Exploring Urban Ecology with Sam Lefort (a look back at our week of workshops)
It was a quick week, but such an excellent start to our Artist-in-Residence program at CIVIC SPACE. Sam Lefort, bee lover, excellent designer, and most generous workshop host spent the week teaching members of the Windsor-Essex (and beyond) community about a range of sustainably minded practices and interventions, hopefully many of which will be carried [...]
A Tree Grows in Detroit
Ailanthus altissima, a name that may not be in any way familiar, though there is a very good chance that a person who lives in the urban centers of Windsor or Detroit sees this “ancient” tree on a daily basis. This tree is known as “Tree of Heaven” or to some “Tree from Hell.” The [...]
SRSI : Non-Places Promo
Daragh Sankey has been working hard to release this promo video documenting Andrea Carvalho‘s three tactics to engage in non-places in the city of Windsor. Daragh is filming, logging and editing as much as he can during his residency, and will complete the post-production of the documentary later on this year. This project is generously [...]
SRSI, Day 7: A Blooming Cactus & Making Potato Stamps
Another day went by quickly here on the 400 block of Pelissier. I met another member of the Department of Unusual Certainties through Skype, The Breakroom celebrated its last day, Leesa painted some chalkboard paint on a few walls for her project, we found a blooming cactus in Andrea’s space and made some potato stamps [...]
Bio-Accessories: Green Your Personal Space
Interesting design idea from Brittany Veitch and Ben Landau using plants, laser-cut components, and a dystopian view of our future. Bio-Accessories suggest a personal take on the responsibility of greening our cities, or at least our personal space within them, while imagining new and very personal relationships with ecology. [via Inhabitat]
Magnetic Planters Finished!
Our magnetic planters have finally been finished and installed (temporarily) along the alley that runs behind our headquarters. Consider yourself cordially invited to take a planter or two and move them to some other space in the city in need of a micro-garden.
Gardens in Galleries & Architecture from Recycled Materials
I don’t mean for this to be such a lazy post/reblog, but there’s a few images I’ve been meaning to post for a while. I figured they were good reference points for our magnetic planters project, among others, given the variety of display and function of these planters and the use of recycled materials (see [...]
Shapes for Planters
It’s a product made by MIO from recycled paper, and is available at Target, but I mainly wanted to post this as a note. As we’ve now “mastered” the process of making paper, we should consider different shapes for the planters we’re working on, which will likely help to guide the process of making the [...]
Greenhouse (House)
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 [...]
Living Wall
Made from reused / fused plastic bags, 600 plants, and used TV aerial towers for the support structure, this living wall made by Adam Harris and Parimal Gosai is currently on display at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel. The show, Come Up To My Room, is showcasing a bunch of fun and engaging design and some bad art. [via [...]
![We’re playing catchup. Between vacations, short hiatuses, and our summer schedules, we’ve been busy. However, getting back together, working together again on a more regular basis, and starting up on these projects again has been so great and incredibly rewarding. Our to-do list above is a small start to all of the projects we have on [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IMG_0359-150x150.jpg "A Look at Process: building for CAFKA & designing for HFBC")
![We’ve been quiet on the blog, but not because we haven’t been busy. I’ve been working away at the final touches for the maps for Sites of Apology / Sites of Hope, which while taking longer than I had anticipated, was well worth it. The map looks great, we’ll be posting it on here soon [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_3153-150x150.jpg "Mid-August: Maps, Writing & Cardboard")
![Yesterday was just lovely! Andrea Carvalho did a parking garage performance as part of her study of Non-Places, Kero set up his interactive installation, and a lot of familiar local friends rolled through The People’s Museum to contribute to the giant map. Andrea has been trying to perform in this space for a few days [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_0449-150x150.jpg "SRSI, Day 8: Rethinking Parking Garages")
![Spent last night around the table with my brother, the high school physics teacher, trying to figure out how one might calculate the resistors and type of battery that would be needed in a circuit powering 200 LEDs. I know there are some calculators online, as Mike had suggested earlier, but because I really don’t [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_2048-150x150.jpg "Learning Electricity")
