Is Seal Beach´s pier for handicapped?

Seal Beach´s pier. California. 

I love Seal Beach. The beach, the houses, are clean, neat and beautiful, Main st didn´t change along the years, but it´s nice to walk and go to the restaurants. The city also has the Leos Club they make community work, it´s a great organization for young people who are always helping. Congratulations! 

Fish fry day! Thank you Lions!

But, since the first time I´ve been there, March 2004, I´ve always been upset about the bad conditions inside the pier´s public bathrooms. They were so dirty and abandoned, that in 2004 I´ve sent an email to a planner (maybe the director of planning, I should check my old emails)  telling him about this situation.

He apologized and said the bathrooms were under a restaurant´s concession. He never mentioned which one was in charge. Maybe Ruby´s? The great obstacle at the end of Huntington Beach and Seal Beach piers? The one that blocks the end of them? I don´t know.

Anyway, I came back in 2006 with friends. Our girls wanted to go to the bathrooms, we had to tell them to suffer and wait, we would be coming back home. There was a door missing, excrement and urine everywhere, underwear on the floor (nobody would dare to take it again), flies everywhere. While submitting plans at the City Hall, I talked to Building and Safety´s supervisor. This time, I was told that they would go and check. I told my husband and friends, if we go to the beach, we are going to Huntington Beach, not here, that´s nasty.

I came back today, early, as we were in the area. It was 8.30 AM, the bathrooms had been already washed. No disinfectant at all, pretty difficult to see in the pictures, but it was FULL of flies. The slab has cracks everywhere, while it´s an obligation from Health Department to have a continuous clean-floor surface, one toilet was clogged with a handwritten explanation of how to flush it on the wall , the handicap seat was in bad condition and nobody was there, but whoever cleaned it, left dirty papers on the floor. One sink wasn´t working. At least, they were painted and much better than some years ago, specially being so early.

This exterior door is not self closing

Then, I walked along the pier, and took a picture of the ramp that leads to Ruby´s handicapped door.

The wood is in bad condition, with missing parts, and there is a ¨step¨ to take the ramp. 

At the end of the ramp, no extension of handrail, see the condition of the handicap bathroom´s door. Hmm, I didn´t have my tape to measure the clearance, no hardware. I saw a girl kicking the door to enter. Same solution for the men´s.

See the handicap entrance, it´s not  a commercial door. No sign required per Building and Safety Code, no Braille, again, I didn´t have my tape to measure the clearances. Tempered glass in such an old door? Hmmm, not sure. By the way, the air curtain was poorly working, it was ¨dying¨. 

There are some cases where the handicap improvements in old buildings is really difficult. But here, at the pier, I don´t see it´s impossible. To level the ramp, change the deteriorated wood, add signs, clean, disinfect....

Now, the questions of the million dollars: Where are the inspectors? Is the hard City Council taking care of the pier´s conditions? Is Ruby´s so consolidated as a firm that they can do whatever they want, while any other new restaurants are under strict rules to be approved?

This sink is to wash fish. I really forgot to see if the drainage is well connected to the sewer, I don´t think the blood it´s draining directly to the sea, next time I´ll see.

Note: I´m the author of all pictures. They can´t be reproduced without my permission.

Center for Visual Arts in Colchester. By Rafael Viñoly

My architect friends, my husband and me have all the pleasure to know arch. Rafael Viñoly, who´s been born in Uruguay but studied and worked at our Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo in Buenos Aires. So, we don´t miss a single design by Rafael, and we used to have long conversations on his projects. I think up till now, our great favorite is the Forum of Tokyo. From architectural record:

The First Site centre for the visual arts is set to open in Colchester, Essex, in September, with architectural design and interiors by Rafael Vinoly, branding by Marcia Mihotich, wayfinding by Aukett Brockliss Guy and print materials by A Practice for Everyday Life.

The centre, which opens on 25 September, will be a home for the work of visual arts organisation First Site.

Designer and illustrator Marcia Mihotich has worked alongside First Site for the past nine years on various projects, designing lettering and publications as well as the advertising for upcoming exhibitions. She will also create the branding for the centre's in- house bar/restaurant.

http://archrecord.construction.com/yb/ar/article.aspx?story_id=160856915

All pictures from 

http://www.colchester.gov.uk/

Snail shell system

I knew about the cabins in Japan where anybody can sleep, but didn't know about this portable system. The difference (apart from the construction system) with the other one in Japan is that it can be yours. From its manual:

The SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM is a low cost system that enables persons to move around, change their whereabouts and live in various environments. One unit supplies space for one person. It is mobile both on land and water. One person can move it slowly, either by pushing it like a wheel, walking inside it or on top of it.

On water it can be rowed, moved by a kite or hooked up to a vessel, for example, a ferry. The unit rests on one flat side and can be anchored in lakes, rivers, harbours or at sea. On land, it can be placed in city spaces, fields, forests etc.

The SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM takes up very little space and can easily be placed in a discreet way. It can be buried in the ground, exposing only the entrance. It can also function as a comfortable space inside existing buildings.

Several units can meet up and form temporary communities.

The unit can be hooked up onto existing infrastructure like telecommunication lines and electricity cables (for example, by connecting it to street lamps).

If special devices are added, the unit can supply its own energy.

The SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM can also be used for transporting different items and it can provide protection for persons when they participate in situations like demonstrations.

http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/SNAIL_SHELL_SYSTEM/SSS.html

Michel Bauwens says " The Snail Shell was pretty cool but a bit too small for anything but a fun experiment. It lacked any insulation and the tiny manway was difficult for most people." Thanks Michel for sharing!

