Encouragement: Beauty Queen "walks" the runway, despite having Cerebral Palsy

Okay,

For those of you who check my updated links, you may have noticed the one that I found about a beauty contestant having a disability. Well, I found more about the contestant in a recent article. For more information, you can view the article at:

http://jfactivist.typepad.com/jfactivist/2008/04/first-contestan.html

Heavy Load-Exerting Concrete Body and Other Structural Near-Analogues

(The Schwerbelastungskörper at rest. Photographer unknown. Source.)

During a seemingly endless nighttime hypertextual journey through Wikipedia — one that took us from Tempelhof to a crash course on Nazi architecture and inevitably on to Hitler's imagined future capital, Welthauptstadt Germania, a city that became a ruin without first having existed, and to Albert Speer, whose post-war gardening activities are worth detailing, which we will in a future post, i.e., if we still have the stamina to trudge through his excruciatingly long diary for the few relevant entries, before looping back to the start to then read about the Berlin Airlift, whose infrastructural and spatial organization, including the three air corridors above the blockaded Soviet Occupied Zone, we find so utterly interesting — we discovered the Schwerbelastungskörper.

It's a massive cylindrical block of concrete, standing 18 meters high and weighing in at 12,560 metric tons. It is located in the Berlin neighborhood of Tempelhof, where the eponymous airport is found. Under all that tonnage is a slimmer cylinder with a lower and an upper chamber, both of which were outfitted with measuring instruments. In profile, the whole structure would look like a mushroom.

But what exactly is it? And what are those instruments measuring?


(The Schwerbelastungskörper in motion. Photo courtesy of Stadtumbau Berlin. Source.)

The name is translated as “heavy load-bearing body,” although someone in the discussion page of the wiki article has suggested that “heavy load-exerting body” might be more accurate. It was constructed in 1941 to test how well the marshy ground upon which Berlin sits could handle the massive projects planned for Germania. More specifically, it was built to see how the landscape would react to Hitler's gigantic Triumphal Arch, whose opening would have accommodated the triumph in Paris.

The results were not encouraging:

The Schwerbelastungskörper sank 7 inches in the three years it was to be used for testing, a maximum depth of 2.5 inches was allowed. Using the evidence gathered by these gargantuan devices, it is unlikely the soil could have supported such structures without further preparation.

Hitler dismissed these findings, perhaps confident that the landscape can be subjugated with fine Teutonic engineering. But his Third Rome had to wait; there was a war to be waged.

Of course, history then happened, and the Schwerbelastungskörper remained where it stood, waiting for a city that will never come, sinking, still taking measures of the landscape, accumulating trash and graffiti, outliving its original function and its planned 20 weeks' worth of existence.

In 1995, it gained historic status and thereafter given some preservation work that continues today. And if we deciphered the BabelFish translation of this webpage correctly, the structure is to be turned into a history museum, a major component of a redevelopment plan to revitalize the surrounding neighborhoods.


(The Schwerbelastungskörper in sections, showing some of the measurement chambers and interstitial spaces under all that tonnage. Source.)

Meanwhile, we are reminded of an article published in The New York Times earlier this month about two full-size mock-ups of the future Freedom Tower, one built in California and another in central New Mexico, which “can be reached only over dirt roads in four-wheel-drive vehicles.” In order to see how well the facade and the structure perform under extreme conditions, they were subjected to simulated hurricanes and earthquakes, among other things.

Water jets simulating winds of 74 miles per hour were sprayed at the facade. During the 15-minute test cycle, each square foot of glass was hit with more than a gallon of water.

In another test, a dismounted airplane propeller was switched on to simulate even-stronger and more-scattered winds.

[...]

Hydraulic jacks were used to simulate the different horizontal sway of various floors, both fully occupied and empty. The surface was also chilled to 10 degrees (refrigerated piping was applied to the glass) and baked at 100 degrees (by heat lamps).

Gusts up to 167 m.p.h. were simulated by using pumps to pull air out of the chamber, creating a condition in which the external air pressure was far greater than the internal pressure. The process was reversed, too, by pumping air into the chamber, simulating conditions on the side of the tower away from the wind.

An earthquake was simulated by jacks pulling the mock-up in different directions.

And since everyone believes that the tower will be a prime target of terrorist attacks, the mock-up in New Mexico was blasted with an “explosion that shook the earth a quarter-mile away.”


(Future Pruned HQ. Photo by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.)

These near-analogues are actually not the only ones. Three years ago a mock-up of the WTC memorial fountain was also built, installed somewhat incongruously above ground in a suburban backyard in Canada. Of all places!

Unlike the simulated Freedom Towers, however, this lobotomized fountain wasn't placed under structural duress. Instead, it was used primarily to help determine the ideal hydrological conditions in which the “billowing silvery curtains of falling water” do “not splash visitors or disintegrate in the wind or roar deafeningly or freeze in winter or clog up in autumn when the oak leaves begin falling in the surrounding plaza.”


(Photo by Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times.)


(Photo by Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times.)


(Photo by Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times.)

One wonders what actually happens to these structures and others like them after all the tests have been carried out?

One of the Freedom Tower replicas was built for $537,000. It would sound rather wasteful to have it scrapped and dumped in oversaturated landfills instead of being repurposed.

Give it to us, in other words, and we'll convert this representational “corner of three typical tower floors” into our new HQ, its “enclosed steel chamber” chicly decorated. When things are slow or when we need a little breather from mining the interweb, we will simply gaze through the laminated glass panes out to the waters of our ¼ fountain cascading down into a truncated void.

Architect and Landscape Architecture Magazine will come knocking on our armageddon-proof aluminum doors to do a feature. The article, of course, will come with hyper-glossy photos of us on another clicker-happy run through Wikipedia. We will be quoted pretentiously proclaiming that “Near-Analogues are the new prefabs.”

In any case, we also wouldn't mind flying off with the Schwerbelastungskörper and dumping it into some deltaic expanse. A pulverized mountain molded around a metallic skeleton bobbing about for solid ground in tenuous terrain. In metaphorical glee.

(Freedom Tower article spotted on del.icio.us/bfunk and then on del.icio.us/bldgblog.)

