Boredpanda.com has posted 70 amazing examples of street art, I´m showing a couple of them and leave the link for you to enjoy:
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, May 28, 2012
The bus stop of the future in Paris
Paris´ bus stops of the future. Designer Marc Aurel
Sharing from Jarrett Walker´s http://www.humantransit.org/2012/05/paris-the-bus-stop-of-the-future.html
This experimental station at boulevard Diderot is not just a place to wait for a bus. Covering an area of 80 m2, it was designed as a multi-purpose public space ... . Here you can buy a bus ticket, get information about the neighborhood, have a coffee, borrow a book, play music, recharge a phone, buy a meal to take away, rent an electric bike, stay warm while eating a sandwich, or set up a bag on a shelf to do your makeup. Variable light adjusts for day and night conditions. This project will also be the first urban test of materials and technological innovations ... such as ceramic furniture invented by Marc Aurel, and a sound design integrated into the fabric of furniture ...
Saturday, May 26, 2012
About the term ¨grandfathering¨ in architecture and urbanism
Freedmen voting. South Carolina (1868) Google images
In the USA the term ¨grandfathering¨ is very important for those who want to build or remodel in old properties (lots, houses, commercial, residential) and are affected by the new Codes.
I know about a very difficult case. A woman that bought a commercial retail and its license was expired. After 6 months of the expiration, and without any new business replacing the previous one, the property was under R1 Residential. And the lot was so small that it was impossible to comply with the parking requirements to build a house. In consequence, unless the owner bought an adjacent lot the property would be absolutely empty, worst of all, the City didn´t want to expropriate.
I´ve found a very interesting and clear explanation about the term ¨grandfathering¨, written by attorney Edward J. Ledogar. Here, some paragraphs and the link below to read it in full.
“Grandfathering/Single and Separate
Ownership.” I came here to talk about grandfathering rights of single and separate ownership, but there is 3
distinction to be made between the two.
First, let me make excuses for the sexist term,
“grandfathering.” It’s just that “grandmothering” doesn’t
just ~sound right, it sounds like the right to wear a shawl.
The term is grandfathering. Black’s law dictionary defines the term “grandfather clause” as “an exception to a
restriction that allows all those already doing something
to continue doing it even if they would be stopped by the new regulation.”
The term grandfather or grandfathering also has a derogatory connotation. Unfortunately, it was a term used
by white supremacists in the South in the early days of reconstruction. They would claim to have held on to their rights of voting as opposed to others who came along later
trying to exercise those rights; so that’s thrown back at us
sometimes when we talk about grandfathered rights. The
first thing to remember about grandfathering, is that
grandfathered rights don’t give you the right to do anything you couldn’t have done legally when it was legal.
That’s the problem, of course, with those people down
south. They were trying to get away with something they
didn’t really have the right to do.
Do you realize that a young, pretty, eighteen-year-
old girl can be a grandfather? It’s true. Grandfathering
simply means that you had a property right that preceded a new law or rule or regulation. Let’s take this
lovely, eighteen-year-old girl. Her aunt died a few years
ago, leaving her a nice half-acre parcel of land just out-
side of town in d brand new subdivision, or newer subdivision. Let’s say her aunt bought it some twenty, twenty-
five years ago hoping someday to build a house, but unfortunately she died a spinster. The trouble is the area
has more recently been zoned to one acre lots. The local
building inspector is telling our lovely eighteen-year-old
girl and her boyfriend, who hope to be married soon,
that they can’t build a house on this property. that they
have to buy an adjoining half-acre lot. True or false?
Well, it’s false. The reason is this eighteen-year-old
girl is grandfathered. She has the same rights that her
aunt had to build on that half-acre parcel. The fact that
they upzoned the area to one acre is like an ex post facto
law. An ex post facto law is a criminal term. It’s a law passed
after the fact. They can’t get you for spitting in the sub-
way when you did it at a time when it was legal. If they
change the law, they can’t say, well, you’ve been spitting
in the subway for twenty years, we’re going to put you in
jail. Aha! I haven’t done it since it became illegal. I haven’t
done it after the fact. Well, when aunt Bertha bought
this property, twenty, twenty-five years ago it was perfectly
legal to build on this half-acre lot. So she and her heirs
are grandfathered with regards to that lot.
Now, let’s suppose that Aunt Bertha
had bought two adjoining half-acre lots. She
left one to her niece and one to her nephew. Are they
both grandfathered? The answer, unfortunately, is probably no,
unless the aunt died before the zoning-to one acre took affect. Because we have
in our zoning laws a merger situation. If you have an
acre divided into two half-acre lots, it now becomes
merged into one acre and you have to conform to the
one-acre laws. There may be some exceptions to that.
The nephew and niece may be able to use the half-acre
parcels under the vested rights theory. Vested rights expire if they’re not used promptly.
Single and separate ownership rights or
grandfathered rights, however, are rights at law, because
they come under the United States Constitution, which
says that we can not be deprived of private property without due process of law.