Teaching architecture

The window. Acrylic on canvas by Christina Ramos.

Young people go to the university with the aim of becoming architects, of finding out if they have got what it takes. What is the first thing we should teach them?

First of all, we must explain that the person standing in front of them is not someone who asks questions whose answers he already knows. Practicing architecture is asking oneself questions, finding one’s own answers with the help of the teacher, whittling down, finding solutions. Over and over again.

The strength of a good design lies in ourselves and in our ability to perceive the world with both emotion and reason. A good architectural design is sensuous. A good architectural design is intelligent. We all experience architecture before we have even heard the word. The roots of architectural understanding lie in our architectural experience: our room, our house, our street, our village, our town, our landscape –we experience them all early on, unconsciously, and we subsequently compare them with the countryside, towns and houses that we experience later on. The roots of our understanding or architecture lie in our childhood, in our youth; they lie in our biography.

Picture from wikihow.com

REFERENCE: paragraphs from chapter Teaching architecture, learning architecture. 1996. From the book Thinking Architecture, by Peter Zumthor. Berlin

Manteros en la calle Florida: la degradación del espacio urbano

Foto: lanacion.com.ar

Siempre estuve orgullosa de mi ciudad nativa, Buenos Aires. Tan hermosa, con sus torres, el río, los edificios eclécticos, la variedad de su arquitectura, la vegetación, las calles llenas de gente. Antes de viajar a EEUU, me paré con mi hija mayor en Plaza de Mayo, y le dije, mirá bien a tu alrededor nuestra ciudad. Porque no sabemos cuánto tiempo pasará antes que volvamos. Así fue. 

Desde hace unos años, mis amigos arquitectos me hablan del boom de la construcción, veo fotos de avances y me alegro, hasta que leo noticias como esta, de nuestra calle Florida, tan conocida por los turistas, llena de gente que no paga impuestos, tirados en el piso como linyeras, vendiendo baratijas, al frente de los locales distinguidos, que son mantenidos y por los cuales se paga altísimas rentas e impuestos.

Hace algo el gobierno, la policía? Pues no. Porque muchos policías están ¨arreglados¨ con estos ¨vendedores¨ callejeros y reciben sus pagos para cerrar los ojos. 

Como dicen en La Nación, cómo se siente un ciudadano argentino que paga sus impuestos y ve que la AFIP no se inmuta ante estas cuestiones?

Alguna vez he visto estos callejeros en la calle Florida, pero eran unos pocos, asustados. Y, en la ciudad balnearia de Mar del Plata, se aterraban si veían llegar a la policía. Jamás imaginé tanta degradación del espacio público, ni hablar de las casas tomadas y destruídas.

Hace dos días, un cliente mexicano, nos preguntaba si valía la pena invertir en Argentina, que era una idea que tenía pendiente. Luego de media hora de charla, lo convencimos que hasta que no cambie esta situación, que vaya pensando en otros países, cómo haría para cuidar su propiedad a la distancia?. Lamentablemente.

Foto lanacion.com.ar

Acá dejo un link del diario La Nación, que he leído con mucha pena

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1388077-los-manteros-de-la-calle-florida?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=titulares&utm_campaign=NLOpi

Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center by Renzo Piano

Construction of the $803 million Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center will start later this year and conclude in 2015. The building will rise on the Saronikos Kolpos waterfront in southern Athens, within the new 42-acre Stavros Niarchos Park. Piano has folded the park over the structure, lifting the landscape to a height of 32 meters. SFNCC’s submerged interior will include a 1,400-seat theater for the Greek National Opera, as well as a 400-seat experimental performance space. The new building also replaces the 1832 National Library, providing a home for more than two million books.

REFERENCE (Article and pictures):

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2011/06/110629-Stavros-Niarchos-Cultural-Center.asp

Knut Hamsun Center By Steven Holl Architects

Steven Holl designed elements of this museum, dedicated to the Norwegian writer, as emblems of a human body and figures in Hamsun's work.

Floating pools in the rivers, New York

+ Pool is a proposal by Dong-Ping Wong, Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeffrey Franklin, to build a plus-shaped floating pool in the East River. That’s right, just floating in the river right off the banks of Manhattan. With the rising summer heat in New York, it’s no surprise that people are imagining creative ways to dive into the surrounding waters and cool off. But the idea behind + Pool is hardly new, in fact, “floating baths” as they were known, are a part of the city’s history.

As early as 1817, Manhattan had private marine baths. As the immigrant population grew, people who lived in buildings that lacked bathing facilities flocked to the river. To accommodate this trend, the first floating river baths were built in 1870, separated by gender, and situated around 51st Street along the Hudson River. These were popular for decades, until they were eventually phased out in the 1930s due to concerns of congestion, hygiene, and pollution.

But the Clean Water Act of 1972 allowed people to think about using their rivers again, and ideas similar to + Pool were explored in the last few years. In 2004, Metropolis Next Generation finalist, Meta Brunzema introduced a 20-foot river pool to the Hudson River in Beacon. Decorated with a rainbow-colored perimeter, the river pool is a modular design composed of low-impact fiberglass seats and a flexible mesh made of Dyneema twine. The floating wading pool provides an experience of swimming in the middle of the river, as the mesh bottom allows the river water to flow through, bringing with it the rhythm of the natural tide.

REFERENCE:

Excerpt and pictures from the article by Cheryl Yau at metropolismag.com

http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20110629/pool