Grown-up girlfriends, part three.. Chapters 2

Okay,

So I know it's been awhile since my last "Grown-up Girlfriends" notes. I haven't really had time to read the book, let alone write notes from it. So much so that I'm afraid I have forgotten all of the lessons I have learned from it far. That being said, here are just some of my notes on chapter 2 and 3 of the book.

• What are characteristics of "Grown-Up Friendships"?
  


• People who encourage us to grow in our faith- to be more like Jesus
  I Corinthians 13: 11
  Galatians 5: 22 - 24
  


• To do this, we must accept two premises:we must take seriously the goal of becoming stronger and wiser in Christ.second, we must learn to recognize the same characteristics of a growing Christian in other people


• Some specific characteristics of a grown-up friend
  deep trust, someone who can look at your heart
  someone who can speak the truth in love
  this means that she is able to work through problems, not around them


• it is important to remember the purpose in every one of your grown-up friendships. On page 29 of the book, the authors quote Christian motivational Speaker, Rick Warren as saying, "focusing on yourself will never reveal your real purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that your life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our orgin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance and our destiny"


• Recognizing the purpose of every relationship, has its benefits
  1. It takes the focus off you. It's more about what God is doing through you
  2. It can reduce feelings of rejection in the friendship
  3. It can bring hope and meaning into the relationship, this is especially helpful when the hard times roll around.


• That being said, pay attention and actively listen to your friends, your purpose may be revealed in a conversation. You never know how your presence is being used at that moment to be of encouragement and comfort
• God is in control- recognizing this makes it easier for us to realize that in everything we see, we should see him. Likewise, our friend should be able to look at us and see Christ.
• In creating grown-up friendships, it does reduce the possibility of rejection. Why? Because we have to take responsibility for our own well-being and emotional health rather than relying on our friend to provide it for us.
• Ultimately, our purpose should be to glorify God in everything that we do. If we realize this, every friendship should have a goal. Focusing on God instead of ourselves
• One last comment on chapter 2 on page 36: the grown-up friend honors God by encouraging her friend to become all He wants her to be

Prunings XLII

(The caption by National Geographic reads: “A truck travels along the highway leading to the Taklimakan oil field in the Xinjiang region. The rows of vegetation on either side keep sand off the road. The buildings that appear every few miles house workers who maintain the greenbelt.” Photo by George Steinmetz. Source.)

1) The Guardian on the “Eight Blunder” of the World. Is the Palm Jumeirah merely experiencing some growing pains or will it be a gangrenous toe that will infect the rest of Dubai, its future amputated?

2) Next American City on disaster urbanism in the wildfire country of Southern California and in the flood valleys of the Mississippi River.

3) The New York Times on cleaning the toxic landscapes of Fort Bragg, California with bioremediating mushrooms.

4) The Guardian on climate change, wasted money in the billions, doomed flood defences and abandoned villages on Britain's changing coastline. (See also Climate Ghettos and The Retreating Village.)

5) Der Spiegel on Berlin's Tempelhof a.k.a. the Mother of all Airports. Meant to be one of the centerpieces of Germania, Hitler's future capital, but actually completed by the Americans who used it as an army base, the site of the Berlin Airlift and photo-ops of arriving Hollywood stars, this mythic “inland sea with the yearning for faraway places” is now on the hands of voters who will decide today whether to keep it open or close it.

6) BBC News on gardening with moon soil. (See also Fake Moon Dirt.)

7) The New York Times on outdoor “living rooms” in Central Los Angeles.

Armed with grant money, hammers and some technical help, residents around the city have gone about spiffing up bus stops, among a number of other outdoor spaces, into something known as community living rooms.

The idea began several years ago in Oakland, where community organizers and residents got together to improve places where neighbors tended to congregate — the corner store, outside the barbershop — amid a decidedly downtrodden environment.

“The idea was to enable low-income communities to create their own social spaces and improve their neighborhoods without bringing on gentrification,” said Steve Rasmussen Cancian, the landscape architect who helped introduce the living rooms.

8) The Economist on shrinking eastern German cities.

(More on del.icio.us/pruned.)

Rolloff family on Oprah

So,

The Rolloff family was on Oprah. I believe I've talked about their show on TLC many times for a previous posts on this blog. In synopsis, the show follows the life of a family affected by dwarfism . This family of five is made up of three average size children (Molly, Jacob and Jeremy) as well as Zach who takes after his parents. They are both little people. Despite their disability, nothing stops this family. During their show, they have taken family vacations to such places as Hawaii and the Grand Canyon.

During its three-year run, "Little People, Big World " has tried to show the American people that people who are different can in fact lead productive lives and can be an inspiration to you if you just take the time to get to know them-starting from the inside and then working your way out. At the family, they have learned to overcome their daily struggles by adapting what they can't do into something that can. One example of this is when Amy was younger-she was able to climb on the grocery shelf to get what she needed. A little adventurous, but it worked. They have learned to adapt to their circumstances instead of just giving up.

The head of the family (Matt) is your average businessman who travels. As well as owning a pumpkin farm, he is also the founder and creator of Direct Access Solutions -a company bent on making hotels more accessible for little people. Amy is your average homemaker and a soccer mom rolled into one.

The 25-Year Riverine Journey of a Wooden Boulder Carved out of a Felled 200-Year-Old Oak Tree

(Boulder timeline. All images courtesy of the Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery.)

Beginning in 1978, when a spherical chunk of oak got lodged in a stream as he was moving it to his studio, the sculptor David Nash has documented its long riverine journey.

“For 25 years,” Nash writes, “I have followed its engagement with the weather, gravity and the seasons. It became a stepping-stone into the drama of physical geography. Spheres imply movement and initially I helped it to move, but after a few years I observed it only intervening when absolutely necessary - when it became wedged under a bridge.”







The journey is so extraordinary — made more so perhaps by the fact that it's so well-documented — that we can't help but quote the rest of Nash's accounts:

During the first 24 years it moved down stream nine times remaining static for months and years. Sedentary and heavy it would sit bedded in stones animated by the varying water levels and the seasons. Beyond the bridge its position survived many storms, the force of the water spread over the shallow banks did not have the power to shift it. I did not expect it to move into the Dwyryd river in my lifetime.

