Last week Boston unveiled Renzo Piano’s bold design for a new skyscraper that will rise to a height of 1,000 feet, topping the Pei-designed Hancock Tower which for three decades at 60 stories has been the city’s tallest building. Piano’s sleek glass and steel 75-storey structure will house 1.3 million square feet of office space with a mix of restaurant and retail space on the lower floors. A one-acre park is planned at the building’s base with more public space to be located on top of the building. There is no timeline for the project, which must first make it through the first phase of the approvals process.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Renzo Piano unveils design for the tallest tower in Boston
Last week Boston unveiled Renzo Piano’s bold design for a new skyscraper that will rise to a height of 1,000 feet, topping the Pei-designed Hancock Tower which for three decades at 60 stories has been the city’s tallest building. Piano’s sleek glass and steel 75-storey structure will house 1.3 million square feet of office space with a mix of restaurant and retail space on the lower floors. A one-acre park is planned at the building’s base with more public space to be located on top of the building. There is no timeline for the project, which must first make it through the first phase of the approvals process.
"Phare" Tower to Rise in Paris
The design for the Phare Tower in Paris is a work of sparkling originality that wrestles thoughtfully with the urban conflicts of the city’s postwar years. Designed by Thom Mayne of the Los Angeles-based firm Morphosis, the Phare Tower will rise amid the office towers of La Défense, the western business district conceived in the late 1950s as a way of expanding the city while protecting its historic core from overdevelopment. Embedded in this maze of generic towers and blank plazas, the tower will overlook the hollow cube of the 1989 Grande Arche and the elegantly arched concrete roof of the 1958 C.N.I.T. conference center. Mayne dug deeper into the site’s convoluted history to create a building of hypnotic power. Viewed from central Paris, the building’s gauzy skin, draped tautly over the tower’s undulating form, will have the look of luxurious fabric. But as you draw closer, the forms will appear more muscular, with massive crisscrossing steel beams supporting a perforated metal surface.The aura of the veil has a titillating vibe, but there is nothing superficial about this design. By drawing on what energy the site has — a tangle of roadways and underground trains — the tower transcends La Défense’s deadening urban reputation. Supported by a series of gargantuan steel legs evoking a tripod, the tower straddles the site, allowing pedestrian and train traffic to flow directly underneath. The skin lifts up to envelop a nearby plaza, linking it to an underground train station. Beneath this perforated metal skirt, gigantic escalators shoot up more than 100 feet to a lobby packed with restaurants and cafes.
The approach recalls the machine-age fascination with physical and social mobility that yielded masterpieces like the Gare de Lyon in Paris and Grand Central Terminal in New York. Pushing the idea further, Mr. Mayne rips the top off an existing plaza to reveal the trains and traffic passing underneath. As you ride up escalators linking the plaza to the lobby, seams open up in the building’s skin to create vertiginous views of both an underground world of shadowy figures and the monuments of the beloved city past the Arc de Triomphe to the east.
The building's inauguration is scheduled for 2012.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
You could call this a bridge, or a tunnel, or an island, or maybe all of the above
In 1991, the Danish and Swedish governments signed an agreement to establish a fixed link across the Øresund. The agreement was ratified by the two countries' parliaments in August of the same year. Øresundskonsortiet, a joint venture between A/S Øresund and Svensk-Danska Broförbindelsen SVEDAB AB, constructed the permanent link between Sweden and Denmark. The project cost more than DKK12 billion and comprises a 16.4km (10-mile) link between Copenhagen and Malmö consisting of a tunnel, a bridge and an artificial island.In May 2003 the Øresund Bridge won the IABSE Outstanding Structure Award. The judges commended the project for its innovative planning, design and construction management as well as its compliance with the time schedule, budget and tough environmental requirements.
The Øresund Bridge was inaugurated in July 2000. The bridge two-level superstructure is fabricated from steel and concrete. The steel girder supports the upper deck, which accommodates the motorway, and the lower deck where the railway is located. The tracks are placed in a concrete trough along the approach bridges, which changes to a steel deck on the high bridge.ØRESUND TUNNEL
The western part of the Øresund Link is a 4km-long tunnel between the artificial island of Peberholm and the artificial peninsula at Kastrup. The tunnel is the longest immersed tube tunnel for both road and rail traffic in the world. It consists of 20 tunnel elements.
ARTIFICIAL ISLAND (PEBERHOLM) AND PENINSULA
The artificial island of Peberholm was built in order to transfer the traffic from the immersed tunnel up onto the approach bridge. Peberholm is approx. 4km long and mainly made up of dredged material from the Øresund seabed. A total of 1.6 million m³ of stone and 7.5 million m³ of sand and dredged material were required for its completion.
How about this bridge . . . or tunnel . . . or whatever it is ??
The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (MMMBT), I-664 between Newport News and Suffolk, Virginia, 4.6 miles long, four lanes wide, layout is bridge-island-tunnel-island-bridge. The North Island is actually connected to the tip of Newport News, and the North Approach Bridge is a land viaduct that has its south abutment on the North Island. Opened in April 1992.
