I've heard many people dismiss cellphone towers out-of-hand as a blight on the landscape. I suppose that comes from the fact that most cell towers ARE a blight on the landscape.
Let's face it, an appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities of modern man is generally not very high on the priority list of those putting up said towers, and more likely not on the list at all.
But what if cell towers took on new life? A public observation deck, energy-producing wind turbines mounted to the frame, housing - I hesitate to say the possibilities are endless, but there are certainly a great many undeveloped opportunities.
Some existing towers, by virtue of interesting geometric framing, can be quite beautiful. Here and there, an effort is made to make a tower "more than a steel stick," but a decade into the new millennium, those occasions are rare. The next generation of towers will be characterized by a conscious effort to incorporate "elegance" into the design.
Single use towers may indeed someday be a thing of the past.
Creativity emulates, it never imitates. ---Frank Lloyd Wright
Creativity is the real magic of our universe. It is the shape of our courage and the force of our souls. Creativity is the matrimonial language of form and space, consummated in the physical and spiritual expressions of humanity. ---Adriana Diaz
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. ---Arthur Koestler
When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. ---Buckminster Fuller
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. ---Erich Fromm
Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order. ---Virginia Woolf
All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. ---Pablo Picasso
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. ---Albert Einstein
Creativity is what happened before someone points to an object of beauty and says, "I've made up my mind, I want one exactly like that," never after. ---James Polk
Before the air conditioner came into common use less than four generations ago - that's the home where your great-grand parents grew up - buildings were designed to condition themselves. The American Dogtrot is a prime example.
(The photos are of a typical 150 year old dogtrot.)
Raised off the ground with a central open breezeway, the dogtrot house cooled itself naturally by encouraging air movement around, through, and underneath the structure.
Centuries ago, every professional builder knew how to construct a home that worked with the environment - they had no choice. Today, technology makes it possible to equip houses with mechanical air conditioning and heating, running 24/7, 365 days a year. But just because we can run air conditioners continually, should we?
The dramatic rise in energy prices over the past decade has given us cause to reconsider this relatively recent silver bullet approach. Ignoring Mother Nature is getting harder and harder to do "on the cheap." Why not design first for environmental compatibility and utilize mechanical heating and cooling as a back up system?
A home designed with natural heating and cooling systems integrated into the layout costs less to operate year-round without necessarily costing more to build, and as a bonus, natural ventilation leads to better indoor air quality for healthier living. With conscious and creative architecture, the same building materials can be combined in a different way to produce an environmentally compatible result.
Here's my take this age-old environmental prototype - the Modern Dogtrot.
Lately, I’ve been revisiting Alvin Toffler’s influential book Future Shock.
Though written forty years ago, Toffler – a futurist by profession – predicted many of the things we’ve recently become accustomed to as normal.
He foresaw the “throw-away society” where advancements in automation make it cheaper to produce a new product than to fix the old one.
When computers were huge vacuum-tubed hulks housed in separate big rooms, he predicted that distance learning would someday be the norm as everyone will have a small networked computer in their home.
And at a time when the ideal was to get a job and keep it for the rest of your life, he forecasted lifestyles that are transient, with individuals moving from job to job and from place to place when opportunities arise.
Central to the premise of his book was the historical observation that technological change has been happening faster and faster with the passing of time.He interpolated into the future to lay out a scenario where the rate of change continues to speed up to a dizzying pace, and thus society will be forced to adapt along with that technology.
Toffler:“We may define future shock as the distress, both physical and psychological, that arises from an over-load of the human organism’s physical adaptive systems and its decision-making processes.Put more simply, future shock is the human response to overstimulation.”
The green movement is a modern-day manifestation of what Toffler was talking about.Advancements in green technologies just keep coming.