Then in November 2002 it was gone. The 'goneness' was palpable. The storm propelled the boulder 5 kilometres, stopping on a sandbank in the Dwryd estuary. Now tidal, it became very mobile. The high tides around full moon and the new moon moved it every 12 hours to a new place, each placement unique to the consequence of the tide, wind, rain and depth of water.

In January 2003 it disappeared from the estuary but was found again in a marsh. An incoming tide had taken it up a creek, where it stayed for five weeks. The equinox tide of March 19 2003 was high enough to float it back to the estuary where it continued its movement back and forth 3 or 4 kilometres each move.

The wooden boulder was last seen in June 2003 on a sandbank near Ynys Giftan. All creeks and marshes have been searched so it can, only be assumed it has made its way to the sea. It is not lost. It is wherever it is.

Obviously we know what has happened to it — it's been scooped up by a reclusive oil tycoon to adorn his secret garden like a pilfered Grecian kore. Resting on a pedestal, accumulating monetary value, periodically acting the part of a showpiece to entertain guests.







It would be unsurprising to hear someone remark that the boulder is at the mercy of the elements, although we're more apt to say that it is the river that is at the mercy of this artifact, under the weight of human agency, and of Nash's relentless gaze and choreographic machinations.

The river turned into a Picturesque folly; the passing of time, the same physical forces that smooth out rocks and bend rivers turned into a constructed view.

(Spotted at Some landscapes and then later at Topophilia.)

Earth-Fountain Spotted!

(Watch the desert unburden itself on YouTube here or here or here or here or here. Take your pick.)

A motorist in Al Ahsaa City, Saudi Arabia captured these few minutes of the earth exhaling. It's lo-res, cinematically shaky but still a sight to behold, wondrous and sublime. As it must be commented on — for it's hardly unnoticeably — we are told that the soundtrack is an exaltation of one or several of the divine's multitudinous attributes but we are sure it's a paean to the hidden but knowable geological forces at work eternally shaping the landscape. And just slightly off camera are a flock of demoiselles about to re-enact Busby Berkeley's famous pyramid fountain of lascivious ladyflesh. Of course.

In the Archives:
Earth-Fountain
Earth-Fountain Redux
Granular Blitzkrieg
“A wound in the geological bowels of the earth”

Fast paced times in Chicago

Well,

I'm back from a whirlwind trip to Chicago. My friends and I had some good times, but unfortunately we brought home with us all colds. I guess that's why they call it the Windy City. Since returning, I thought I would give you an overview of the weekend and how accessible they were. I was going to post a few pictures, but unfortunately, every time I try to it comes up with a "internal error" message. Oh well.

For starters, we arrived in Chicago on Saturday afternoon after four hours on the road. My friend had already made arrangements for us to stay at the Best Western at Grant Park. They were pretty good considering the circumstances. Apparently, there had been a mixup with the reservations; they had us for one night in two rooms instead of the other way around. But the manager was helpful in clearing up the problem. But because of the mixup, we weren't able to get a handicapped accessible room. Anyway, the rest of the day was spent relaxing and dining at the hotel restaurant.

On Sunday, we got up around 11 a.m. and hit the town. Our first stop was the Sears Tower. Originally, this building was the tallest building in America until it was surpassed by some building in China. It was a long ride up in the elevator-about a hundred floors up. Surprisingly, it only took about five minutes to get all the way up to the top. Our ears were popping the whole time.. You could see just about everything from up there-even where Oprah lives. She lives on top of the Hancock building in Chicago. Our next stop was the Shedd Aquarium. That was fun; the place was huge and we ended up getting ourselves lost a couple of times. After that, we needed some energy. So what did we do? We ended up going to the Hershey company. Can we say, "a slice of heaven on earth?"

I could go on and on about the trip, but honestly my voice is getting tired and I should conserve my energy for when I really need it. Those were just some of the activities that occurred during the famous "Road Trip". The trip wasn't really that expensive in the end, considering my friend had gotten us Chicago Go cards . These gave us access to most of Chicago's attractions for a reduced rate or even free.

Soil Lamp

(Photo by Rene van der Hulst.)

This is the Soil Lamp, designed by Design Academy Eindhoven student Marieke Staps and recently exhibited during Milan Design Week 2008.

Quoting the project brief, in Dutch:

Gratis en milieuvriendelijke energie voor eeuwig. De lamp werkt op modder. De stofwisseling van het biologische leven produceert genoeg elektriciteit om er een led op te laten branden. De modder zit in verschillende cellen. In deze cellen zitten koper en zink om de stroom te geleiden. Hoe meer cellen hoe meer stroom er geproduceerd wordt. Je hebt enorm veel mogelijkheden binnen deze techniek. Het enige wat de lamp nodig heeft is zo nu en dan een scheutje water. Ik heb voor het materiaal glas gekozen omdat ik de techniek zichtbaar wil maken. Door de mooie simpele vormgeving kun je de lamp in elk interieur en elke tuin plaatsen. De vormgeving is een direct gevolg van de techniek.

And this is how BabelFish translates it:

Free and environment-friendly energy for eternal. The lamp works on mud. The stofwisseling of biological living produces enough electricity to launch LED there to burn. Mud is present in several warrants. In these warrants are present purchaser and zinc conduct the flow. How more warrants how more flow is produced. You have enormously many possibilities this technique. Some what has the lamp necessary is this way now and then scheutje water. I have chosen glass for the material because I technique makes visible will. By the beautiful simple design you can place the lamp in each interieur and each garden. The design is an direct consequence of technique.

So essentially, then, the metallic strips of zinc and the cornucopia of minerals and organisms in the damp soil chemically react with one another to initiate a constant electrical current that lights up an LED.

A few questions:

1) Is it an actual working model or just another concept model, a Gravia Lamp v2.0?

2) If it's a working model, how does it work actually? We'd be interested in seeing some flow diagrams and numbers. And what kind of soil mixture?

3) And if it does work, can you take the metallic body and LED out of its lower 3/4 glass enclosure, remove the test tubes and the soil contained therein, and then impale it into the ground — will the LED still glow? Can a generous benefactor of the arts (perhaps Dia) manufacture for us several thousands so that we can run amok with these geological illuminations in Canada's trillion-barrel tar pits or Russia's still untapped gas fields, away from amateur astronomers and other light-sensitive nighttime fauna, making new earthly constellations of future negative contour lines and rhizomatous pipelines? Because why should this alternative energy light fixture be installed only in parks, gardens, driveways, streets and indoor rooms everywhere?

