radio

Was interviewed by WLRN's Luis Hernandez on his show, Sundial. Their article includes link to the audio recording. A highlight: "It's on architects and designers to a degree. And then through us, it's on everybody. On the one hand, we [architects] have enormous power in terms of being public intellectuals, activists, and teachers. We have an opportunity to set an example. But at the same time, architects have very little power in our society. In the case of carbon emissions, what drives most carbon emissions are policy decisions either made by public policymakers, like in government, or by private developers. The biggest thing that we could do is simply change our land-use patterns so that we don't drive everywhere--and that's a public policy decision that's really out of the hands of architects."

pecha kucha

Great thanks to my FIU colleague, Ray Elman, editor of Inspicio e-Magazine, for featuring tin box. The illustrated essay is based on a pecha kucha presentation we created on the house. It offers a quick overview of our attitudes toward sustainability and community.

act now

James Jiler, the brilliant gardener and social activist who turned our back yard into a food forest and butterfly nursery, recently published an excellent essay on the value of gardening programs in prisons. Using examples taken from his own work in New York and Florida, as well as research and programs in the US and abroad, James makes a compelling case for reforming prisons to better support the rehabilitation of prisoners. We have a chance to help our neighbors and to relieve ourselves of the crushing financial burden of prison costs. Talk to James about how you can get involved.

moving FIU forward

Yesterday, we hosted the FIU GoGreen team (Carrie, Ali, Connie - seen here hugging our cistern - and Jerry) whose work at FIU involves moving the university toward more sustainable operations. It's a Herculean task - the university often mirrors Miami's troubling lack of concern for environmental issues - but the Office of University Sustainability is directed by smart and energetic people who are gradually making a big difference. Take a look at their initiatives and events on FIU's campuses, and get involved.

driving lessons

Last night, somewhere on I-75, the odometer on our 2007 Prius crossed the highly symbolic, yet utterly unimportant, 100,000 mile threshold. To mark the event, we’re listing the lessons learned from the car, and how they influenced the design of tin box...

"a nursery of opportunity"

This is the video of James Jiler's talk, "A Sentence of Transformation," at TEDxCoconutGrove last October. James talked about his experiences developing horticulture programs for prisoners at Rikers Island, and, since 2008, his work with Urban GreenWorks, which helps at-risk adults and minors through garden-building projects in South Florida.

James designed the beautiful food forest and native plant landscape around tin box, which produces food for us, creates habitat for native species, and conserves water and natural resources. Next on our reading list: his 2006 book, Doing Time in the Garden, about gardening in prisons.

planning FIU

The Perkins + Will master plan for FIU’s Maidique Campus is good. There are some particularly good places in the plan where the architects have laid out new courtyard spaces that echo the scale of the campus’s more successful outdoor spaces. The new courtyards promise to help foster and sustain discourse by creating gathering places for the academic community. There are, however, some limitations to the plan:  

night

The courtyard (left) and the front of the house (below) at night. The transparency of the windows and doors (created by the lighting in the courtyard - including the hanging Foscarini Uto lamps - and in the interior) emphasizes the continuity of the roof structure between the inside and outside. Our next step is to furnish the courtyard, so we can take better advantage of the low humidity and moderate evening temperature of the dry season.

the difference between community and adjacency

We celebrated our first Halloween at tin box last week. The house’s construction makes it easy to decorate: the ferromagnetic shell allowed us to hang spiders using magnets, the thin edges of the steel purlins were the perfect place to clip the blinking jack-o-lantern lights, and the steel exterior panels let us hang spooky plastic stuff with simple masking tape. The electrical outlet on the porch is perfectly placed to power the blinking lights, whose orange glow harmonizes well with the silver skin of the house. There was just one problem. Nobody showed up.

contrasts

With the construction fence removed today, the transparency of the living/dining room and its relationships to the park and courtyard have become more visible. Here's the covered patio facing the park, seen from the park with the sun setting behind. The rest of the landscape is coming into shape vey quickly.

progress

The shell of the house is nearing completion. We needed to have several exterior wall panels remade, and they are being installed this week. The windows and doors should start going in Monday, and some bathroom fixture might start going in Tuesday.

In the meantime, here are some progress photos of the house. The view of the house from the park gives you a sense of how the color and scale of the building work with the vegetation and topography. This week's rain made the park especially lush (note the thick carpet of resurrection ferns on the limbs of the live oak to the right). We're eager to see the effect of planting the low roofs of the house with flowering plants and vines, though that part of the project will have to wait for at least a year.

