Today, we have too many choices. Like, when they built Sienna, they built the whole city out of terra di Sienna. They had the bricks out of the soil from the place, right? Or in the Dogon regions of Africa. Everything is made out of the local dirt there—traditionally there was not a lot of choice of what you built out of. So there was a tremendous amount of coherence to the place because it was built out of local materials. Today, we can buy stuff from any place. Get marble from China or whatever, and so the world is starting to look the same everywhere, kind of like the tower of Babel. These consistent, simple places are disappearing

Brian MacKay-Lyons, “On Ecological Contextualism,” 2017

#brian mackay-lyons #ecology #context #today #choice #tower #siena #brick #soil #dogon #africa #local #dirt #tradition #selection #specification #place #coherence #china #babe #consistency

nickkahler

There are five types of spies to be employed: local spy, internal spy, turned (double agent) spy; dead (expendable) spy; and the living spy.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War, c. 450 BCE

#sun tzu #art of war #quote #type #spy #spies #employment #military #strategy #internal #local #turned #double agent #dead #expendable #living #alive #knowledge #information #tactics #war #warfare

nickkahler

Atlanta specializes in the ND, the nondescript. Middle America, suburbia, any story that’s not anchored to a specific geographical locale—Atlanta does that extremely well.

Jason Underwood in Hannah Palmer, "Film in Atlanta’s Rotten Core,” 2017

#jason underwood #hannah palmer #atlanta #core #nondescript #generic #warhouse project #suburbia #story #local #locale #geography #narrative #quote

nickkahler

The beautiful thing about preservation is you begin with something that already exists and therefore is already local. By definition, a preservation project is an homage to earlier cultures and mentalities to which you can add a new dimension, a new function, a new beauty or appeal. Almost every impulse signals that globalization needs rethinking or adjustment.

Rem Koolhaas, “On the State of Architecture at the AIA Convention,” 2016

#rem koolhaas #architecture #renovation #preservation #historic preservation #local #project #homage #culture #mentality #dimension #function #beauty #appeal #globalization #design #quote

nickkahler

A comprehension of arts clusters requires specificity and particular attention to the uniqueness of the type of art and place itself. Targeted local development may be the most important means by which to support the arts, rather than broader federal, state or regional efforts. Distinctions between arts clusters occur at localized level and thus ought to be supported as such.

Carl Grodach in Richard Florida, "Why Cities Can't Afford to Lose Their Artists," 2014

#carl grodach #richard florida #quote #art #cluster #target #mean #support #state #region #national #federal #city #local #global #funding #economy #urbanism

nickkahler

Life without community has produced, for many, a life style consisting mainly of a home-to-work-and-back-again shuttle. Social well-being and psychological health depend upon community. It is no coincidence that the ‘helping professions’ became a major industry in the United States as suburban planning helped destroy local public life and the community support it once lent.

Ray Oldenburg, "On the Third Place," 2014 (via saporta)

#ray oldenburg #quote #life #community #shuttle #social #coincidence #health #united states #suburbanism #suburb #destroy #local #public life #psychology #third place #place #space #support #city #design #popular

nickkahler

It must be the year of the stadium in Atlanta. First there were lengthy, often secretive, negotiations with the Falcons about a new stadium deal to keep them inside the city limits. Then the Atlanta Braves announced—to the surprise of many—their intent to move out of Turner Field and into a new stadium in Cobb County by 2017. In contrast to the Falcons, negotiations between the Braves and Cobb County seem to have taken place almost entirely without public knowledge and input, much less oversight. (Several well-connected private real estate investors did know when to snap up some providentially located parcels of land, however.) This is notable as Cobb County is offering the Braves public financing that far exceeds (as a percentage of the overall cost of the project) what Atlanta ended up doling out to the Falcons. It is also notable because leaving the city center to move to the intersection of I-75 and I-285 runs counter to the established trend of developing new sporting-centered redevelopment projects in urban rather than suburban locales. Individual stadia might regularly sprawl, but in projects where the stadium is expected to anchor additional live-work-play development, the trend is to stay inside the city limits (consider the new Nationals stadium in DC, for instance). The Braves, and some pundits, argue that the new stadium will be part of a larger, “walkable” development project, and that Cobb County really is increasingly as urban as the city of Atlanta. Unfortunately a walkable island floating in a sea of car-centric sprawl does not replicate the experience of urbanity. Indeed, various political leaders in Cobb County have already announced that any transportation infrastructure improvements related to the new stadium will focus exclusively on adding more automobile-centered capacity and will exclude any efforts to add public transportation capacity linking the new stadium to the city after which the franchise is named. It is worth remembering that these sorts of deals over the past three decades, if not longer, have been shown to benefit mostly very wealthy team owners, generally at the expense of the communities in which their new, shiny stadiums are located.

Benjamin Flowers, "The Atlanta Braves Embrace Sprawl," 2013

nickkahler reblogged

archidose

nickkahler

Clement Valla, Seed Drawing, 2011 (via archidose)

'The iterative process of copying produces growth-like structures in which different patterns of influence and large-scale structures emerge. These larger drawing characteristics are purely the result of local interactions; beyond the writing of the algorithm, no single individual is making larger decisions for the group.'

#seed #drawing #architecture #structure #scale #local #interaction #clement valla #grid #art #iteration #series #growth #biology

nickkahler reblogged

subtilitas

Today’s cities, however, look quite different from the cities of the future imagined by our predecessors a century ago. City dwellers are too often confined within monotonous grids, their connections to other people are severed, and they are condemned to an isolated existence. By now, those who migrated to the cities dreaming of a life of freedom and abundance have lost their spirited expressions and been reduced to a crowd of alienated individuals. Modernist architecture built a wall between itself and nature and relied on technology to create artificial environments with no connection to nature. It privileged function and efficiency, and cut itself off from the unique history and culture of its local settings. This kind of isolation from nature and rejection of the local community is to blame for the uniformity of today’s cities and the people who live in them.

