HERO loves…

A little sketch of the ideas I think we should explore a bit further =). I find steam/vapor rings and all kinds of smoke rings quite mesmerizing so this could be a fun (and even healthy) piece or furniture. Combine this with greenery and LED lights and this thing could be interesting.

‘for those who see’ at DMY Berlin from Daniel Schulze on Vimeo.

Lately I have this thing for Brooklyn – it currently tops my list of places I’d like to live. On Monday Pier 1, the 85 acre Brooklyn Bridge Park, opened and is now approximately seven percent complete. Pier 1 includes waterfront promenades, large lawns, a playground, and the “Granite Prospect,” an impressive riverside staircase made out of more than 300 pieces of salvaged granite. This video provides a good preview of the park-in-progress.
(via Metropolis P/O/V)

My next door neighbors Rod and Dale recently got back from Santiago, Chile (3 days before the earthquake), and came over last night to show us some of their photos. I was blown away by how lush the city is. Trees and vegetation spill out of every story of apartment buildings, green roofs are proliferous, and there are lovely green walls as well – it’s now top of my list for places to visit. One building, the Edificio Consorcio, by architects Enrique Brown and Borja Huidobro, especially caught my attention. These lovely photos are via Plataforma Arquitectura… I’m going to try and get some of Rod’s photos of the structure and post them as well…

The vegetation is on a system offset from the building’s facade, creating a lovely treehouse effect for those inside, shading the interior from direct sun.

The approximately 32,000 sq.ft. of west facing green wall reduces energy usage in the building by about 48%.

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I’m reading ‘ecocities – rebuilding cities in balance with nature‘ by Richard Register, and was super interested in the Ciudad Perdida (lost city) of the Tayronas, which is a fabulous example of a city as a whole integrated organism. I liked this guy Kevin’s video of his trek to the lost city :)

The ancient city, located in Columbia, was populated by the ancestors of the Kogi. It housed a dense population, living in harmony with their environment. Register talks about how the architecture was created to manage frequent rain falls, and how ‘the gardens appear to be a cross between complex companion planting and a kind of forest management.’ The city was densely populated, ‘situated in a beautiful environment without destroying it.’ Would love to live in a city like that….

p.s. I do realize that my last post was about shoes… I’m all over the place today :)