She Rules with Iron Stix

A little research into the girl with the Stop Harper sign revealed the following - a contemporary political performance artist.

earthship

Apparently there is a movement to make houses that sustain themselves independent of public utilities like power, water supply, and water treatment. So in the US,  there came the Earthship, a solar-powered home insulated with tires packed with earth and decorated with recycled materials like bottles.

 Would I live in a house like this? Yes, I would.  Do I think it has to look like a hippie spaceship? No, I don't.

a skyscraper that rotates

Architect David Fisher is building a "dynamic" skyscraper. Every floor can rotate independently of the other floors, and if you're wealthy enough to own one of these floors you can control the speed and direction of rotation by touch or voice command. Each floor can rotate at a maximum speed of 1 complete rotation per 90 minutes (I feel sick already). Also you can drive your car into an elevator and have it carried up to your apartment. Fancy.

This building is also an eco-innovation. It generates its own electricity via wind turbines between the floors and solar panels on the roof. It will even generate enough electricity to power other buildings!

The first skyscraper built in Dubai is supposed to be finished later this year, while the Dynamic Architecture website proposes more be built in London, Paris, New York, and Moscow. I'm a little unclear as to whether these projects are really underway or if they're just a dream.

This shows some different possible configurations of the buildings. I imagine it would really look like the third picture once everyone starts the rotating, but I wonder if sometimes they will lose control of their rotations so that the building can look awesome.

mad gift wrapping skills

I was at an environmentally friendly gift wrapping shop thinking I could make my boyfriend's birthday present look all shmancy. Then I realized that the most environmentally friendly way to wrap a gift would be to use paper I already had. Duh. So I used the soulpepper theatre guide and a page out of a Monet picture book as my wrapping paper. Then I cleverly made a flower decoration for the top by ripping out strips of paper.

I thought my flowers looked pretty decent until I found these and later this. I tried.

maya*made

green roofs

In Japan, I came across the ACROS building and thought it was an excellent way to reconcile technology with nature. With trees running all the way up one side of the building, it goes far beyond the rooftop garden idea. The other side just looks like a glass building, but the green side merges with the greenery of the park and becomes part of the landscape. As it slants upwards, its like a human-made mountain. Imagine how awesome our city would be if all its buildings supported a forest for a roof. Let there be green roofs!

ACROS Fukuoka Building, Japan

love letter to a tree, fragmented by design

Hello, tree chair, I think I love you. Yes, I do want to be reminded that I am sitting on a tree when I am, and you achieve that so perfectly. Your spindly unkempt legs reminding me of the very essence of your being. Let's live harmoniously together in my kitchen. Won't you be mine?

I am slightly less impressed by the designer's skills of construction after discovering that the bases of these objects were made from found chair and table parts, not made specially for the objects. The parts being "salvaged" are nevertheless in keeping with the simple yet excellent concept, however impractical it may be for a table to have that many legs.
 

Canadian Artist/designer is Ryan Legassicke and I found this on the MADE Design online gallery.

P.S. Toronto International Design Festival is on now (Jan 19-24).

random

Jeju Island Artpark

I tend to believe that when creating, we should ask "why". Why am I doing it this way and not some other way? But when we're really bored, it may be sufficient to ask "why not". For lack of direction, why not create something rather than nothing. Though we look for intentions and make explanations, I sometimes think nature takes the same strategy.

Jeju Island, Hallim Park

window walls

It's really hard to get motivated being indoors all the time, and the alternative (braving the snowstorm) isn't actually that tempting at all. That's why I need one of these.

In Jeju Island Artpark

The perfect place to work if you're at the top of a mountain. A professor in sustainability at OCAD mentioned that research was done showing that students learn better when there are plants in the room. Apparently even a nature themed image on your desktop helps. Maybe in the future, schools will be built in the center of a forest and have windows for walls.