Today, technology has improved to the point where the cost of clean renewable energy, when scaled up to serve everyone, is at par with pollution-based energies (not even accounting for the value of clean air).Non-toxic finishes are beginning to compete with traditional toxic-emitting materials, and zero energy buildings are now outperforming the lifetime cost of cheaper energy-guzzling construction.
Yet, the acceptance of green technologies is causing quite a stir in our national debate.
Toffler suggested a cure.“To survive, to avert what we’ve termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before. “
The fast pace of advancement in the green movement does require that we adapt to processing change as never before.Change, much demonized by some, is not a boogie man.In fact, change is the common denominator for every advancement we’ve ever had.
The friction you hear from fossil-fuel industries and some political leaders (i.e. drill baby drill) is the sound of resistance to that technological change.(Can you think of the sound of ripping Velcro?)
Yet technology speeds on with advancements in solar, wind, and other renewable energies happening faster and faster.It is inevitable that the green economy will overtake the dirty economy – to everyone’s advantage - at some point in the future.
Unless, and until we learn to adapt to and embrace that change, the transition will be very, very painful.
Any takers for an apartment in my skyscraper of the future? Grown from hybridized seed, then dried, shellacked and furnished. Perfect urban "oasis in the clouds."
I've claimed the penthouse on level 333 complete with heliport and man-glider launching pad.
Blueprint America , a PBS investigative look into the state of transportation infrastructure in the US, airs a two-part report today and tomorrow on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
UPDATE: Breaking news bumped the report to Monday, August 10th and Tuesday, August 11th.
The first segment examines the costs and consequences of automobile-heavy transportation policies as they've played out in Birmingham, Alabama.
The second piece looks at Birmingham's woefully underfunded bus system -a not-so-uncommon phenomenon, especially in the American Southeast where autonationalism runs rampant.
Tune into your local PBS station August 10th and August 11th for the live report. Check back here later for a link to the video.
Solar Decathlon Update: Every two years 20 university teams are chosen, based on proposals, to design an all-solar home and assemble it on the National Mall in Washington DC for public viewing and judging. Check back each Wednesday as the NAV Blog reports on the process of the design and construction of BeauSoleil, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's entry. For more info about the project, visit their website. And check out a short film about the project.
Geoff Gjertsen, architect and faculty adviser for TEAM BeauSoleil, reports that progress is moving along nicely and on schedule for an August 24th roll-out.
There's an old saying in architecture: The last 10% takes 90% of the effort - an exaggeration under most circumstances, but no doubt there will be a flurry of activity over the next three weeks.
Wenzday Jane of Metro Pedal Power in Boston is burning up the pavement (and calories) with a new in-town delivery service.
Her fleet of 500-pound-capacity, waterproof bike trailers scoot around town carbon-free. A typical load might be a stack of fresh locally-grown vegetables on their way to Boston restaurants. It saves time and money for the farmer and restaurateur while freeing up the streets of large delivery vans.
Great idea, Wenzday.
Boston Globe reporter Wendy Maeda, in a report entitled Mettle to the Pedal, give the rundown.
In my ambitious space clearing project of the past few days, I found this decade-old drawing in one of my old sketchbooks.
Besides being one of my favorite FLlW buildings, the Meeting House turned out to be one of the most copied (almost always badly) of Mr. Wright's compositions. (He called his buildings "symphonies in stone.") Look at the prow; think of how many churches you've seen with an extended ridge at on the front, some with stained glass in some configuration, some with a solid front.
Frank Lloyd Wright preached the gospel of organic architecture. I've asked many apprentices who studied under America's great Architect about the meaning of organic architecture and, as with Mr. Wright's writing, the answer is almost always different.
"The whole is to the part as the part is to the whole."
"Emulate, but never imitate Nature (Frank Lloyd Wright always capitalized the word)."
And "the building should have its own Nature; it should have a soul!"
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I've heard many people dismiss cellphone towers out-of-hand as a blight on the landscape. I suppose that comes from the fact that most cell towers ARE a blight on the landscape.
