American Bicycling - It's a Wilderness Out There

When roads are designed with an automobile-only mentality, the health of the citizenry suffers.

I live in what - geographically - would be an ideal walkable and bikeable neighborhood. My wife Vickie and I both teach at the university two blocks away. There are a dozen restaurants, a grocery store, the city zoo, three coffee shops, a variety of retail offerings, churches and several liquor stores within easy walking and biking distance from our house.

Problem is there are very few sidewalks and no designated bike lanes.
So people drive their cars. Everywhere.

I, however, refuse to bow to "autonationalism" - a term coined by architect/futurist Doug Michels to describe the romantic American ethos of automobile-only travel - and drive two blocks to the university like all of my neighbors do. So I walk or ride my bike on unfriendly terrain, including the there-and-back dash across a busy 4-lane state highway. Though it does get the blood pumping, I feel a bit like Lewis and Clark traveling without the benefit of "trail." Most of the time, I come out unscathed.

(Read a past newspaper column about the time I didn't.)

John Paul Frerer (18) from Tupelo, Mississippi wasn't so lucky. He was recently hit by a truck and killed while riding his bike on a public road in preparation for an upcoming triathlon.

The trouble with autonationalist roads - aside from the health disadvantages - is that they breed a mentality of complacency in drivers. The underlying assumption is that no one travels without a car, so why look out for them.

And then it's over.

The Diamond Zephyr

A few years ago, a client asked me to "draw up some plans" for some garden apartments (flats, two levels high) on a slender piece of land near the university here in town.

I had designed a couple of small apartment projects for him before so I knew what he expected. But after two projects with fairly conventional massing, I thought it was time to expand horizons.

When I presented the design concept, I showed him the garden apartment scheme and he thought it was dandy.

And then.

And then I pulled this out. The Diamond Zephyr.

"Look," I said. "You can have the same number of apartments, but instead of going out, go up!"

Spectacular views. An architectural icon clearly visible from the Interstate and most parts of town. What an opportunity!

He didn't buy it.

Nevertheless, here she is ... lonely... proud ... looking for a new owner. Any takers?

Solar Power. Warning: Not for Dummies

This summer at the MREA Energy Fair, one of my goals was to find the best new manual on residential photovoltaic design out there.

Pickings were actually much slimmer than I had anticipated; you'd think that with the ascent of renewable energies lately there would be a flood of new books on the market. Wrong.

Surprisingly, after asking around, recommendations for this book kept popping up: Solar Power Your Home for Dummies.

Normally, I stay as far away from "For Dummies" books as I possibly can. (The dummy-themed titles always seemed to me to be a bit condescending.) But when one insistent vendor assured me that "no dummies have ever read this book," I acquiesced. And I'm very glad I did.

Rik DeGunther infuses a healthy dose of wit with a mountain of concise, digestable information about the different types of PV systems, practical advice on selection and installation, and a good many helpful charts and illustrations. It's a cut-to-the-chase reference manual for professionals and, at the same time, is written in a way that newbies to solar energy can understand. Companion volumes (which, full disclosure, I have not read) include Alternative Energy for Dummies and Energy Efficient Homes for Dummies.

DeGunther is an engineer, product designer, writer, and apparently has an affinity for loud guitars. In addition to his books - including a golf manual on the mechanics of putting - DeGunther is a weekly columnist for the Mountain Democrat newspaper.

I did not include a link to the book on Amazon.com in this post. (You can find it in about 3 seconds.) But in the spirit of sustainability, why not buy locally, and support your neighborhood independent bookstore.

Streetsmarts with Streetsblog

Get your dose of local mobility at the Streetsblog network.

Streetsblog.net links to over 300 local blogs from around the country that focus on sustainable transportation. From Savannah to San Francisco, or Miami or Missoula, you'll find what's going on in communities throughout the United States - maybe yours!

The site also links to sustainable transportation advocacy groups, so it's a convenient jumping-off place for research on complete streets, walkable and bikable neighborhoods, and transportation policy. Give it a look.

Price Postscript - The Angel in the Details

You've heard the expression "the Devil is in the details." Well, there may be some truth to that, but upon close examination, there are angels to be found there as well.



A prime example - the pressed copper frieze weaving in and out of the building, both inside and out. What a choice example of ornament that is integral to the building. The articulation becomes one with the building, where the part is a representation of the whole. Variations on the theme keep the motif fresh.



(Contrast this approach with ornament "applied" to the surface like cake decoration.)



Below, yours truly along with my wife Dr. Victoria Johnson and Price Tower Arts Center curator Scott Perkins on a cold winter day in Bartlesville.

Wow, Bartlesville...

More Baby Daddy

Price Tower photo: Joe Price
St. Marks images: Frank Lloyd Wright et alii


Though not an exact replica, the genetic code is intact.

