In February, Matt Lebens of Radio Is Down forwarded me an email requesting permission to show two album covers I had designed from the curator of Editions Of You, a handmade music and zine fair held at Oxford Brookes University. Yes, Oxford, England.
How some folks in England got ahold of our little band’s records is still a mystery. Regardless, it makes me happy knowing someone liked the rough simplicity of our intentions. Editions Of You opened yesterday and will be on display until Sunday, April 24th for those of you readers who happen to be in or around England. The show will feature a wide array of handmade album packaging styles and zines from the UK, Germany, US and Australia.
Two of my pieces were included in the show. You can read more about the handmade CD packaging I submitted here and below is a scan of the front of the record jacket.
Scored and cut pallet paper with two-color screen printing.
Recently, I attended a workshop through the University of Oregon led by David Celento, a registered architect and an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Penn State University. With degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Harvard GSD, his work focuses upon digital design and fabrication tools. Celento’s recent work at the European Ceramic Work Centre in the Netherlands involved developing ceramic tessellations that could be developed into climate-responsive architectural cladding.
Working in teams of two, workshop participants developed simple two dimensional designs from predefined geometric boundaries based on interlocking Islamic patterning, a simple star and dodecahedron. Using Maya, a 3D animation program, we utilized the surface modeling functions to develop a set of curves and define the z-deformation in the tile surface thus producing a datum surface traced across with an indentation of valleys that would structure the field. The curves were derived from specific tangent points of each boundary so as to ensure that the pattern of valley defining curves would maintain consistency across the entire field of tiles no matter how any one tile was oriented. The designs were then transferred to precast plaster blocks using integrated CAM software for CNC machining.
Once the plaster blocks had been milled, the digital processes gave way to a process that was entirely haptic. We were able to create test tiles by press-molding clay and firing them at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, a private arts college and partner with the U of O on this workshop. The clear glaze exposes the different clay bodies and individual flaws of each tile, a result of the experimental and imperfect nature of the process. Ultimately the intent is to use industrial ceramic processes, like slip casting, that would allow for efficient and consistent manufacture of the tiles. With more rigorous production standards, the inconsistency and the prominence of the seams (a product of shrinkage across a solid clay piece) would be reduced, yielding an uninterrupted surface pattern that is infinitely expandable and almost without repetition.
All work co-authored by Nicolaus Wright (microgeography)
There’s lots of great skateboarders in the world, but a skater with a smooth, at ease style always impresses me most. You may only have a few tricks in your pocket, but if executed effortlessly, people will take notice. I think this is true with most great artists or athletes and local Olympia skater, Albert Gesswein, is no exception.
There’s 4 inches of snow here in the land of Slow Clouds and this silence has provided a bit of time for a simple update. We’ve been busy working on lots of projects including a handful of newly designed websites, record jackets (that somehow made it into an exhibition at Oxford), a new look for SC that will arriving shortly, and most importantly designs for a new house!
All of these projects will be unveiled over the next few months.
I’ve been riding my bike by the construction site of the building above since they broke ground in late 2008. I finally stopped to take some photos and examine the building up-close. This is the new LOTT Clean Water Alliance Regional Services Center designed by the Seattle based architecture firm Miller Hull Partnership, who will also be designing the new Olympia Hands On Children’s Museum later this year.
I love the combination of metal, glass and wood materials and the striking skyward lines. It’s a shame this building is designed for office use of a water treatment plant and not a library or some other public building.
“While most water treatment plants around the country are separated from their communities by a chain link fence, LOTT Clean Water Alliance’s new Regional Services Center in Olympia, Washington, actively engages the public. The project is on target for LEED Platinum certification, and also includes the “WET Center” (Water Educational and Technology Center), an exhibit gallery and classroom.”
Learn more about the project at www.millerhull.com or view some of their other work.
After reading David Owen’s Green Metropolis, I felt somewhat prepared to head to the Olympia Master Plan Meeting regarding high density corridors. The meeting was held at the Ramada Inn, which many thought, including myself, was actually in Lacey proper. (Finding a map online of Olympia City limits was more difficult than I thought, yet I discovered it as a dashed cyan line in a Olympia Street Map, which you can find here on the City of Olympia’s website.)
High density corridors highlighted in brown.
