Steeltown to Georgetown

I rode my bicycle from Pittsburg to Washington DC recently. Why? Obsession.

The 324 mile trip is almost entirely on car free bike trails. The first half is on a beautiful Rails to Trails crushed limestone path. It’s a gradual climb from near Pittsburgh to the 3,300 foot long Big Savage Tunnel at the crest of the ride. The rail trail then drops quickly to Cumberland, Maryland, the start of the abandoned C&O Canal, now a 184 mile long National Park. We rode on the former tow path a beautiful rustic path teeming with wildlife. So teeming that I had a collision with a raccoon. Crashed. Ouch.

The Great Allegheny Passage bicycle path follows a former railroad right of way.

Fallingwater is near Ohiopyle on the Great Allegheny Passage trail.

My handlebars.

Early morning at the Paw Paw campground.

Brooks saddles for the hard core cyclist.

Happy Hour at Swains Lock campground.

At the end of the trip in Washington DC.

A Lovers’ Line through the Presidio of San Francisco

My friend and fellow SPUR activist, artist Jeannene Przyblyski (don’t try and spell her name at home!) created this interactive piece for Lovers Lane, a path through The Presidio of San Francisco. Visit the web site at:

http://www.presidio.gov/experiences/lovers

On this Valentine’s Day the podcast was augmented with appearances by enigmatic characters from the past and future. The young woman with the heart is Jeannene’s daughter.

This is a project of The Bureau of Urban Secrets:

Situated at the intersection of art, activism and everyday life, the San Francisco Bureau of Urban Secrets specializes in identifying the cities of mystery, desire, and dreams hidden within the utilitarian infrastructure of a complex and changing metropolis…

—SFBUS Mission Statement

The Lovers' Line from the Presidio toward the Mission and the brothels.

Artist Jeannene Przyblyski at a Lovers' Line, February 14, 2009.

Artist Jeannene Przyblyski 's daughter performing at a Lovers' Line, February 14, 2009.

Andrew Goldsworthy Spire

 

Looking up the Spire.

The Spire is a temporary piece of conceptual art by Andrew Goldsworthy in the Presidio of San Francisco.  His work combines the natural world with the man-made in wonderful ways.  Here he has taken cut trees in the Presidio, where sections of a military tree farm are replanted on a logical basis, and built a giant spire among the new growth of little trees. The installation will be taken down in May 2009.  More information at http://www.presidio.gov/experiences/spire.htm.

 

The Spire as seen through part of the existing forest.

 

The Spire by Andrew Goldsworthy

 

db looking up the Spire.

More Walkability = Healthier Residents

I discovered this article in the NY times recently about research that shows a link between obesity and the age (and walkability) of various neighborhoods in Salt Lake City.

The real challenge will be figuring out how to make the car-centered cities of the last 50 years more dense without tearing everything down and starting over. Ideas?

If you’re thinking of moving, be sure to check out walkscore.com to evaluate neighborhoods. It’s not 100% reliable, but it will give you a good way to start to compare a variety of places.

Hearthstone BUILDER Humanitarian Award

DATELINE LAS VEGAS: I’m attending the award gala here in Sin City (the National Home Builder Convention is being held here concurrently) as an honoree of the 2009 Hearthstone BUILDER Humanitarian Award program. Celebrating their 30th year in existence, they’ve named the 30 people they consider the most innovative in the housing world over the last 30 years. Quite an honor to be included.

I’m wondering a bit how I’m sharing this with an assortment of people such as Alan Greenspan (unfortunately he didn’t show up), Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller, and New Urbanism founder Andres Duany. Pretty cool all in all.

In our honor, the Hearthstone folks gave $200,000 to Global Green (www.globalgreen.org) and the Home Depot Foundation (www.homedepotfoundation.org), which has pledged $400,000,000 to create 100,000 affordable homes and plant 3,000,000 trees over 10 years.  Home Depot Foundation gave our supportive affordable Folsom + Dore Supportive Apartments  (www.dbarchitect.com/FolsomDore) a national award in 2007 that came with a $65,000 grant for the non-profit developer and service provider.

More information at www.BuilderAward.Hearthstone.com.

Cher rehearsed at this warehouse previously. This is the cocktail/schmooze pre-dinner session.

The dinner included a giant digital presentation. I could have sent my avatar!

 

Here I am being interviewed by a Las Vegas lady. They broadcast the interview to all the people there. Ouch.

The ABC’s of Modern Design

 

The ABC’s of modern design, as proposed and illustrated by artist Jen Renninger, who sells prints of this image on Etsy under the name pleasebestill.

Flying Solar Powered Books

“Language of the Birds” is a new site-specific solar-powered artwork by Brian Goggin with Dorka Keehn. It’s suspended above a new pedestrian plaza at the corner of Broadway and Columbus Avenue where North Beach and Chinatown collide, and the ground is printed with words that have “fallen” from the books. Festivities at the unveiling included the Extra Action Marching Band.  In the spirit of the local strip clubs, the Extra Action baton squad wore beaded G-strings.

For more information go to Brian Goggin’s website at http://www.metaphorm.org.

The books lit up against the night sky.

Before unveiling the books were covered with black shrouds.

An Extra Action flag person hooks a shroud to unveil the book/bird.

From across Columbus Avenue.

NYC Gets a New Bike Rack Design

Prototype of the "Hoop" rack (image from NY Times)

The NY Times reported the winner of the CityRacks Design Competition in New York today, a contest to find the next generation design for all the city’s sidewalk bike racks. The winning design, called “Hoop” is by Ian Mahaffy and Maarten De Greeve from Copenhagen.

If only we could get the Bike Plan Injunction lifted here in San Francisco. Until that happens, the city won’t be seeing any new bike-related investment of any kind- even bike racks! Read more about the injunction over at the SF Bike Coaltion site and get involved now.

A Fresh Perspective

Shawnim and Deellan Kashani, the 14-year-old twin daughters of Ali Kashani (co-founder of Citycentric, one of our developer collaborators) spent a day visiting DB+P and shadowing designers Amanda Loper and Sara Mae Martens. The two made trees for architectural models, learned about green roofs and green building technology, and organized samples and submittals with Sara Mae.

“Today was great. It was really nice to see everybody working, and I learned a lot about what is done to make a final design for a building. Everybody was nice and funny. I especially liked the cats–both the real ones and the cat figures. It was an amazing experience.” –Shawnim 

“First, I must admit that I have fallen in love with the designs of this building and of this firm—they’re amazing. I love how prominent Green is in thoughts and designs. The atmosphere is relaxed and comfortable, and makes me feel like drawing. I have a lot of respect for these architects who can sit at a desk or computer all day and work on designs. I would never be able to draw all day, especially if I had to be drawing specific things. Oh, and Amanda’s awesome!” –Deellan

A Cautionary Tale

From Mad Magazine artist Al Jaffee’s recently released comics collection, “Tall Tales.” Who hasn’t been here?