4) Does it work in bacteria-laden moon soil?

In the Archives:
Fluorescent Field
Petroleum Sublime

(Spotted at food for design.)

New treatment for those with spina bifida

Hello everyone,

In a matter of days I will be heading out of town for my birthday. As a result, there will be no Monday post. But I'm sure you can do without me for one day, right?

Anyways, on to today's post. I came across a interesting report last night. Investigated by Lila Lazarus, a new " Health Works " reported on a new treatment for spina bifida. Today, approximately 3000 children are born with this disability. In simple terms, spina bifida happens when the spine never completely develops during birth. As a result, this often creates difficulty when helping with personal care, such as the toileting. That is all about to change however with the help of surgery. During the surgery, nerves are taken from a child 's leg and rerouted to the bladder. Surgeries like these are being done down at the Beaumont Hospital. So far, there is a 90% success rate.
--



Citation for TV Program: "Health Works" News segment Lila Lazarus reporting Fox2 News. Channel 2 WDIV Detroit, News at 10 pm, April 17, 2008

Autotechnogeoglyphics

(Volvo test track, Wittmann, Arizona. Photo by CLUI.)

Over a year since their last newsletter, the CLUI has now put up the latest edition. Among the many wonderful things worth noting, there is their aerial photographs of automotive test tracks — those concrete hieroglyphs, in the fringes of urban sprawls, recording “the condition of America, land of the automobile, a syndrome that transformed the landscape of the nation, and the world, more than any other.”


(GM test track, Milford, Michigan. Photo by CLUI.)

Vast asphalt geometries and bounded trajectories tattooed on the surface of the earth, they are described as the “nurseries” for our vehicular companions, reared in “a microcosm of the country, built for subjecting vehicles to all the types of terrain - from interstates, to suburban stop and go; from dirt roads to black ice” — where America is geographically, meteorologically and infrastructurally condensed.

The automotive test tracks of America are mostly in the West and Midwest. Around Detroit, each of the “big three” operates at least one major complex. Test tracks are located around Phoenix, Arizona, to test in conditions of extreme heat, on top of everything else. On the fringes of this city's sprawl are tracks for companies whose home terrain has no desert to work in, such as Volvo, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Nissan. Honda and Hyundai's tracks are in the desert north of Los Angeles. And, in Illinois, Caterpillar, the global earth mover, tests its machines in a giant hilltop sandbox.

You can tour these places, at least via photographs, in Autotechnogeoglyphics: Vehicular Test Tracks in America, CLUI's contribution to the Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

The exhibition lasts till August 17, 2008.

In the Archives:
Dugway Proving Ground

Birthday reflections

Well,

It's hard to believe but in less than a week I will be 28 years old. In those 28 years, I have accomplished a lot. Graduating from college, getting a job, and living on my own just to name a

few. For some, this may seem like small little feats. But it's really not. As part of the disabled community, we consider even the simplest hurdles accomplishments.

I have learned to take each day as it comes, often considering it for the lessons they can teach me . These lessons were invaluable to me in so many ways. They have helped me to develop in both a personal (emotionally, and as a individual) and professional level. Professionally, I hope I can have the opportunity to share what I have learned with others in my situation; my way of giving people hope that anything is possible.

It is not without a little fear that I approach the next year of my life. After all, it looks like I will be moving with my family to Virginia. With that, brings obvious changes- a new home, new friends . But it also brings new opportunities. From the beginning, I have told my readers I am not the best when it comes to change. That part of me hasn't changed and I don't think it ever will. I have minor concerns about moving; after all, it was here that I spent a majority of my life. (I don't know about you, but I consider the later years important ones). It is then that you began to figure and what you want in life. At least that's what happened with me. Still, I am believing this will be the best thing for all of us.

Although, fear can be a good thing in the end. It can push you to do things you never expected it you would do and take you to new heights. It just depends on how you look at life. Will the glass be half full or half empty. You can decide. It also can show you where your dependence lies- is it based on faith or security? I will admit, I'm not perfect. I do have personal goals that have yet to be met. And that, in itself, scares me. As humans, we tend to evaluate ourselves. By our own standards and the standards of the world. We forget what really matters. Loving people and passing on the lessons we have learned to them

In the future, I hope to have accomplished most of my personal goals and have a family while continuing my passion for writing.

After the Deluge, The Farm

(Image courtesy of Mossop+Michaels.)

For a more sober take on urban farming than Work AC's agro-fantasia, check out this project by Mossop+Michaels for a Vietnamese-American community in New Orleans. Today, it garnered a 2008 ASLA Professional Award.

Quoting the brief in part:

The Viet Village Urban Farm project represents an effort to reestablish the tradition of local farming in this community after Katrina. New Orleans East was one of the most damaged areas of the city during the storms of 2005. In response to the devastation, the community has organized around the idea of creating an urban farm and market as the center of the community. The farm, located on 28-acres in the heart of the community, will be a combination of small-plot gardening for family consumption, larger commercial plots focused on providing food for local restaurants and grocery stores in New Orleans, and a livestock area for raising chickens and goats in the traditional Vietnamese way. The proposed market on the site will provide a location for the individual farmers to supplement their income as well as serve as a central meeting space for the larger Vietnamese community along the Gulf Coast. Based on the history of the markets in the area before Katrina, as many as 3,000 people are expected to come to the site for a Saturday market, perhaps more on traditional festival days. Specialty vegetables and foods used in Vietnamese cuisine will be sold at the market. Local Vietnamese restaurants will have a space to sell prepared food during market days as well.

Another goal of the project is to bring together the different generations with the local community through the shared endeavor of the farm and that the traditional skills and practices of the culture brought from Vietnam to America are passed down by the generation of elders. Thus it is also important that the farm also acts as a community center and areas for sports and playgrounds are proposed for the site. The community sees this project as the centerpiece for the rebuilding efforts in the New Orleans East.

If you're at all interested in urban agriculture, this is a good case study to review.