Algorithmic Mathematical Art
A plot of the complex-valued function (z-2)^2(z+1-2*i)(z+2+2*i)/z^3. By Hans Lundmark, 2004.
Algorithmic Mathematical Art
Above: A dodecahedron formed by pentagonal rings, by Michael Trott. (http://www.graphica.com/gallery/). In 2 dimensions we have regular polygons, such as square and pentagon and hexagon. The 3-dimensional version is called regular polyhedron. For example: cube, octahedron, icosahedron. The general name for such objects in any dimension is called polytope. Polyhedrons↗ as artistic themes have been explored greatly, way back in the Greek times and in different cultures, often exhibited as toys, sculptures, paper models (origami), or hanging decoration. In modern times, polyhedrons have been exhibited as architecture elements as well.
ATOMIUM
Atomium is a building based on the theme of a regular polyhedron. It was built in 1958 for the Brussel's World Expo. It is located in Brussels↗, Belgium↗. The building is 103 meters high. It consists of 9 spheres, each 18 meters in diameter, interconnected by tubes with escalators inside. The longest such connection is 35 meters.
Historical figures and milestones of Russia are portrayed below by Milo Manara:
The characters are, from left to right:Man with mustache: Emperor Petr I of Russia↗ (b1672)
Empress Catherine II “The Great”↗ (b1729)
bearded man? Ivan the Terrible↗ (b1530)?
Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin↗ (b1934) (first human animal to travel in space)
The bearded guy to the left of gymnast: novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky↗ (b1821)
Round glassed guy: composer Igor Stravinsky↗ (b1882)
Gymnast: Olga Korbut↗ (b1955)
Top right siloutte figure is probably the novelist Leo Tolstoy↗ (b1828).
Man in military uniform: Joseph Stalin↗ (b1879)
Long-haired bearded guy: mystic Grigori Rasputin↗ (b1869)
Hatted comrade: Vladimir Lenin↗ (b1870).
Other pictures:
Behind the chess set: Russian icon. Russian icons↗
Chess. Russians dominated the world in chess. See World Chess Championship↗
Sputnik↗ (first satellite in orbit)
Photo of Hammer & Sickle Flag over the Reichstag building in Battle of Berlin↗ during the end of World War 2.
The back view of a man in Napolean hat in the center of the image, must be Napoleon, representing Russia's victory of the Napoleon's invasion of Russia↗ in 1812.
Saint Basil's Cathedral↗ Mosco.
The Ballerina may represent Anna Pavlova↗ (b1881)
Men on horses: they migth represent the Mongols of Mongol Empire↗, who in 1200s ruled Eurasia, including Russia, China, and much Eastern Europe and Middle East.
Russian warship Aurora↗, who took part in initializing the October Revolution↗ (1917)
December 7, 1941: Remember Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941 - The U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was attacked by nearly 200 Japanese aircraft in a raid that lasted just over one hour and left nearly 3,000 dead. The USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is shown above.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Combined Beauty of Nature and Man
Thirteen miles south of Carmel, California stands one of the world's highest single-span concrete arch bridges, Bixby Bridge. Its beauty is matched only by the ocean waves crashing on the rocky coastline below. Reaching over 260 feet high and over 700 feet long, it is a structural masterpiece, and probably the most photographed object along the coastal route.
The Schmadribach Falls
The Schmadribach Falls1821-22
Oil on canvas, 132 x 110 cm
Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
Joseph Anton Koch, Austrian painter
(b. 1768, Obergibeln, d. 1839, Roma)
A HUMMER That's Not a BUMMER
Sustainability is the theme of this year's L.A. Designs conference, an automotive design forum that brings together the industry's futurists and problem-solvers. Now in its third year, the conference holds an annual competition among design studios, many of which are located in Southern California. Some of the proposals this year include a VW built out of programmable nanobots and a Hummer "O2" (above) that uses algae-filled body panels to freshen the air by converting CO2 to oxygen. Don't look for these in a showroom near you.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
ON THIS DAY: December 6
Photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995) was born in Dirschau, Prussia. Best known for his Life magazine cover photos, including the sailor kissing a nurse in Time's Square, celebrating the end of World War II (shown above).
ON THIS DAY: December 6
American lyricist Ira Gershwin (above right) was born in New York City in 1896. He collaborated with his brother George (above left)to create many Broadway successes including; Lady Be Good, Funny Face, Strike Up the Band, and songs such as The Man I Love, Someone to Watch Over Me, and I Got Rhythm. Ira died in 1983.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Cool Cult Car: Ferrari Enzo
This supercar, produced in a limited run of 400 models earlier in this decade, freaked a lot of people out. People who buy Ferraris want classic Ferrari design cues, but the Enzo was totally new. It is the only modern Ferrari. People seek it out--each one is worth over $1 million--even though it has in-your-face looks. Some might call it tasteless. In other words, even if the masses could afford the Enzo, it wasn't designed for mass appeal.
It's Called the Road of Death . . .
