Categories
Architecture

Building Codes, Dwelling Codes

I’m going to describe to you a stereotype in the design world. Frequently we encounter characters who are obsessed with the building code. While there isn’t anything wrong with adherence to and knowledge of the law as such, this dude has fallen under a spell. Every increase in floor area, every added faucet, every change […]

Categories
Non-fiction Physics

Far-fetched physics #2

It must have been within a couple of years of 2005, but in which direction I cannot remember, because that is the year that I triumphantly completed AP Physics under the illumination of Konstantinos Alexakos, a supergiant of a teacher, around whom lesser life events have dwarfed and realigned. With the sponsorship of an adult […]

Categories
Art Non-fiction

The Leap

This article highlights a new and particularly exciting cinematic lineage, sprouting up in ever-increasing numbers, which some intrepid film student should definitely trace. It encompasses unique, violent, heavily documented acts that blur the line between art and reality. Let’s call this lineage The Leap. Requirements/parameters: This is a refreshing tonic to the locked up starving […]

Categories
Architecture

Frei Otto’s legacy: the infinite ladder of scales

Frei Otto’s Pritzker Prize win is great news, and a long-deserved recognition. The tensile roof structures for which he is best known are broad and altudinous webs which still knock us on our asses when we see them. Broad, altudinous, and web-like also happens to describe his legacy on the profession fairly well. Here is […]

Categories
Poetry

The horizon on a Sunday morning

I love the horizon on a sunday morning. i’ve waited a week for this softest of sights, her cloudy lids rising with silver eyeliner. She partied last night with a newly-made lover earth but there is one thing she created on sunday: coffee– and it was only for me. I love the horizon on a sunday […]

Categories
Dance

A Natural History by Catherine Tharin: Playful, Contemplative, Organic

What does it mean for a work of art to be ‘inspired by nature’? What does it mean for a work of art to be ‘organic’? I was stirred to contemplation of these core questions during the Soaking Wet series performance of A Natural History at the West End Theater, led by choreography from Catherine […]

Categories
Poetry

Prom Night

I asked the moon out to promby chugging the oily seas where she skinny dipped,I threaded needles through the smallest stars and sewed a velvet sky…But she just rolled her big white eyes.“I need no more big-belted bastards. You’d better be the bashful guy.”So I slimmed back down, thoroughly lady-whipped…It’s a sarcastic universe, mom.

Categories
Architecture Non-fiction

A coup of optimism, a loss of mystery

There’s little to belittle Bjarke Ingels’ approach to architecture. It fires on all cylinders– through his youth, his energy, his charisma, his Scandinavian origins, and most importantly his ability to make design more accessible to the common man. These are all desirable traits, and thus far his ability to steward positive change on a large […]

Categories
Architecture Fiction

Like Nests of Old

Stick by stick. Beam by beam. I will make this house mine. Mine with the trees. The studio had to be completed first—a warm brain first to conceive the rest. It was enclosed by September which was his goal (cutting it rather close to first frost in the snow belt), but was still damp and […]

Categories
Non-fiction Physics

Centers II: Zizek, Aurelius, Hawking

I recently recalled the introductory monologue from the documentary film Zizek! In it the eponymous philosopher and social critic takes a stab at his theory of the universe, arriving swiftly and entertainingly at “love is evil.” The contrarian path he takes to that end is his trademark, and I wanted to put it up to […]