(Strange that no one is seen tilling the fields. Image courtesy of Mossop+Michaels.)


(Image courtesy of Mossop+Michaels.)


(Image courtesy of Mossop+Michaels.)

In the Archives:
On agro

Locavore Utopia

(Image by Work AC. Source.)

Four architects were asked by New York magazine to submit ideas for a vacant lot in lower Manhattan. It's merely a design exercise, as none of the proposals will actually be built. Or maybe one or all will be used to fill other urban voids. Equally plausible, it's all been done in the past.

Undoubtedly of greatest interest to us is Work AC's sequel to its upcoming installation at P.S. 1. This iteration of the same idea takes the form of a multi-tiered apartment building with agro-roofs, propped up towards the sun by Brancusi sculptures and above what looks like a farmers' market. Or perhaps a flea market, where the detritus of a capitalist culture gets recycled in survivalist fantasia below a mythological rural idyll.

In any case, the whole structure reminds one of bleachers found in sports fields everywhere, leading us to wonder whether the second sequel in an urban agriculture trilogy by Work AC is an adaptive reuse of Shea Stadium, the soon-to-be former ballpark of the New York Mets, into a locavore utopia.


(Shea Stadium from above. Photo by the mono-appelated Lia. Source.)

Build a duplicate stadium — why not 1,000 — and you could have the beginning of a Queens rice terrace to rival those found at Banaue in the Philippines.


(The Banaue Rice Terraces, a UN Heritage Site, in the Philippines. Photo by Gary Arndt. Source.)

Part Grand Canyon, part Norwegian fjords, lining the edges of the five boroughs, built high up, protecting the megalopolis from sea level rise, bad diets and the coming global food crisis.

In the Archives:
On agro

(Spotted on Archinect.)

Dyslexia

Hello everyone ~

During the weekend, Bruce Jenner hosted a informative report on dyslexia on PBS. Unfortunately, dyslexia is not often seen as a disability; however, one out of ten Americans are impacted by the reading disorder. Jenner, being just one of the people impacted by the disorder.

This PBS special highlighted dyslexia and the many other issues impacting the education of young children today. According to the program, over 50% of all intercity schools read below their grade. As a result, this has led to a rise in dropouts during high school. In all, approximately 3000 children have been placed in special education classrooms- simply because they can't read. Many of them are later diagnosed with dyslexia.

Simply put, dyslexia can be defined as "difficulty with language. "Discovered by Orten over a century ago, it continues to be seen as a neurological disorder. In other words, language can be seen as a complex code; in order to decipher words, we must connect different combinations of letters to the sounds they make. In most cases, this is done automatically by the brain . For others, though, the process is more difficult.

Training Ground for Future Terraformers

(For about $800, you can operate one of these CAT excavators for a day. All photos courtesy of Dig This.)

Those bored executives and hedge fund managers inexplicably unaffected by the worldwide economic freefall and seeking new thrills that only a handful have ever experienced can peruse through the online catalogue of Cloud 9 Living.

This adventure outfit, based in Boulder, Colorado, advertises itself as “the premier experience gift company that offers the highest quality experiences as unforgettable gifts.” Such offerings include, for instance, diving with a Great White shark from a private luxury yacht. Priced at $100,000, you'd better be diving from and uncorking champagne on the deck of The Gigayatch. If wading in the deep doesn't interest you, you can fly a Mig 25 from a top-secret Rusian airbase. Of course, this chance of surveying the landscapes in rarefied air, at supersonic speeds, will also cost you dearly.

There are, however, plenty of affordable options as well. You can sign up for nighttime white water rafting expedition in which you can survey the terrain through unfamiliar wavelengths of light with night vision goggles. And again, if floating in water bores you, how about a nighttime helicopter tour of the neon-drenched alien landscape of Las Vegas?

One “experience gift” we wouldn't mind giving to ourselves is a day or two or even a whole week spent at Dig This. There, at “the 1st heavy equipment play arena,” you can “play in the dirt - super sized” with an array of “empowering” heavy machineries.



From the Dig This website:

You can get lost in our 10-acre site with hills, valleys and a spectacular views of the Yampa Valley. Under the supervision of Dig This instructors, you can remove yourself from the external influences of life and focus only on the adventure at hand, automatically building self-confidence and adrenaline levels.

As if to feed some primal urge, starved by a 21st century lifestyle disconnected from the earth, emasculated by the droning shrills of sustainability and pastoralism, you can “doze and excavate dams and ponds” and “move and remove sand, gravel, rock, and other materials from your own individual area.” In climate controlled machines.

We can call this Post-Industrial Romanticism. Mineral lyricism?

Making tiny mountains or rock gardens seems to be a popular task there, as are “team building” and “character building.” But for some real fun, why not spend a whole month excavating a new city, another Denver ex-urb without its McMansions? In this supersized urban sandbox, you can scrape the outlines of future roads, driveways and cul-de-sacs. You can will into existence an entirely new hydrology of storm culverts and drainage channels, thus undoing billions of years of natural tectonic activities.

These foundational landscapes are all ready to be paved over and occupied, but no lawns or SUVs will come. It's as if the developers and creditors have fled, the bankrupt homeowners unwilling to visit their spectacularly failed investments. It's a landscape in a perpetual state of waiting.



In any case, exactly how popular Dig This is, we don't know. But the operators and instructors are certainly attuned to the zeitgeist.

Reporting over a year ago on research by geologists Brandon McElroy of the University of Texas in Austin and his colleague Bruce Wilkinson of Syracuse University, the Discovery Channel wrote that “human changes to landscapes are now on par with the wasting power of weather and tectonic uplift.”

In other words, we are on par with the same natural forces that move continents across oceans and erode entire mountain ranges down to hills.

A new take of the scale of human changes to the face of the Earth shows that by farming alone, humans have now managed to move a thousand times more earth than the annual sediment loads of all the world's rivers combined. That's enough soil to cover the state of Rhode Island nearly two miles deep in dirt.

And the rate of human changes to the land is increasing.

Indeed, a recent article in The New York Times reported that “thousands of farmers are taking their fields out of the government’s biggest conservation program, which pays them not to cultivate.” There are 36.8 million acres of land in the program, bigger in area than the state of New York; “last fall, they took back as many acres as are in Rhode Island and Delaware combined.”