High density corridors are the major arteries that move traffic to and from our city center. In Olympia, this includes 4th Ave and State Ave to the east, Capitol Way to the south and Harrison Ave to the west. I found the State Ave On Bicycle video that shows what State Ave looks like between McCormick and downtown, identified as the number one area we should increase density to create a walkable community.
The current plan, created in 1994, stated a number of unrealized goals;
15 residential units per acre (mix of townhomes, apartment, and condominiums) and 25 jobs per acre (4 stories or taller buildings) in city centers and core areas
15 residential units per acre in corridors, and
7 residential units per acre (mix of single-family, duplexes, accessory dwelling units, and multifamily units) in residential neighborhoods within a quarter mile (5 minute walk) of the corridors.
Now watch the video and see what you think:
Most of the blocks that this cyclist zipped by do not have 15 residential units per acre or even close. Both sides of the street offer professional services, although there are no true magnets encouraging residents to walk to or from and there are definitely not 25 jobs per acre. This leads me to wonder, if we haven’t met our current goals, how do we motivate Olympia residents to get behind the the new city master plan?
In Green Metropolis, David Owen’s main argument is that living in dense urban communities is more energy efficient and better for the planet due to the nature of shared living. Owen states that,
“New York City residents, with an average of 4,696 kilowatt-hours per household per year, already consume less electricity than the residents of any other part of the country. (The average Dallas househould, by contrast, use 16,116 kilowatts-hours, more than three times as much.)”
Green Metropolis is filled with interesting facts and provides plenty of reasons why living closer is more environmentally friendly, but the book doesn’t offer many solutions for getting from A to B. That is, how do we get the American public who is driving the “Sequoia” and living in “Trillium” housing development to buy into living closer, consuming less energy and preserving more open space around cities?
I don’t want Olympia to be New York City, nor do I think many Olympia residents do, but selling urban density to residents in Olympia is going to be a challenge.
One suggestion that Owen does mention a number of times, is that you need to lower the amount of incentives for people to consume energy and increase the incentives for those who conserve. One program that comes to mind is Olympia’s waste refusal program. Our household currently uses the smallest trash can possible (20 gallon pick-up every other week) because it costs less per month, oh yeah, and it’s less wasteful. Olympia needs to create more scenarios like this to encourage residents to leave their cars at home.
In anticipation of the Olympia City Master Plan meetings scheduled in November, I have been researching urban density and transportation. I discovered this gem; Goods by Bicycle in China, a Flickr set created by the inspired mind behind bricoleurbanism (also amazing). This is a wonderful array of photographs displaying movement throughout dense urban environments with human power and a bicycle. Impressive.
If you are interested in urban planning, the future of your city, or systems design, contact your local city authorities or attend a city planning meeting.
The first Olympia City Master Plan meeting will take place on Monday, November 8th from 6:30-9pm and will focus on high density corridors.
Olympia’s 2010 Fall Arts Walk takes place this Friday, October 1st. I am sure there will be tons of people out, lots of new artists and hopefully new work by Art Walk veterans such as Eric Fleming, Nikki McClure, Sarah Utter and maybe a glimpse at the mind blowing fine furniture designed and built by Jay T. Scott. He is definitely a favorite of ours. We’ll take what the night brings.
One new addition to Arts Walk this Friday, will be the juice stand called Farmacia inside Einmaleins. This isn’t some Jamba Juice knock-off. The women behind Farmacia use local produce from farms around Thurston County and turn these leafy greens, beets, carrots and lots of other raw fruits and vegetables into body quenching elixirs. I designed the graphic above for a flyer to help announce the event. Stop by Einmaleins between 5-8pm to drink juice.
Someone wrote this awesome postscript for a dodecahedron calendar and made it available on http://www.ii.uib.no/~arntzen/kalender/. You can customize it a bit, download it, print and fold for a fun desk calendar. Having access to a laser cutter, I was able to quickly cut and score a bunch and then screenprint them for my Mom to give as gifts this year. They come flatpacked in an envelope with instructions and the recipient does the folding and gluing themselves. It’s easy and fun. Lookout, you may be getting one for Christmas this year!
During the summer of 2008, Andrea Solk, Judith Fried and I spent the term studying the Maison de Verre, a fabulous house in Paris designed by Pierre Chareau for our Modern Architectural History course. We presented the drawings on vellum along with a series of diagrams.
