interests in the field and which could usher in a truly new way of seeing things to unite designers, engineers, and the inhabitant. In essence, it espouses physical…
For Diane Lewis WALK UPRIGHT COUNT TO TENDRAW A LINE GO TO SLEEPSyllabus atop a stoolUnwilling memento mori. Yorick’s skull just now set down(Like your hand once weighed ideas)Warm erasers, smeared and darkWith residue of angel’s wings Wood and steel and acetoneBloodless, in the backgroundNothing breathing, nothing cold,Smoke escapes beyond the…
Very rarely do two chapters of my life confront one another directly. Most of the time I pass my days evolving, hoping that things I have done in the past that became pieces of me will just fade into memory and not have to be repeated. But two of the great things about Charlotte is…
Though the ITF recognizes a bunch of different tennis court surfaces, for simplicity I’ve chosen to only discuss the three major surfaces represented by the four Grand Slam tournaments. Scores after every passage are on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. GRASS COURTS: You are a purist. You enjoy tennis the way you enjoy a…
“Jackie, that’s my daughter’s name. She just left for college in Europe. Wasn’t half a decade before we were best buddies, her in middle school, me working 20 hour weeks. That’s the time every kid starts to beat her dad at everything. Always been giving her sports to play and riddles to solve. First to…