Why?

“Because of a growing global middle class as well as federal mandates to turn large amounts of corn into ethanol-based fuel, food prices are beginning to jump. Cropland is suddenly in heavy demand.” So naturally, farmers want “to cash in on the boom in wheat, soybean, corn and other crops.”



And then there are the reports of a growing breed of diggers who also want to cash in on the boom in the mineral trade. Again in the The New York Times, we read that “160 years after a flake of gold found not far from here incited a frenzied stampede to the Sierra Nevada foothills, a new gold rush is on.”

Driven by record high prices and a suburban thirst for new outdoor activities, tens of thousands of ’08ers are taking to historically rich streams and hills all across the West in search of nuggets, flecks and — more often than not — specks of gold.

However, not everyone is foraging along rivers.

Some prospectors have taken to scouring ore dumps — discarded piles of rock left by old-time miners — with high-tech metal detectors hoping to divine what previous generations missed. In Arizona, clubs head for dry creeks, sifting through the dirt where gold might have washed down in past floods.

Here, one wonders how the big transnational mining companies will take advantage in this uptick in prices of not only gold but also copper, titanium, coal and whatever China wants to gobble up all for itself. But then again, one only needs to see the photos included in this Wikipedia entry on open-pit mine to get a fairly accurate prediction.

Just check out this grossly beautiful panorama of the open-pit coal mine in Garzweiler, Germany.

And this is the Grasberg Mine in Indonesia, the largest gold mine in the world. Here and in other gold mines across the world — where the earth is undone, where billions of tons of dirt get displaced, enough perhaps to save every Pacific islands from sinking beneath the climate-changed waters — is where the staggeringly complex relationship between gold prices and the global credit crisis, the falling value of the dollar and the failure of Bear Stearns are physically manifested in the landscape.

As new slums begin to appear out in the peripheries of American cities and even further afield and as the next generation of grandiose projects like the Orange County Great Park and Louisville's Museum Plaza stall due to lack of funds, elsewhere not covered by the top-tier and middling architectural press are new abysses being excavated, swirling towards the inner core, overlaying new un-earthly soil horizons, suffocating lives and geographies alike.



We won't be surprising anyone by saying that there is currently a construction boom everywhere. Read any articles published in The New York Times, The Economist and the BBC, especially those of Dubai, China and the quarterly profits of Caterpillar or those of earlier reports on Mecca eradicating its historic Mohammedan neighborhoods to make way for billion-dollar developments and Singapore pirating sand from Indonesia, and you're already well-informed of the situation.

As but one more iteration of this global phenomenon, there is the recently approved $5.25-billion Panama Canal expansion project. To accommodate post-Panamax vessels and to better cope with the projected increases in cargo traffic, new locks are to be built. New approach channels will be dredged and existing ones deepened and widened. Gatun Lake will similarly be deepened and its water level raised to increase water storage capacity. It is thus rightly labeled an engineering megaproject.

Earlier this month, ENR.com gave us an update by reporting that a dredging contract was given to the Belgian firm Dredging International. No new fascinating details are given, but it's interesting to note the other companies who made bids for the same contract. They are Boskalis International, Jan De Nul and Van Oord.

Long-time readers of this blog may recognize these names. Jan De Nul and Van Oord are, of course, responsible for conjuring up Dubai's artificial archipelagos, both The World and The Palms, from the bottom of the sea. And Boskalis is known for its trailing hopper suction dredgers, a fleet that includes the largest THSD in the world; no doubt they'll be deployed to carry out the company's newly awarded contract, worth nearly $1.5 billion, to create a new port for Abu Dhabi.



All this, then, is the milieu in which Dig This, intentionally or inadvertently, has set up their operations, a creative playpen where future terraformers might be reared in the form of chief executives instilled with the acumen to capitalize on a very profitable futures market or lowly, overworked but extremely well-paid diggers and excavators.

Or the next generation of Robert Smithsons and Michael Heizers. A new breed of Olmsteds and Capability Browns liberated from the ancient paradigms of the Picturesque, Romanticism and Sustainability.

In the Archives:
Trailing Suction Hopper Dredgers

(Spotted on del.icio.us/heathering.)

A New River in the Mediterranean Sea

“As Barcelona runs out of water,” New Scientist reports, “Spain has been forced to consider importing water from France by boat.”


(The Dutch cargo ship Artemis run aground by high winds not on the beaches of Barcelona or Spain but in western France. Still, a nice complementary image to this post. Photo by Natacha Favreau / AP. Source.)

“Barcelona and the surrounding region are suffering the worst drought in decades. There are several possible solutions, including diverting a river, and desalinating water. But the city looks like it will ship water from the French port of Marseilles.”

The amount of water being considered is “small – 25,000 cubic metres, less than what's needed to grow an acre of wheat, and not enough to keep 30 Spaniards going for a year.” But should this drought continue, growing worse and worse for years to come, we could see a new river, armored in metal and artificially propelled, flowing through the Mediterranean Sea.

And possibly more than one, all circulating through other seas and oceans: a braided, de-terrestrialized hydrology connecting parched landscapes and water-rich regions, knitted by climate change.


POSTSCRIPT #1: The plan is no longer being considered; it is being carried out. From The Guardian:

“The tanker Sichem Defender arrived at the port of Barcelona yesterday carrying something far more precious than its usual cargo of chemicals.

“Nearly 23m litres of drinking water - enough for 180,000 people for a day - was the first delivery in an unprecedented emergency plan to help this parched corner of Spain ahead of the holiday season.” (13 May 2008)


In the Archives:
What if Greenland was Africa's water fountain?

Future Tense:
Another New River in the Mediterranean Sea

Jampacked post.

Okay,

So, it has been a long and busy week. As you probably have noticed, I changed the first song to my playlist.com list. It now is: What Are You Waiting for by Natalie Grant. Surprisingly, I hadn't heard this song up until now. I think it pretty much sums up what people are trying to do these days by changing the world through positive outlets like Idol Gives Back. Like I suspected, the turnout was great. At last count,(Ryan Seacrest reported this tonight on American Idol) donations amounted to over 66 million. You still can make a difference though. Some of the clips from the show are still on sale. Many of them have made the top of the iTunes list.

