The ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania has continued to retreat rapidly, declining 26 percent since 2000, scientists say in a new report.
Yet the authors of the study, to be published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reached no consensus on whether the melting could be attributed mainly to humanity’s role in warming the global climate.
(via Mt. Kilimanjaro Ice Cap Continues Rapid Retreat, Study Says - NYTimes.com
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Oh, I would love to see this in person.
How the City Is Sneaking Great Little Buildings Into Unexpected Places — New York Magazine
“The Fire Department has traditionally considered architecture a priority only when it’s burning down. It no longer has a choice. For decades, the trinity of quick, cheap, and ugly dominated the city’s building program. Quick was always a chimera, and cheap remains sacrosanct, but ugly won’t cut it anymore. Agencies that once indifferently crammed schoolkids, cops, low-income residents, and garbage trucks into an assortment of interchangeable brick boxes now hire brand-name architects to infuse public buildings with panache….
(David) Burney’s wave of public buildings is striking for its motley vigor. Each design emerges from a specific constellation of site and response, not from some officially sanctioned style. Instead of imposing uniformity, the DDC is demanding imaginativeness. Rather than choosing designers that will do what they’re told, it is asking them what can be done. And so the agency quietly demonstrates that architecture is not just a tool to sell luxury condos, but a democratic art.”
caro:
Geologists confirm that a 35-mile-long rift that opened in Ethiopia in 2005— it ripped apart more than 20 feet in just days — is likely the start of a new ocean..
I’m actually thinking of paying the $15 to read the article.
“Dansmonarbre of Grenoble, France, is a company “specializing in arboreal activities.” One of their projects, the Hermitage, was less arboreal and more shed-like, a “place to allow a person or a couple to experience special wilderness for a few hours, overnight or several days.” Its walls are infinitely adjustable, transforming it according to whim and weather.”
Hermitage Hut By Dans Mon Arbre Adjusts to Climate : TreeHugger
I love this outdoor room. infinitely adjustable!
evrt:
Launching tomorrow and lasting through Thursday (Nov. 4 - 5), Blu Dot and Mono have teamed up to create the REAL GOOD Experiment (Experiment = creative marketing campaign). They will be randomly placing Real Good chairs on curb sides throughout NYC, for people to take freely. The idea is to find out where the chairs end up, and how people use them. Click through to book mark, and check in tomorrow!
Urban Oasis - Times Square Hotel
The project, a 55-storey hotel in Times Square comprised of a 3,500 sq ft ground floor restaurant, a 3,000 sq ft spa and gym facility, 540 rooms, and a 3,000 sq ft sky lounge.
Nature, as a literal and conceptual imperative, is integrated throughout the design to create a serene respite in the densest of urban fabrics. Architectural components embody nature in re-imagined forms, and extract its intrinsic productive beauty. Strategies emerge that contribute to unique spatial experiences and superior environmental quality. By exploring the juxtaposition with the surrounding urban context, a new adaptation of Nature lying between the natural and artificial, reveals the dynamic qualities of the site and imbues natural forms with new meaning.
Creating an oasis-like experience, a vast skylight in the lobby is layered with a screen of wood baguettes that integrates building systems and allows natural light to filter deep into the space. The recessed entry strengthens the street connection and overlapping zones of restaurant, bar, lounge and lobby encourage public interaction inside.
Reception is defined by an interior ‘forest’, which pulls guests from the busy street into a quiet garden that naturally filters indoor pollutants from the air. A digital canopy montages images of naturally occurring geometries with urban forms creating a visual interrogation of their presumed dichotomy.
The hotel rooms are conceived as being a retreat, a sanctuary within the forest - the bed and desk forming a tent encampment below a ceiling of super graphic natural forms, light filtering through window shears of organic cut out patterns.
The lights of Times Square encircle the rooftop Sky Lounge. A zone of mirrored ceiling panels extends natural light into the space, and a variegated wood ‘trunk’ encompasses the lounge core. The ceiling panels are laser cut with a foliated pattern, creating a stainless steel canopy of leaves at the top of the city, while reflecting the twinkling visage below.
SPaN - Stonely Pelsinski architects Neukomm
I am proud to say that I contributed much to the above content and text for our WAN Awards entry. Cross your fingers that it wins!
Wes Anderson [Access Hollywood] (via peterwknox)
Can’t wait to read about Wild, Wild Wes
Notes from his reporting post-Katrina (The New Yorker)
““Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?” an old song asks; another reminds us, “You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.” Since Katrina, I’ve often been asked (though never by someone in New Orleans) why the country should bother rebuilding it. Is it really worth the billions it would take to protect this small, poor, economically inessential city, which is sinking into the delta muck as global warming raises the sea around it? But the question of “whether” has been settled—New Orleans is rebuilding itself, albeit slowly, fitfully, and imperfectly. Now it’s only a matter of how and how long. That is better news than perhaps the rest of America fully understands.”
