Igloo Construction

Did you know that the blocks are arranged in a spiral?!




Via Kottke

Blondie

Link

Do relatively poorer people join the military?

The short answer is no.



A key quote:

But still, this much is clear: when discussing the U.S. military in the aggregate, the common notion that the military is a stop of last resort, increasingly staffed by low-income desperadoes with slim future prospects, cannot be right.

Link

Architecture and Interface

This is an interesting article from one of my favorite blogs about the parallels between the process of designing a building and the process of designing an interface. What could be more perfect for HB&A, since we do both every day!

One quote:

Good design supports intuitive pathways within the structure. The design accounts for the most common use cases and makes solving these use cases obvious. In our work, we always want users to have a sense of where they are and where they can go.

Link

Great Exploration Maps

Nifty map showing some of the great voyages in history and literature. If you're in the travelling mood.

Link

via Kottke

Military Installations are Pretty Walkable

Streetsblog has an interesting post analyzing census data to list the places that house the highest percentage of people who walk to work. On the list:

Naval Academy, Maryland
West Point, NY
Air Force Academy, Colorado
Lackland AFB, TX

These are all relatively low-population places, but even if you increase the total population threshold to 20,000, Fort Bragg and Fort Hood are both on the top ten list.

So, the moral of the story is that military installations have good conditions for a pedestrian environment to thrive, they just need the planning to encourage it.

Link

Via Planetizen

Clever Wayfinding

This parking garage is painted so that you can see which way to go if you're looking at it from the right angle.

Link

Thanks, Doug

Walmart's Spread

Doug sent this out to everyone, but it's worth putting up here too. Some smart person has put together a really cool looking visualization of the spread of Walmart stores across the country.

Link

Thanks Doug

Brad Pitt Wants to be an Architect

In the tradition of aspiring architects, Brad takes his turn building architectural models with Frank Gehry.



More here

Microsoft Trying to Compete With Sketchup

Microsoft has purchased a 3-D modeling program called trueSpace and released it for free. You can build models and place them in Microsofts Virtual Earth.

You can get trueSpace here.

via Digital Urban

Walking Directions in Google Maps

Now you can get walking directions from Google Maps. It looks like they're still not aware of all of the walking paths available, but still cool.

See below:


View Larger Map

via Google LatLong

"Planners waste architects' time"

An article from Ireland.

Eighty percent of architects believe that planning decisions made by local authorities do not support good quality design.

Energy Modeling

In doing a little bit of research, I ran across this Sketchup application for doing basic energy modeling at the conceptual stage. I love the idea of this. It would be awesome to be able to compare area-wide energy performance of different alternatives at the early planning stages.

It's called Demeter

Pedestrian Environment in Melbourne

Thanks, Doug.

Las Vegas CityCenter

"At 18 million square feet, the new sustainable spot on the strip called CityCenter boasts a square footage that is bigger than all current LEED certified buildings combined."

Link

Economics Blogs

How long should you wait for an elevator?
The incentives for violence in hockey
The wisdom of crowds
Time travel back to 1000 A.D.: Survival tips
Singularity Special
Happiness and redistribution
Ballerinas and Information Asymmetry
Safety dog
Commodity meat

These are just some titles of recent posts on economics blogs.

The world of academic economists keeping blogs is one of the most vibrant parts of the internet. For whatever reason, reading these economists exercising their considerable intellects while discussing everyday topics in a non-academic mode is fascinating. Anybody who's looked through Freakonomics knows that the way economists think can be a great way to dig into non-economics topics.

Here are my favorites:

Marginal Revolution
Free Exchange
Growthology
Freakonomics
Assymetrical Information
Edward Glaeser's Academic Papers (thanks Matt P.)

Dubai

Underwater hotels, 25% of the world's cranes, a building 40% taller than the current tallest building in the world, another building that will be 3X the height of the empire state building, indoor skiing, etc.


http://view.break.com/506730 - Watch more free videos

Thanks to Orsillo for the tip.

Paths

"Collect all the paths you can think of in a pile, pull out the 8 paths that 80% of your visitors come looking for, and that’s your home page."

A lot of planning is about information design, and it is very important to separate out how we experience data from how the user of a plan experiences it. We may think it hierarchies, but the user thinks in paths.

A good short blog post about the difference between paths and hierarchies. Could be important in the way that we think about our website or our plans.

Link

Via 37Signals: Signal Vs. Noise

"Think Star Wars storm trooper without the helmet"

Real Life Iron Man suit.

Link

Thanks, Matt!

Greensburg, KS

The two Kansas architecture schools are making lemonade out of lemons in Greensburg, Kansas, and using the tornado-destroyed town's rebuilding effort as a laboratory for sustainable building ideas.

Link

Thanks Matt for the tip!

The Whole World

Tell me you can watch this commercial and not say, "Yeah, the world IS awesome"

Pricey Home

The fifth richest man in the world is building a 27-story home for $2 billion.

Link

Via Kottke

County Surveyor Remains Humble, Despite Awesome Power

"While it does not affect me in the slightest, I can understand how some might find being sole protector of more than 900 miles of county-regulated drains impressive. Sexy, even."

Link

via Planetizen

British Coins

Awesome design from a graphic designer that had never done coins before.

Link

Via Kottke

Norman Mailer's Lego Utopia

It was too big to remove from his house when he died.

Link

Via
City of Sound

Non-automobile streets

New York Times article on making streets friendlier. Best word: Woonerf.

Link

Bonus: Commuting pictures

Via Kottke

Space Planning

Neat way of envisioning available space in facilities.

Link

via
Signal vs. Noise

Peach Pit Floors

link

Desire Paths

Desire Paths: Those worn-down pathways in the grass where informal routing has created trails that don't match the designed paved paths.

Here are a whole bunch of pictures of them: Link

Reusing Runways

Cool images from a design competition aimed at reusing an old triangular runway complex.

Link

Roof Leak

The water tank collects rain, bulges from the ceiling into the living room, and holds up the roof.

link