![The last Friday we had before the upcoming Dance Party and Seedbomb Demo… We now have flyers, seedbomb containers, seedbomb germination (in the wild), and tea container labels. Michelle begins the process of spraying 50-something flyers after expertly cutting out the detailed info of the party. Many, many flyers (I like the silver ones the [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/Broken-City-Lab-Friday-August-29-2008-stenciling-origami-seedbombs-150x150.jpg "BCL Report – August 29, 2008")
![We’ve been lucky over the last week or so with some surprisingly agreeable weather. The had humidity lifted and with it, the temperature scaled back considerably. So, it’s been pretty much the best time all summer to do some exploring on foot (and sometimes on bicycle) at a pace that really allows for a different [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/IMG_0404-150x150.jpg "Drifting Around Downtown Windsor: Exploring the City Slowly")
![Monday night at BCL HQ, going over plans for moving forward on our recently OAC funded project starting in January 2010, Broken City Lab: Save the City (details to follow), using good ol’ fashioned lists and future technologies—it was amazing, in every sense of the word. Not sure how many more times we’ll be meeting [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/IMG_13821-150x150.jpg "Planning (in and) For the Future")
![Wednesday afternoon shifts into further work on testing the efficacy of the styrofoam letters being black. We’re trying to decide in anticipation of our Letter Library (A Collection of Alphabetic Interventions). Sara and Hiba painted. HELLO. Also, Kiki came by to help us paint the movable wall! And, Josh made these for a workshop [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/IMG_9276-150x150.jpg "Designing & Prototyping tools for intervention: Letter Library + Gif Party")
![On Day 2 of our ATTC Calgary with Truck Gallery’s CAMPER Urban Discovery project, our ongoing work finds us asking questions about a city that we’re still just getting to know. The questions are, necessarily, basic and straight forward. We’re not conducting deep sociological or statistical research, but rather trying to tease out a series of narratives that [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/IMG_3290-150x150.jpg "ATTC Calgary Day 2: Stories of a Distanced City")
![We just received a few boxes of our newest publication, INVENTED EMERGENCY (For Small Cities & Big Towns), published through White Water Gallery. They look so good, we can’t wait to give them out! INVENTED EMERGENCY is built on the research developed for Surviving North Bay, a residency and exhibition by Broken City Lab, hosted [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/wpid23368-IMG_3063-150x150.jpg "New Publication Out Now: Invented Emergency (For Small Cities & Big Towns)")
![Last night’s Noiseborder event was a success. A number of people came down to Studio A in Lambton tower and helped us collaboratively rewrite Windsor’s history using maps, time lines, and story boards. All content was digitally remixed and projected on the screen with old photos and videos of Windsor. Justin started off the night by explaining [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/michellegc1-150x150.jpg "Smorgasborder 02: Rewriting Windsor")
![Installed across the road from the University of Windsor‘s Naturalized Area, our sign highlights one of the many wonderful accidental meadows, created by the ongoing city workers strike. These naturalized areas allow for a moment in which one might be able to mistakenly believe that Windsor is a progressive city, a place where this type [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/IMG_3079-sm-150x150.jpg "Naturalized Area: Accidental Meadow")
![The details: Saturday, March 20th at 3pm, meet at the corner of University and Pelissier. As part of the Broken City Lab: Save the City project, and to better understand the city and its rich and failed history, Broken City Lab researchers will invite the community to learn the Francophone history of Windsor through a collective performance [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/BCL-STC-MAR-5x7-french-outlines-10242-150x150.jpg "Sing to the Streets")
![We’ll be picking up on this again today as we continue to experiment with cutting stencils of our handwriting on cardstock from our vinyl cutter, the Graphtec ce5000-60. These are very early tests, but will hopefully lay the groundwork for some processes and projects later on in the summer or fall. No big surprise, trying [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/wpid18816-IMG_0170-150x150.jpg "Cardstock Handwriting Stencils from our Vinyl Cutter (test phase)")
![We are already nearing the end of our priming process for our letters after only beginning last week! While we got to painting the rest of the letters on Friday, I prepared a few things earlier in the week for our next step, painting the letters in a fabulous bright red. After deciding on a [...]](http://d1ugx41kvdwavn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/leadRosinaPic-150x150.jpg "Finishing Phase Three and Experimenting with Colour")