Toyo Ito, Pritzker Prize Acceptance Speech, 2013 (via subtilitas)

nickkahler

Atlanta Constitution Article on Local Hotels, Atlanta, GA, c. 1913

#hotel #atlanta #history #newspaper #architecture #tower #skyscraper #AJC #atlanta constitution #local

nickkahler

Etymologies of the Month (November 2010)

November Continued the Technomadic Dwellings and Notions of the City as Place

Event (n): 1570s, from M.Fr. event, from L. eventus "occurrence, accident, event, fortune, fate, lot, issue," from pp. stem of evenire "to come out, happen, result," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + venire "to come" (see venue: early 14c., "a coming for the purpose of attack," from O.Fr. venue "coming," from fem. pp. of venir "to come," from L. venire "to come," from PIE base *gwa- "to go, come" (cf. O.E. cuman "to come;" see come). The sense of "place where a case in law is tried" is first recorded 1530s. Extended to locality in general, especially "site of a concert or sporting event" (1857)).
Game (n): O.E. gamen "joy, fun, amusement," common Gmc. (cf. O.Fris. game, O.N. gaman, O.H.G. gaman "joy, glee"), regarded as identical with Goth. gaman "participation, communion," from P.Gmc. *ga- collective prefix + *mann "person," giving a sense of "people together." Meaning "contest played according to rules" is first attested c.1300.
Space (n): c.1300, "an area, extent, expanse, lapse of time," aphetic of O.Fr. espace, from L. spatium "room, area, distance, stretch of time," of unknown origin. (v): 1703, "to arrange at set intervals."
Place (n): O.E. "open space in a city, market place, square," from O.Fr. place, from M.L. placea "place, spot," from L. platea "courtyard, open space, broad street," from Gk. plateia (hodos) "broad (way)," fem. of platys "broad," from PIE *plat- "to spread" (cf. Skt. prathati "spreads out;" Hitt. palhi "broad;" Lith. platus "broad;" Ger. Fladen "flat cake;" O.Ir. lethan "broad"); extended variant form of base *pele- (see plane). Wide application in English, covering meanings that in French require three words: place, lieu, and endroit. Cognates: It. piazza and Sp. plaza retain more of the etymological sense. Broad sense of "material space, dimension of defined or indefinite extent" is from mid-13c. Sense of "position on some social scale" is from early 14c.
Square (n): c.1300, "tool for measuring right angles," from O.Fr. esquire "a square, squareness," from V.L. *exquadra, from *exquadrare "to square," from L. ex- "out" (see ex-) + quadrare "make square," from quadrus "a square," from quattuor "four" (see quart). Meaning "rectangular shape or area" is recorded by late 14c.; replaced O.E. feower-scyte. Sense of "open space in a town or park" is from 1680s. The mathematical sense of "a number multiplied by itself" is first recorded 1550s. The verb is first attested late 14c.
Triangle (n): late 14c., from O.Fr. triangle (13c.), from L. triangulum "triangle," from neut. of adj. triangulus "three-cornered," from tri- "three" (see tri-) + angulus "corner, angle" (see angle: "intersecting lines," late 14c., from L. angulum "corner," a dim. form from PIE base *ang-/*ank- "to bend" (cf. Gk. ankylos "bent, crooked," L. ang(u)ere "to compress in a bend, fold, strangle," O.C.S. aglu "corner," Lith. anka "loop," Skt. ankah "hook, bent," O.E. ancleo "ankle," O.H.G. ango "hook").).
Plane (n): "flat surface," c.1600, from L. plantum "flat surface," properly neut. of adj. planus "flat, level, plain, clear," from PIE *pla-no- (cf. Lith. plonas "thin;" Celtic *lanon "plain;" perhaps also Gk. pelanos "sacrificial cake, a mixture offered to the gods, offering (of meal, honey, and oil) poured or spread"), suffixed form of base *pele- "to spread out, broad, flat" (cf. O.C.S. polje "flat land, field," Rus. polyi "open;" O.E., O.H.G. feld, M.Du. veld "field").
Camp (n): W.Gmc. *kampo-z, an early loan from L. campus "open field, level space" (cf. Fr. champ; see campus), especially "open space for military exercise." Originally borrowed as O.E. camp "contest," this was obsolete by mid-15c. Meaning "place where an army lodges temporarily" is a later reborrowing (1520s), from Fr. camp, from It. campo, from the same L. source. Transferred to non-military senses 1550s. The verb meaning "to encamp" is from 1540s.
Local (adj): late 14c., "pertaining to position," from O.Fr. local, from L.L. localis "pertaining to a place," from L. locus "place" (see locus: 1715, "locality," from L. locus "place," from O.Latin stlocus, lit. "where something is placed," from PIE base *st(h)el- "to cause to stand, to place." Used by Latin writers for Gk. topos). The meaning "limited to a particular place" is from 1610s.
Global (adj): 1670s, “spherical,” from globe + -al. Meaning “worldwide, universal” is from 1892. Globe (n): 1550s, "sphere," from L. globus "round mass, sphere," related to gleba "clod, soil, land" (see glebe: c.1300, from O.Fr. glebe, from L. gleba "clod, lump," from PIE *glebh- "to roll into a ball" (cf. L. globus "sphere;" O.E. clyppan "to embrace;" Lith. glebys "armful," globti "to embrace, support"). Earliest English sense is "land forming a clergyman's benefice," on notion of soil of the earth as source of vegetable products).

#camp #city #dwelling #event #game #global #local #place #plane #space #square #technomad #triangle #etymology