“Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of being a guest at Taliesin West, the Scottsdale, Arizona, campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. On one of those trips, I ventured out into the far reaches of Wright’s desert acreage to study the dwellings designed and built by the school’s students as part of their learning-by-doing education. Youthful creative energy, ideas, and confidence + small plot of land + trifling financial resources for materials + the ghost of Frank Lloyd Wright = ingenious solutions to small-space living? Yes—mostly.
Working within the safe zone of the campus, the students could laugh at common code restrictions, so pushing the envelope of design and construction was possible, if not a given.
Architectural salvage stands out in the materials palette, and it’s frequently worth noting how much those rugged bits and pieces invigorate the students’ handling of the refined Wrightian design vocab and “desert concrete construction” system.…”
“Located in Dresden, Germany, the small colorful house is built with some funnels on the wall and they’ll create charming (really?!) musical sound whenever the rain comes. Due to that interesting and unique idea, the wall is also one of the most enjoyable attractions in Dresden’s student district in the new town.”
“An unlikely sight in Wells County, North Dakota –
According to the National Register of Historic Places, which listed the house in 1997, it was built in 1900 by Elgin Hurd. It’s located in the middle of nowhere, a few miles south of Hurdsfield.…”
This 100 year old structure survived a 4 mile move to our farm and is now undergoing an addition—”250 to 450 square feet with minimum foot print addition”—and renovation including a loft. Year three of the project is seeing it get closer to completion…
The city has just enacted a huge bike system. You pay $95 a year (or $25 for a week) and pick up and drop off these bikes all over the city.
“NYC Launches Largest Bike Share Program in the Nation — The privately funded Citi Bike bike-share program is launching with 6,000 bikes at 330 docking stations in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn” Click here.
Got to my hotel around 8AM Sunday, no room available, so I walked over to the Le Pain Quotidien bakery/ cafe (wonderful chain with farm tables, country kitchen ambience), had a Belgian waffle and latte, then took off on foot for the Museum of Natural History.
25 years of trail running has given me certain mobility skills negotiating busy streets and crowded sidewalks. I think of it as ballet. I jaywalk at every opportunity (which most pedestrians do not, surprisingly, do here in Manhattan). If I have to rush to get across an intersection and have my backpack on, I do a sort of shuffling run.
The city is in a good mood. This organism that is Manhattan definitely has its moods, depending on weather, world affairs, planetary influence, and other intangibles. Check out this lovely little park on the Lower East Side; birds were singing loudly in the trees:
Houston Hall, 200 block on West Houston
“Homeless” tiny home city reality:
All his gear in cart at right. The guy was inside the darker blue tarp.
“Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of being a guest at Taliesin West, the Scottsdale, Arizona, campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. On one of those trips, I ventured out into the far reaches of Wright’s desert acreage to study the dwellings designed and built by the school’s students as part of their learning-by-doing education. Youthful creative energy, ideas, and confidence + small plot of land + trifling financial resources for materials + the ghost of Frank Lloyd Wright = ingenious solutions to small-space living? Yes—mostly.
