By Josh on February 27th, 2009, 9:00 am 2 Comments

I’m not sure if anyone visiting this blog has seen this specific project, but from an ecological standpoint, this house seems quite easy on its surrounding flora and fauna. I also think it’s quite elegant and well designed. Compartments are integrated into the home for trees and surrounding soil doesn’t look like it’s been modified much. I’d imagine this type of structure would only be inhabitable in tropical-type regions. Nonetheless, where do I sign?

“This house by Hiroshi Iguchi is part of the Fifth World project which aims to promote eco friendly, sustainable architecture. The house takes natural elements and blends them all into the design of the interior. Warm, natural materials are used. Wood for the floors, light, traditional Japanese panels for compartments and white canvas to protect the interior from excessive heat. Even more, some of the trees were literally incorporated into the house, by letting them grow up to the sky in between the walls of the house.”

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Tagged: context greenhouse home plants

By Justin on February 26th, 2009, 3:50 pm 0 Comments

This week’s Office Hours were busy, hectic, and (I think) productive. There we some new faces around the table, which is always great, and lots to do in terms of planning and organizing. Breaking into groups made sense and we pushed forward on a bunch of things in parallel, but I’m looking forward to the show next week when we can all be around one table working together collaboratively.

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Tagged: BCL editing garden plans posters press release research

By Justin on February 25th, 2009, 7:00 pm 4 Comments

Though I’m not sure that “decorating” is the correct term (my vocabulary is failing me right now), I know that this idea has come up a number of times in various discussions on what to do with the houses on Indian Road, and other abandoned properties throughout the city. Doing something like painting the boards over the windows on abandoned buildings highlights them in a way that helps to keep them from fading into the periphery, while also arguably helping to raise the aesthetic of the surrounding area.

A similar project involving literally highlighting urban blight that’s probably more well-known was the Detroit Demolition Disneyland series of interventions where buildings marked for demolition by the city of Detroit were painted bright orange by an anonymous group. I think it worked for what is was, though the issue is entirely different than what’s going on here in Windsor. 

So, do we need to consider tackling the vacant property throughout the city? I would be curious to figure out just how many vacancies we face, but beyond that, does a project like the one above, which is in Liverpool, do anything else other than decorate the neighbourhood, and is that enough?

[via Wooster Collective]

Tagged: abandoned context Detroit highlight houses Indian Road

By Justin on February 25th, 2009, 1:39 pm 3 Comments

As if you needed another reason to switch over to Gmail … I present the BCL-v1 Gmail theme.

Tagged: BCL design gmail theme

By Justin on February 25th, 2009, 1:17 am 0 Comments

Danielle and I went over to Detroit yesterday to meet with Aaron Timlin (from the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit) at the LadyBug Gallery to discuss some potential collaborative projects over the summer. After getting a quick tour of the gallery and some of the other studios and workspaces in the building (which we unfortunately didn’t get any photos of, though next time), we headed out into the neighbourhood for a guided tour with Aaron to start brainstorming some future projects and project sites.

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Tagged: community Detroit LadyBug park parks partnership research Windsor

By Justin on February 24th, 2009, 11:49 am 0 Comments

Made from a hacked Kill A Watt, a device used to measure energy usage from a power outlet, Ladyada made this real-time Twittering energy monitor. The Tweet-A-Watt can be made for around $50, and would be used in each room—your office’s power bar would have one connected to it, your living room, bedroom, etc. Check out the Twitter feed, as it reports on the energy used around every 8 hours.

A great idea, and all the better that it came out of working with existing products to make them more functional. As with many visualization and data reporting techniques though, I find there’s a bit of a gap between seeing the numbers (for example, 134.0 Watts, 4133 Wh in last 24hr, 5510 Wh previous day), and understanding what the numbers mean. Is 4133 Wh in the last 24 hours good or bad? However, at least being able to track and begin to understand the relationship between your activities and energy usage is a step in the right direction.

[via Inhabitat]

Tagged: context energy hacking hardware monitoring Twitter

By Justin on February 23rd, 2009, 9:39 pm 4 Comments

This project, executed by GRL Tokyo, took me a while to figure out. Basically this image, which reads “The Invisible is Eternal,” was made by riding a bike with a GPS device attached to it, then uploading the resulting kml file to Google Maps. It’s pretty insane to see this that this was done on a bike, though aside from that, I’m not sure about it (and the 19 minute video of the condensed bike ride doesn’t help either).

Maybe something is lost in the translation, but I think conceptually, this would have been better as a map made as a kind of algorithm to move the rider over some greater distances than he normally would, then documenting the experience of that process. Of course, in terms of how it was actually executed, that description is probably pretty close, but the reason behind doing it is different (writing / bombing without actually making a mark vs psychogeographic interests), and ultimately kind of dull.

I thought it was worth noting, given some of the Google Earth related projects we’re working on.

Tagged: bike context google maps GPS graffiti psychogeography Tokyo

By Justin on February 22nd, 2009, 11:58 am 0 Comments

Broken City Lab office hours are back on for Tuesday, February 24th, at 7pm, LeBel, room 125. There will be lots of things on the table, as we get closer to our upcoming show. If anyone has anything they want on the agenda, feel free to add it in the comments!

Tagged: BCL Lebel office hours

By Justin on February 22nd, 2009, 1:40 am 4 Comments

The “heroic” time-lapse video of the installation of that retina-burning Caesars Windsor sign that now pwns Windsor’s skyline. It’s also the first Windsor (the city, not the knot) result that comes up when searching YouTube for Windsor. I’m surprised we didn’t see this earlier.

Tagged: Caesars lights sign time-lapse Windsor

By Justin on February 20th, 2009, 5:36 pm 2 Comments

Thinking about a good collaborative weekend project, the idea of starting a reading list came up. I have a fair collection of books and blogs in my reader that touch on a number of things that seem pertinent to Broken City Lab, but I wondered what’s out there that I’m missing. 

I’ll make a quick list of some of the best things I’ve read lately that deal with social practice, activism, cities, and art, but if you have anything that you think other people (like us) should be reading, or watching, or listening to,  post it in the comments (preferably with a link to where we might be able to find it). 

Here’s my list of good things I’ve recently read:

• SYSTEMS: Jeanne van Heeswijk
• Journal of Aesthetics & Protest: Issue 6 
• The Everyday
• Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader

It’s a short, and likely too narrow list, so let me know what I’m missing out on in the comments!

Tagged: books lists reading recommendations research