Stremnaya road is called the road of death and its situated in Bolivia
PILLAR OF TRADITION
A human tower is part of an annual festival in Spain’s Catalonia region, whose officials have been known to refuse to speak Spanish.(Albert Gea / Reuters)
Sunday, December 03, 2006
The Dagwood Sandwich is a Dream Come True
For Dean Young, the idea of opening a sandwich shop that would epitomize the culinary mastery of his legendary sandwich champion, Dagwood Bumstead, involved an early-life epiphany of epical proportions. It came to him the first time he wrapped his lips around one of those over-sized, beauteous masterpieces that New York City delicatessens are famous for. After uttering “Gees Louise, these are Dagwood sandwiches! Dagwood should have a restaurant that serves these babies,” Young said, “Well, maybe not as big as the skyscrapers that Dagwood makes, but certainly with a lot of unique flavorful ingredients that make your mouth water.”
Young has been the creator of the 75-year-old “Blondie” comic strip since 1973 when his father, Chic Young, the strip’s originator, died. Since then, Young’s thoughts and those of Dagwood have been “one and the same.” And all along, Young has been collecting and creating sandwich recipes that he hoped would one day appear in a special comic-strip theme restaurant . . . living up to America’s most recognizable comic and sandwich icons: Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead.
As the first Dagwood’s Sandwich Shoppe prepares to open this summer in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, and Young and his partners begin selling Market Partnerships that will add his vision to the landscape of communities around the country, Dean Young has truly realized his dream.
The Pilgrim is a Tall Ship Indeed
The Tall Ship the Pilgrim came to town for Fiesta 2004 in Santa Barbara, California. The Pilgrim is a replica of the ship that Richard Henry Dana came to town on in his book Two Years Before the Mast. The Pilgrim was part of the Hyde and Tallow trade which flourished along the California Coast in the 1840s.
Norwegian Pearl to debut next month
The super-sizing trend continues: Norwegian Cruise Line is taking a quantum leap, building three 4,200-passenger, 150,000-ton ships, with the first due in 2009. Its new Norwegian Pearl (above), which arrives in the U.S. next month, is considerably smaller, at 93,500 gross registered tons and carrying about 2,400 passengers.
Emmett Kelly Jr., 83; followed in father's large footsteps as circus clown
Emmett Kelly Jr., 83, son of one of the nation's most famous hobo clowns who followed his father into a career under the big top, died Wednesday, November 29 of complications from pneumonia at a hospital near his home in Tombstone, Ariz., according to his daughter, CherryAnn Kelly-Knapp. Born Nov. 13, 1923, in Dyersburg, Tenn., Kelly spent much of his childhood around the circus industry. His father, Emmett Kelly Sr., created the character of Weary Willie the tramp clown, and his mother, Eva Mae Kelly, was a trapeze artist.
In 1960, with the makeup and blessing of his father, Kelly made his clown debut at the Circus Festival in Peru, Ind. Four years later, Eastman Kodak signed him to appear at the New York World's Fair. Besides touring with the circus, Kelly performed on TV, entertained at hospitals and made personal appearances until retiring in 2004.
His father died at age 80 in 1979.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Friday, December 01, 2006
How to bathe a cat!!! (Now, before you get in a huff, look at the signature below)
Thoroughly clean the toilet.Add the required amount of shampoo to the water in the bowl and have both lids up.
Find the cat and soothe it while you carry it towards the bathroom.
In one smooth, quick movement, put the cat into the toilet and close both lids. (You may need to stand on the lid so that it cannot escape.) The cat will self-agitate and make ample suds. Never mind the noises that come from your toilet. The cat is actually enjoying this.
CAUTION: Do not get any part of your body too close to the edge as paws will be reaching out for anything they can find.
Flush the toilet three or four times. This provides a "Power Wash" and "Power Rinse", which I have found to be effective.
Have someone open the door to the outside and ensure that there are no people between the toilet and the outside door.
Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.
The now clean cat will rocket out of the toilet, and run outside for the drying cycle.
Sincerely,
The Dog
Fossils of Real-Life Sea Monster Unearthed
Fossils from a real-life sea monster—the massive crocodile-like species depicted in this illustration made for National Geographic magazine—were recently unearthed in Patagonia, Argentina. The animal likely measured 13 feet (4 meters) long from nose to tail.The researchers who made the discovery say the marine reptile, nicknamed Godzilla, lived about 135 million years ago. They described their find in the November 11, 2005, issue of the journal Science.
Here's Another View of the Grand Canyon Glass Bridge
The all-glass, balcony-like "Skywalk"—shown in an illustration released in late August, 2005—will extend over the edge of the Grand Canyon, 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) above the Colorado River. "The Skywalk will be an attraction unlike any other in the world," said Sheri Yellowhawk, CEO of the Grand Canyon Resort Corporation. The company is building the bridge in the Hualapai Indian Reservation on the south rim of the canyon.
The Skywalk is scheduled to open to the public in January 2006 as part of a new resort on the reservation. The resort, known as Grand Canyon West, is to include a re-created Indian village and a restaurant perched on the edge of the canyon. Tourism is the reservation's biggest source of income.
Grand Canyon West will be on the western edge of Grand Canyon National Park, about 120 miles (about 200 kilometers) from Las Vegas. But perhaps not even the Las Vegas Strip's over-the-top attractions will be a match for this glass-bottom walkway over the world's biggest gorge.
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