In a recent New York Times article, "A Cabin Is Not a Shack," writer Louise Tutelian reports on the emerging trend to green second homes, or "cabins" as these houses are identified. One such cabin featured in the article, which is pictured below, was built in Montana using only local and reclaimed materials.
The article maintains that currently, cabin culture is defined by the following:
Ditch the deer heads and moose antlers.
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New York magazine's "The 72-Room Bohemian Dream House" unveils what is perhaps "the greatest real-estate coup of all time": 190 Bowery Street. In 1966, thanks to much pressure from his real estate agent, photographer Jay Maisel scrounged up enough money, $102,000 to be exact, to purchase the abandoned 1898 Germania Bank building in Manhattan's Bowery district, which then was largely middle-class and German and by no means a "hot" neighborhood. 42 years, Meisel still lives there with his wife, Linda, and daughter, Amanda.
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What's the first thing you do when you buy a $4 million penthouse in lower Manhattan? If you're Matthew Blesso, you don't move in; instead, you allow two Yale professors to use the space as a giant experimental classroom.
Fred A.
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.larger.jpg "In The News: 60 Years Later, \"Temporary\" Homes Occupied")
During a housing shortage in England after World War II, planners turned to prefab to help with the rapidly expanding populace. The Excalibur estates in the town of Catford (located in the borough of Lewisham in greater London) were built to shelter new families temporarily and were only expected to last for 10 years. Now, 60 years later, those houses are still inhabited.
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David Elliot Cohen, the photographer who dreamt up the coffee table book series A Day in the Life has turned his eye to new topics. In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, he says that "Photography is now wallpaper . .
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Design show hosts have gotten used to entering into contestants' homes, but for once the tables are turned. HGTV's Rate My Space host Angelo Surmelis recently played host to the LA Times, who interviewed him about the renovation of his 1920s Los Angeles bungalow. Well aware that "no matter how splendidly you've decorated the rest of your house, guests always end up in the kitchen," Surmelis took three weeks and $20,000 to transform his eyesore of a kitchen ("a jumble of scruffy cupboards, wood paneling, a broken stove and grimy old linoleum," shown here gutted) into a modern-meets-vintage splendor.
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Interested in getting the lowdown about green architecture? Then I suggest you read the Newsweek article, "The Bad News About Green Architecture." For a good while now, the reporting of green architecture practices has been nothing less than greenwashed, and I've been waiting for a mainstream publication to address our country's problem with its perception and definition of "green" architecture.
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One of the main reasons that green power hasn't taken off is its high price tag, but Australian PhD candidate Nicole Kuepper may be changing that. This green-thinking student has discovered a way to produce solar cells using a pizza oven, nail polish, and ink jet printers.
According to the The Sydney Morning Herald:
Ms Kuepper realised a new approach would be needed if affordable cells were to be made on site in poorer countries: "What started off as a brainstorming session has resulted in the iJET cell concept that uses low-cost and low-temperature processes, such as ink-jet printing and pizza ovens, to manufacture solar cells."
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Although there are many things to admire about cyclist and activist Lance Armstrong, his blatant water abuse isn't one of them. According to the New York Times, Armstrong's Austin home guzzled down 330,000 gallons of water in July alone! For comparison, most US households only use 120,000 gallons of water in a year.
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Back in March, in an interview with German publication Die Ziet, prolific industrial designer Philippe Starck admitted to feeling "ashamed" for being "a producer of materiality," saying, "Everything I have created is absolutely unnecessary." In shock, the design world was buzzing. Would this mean retirement for the can-do-no-wrong designer?
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