Keep on reading
Friday, May 25, 2012
Seleccion of architectural pictures from National Geographic
Photograph of the holy Quran taken at dusk inside the Nakhoda Masjid, Calcutta.
(Photo Courtesy Indrajit Bhattacharya/National Geographic Your Shot)
Before sunrise this woman from the Mising Tribe on Majuli Island draws water from the communal well. In the dry season this area is hot and dusty; during monsoon the place is transformed and these people, who live in stilted houses, can only get around by boat.
(Photo Courtesy Jamie Furlong/National Geographic Your Shot)
This picture of a great horned owl in an old house that has been in the wind for a lot of years has been taken in
in Southern Alberta.
(Photo Courtesy Emily Bruce/National Geographic Your Shot)
Visiting the 14th-century Alcazar Palace in Seville I was struck by the amazing colors of the hammam and the light playing on the arches with their reflection in the water. Photo and caption by James Birch
Fallen Roof Ruin in Road Canyon, Cedar Mesa, Utah. Photo and caption by Sarah Chah
House in the middle of the Drina River near the town of Bajina Basta, Serbia. Photo and caption by Irene Becker
Enjoy much more:
Thursday, May 24, 2012
The first archaeological evidence of the city of Bethlehem
(Reuters) - Israeli archaeologists said on Wednesday they had discovered the first physical evidence supporting Old Testament accounts of Bethlehem's existence centuries before the town became revered as the birthplace of Jesus.
The proof came, they said, in a clay seal unearthed near the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem and imprinted with three lines of ancient Hebrew script that include the word "Bethlehem".
Eli Shukron, who directed the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said the seal apparently had been placed on a tax shipment of silver or agricultural produce sent from Bethlehem to the King of Judah in nearby Jerusalem in the 8th or 7th century BC.
"This is the first time the name Bethlehem appears outside the Bible in an inscription from the First Temple period," Shukron said in a statement, referring to the years 1006 BC to 586 BC.
The coin-sized remnant of the seal proves that Bethlehem - first mentioned in the Book of Genesis - "was indeed a city in the Kingdom of Judah, and possibly also in earlier periods", he said.
Bethlehem is located on the West Bank, just south of Jerusalem.
(Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Pravin Char)
The clay seal
REFERENCE: text and pictures from
Léalo en español:
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
72 Hour Urban Action. Stuttgart 2012
Stuttgart. New Castle. From http://www.smart-travel-germany.com/stuttgart-new-castle.html
72 Hour Urban Action is the world's first real-time architecture competition, where 10 international teams have 3 days and 3 nights to design and build projects in public space in response to local needs.
72 Hour Urban Action is working together with local partner, Kunstverein Wagenhallen after a major public protest around the development and re-purposing of the Stuttgart 21 area.
The Post 21 program suggests a series of events in response to the local planning crisis and the ongoing public outcry that were the result of the Stuttgart 21 plan. Through it we seek alternative approaches to city planning and different tactics for engaging residents in place-making.
Read more
Monday, May 21, 2012
OPEN CALL – Projects for Zaragoza City
“NEW CREATIVE MODELS TO EXPERIENCE THE CITY “
Call closes: June 15th, 2012
Prize Money: Three projects will be selected (the People’s Choice Award and the two Jury Awards). Each awarded work will receive EUR 2000 €, and a wide diffusion and visibility. Subsequently, one of the awarded projects will be chosen to be produced between 2012 and 2013 as one of the first works shown at the Etopia_Center of Art and Technology in Zaragoza (opening scheduled for beginning of 2013).
Background information:
Zaragoza City of Knowledge (Zaragoza ciudad del conocimiento) has got assistance from Ars Electronica EXPORT in Zaragoza March 2012 as the Spanish foundation launches its PASEO PROJECT, an effort to jointly seek creative new ideas for communication in and with a city. At a symposium that presented Ars Electronica and its impact on Linz as a best-practice example, participants had the opportunity to consider other interesting models developed by artists and creative engineers as interventions in a real or virtual cityscape.
The event also served as the setting for the debut of an idea platform designed to collect new creative models of city representation. Artists and creative technologists are now invited to submit existing projects as well as new project ideas, that are dealing with the topic “NEW CREATIVE MODELS TO EXPERIENCE THE CITY“. Having the city of Zaragoza as a place of intervention will be a plus.
Further information:
Friday, May 18, 2012
Top ten buildings in North America
Trinity Church / H.H. Richardson (1877)
Boston, Massachusetts
Archdaily.com is sharing the Top Ten buildings that changed America.
I´m showing my favorite one, click on the link and see the rest of them:
¨PBS has released their selections of the top ten buildings that have changed the way Americans live, work and play. From Thomas Jefferson’s 224-year-0ld Virginia State Capitol to Robert Ventui’s postmodern masterpiece the Vanna Venturi House, each building on the list will be featured in a new TV and web production coming to PBS in 2013.¨
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