The song really sums up what I am trying to do with this blog. Change the world one person at a time. If there is one thing, I hope you take from here it's that you never know how far one positive action can reach. So, please don't ever think or doubt your purpose in this world. You are here for something or someone special. Live your purpose out and see where it takes you. You never know what God has planned- and God has a plan for everyone.

Anyway, a lot of interesting shows are coming up during the next couple weeks. The first being a encore of Profoundly Normal. I have featured this movie in a previous post. It's entitled, oddly enough, Profoundly Normal. Starring Kristy Alley, this drama- documentary profiles the life of a disabled couple trying to make their way in this world. To catch this encore showing, watch Lifetime on Friday. Check your listings for time and channel, because it could be different than mine

Next, we have a chilling tale of what happens when a family is forced to deal with a newborn's disability. The movie is called The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Based on the best-selling book by Kim Edwards, you will be surprised how one choice can change the lives of so many others. In both good and bad ways. This movie can also be seen on lifetime, premiering Saturday April 12. Again, check local listings for the exact time.

Finally, Hallmark Hall of Fame has done again. Their newest movie entitled, Sweet Nothings in My Ear attempts to conquer the question of what is a disability and should we fix it if we could. This movie airs on Sunday, April 20 on CBS

I'm not really sure how to end this post. Usually, I just end it and that's that. But as always, I have been affected by everything that has occurred in my life this week. So, I will leave you with this. God loves you. You can make a difference no matter where are.

God bless you.

Debbie

Call for Urban Assault, or: Please Help Bill Thompson, FASLA

(Three Daniel Ilabacas arcing through space. Photo by Jon Lucas. Source.)

Apparently Landscape Architecture Magazine will be covering the urban phenomenon known as parkour in a future issue. But they need some help.

In an email to the LARCH-L, editor-in-chief Bill Thompson writes:

LAM is still trying to find information about a Parkours article. We are now trying to establish a good LA connection to the sport.

-LA s who have designed parks or who manage parks where Parkours is practiced
-LA s who have thoughts or theories about Parkours as a social phenomenon whom we could interview
-LA s who do Parkours.

Please get in touch if you know any of the above.

You can contact Bill Thompson via bthompson@asla.org.


(Daniel Ilabaca in the air like a frozen Archaeopteryx. Photo by Jon Lucas. Source.)

We've been intermittently tracking parkour for years now, so we're genuinely curious to find out who will answer the call and what “LA connection to the sport” the mothership will come up with.

Will we read in a few months' time of a registered landscape architect designing public spaces that are conducive to such high-octane urban exploration? Could this be an un-ironic attempt at injecting vitality into the built environment or just another lame attempt at co-opting subculture elements, distilling and making them palatable to the New Bourgeois of the New Condominiumed City?

Or is this RLA really working with municipal bureaucrats and private developers to specify time-saver anti-parkour construction standards and details, similar to anti-skateboarding strategies and anti-teen sonic devices?

Will we read instead about an RLA working as a research fellow with the Mayo Clinic to create a new city — a carbon-netural, car-free model city in the middle of the Arabian Desert — wherein pedestrians can only navigate through aerobic and anaerobic traceries, thus helping to eradicate obesity?

Or will we read about a landscape architect, registered or otherwise, collaborating with NASA scientists to design new landscapes for Mars or in other extraterrestrial locales by studying the aerial acrobatics of parkour devotees?

Will a studio tutor come forward and admit that he's been requiring students to perform hours of parkour at their project site, broken bones, bloody scrapes and litigous parents be damned?

Perhaps Bill Thompson will discover that one of his regular contributors had done a similar kind of site reading to better inform his critique of Martha Schwartz's new plaza or a new post-industrial heritage park by Peter Latz?

Or — woe upon woe — no one comes forward and we are all left wondering if the field of landscape architecture is truly dominated by residential design and thus is duplicitous in runaway urban sprawl, natural habitat destruction and the continuing mortgage crisis?


(Three more Daniel Ilabacas. Photo by Jon Lucas. Source.)

In any case, what exactly is parkour? An article published in The New Yorker almost exactly one year ago begins thus:

Parkour, a made-up word, cousin to the French parcours, which means “route,” is a quasi commando system of leaps, vaults, rolls, and landings designed to help a person avoid or surmount whatever lies in his path—a vocabulary, that is, to be employed in finding one’s way among obstacles. Parkour goes over walls, not around them; it takes the stair rail, not the stairs. Spread mainly by videos on the Internet, it has been embraced in Europe and the United States by thrill seekers and martial-arts adepts, who regard it as part extreme sport—its founder would like to see it included in the Olympics—and part gruelling meditative pursuit. Movies like its daredevil qualities. A bracing parkour chase begins “Casino Royale,” the recent James Bond movie. It includes jumps from the boom of one tower crane to that of another, but parkour’s customary obstacles are walls, stairwells, fences, railings, and gaps between roofs—it is an urban rather than a pastoral pursuit. The movements are performed at a dead run. The more efficient and fluid the path they define, and the more difficult and harrowing the terrain they cross, the more elegant the performance is considered by the discipline’s practitioners.

Feeling a bit indulgent, here's another very long quote, as found in Space and Culture:

Traceurs unanimously agree that PK changes their perception of space and the world around them. Viscerally they describe it as if the three dimensional landscape were being flattened out. Or sometimes as if they were able to see a two dimensional world with occasional three dimensional aspects - would-be obstacles that, instead of restricting movement, are now used to escape - mockingly — the confines of the flat landscape. If this sounds confusing to a non or newbie Traceur, start by allowing your eyes to travel across the landscape of Relativity by M. C. Escher. PK transforms the entire urban environment into Escher inspired paths where stairwells become ceiling, railings become steps, and walls become walkways. Traceurs move about in a world loosely defined by a Non-Euclidean Geometry where the shortest distance between two points is a great arc or a Parkour Cat Leap. That’s not vertigo you’re feeling. That’s the Flow. It’s a quick revision for the average Traceur to translate this into a creed for everyday living - there are no obstacles in life, only opportunities.

(Daniel Ilabaca occupying one of the city's interstitial spaces. Photo by Jon Lucas. Source.)

