“The Thousand Islands is an archipelago consisting of exactly 1,864 islands that straddles the Canada-U.S. border in the Saint Lawrence River as it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. They stretch for about 80 km on St. Lawrence Seaway, but the largest clustering of islands falls between Cape Vincent and Alexandria Bay in the United States and Kingston and Rockport in Canada. The islands range in size from over 40 square miles to smaller islands occupied by a single residence, to even smaller uninhabited outcroppings of rocks that are home to migratory waterfowl. The number of islands was determined using the criteria that any island must be above water level all year round, have an area greater than 1 square foot, and support at least one living tree.”
This unique building is weathering the years beautifully. It’s a masterpiece of building with natural materials. It’s documented on pages 66-69 of Builders of the Pacific Coast.
A sad and somewhat eery coincidence: Bill was killed in an auto accident yesterday (the day before this was posted), driving alone on slippery roads in Maine. I’ve known him for 40 years, stayed at his place in the Maine woods, and he visited our home last year. He was a grand man. Click here for news story.
The wind blew like mad last night, felt like gale force. Clouds moved in, we were hoping for rain, but by this morning, the front had skipped to the south. It’s really dry; the weatherman said the other night, driest January-October since 1865. On the other hand, SF Chronicle outdoors-writer Tom Stienstra said the bears have full coats now, sign of a robust winter. We can only hope. The first rain I’m gonna be out there with face uplifted, feeling the drops, smelling the moistened soil, bring it on!…Last week went up to my brother’s farm in Napa Valley and picked a bucket of olives, they’re now immersed in water with salt and vinegar. No lye. The olives from last year are still in brine, still very good. I like to have them with a glass of red wine before dinner…Got new skateboard, a Tesseract from Loaded Boards, it’s great. Goes maybe 10-15% faster than any other of my boards, and turns maybe 10-15% better, inspiring me to skate more; check it out here — look at the video — hi-speed downhill sliding, on long boards with soft wheels no less!
Photos shot in Napa Valley last week; beautiful old house, elegant, spare…but just a little bit too fixed up, too fussed-over, a trophy house. Some of the billionaires’ wineries on Highway 112 are embarrassing: money, yes; taste, no. Too many vineyards, monocropping requires chemicals.…
I’m trying to find the time to write something about the wrong-headedness of GMOs; Verlyn Klinkenborg has a wonderful writeup on GMOs in his excellent book, “More Scenes From A Rural Life.”
“A lesson in blowing Dwell magazine’s mind, courtesy of the Madrid-based firm Ábaton Arquitectura: design a house that’s about 290 square feet (micro home!) that’s made from recyclable materials (green!) and can be transported by truck and assembled in a day (mobile!). Oh, and let’s not forget about material makeup (the exterior is clad in cement-board panels) and prefab potential: ÁPH80 can be manufactured in as few as four weeks. Dwell has officially spontaneously combusted.
With gabled ceilings reaching more than 11 feet, walls of glass, and a combined living room and kitchen, the feel of this place is light and airy; ‘the different spaces are recognisable [sic] and the feeling indoors is one of fullness,’ the architects say.
“A few years ago, Swedish student housing company AF Bostäder had a young woman from the city of Lund inside live in a tiny house-box–not even 10 square meters large–to test the idea of a cheap, cheerful, and environmentally friendly “smart student unit” that included a toilet, kitchen, and bed. “I think she still lives there,” says Linda Camara of Tengbom Architects, the company behind the 2013 iteration of the living pod–a petite vision in pale wood offset with lime green plant pots, cushions and stools.
The premise for the cube, which has been in the works since 2007, is reasonable enough: students live and die on cheap housing, but everyone needs a toilet. It’s taken six years to whittle the tiny houses down to the current cross-laminated wooden test model form. The large kitchen was squirreled away in the original blueprint, but Tengbom redesigned it as the prime area after student feedback. The current space-efficient design, complete with a patio and vaulted sleeping area, lowers standard rent rates by 50%–music to the ears of any economically bereft twentysomething.…”
“…the treehouse SunRay built in Portland in a 300 year old fir tree in the middle of a suburb. When one of the neighbors complained and brought out the building inspector he apparently fell in love with it because he told them to take the stairs down and put up a ladder so it wouldn’t be a deck because he had no authority over treehouses that weren’t decks with stairs.”
“The Thousand Islands is an archipelago consisting of exactly 1,864 islands that straddles the Canada-U.S. border in the Saint Lawrence River as it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. They stretch for about 80 km on St. Lawrence Seaway, but the largest clustering of islands falls between Cape Vincent and Alexandria Bay in the United States and Kingston and Rockport in Canada. The islands range in size from over 40 square miles to smaller islands occupied by a single residence, to even smaller uninhabited outcroppings of rocks that are home to migratory waterfowl. The number of islands was determined using the criteria that any island must be above water level all year round, have an area greater than 1 square foot, and support at least one living tree.”
