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Re-Building From Scratch: Earthquakes & War

by Tony Chavira 2010-02-08

(FYI this poster says "Let's Re-Built!)

Platform 3.17, is a really awesome informational/coffee table-ish book just released that talks about the devastation that an earthquake in the Italian town of L'Aquila caused and what local government and architectural designers did to deal with it fast that you might find pretty interesting:

When a devastating earthquake hit L'Aquila in April of 2009, Italian civil service agency the Civil Protection launched the C.A.S.E. Project to rebuild safe, high quality homes. Employing 16 Italian companies to design and build these new houses, the book "Platform 3.17" tells the incredible story of a creative and constructive process where innovation met craftsmanship through tragic circumstances.

One of the master carpenters, Wood Beton from Brescia in northern Italy, was an unexpected choice for C.A.S.E. Known for their extensive building experience, however, their work was remarkable and the book widely documents it with images, as well as with precise technical details.

Using a highly sustainable and very fast "dry" construction technique, Wood Beton finished the first apartments in just 55 days—almost a month earlier than conditions foreseen in the bid. The first four units are three stories high and connect by three staircases, which play a structural role as "columns" that support the entire building. Each floor has eight apartments of various sizes, ranging from studios up to three-bedrooms.

The key point in this story is not that it was "something as simple as new and innovative concrete uses."  The key point here is that the Italian government got off their fat bureaucratic butts and did something about the earthquake’s devastation fast and effectively.  Needless to say, I hope our own government can take some vital emergency response lessons out of this example in how to do things the right way.

And since we’re talking about starting from relative scratch, Volume Magazine, a pretty cool magazine that focuses on creative ventures in the architectural community, is hosting an international conference in May called “Architecture of Peace.”  Collectively put together by VOLUME, the University of Amsterdam, Archis Interventions, Partizan Publik and the NAi, and supported by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Science, “Architecture of Peace” actually has a public call for project that will inspire or instigate peace in post-conflict places, and it’ll definitely be a great change for your peace-lovin’ design concepts.  So do it up, starving architects and who knows?  Those architecture school skillz may end up paying the billz.

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FourStory Goes to Cuba

by Nathan Walpow 2010-02-06

Yeah, you read that right. And by “FourStory,” I don’t mean we’re getting one lousy report from a stringer and posting it as our own. I mean the whole damned staff is going. For a week in mid-March. We’ll look at housing and transportation and sustainable living and the arts and all the other stuff we’re used to covering in more local environs. Then we’ll come back and you’ll get a whole bunch of feature articles and photo spreads and whatever else we can think of. Plus we’ll be blogging from Havana while we’re there.

More details soon ...

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Cat In the Hat With Huggy Bear

by Gary Phillips 2010-02-05

I'm a big fan of those character actors you see over and over in films and television, year in and year out, and most people say, "Who's that again?"  Antonio Fargas is one such actor.  For good and for ill, he's best known for his role as a jive talking snitch, Huggy Bear, on the '70s TV cop show, Starsky & Hutch.  Most of the time, the two intrepid plainclothesmen tooled around town and chased bad guys in Starsky's lifted '75 red Gran Torino, eschewing Huthinson's beat-to-shit '73 Galaxie 500 - though of course a much better car to use undercover but definitely not a cool whip.

Anyway, back to my subject.  Fargas has made fun of his own image in various films like I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, wearing platform shoes filled with water and goldfish, and, as these things go, is a much better actor that people generally know.  He's been in all manner of movies, on stage and in TV shows from Charlie's Angels, daytime soap All My Children as Angie's dad, to another reoccurring role playing the wise Doc, a corner store owner, in the recently canceled Everybody Hates Chris, a funny, observational show that wasn't your typical over-the-top black sitcom.

I think it's pretty cool that Mr. Fargas is now the spokesperson for, no, not some sort of high energy drink called Pimp Juice (that honor has already been taken by rapper Nelly), but for It Helps to Have a Dream foundation, concerned with worldwide literacy.  I don't know squat about the organization, but who can be against literacy...I mean, except teabaggers and viewers of Fixed News?  So here's to a cat who never had his name on the marquee, but kept at it and did the best he could with often threadbare material and always gave back.

And speaking of football -- Fargas' son Justin is a running back with the Oakland Raiders -- go Saints!  Oh, and it seems it's okay to run the Focus on the Family sponsored Tim Tebow ad, but check out this ad the sanctimonious suits at CBS refused to air during the Super Bowl from GoDaddy.com.

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Do You Really Want to See What Less Government Looks Like?

by Tony Chavira 2010-02-04

Via the Denver Post:

Colorado Springs cuts into services considered basic by many

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."

Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class.

Seriously, read the rest of the article... it's amazing how liberatarian the city prides itself as until essential services are completely cut off.  Needless to say, it's sad times for people who hate taxes, but at least President Obama seems to get it.

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Snowklahoma!!

by Donna Schoenkopf 2010-02-04

Thank you, Don Walker, for the following song.  (Sing to the tune of "Oklahoma".)

SNOW…….klahoma
Where the cold front's sweepin' down the plain
And the piles of sleet, beneath your feet
Follow right behind the freezing rain.
 
SNOW…….klahoma
Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Travel home from work and hope some jerk
Doesn’t wreck our car passing by!
 
We know we belong to the land
But it could use some more salt and sand
 
That’s why we say…..WHOA!
We’re sliding the other way…….YIKES!
 
We’re only sayin’
You’re slick as snot SNOWklahoma
SNOWklahoma
SNOW-K-L-A-H-O-M-A
 
SNOWklahoma, SNOW-K!

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