On the left, the constructed Price Tower. On the right, the design for St. Marks.

Check out this St. Marks Tower plan drawing that was revised and noted by Mr. Wright in 1952 as instructions for the layout of the Price Tower plan.

Compare this composite sketch with the plans of the Price Tower and St. Marks Tower shown in the previous two posts.

Price Tower's Baby Daddy

perspective image: the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
plan image: Francis Ching



Frank Lloyd Wright started working in earnest on a rotated plan skyscraper in the late 1920's when he proposed a series of towers for St. Mark's in-the-Bouwerie in New York.

Rector William Norman Guthrie, who had hired Wright to design a home (unbuilt) for him in 1908 when he was teaching at the University of the South, was quite the client. Known for being an extremely unorthodox and flamboyant member of the Episcopal clergy, Guthrie saw an opportunity to return "beauty" to the church.

He once wrote Wright "to do anything at St. Marks meant to be an ecclesiastical outlaw."

The towers, intended to be erected for the purpose of generating income for the parish, were to be eighteen stories high springing out of a lush, park-like setting at ground level.

Notice the similarity of the St. Mark's plan to the Price Tower plan (in the previous post) composed a quarter of a century later.

Sadly, the St. Mark's project stopped when contractor's cost estimates came in - as Guthrie put it - as "terrible factual revelations."

Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower

Plan image: the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation

When was a teenager, the only arts-related offerings at my high school were mechanical drawing and architectural drawing - so I took them both.

Mechanical drawing was pretty dry. I loved drawing isometrics, though, and the holy grail of mechanical drafting at that time - the screw jack - was a challenging and fun exercise for this eager student, and in retrospect, quite the organic form.

Architectural drawing was another story. My love for architecture truly began when I discovered three Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the textbook: Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax office building and tower, and this fine jewel of a building - the Price Tower.

I remember being mesmerized by the geometry of the plan. The dynamic marriage of the square with 30/60 degree geometries blew my mind (and still does).

I had the opportunity to visit the newly renovated Price Tower a couple of years ago, and I was not disappointed. The two-story apartments (with lower level living area and sleeping mezzanine above) contrast magically with adjacent office flats. And the exterior 30 degree concrete stair puts you right out there in the wind with all of the cool exterior forms and materials.
















It's well worth a trip to Bartlesville, Oklahoma to experience this treasure. Stay at the Inn at Price Tower and take in the Price Tower Art Center -curated eloquently by Scott Perkins - for interesting exhibitions directly or obliquely related to organic architecture.

What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?

Today's newspaper column.

Sometimes, a little humor sheds light on big ideas.

In a scene out of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Reg – played by John Cleese – heads up an angry group of insurrectionists tired of paying taxes and “not getting anything in return,” and hell-bent on taking back their government. The heavy-handed federal government was, in this case, the Roman Empire.

“They’ve bled us white” clamors Reg. “They’ve taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers’ fathers!”

Defiantly, in a rousing call to arms, Reg yells “and what have they ever given us in return!?”

Amember of the group sheepishly raises his hand and suggests “the aqueduct?”

“What?”

“The aqueduct.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, they did give us that, that’s true” admits Reg.

“And Sanitation” said another.

“Oh yeah, sanitation,” chimed in Reg’s sidekick. “Remember what the city used to be like?”

“Alright” Reg retorted, “I’ll grant you, the aqueducts and sanitation are the two things the Romans have done…”

“And the roads!” piped another insurrectionist.

“Well obviously the roads! The roads go without saying, don’t they?” Now Reg is showing a bit of irritation, but staying on message, he plows forward. “But apart from the aqueducts, sanitation, and the roads…”

“Irrigation?” “Medicine?” “Education?” Everybody’s into the act now and you can see where this is going.

But never one to let facts get in the way of a good populist uprising, Reg insists “All right! But apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health - what have the Romans ever done for us?”

Fast-forward to modern America and the sentiment Reg embodied in this silly little skit is alive and well. People love to bash the government – at all levels. It may be human nature.

But before pontificating on how the best government is the least government, or spewing out dogma about how bad government is, why not try engaging with public officials to problem-solve issues you care about.

Fact is, there are many areas where government involvement is not only viable, but necessary and beneficial. Take the interstate highway system, for example. If not for the federal government, a contiguous country-wide system of fast-traveling highways would not exist. That poster child of “big-government intervention” continues to pay dividends today in business efficiencies and personal over-the-road travel freedom long after the funds were allocated for its construction.

Transitioning to a clean energy economy is just one of the big ideas that government must take on if it is to become a reality. I bet you can think of others.

Watch the scene from Life of Brian.

The Tragedy of Suburbia

Click here for James Howard Kunstler's insightful talk about the tragedy of suburbia from the TED Talks series.

Thanks to my friend Jody Mabary for passing this along.