We're also psyched about the transparency of the living/dining room. In this photo, you can see through that wing of the house, into the courtyard. And the courtyard is looking good, too...

Design Miami

"How much does your house weigh?"

Buckminster Fuller's famous aphorism-in-the-form-of-a-question brilliantly raised concerns that had escaped the focus of architects, but would become central to the practice of many of the twentieth-century's key figures. Fuller's interest in efficiency and his close study of natural forms led to the invention of the geodesic dome, the dymaxion living units and the concept of synergy. Design Miami worked with Fuller's friend, Norman Foster, to bring two projects - a restored fly's eye dome and a new dymaxion car built by the British architect - to the Design District this week. It was spectacular to spend time poring over both, as well as the accompanying exhibition of photographs and drawings. And that's not all Design Miami had for us this year...

walls

Social sustainability hinges on the ability to foster community, which, in the built environment, emerges from public spaces - streets, squares, parks - that engage, excite and reward the people who use them.

One of the best developments in Miami in recent years has been the explosion of large-scale graffiti in the Wynwood district north of downtown. These murals transform neglected streets into vibrant public space.

touch

Walking to the National Mall in Washington today, I remembered how hard it is to pass by the East Wing of the National Gallery without stopping in. It's like visiting an old friend. And while pausing to say hello to the sculpture by Richard Serra and the painting by Robert Motherwell, we were struck by that other famous quality of the building - the way it invites the visitor's touch.

I. M. Pei's building has always compelled people to touch it, and I'm not sure why. It makes sense in the parts where the whole building comes to a sharp point - you just want to touch that prow, or whatever it is - but throughout the building there are stains on the walls right at the height of a visitor's hand, where countless museum-goers have left a little oily trace of their visit. It's the remarkable gift of this richly complex building that it engages people in such a warmly physical way.

You've got to love a building that makes you want to touch it:

tagged, again

At some point in the last 24 hours, we got some new graffiti at tin box. Somebody made a spray paint stencil and tried it out on our construction fence (left, and after the break), and on the electric pole next to our house. Cool tag. The art is definitely improving around the house.

neighbors

One of the reasons we chose South Miami - and this particular corner of South Miami - to build our home was the sense of community in the area. We liked the neighbors we'd already met, and we felt that the house could contribute - even if just in a small way - to strengthening the neighborhood's sense of community.

At the same time, we know the house is not going to earn universal acclaim. One woman who drove by the other day seemed particularly disturbed to find out this was a house. She assumed it was some kind of support structure for the park across the street.

But then there's the teenagers who rode their bikes by yesterday. One yelled to the others, "that's a [expletive deleted] cool house!"

We agree.

[pictured: our new steel erector completing the frame on Tuesday.]

more bike lanes

bike lane, SW 72nd Street

Three reasons automobile drivers should love dedicated bicycle lanes:

bike lanes

Props to our local governments – the City of South Miami and Miami-Dade County – for continuing to build bike lanes and better sidewalks in the community. We have a long way to go, but the county’s efforts to provide bike lanes, shade and better pedestrian crossings are gradually improving our streetscape.

The recent improvements to 62nd Avenue are – hopefully – a harbinger of a better interventions to come. They show a good grasp of some important urban design practices:

courtyard

With the purlins in place and the roofs and eaves taking shape, we've got a better sense of the scale of the courtyard and its relationship to the major interior spaces. At left, a photo through the dining and living room into the courtyard and the dense vegetation of the back yard. The large (8 feet by 11 feet) openings between the courtyard and the living/dining room will have gliding glass doors to maintain as much visual transparency as possible, even when closed. When open, the glass doors will help join the courtyard and living/dining room into a single expansive space, defined by the lush border of trees and plants at the edge of the yard (while in the other direction, the park across the street will feel like a verdant extension of the courtyard and living/dining room). So, how does the kitchen fit into this?

flash urbanism, food truck edition

We just returned from Food Truck Invasion, a weekly event which is probably the largest and loudest food truck gathering in South Florida. About 60 trucks set up shop in Tamiami Park, outside the county fairgrounds and next to FIU's main campus. Hundreds of people come out, drawn as much by the spectacle of the crowd as by their jonesin' for a minuta sandwich or plate of yaroa (imagine poutine crossed with a cheesesteak). It's a wonderful experience.