Bright lights big city: New York Neon

Cover of New York Neon, by Thomas Rinaldi

Cover of New York Neon, by Thomas Rinaldi

“Neon lights were both…loved and hated like no other element of the built environment,” Thomas Rinaldi says in his new photo book New York Neon.  They are both modern and nostalgic.  They are ubiquitous, and yet often no one gives them a second thought.

What are the hallmarks of urban experience?  Concrete and neon. Neon is imbedded in our cultural psyche, especially as a defining visual element of the biggest, grittiest urban environment in America, New York City. Consider the Drifter’s lyric: “They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway.” Or Petula Clark’s “Downtown”: “Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city; Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty.” Continue reading →

KNOW YOUR NATURAL FIBERS:The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook

Cover image courtesy Storey Publi

It is generally accepted that natural fibers are more sustainable than synthetic ones but how much do we know about natural fibers?

Storey Publishing has recently released what may be one of the single most comprehensive reference books on natural fibers. The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook is a 448 -page resource on natural materials, specifically fibers gathered from mammals. Almost every breed of sheep in the world is included as well as goats, camelids (the family that includes camels, alpacas, llamas, and vicunas), bison, horses, musk oxen, rabbits, and even dogs. Each entry includes photographs of the featured animal; samples of its raw fleece, its cleaned fleece, and yarn spun from the fleece; and samples of the yarn, knit and woven. Included is information on each animal and its fiber, including the fiber’s color, density, strength, and staple length, and recommendations for processing and using it.
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Mirror: Material and metaphor

Mirrors: Reflections of Style, by Paula Phipps. All images courtesy W.W. Norton.

Friend, lover or enemy? Since the dawn of civilization man has used mirrors for practical and religious purposes. They can be seen as a symbol of vanity or an object of insight,  Today they are even used as safety and security devices. From the biblical  “through a glass darkly” to Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” Mirrors imbue our folklore and popular culture with a reflection not only of ourselves and the world around us, but into other worlds as well.
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How LEED is your Landscaping? Botany Basics for Designers.

All images and captions courtesy Kimberly Turner and W.W.Norton

A landscape architect’s charge, according to the American Society of Landscape Architects, is the stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of our cultural and natural environments. As students budding landscape architects are taught the practices of principles such as drainage, grading and spatial relationships. Continue reading →

Stone Walls

A decorative semi-circular retaining wall with bench, designed and built by Shayne Izatt in New Haven, Connecticut. Photo courtesy Shayne Izatt

Stone walls. Driving down the roads of New England you see them companionably hugging the side of the road, or meandering away up a hill, or nestling between trees in the woods. As simple and natural as they look stone walls are a designed phenomenon, each one consciously constructed using a specific type of order which accommodates the shapes of rock. Continue reading →

Beautiful Nightmares: J Henry Fair’s “The Day After Tomorrow”

The Cover of Fair’s book, “The Day After Tomorrow”, depicts Darrow, Louisiana. Tremendous amounts of “red mud” bauxite waste are produced through the smelting of aluminum, (which contains many contaminants, heavy metals, and impurities). from The Day After Tomorrow: Images of Our Earth in Crisis by J Henry Fair, published by powerHouse Books.

In 1966, environmental activist Stewart Brand printed buttons that read “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the Whole Earth yet?” Traveling in his truck across California, he first sold the buttons at college campuses for 25 cents a piece. When he was kicked off campuses, he sent them to politicians, dignitaries and UN officials. Finally he mailed them to workers at NASA and the Russian space program, hoping to inspire someone with authority to share a glimpse of our world that few had ever seen. Continue reading →