More fantastic photos by Jon Lucas of Daniel Ilabaca in this Flickr photoset. And if you want to know more about Ilabaca, you can watch him in the documentary video Parkour Journeys.

Giving back..

So,

I'm a little excited about tonight. The second Annual Idol Gives Back show is on tonight. For those of you that are unfamiliar, the show featured artists and celebrities on it in the effort to raise awareness about AIDS/HIV across the globe. The turnout was great last year, as I recall they raised over $1 million for the cause. I'm not a big American Idol fan, but I am planning on watching it. During the show, the home audience will be encouraged to call in and pledge money. If you are not into that, you can still make a difference by going to iTunes that night or a few days after, they will probably have some clips on sale from the show. If they do what they did last year, the proceeds from those clips will go into a fund helping AIDS related causes. Some people scheduled to appear are:

Robin Williams, Celine Dion, Forest Whitaker, Billy Crystal, Dane Cook, Kiefer Sutherland, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Jennifer Connolly, Elliott Yamin, Fantasia and Amy Adams join previously announced international talent and sports figures Bono, Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon, Miley Cyrus, Mariah Carey, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Fergie, Chris Daughtry, Carrie Underwood, Annie Lennox, John Legend, Snoop Dogg, Maroon 5, Heart and Gloria Estefan.

The show starts at 730 tonight, so turn on your television early and enjoy this concert of music. You can really make a difference in people's lives.

Blog changes

Okay,

I'm sure you may have noticed a few changes to the blog, I'm not sure if I'm going to keep them or not. It depends on whether you my readers enjoy them. So please let me know..

The first change is the addition of Project Playlist. This website allows people to add playlists of their favorite songs to any website. In my case, I have tried to make the playlist full of inspirational songs that can help you through your daily struggles. Making the playlist is free with registration.

Although, the playlist is kind of fun and entertaining.. I do find it kind of loud and distracting when you are reading posts. So, again, let me know.

Also, I continue to add more links to the sidebar. So keep an eye out.

Thanks,

Debbie

Hope is

Hello everyone,

Hope. When I say this word what do you think of? For many people, hope can mean a variety of things. Such as wishful thinking of dreams they want to come true or goals people expect to accomplish in the future.Dictionary.com defines hope as "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. "


For me, Hope is a more permanent thing. It doesn't change, but remains constant despite the circumstance. It is a tangible thing meant for people to believe in. I was reminded of this since my mother brought me a farewell poster that my college friends and staff had given me as I began this new stage of my life.Through those comments,I remembered Where my hope comes from. The Maker & Sustainer of life.I may not always feel or act this way. But it's always there.


Hope remains. One college theme verse that comes to mind is, "I have this hope.. firm and secure!" Keep in mind, this is a paraphrase. I don't remember the exact wording.


[Sidenote: I am kind of glad I came across this unfinished draft. I think the picture says it all.]

Lessons Learned from Pet Finder

Okay,

So I'm not really sure whether today's post has anything remotely valuable on disability, but I thought it was interesting.

You are probably wondering what I am talking about, right?

As you know, I often tape disability related television shows on my TiVo. It makes it easier for me when writing these posts since I rarely have time to sit down and watch TV. Except at night, that is. Anyway, I'm getting off topic here.

On Tuesday, there was a interesting episode of Pet Finder on Animal Planet. For those of you unfamiliar with this show, experts try to place its "contestants "with the appropriate pet. They take into account the person's housing situation, ability to care for a animal and personal needs while making the decision. It's a compelling show. One that hadn't heard of up until this specific episode.

Tuesday's episode featured a young girl with rheumatoid arthritis. Despite living with this disability, star will not give up when it comes to accomplishing her dreams. For example, doctors said she would not be able to walk without a fair amount of difficulty. Well, she is proving them wrong now with her ability to ride horses. Which brings me to her purpose on the show, she wanted pet finder to help in finding the perfect horse. Horseback riding not only not only helps to strengthen her muscles, but gives her the feeling she can do anything she puts her mind to it.

But before receiving her horse, there are some important lessons that needed to be learned. The first of which being, what size was appropriate for her. After riding several horses, they determined that a horse of 15 to 17 hands would work best.

The second lesson was a more difficult one. You see, star really wanted a white horse. But I don't think she really understood the work it took to keep a white horse clean. That is, until the experts brought in a beautiful white horse.. and it rolled in the mud. Star had to give the little horse a bath, leaving her exhausted. The lesson: "what you want is not always the best thing for you".

The next step was examining Star's expertise on a horse. Up until this point, she only knew how to trot and walk a horse. The experts thought it was important for her to learn how to canter a horse, that way she would know how to control her horse in case it ever was to be out of control. Star was able to accomplish this goal.

Giochi d'Acqua

(Fontana di Venere at Villa d'Este, Tivoli.)

In keeping with today's theme of antics and tomfoolery, above is an image of the Fontana di Venere at Villa d'Este, Tivoli, and below is an image of another fountain at the villa, the Teatro e Fontana della Civetta.

Made by Giovanni Francesco Venturini in 1691 and digitized by Catena, the Digital Archive of Historic Gardens and Landscapes, they are two of the best illustrations available online showing a giochi d'acqua in action.

Giochi d'acqua were water jets concealed between paving slabs, in benches, staircases and statues. Controlled by gardeners behind the scenes, these hidden little fountains would sprinkle unsuspecting visitors, catching them off-guard. One minute they're enjoying the genteel pleasantries of a garden walk and the next minute they're scampering about in their fineries, frantically searching for an escape, if there is one.

With the spigots in the hands of the lascivious, women could get a titillating squirt up their dresses or get completely soaked from a puti's simulated urine or other.


(Teatro e Fontana della Civetta at Villa d'Este, Tivoli.)

Replace the water with battery acid and you could have the penultimate setting of Indiana Jones V or Tomb Raider III. Not in the Mayan jungles of the Yucatan or steamy Angkor Wat but in a sun-drenched papal garden of Tuscany. It's an anxious space under constant threat of eruptions.

In any case, these whimsical water features — which really were an astoundingly complex network of hydraulics — were common in Mannerist Italian gardens, since they provided the element of surprise, an important feature of any mannerist work.

In the Archives:
On fountains