How it gets done: A TBE SHORT

Napkins, notebooks, etc.

A TBE SHORT: The Inland Architect, 1883-present

I used to work in the building above. The Monadnock. 53 W Jackson. I’m still in there about twice a week. For meetings with our design staff. I didn’t know until I discovered the above drawing that it was designed by Burnham & Root, the firm that became a household name thanks to Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City.

Why I bring up the Monadnock now:

In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, the Inland Architect and News Record was a giant in its field. The Chicago-based magazine chronicled the rise of the skyscraper and followed national developments in numerous other building types, from railroad stations to mansions. Now, the Ryerson and Burnham Archives at the Art Institute of Chicago are announcing that they’ve  digitized 5,000 architectural images from the magazine, originally published between 1883 and 1908, and are making them available via the libraries’ digital collection database.

That’s architecture Blair Kamin. He has more if you want it. If not, here’s a spread from the Inland Architect’s inaugural issue, in 1883, ten years before the Columbian Exposition:

It’s all about tone

Why do I want to work for somebody like Andrew Maynard?

It’s all about tone.

Here’s a newsletter I got from his architecture firm a couple months ago.

It has been almost 3 years since our last newsletter. Time flies. Yes, we have been neglecting you, but what better excuse to bring you up to date than a change of address and new contact details …..

Andrew Maynard Architects has moved. We bought a building on Brunswick Street, or more accurately the bank bought us a building and are allowing us to doss there as long as we behave. Make sure you note our new contact details. We don’t want to lose you in the move. You can download AMA’s vCard here.

This was the best part:

I am loving twitter. Its far more fun and useful that I thought it would be. If you are keen to keep track of AMA’s shenanigans then jump online and follow Andrew Maynard Architects here.

And this, which I’ve posted about before—and which I got into gb&d.

Following the terrible floods in Pakistan we proposed an emergency housing solution for flood effected called the Airdrop house. Check it out here.

I hope you have enjoyed our newsletter. We enjoy sharing our world with you. We are always looking for interesting new projects. Feel free to make contact, and please spread the word, why not spread the love and forward this newsletter onto your friends?

Peace out.

Finally: the image up top is from Andrew Maynard’s Protest Structures, a design solution to the deforestation of the Styx Forest in Tasmania.

TOCS #4

After a long radio silence—in which the only communication between our office buildings, via the System, was (Sean) “TOO BUSY” and (Reply) “DITTO”—we have activity.

Sean: “TgIF!!!”

We finally know why our anonymous communicator used a lower-case ‘g’ for her “ARgH.” Capital ‘g’s with post-its are impossible.

The world as imagined by Steven Spielberg

A digitally integrated built environment by designer Mac Funamizu:

Reminiscent of Minority Report.

The idea: you could latch onto a physical object with the eye of this “looking glass” mobile device and retrieve information about it, including personally relevant info (like a meeting time and place) uploaded yourself.

Reminds me of this.

For the Jardins de Métis, in Quebec, “Francis Bitoni and Andrew Zientek submitted My_SECRET[E].Garden, a program that would allow visitors to create new sections of a real garden by participating in a digital reality on their smartphones. Their proposal explains:

The interface allows visitors to choose a new species of plant, attach a secret message and then ‘plant’ it in the garden to be viewable by successive visitors. The garden grows, receiving and containing knowledge that is hidden from plain view.”

via Inhabitat.

Trans-Office Communications System #3

Sean Conner‘s most recent dispatch: “FORECAST: YETIS.” Except without the colon because he ran out of room.

There’s been no word from the 7th floor since initial contact, but we received another reply from our as-yet-unidentified 9th-floor correspondent: “ViVA!” Again with the one lowercase letter…

If Sean’s forecast is correct, we’ll probably seek higher ground via our anonymous neighbor. How we’ll cross the street is a question we’ve not yet answered.

Signage

Transmission intercepted!

W/r/t the Transoffice Communications System, I didn’t think about the fact that Sean was in essence broadcasting his messages (Tuesday’s: “SNOW?”) into the airy ether. Rather than a direct, secure line to Erin’s 7th-floor law-library window, his message could be received by anyone distractedly glancing out the window.

Today over lunch, Geoff—a very gentlemanly, very well-read cohort of mine—looked up from his Kashi lunch (it never changes) and said, “Oh, someone’s writing back.”

That someone was not Erin of the 7th floor, but unnamed portly woman of the 9th. Carefully arranging her similarly colored post-its, she spelled out “ARgH!” Why the lower-case ‘g’ I don’t know.

With any luck, we’ll soon have responses from every window on every visible floor of the facing building. Pedestrians below will hurry on, oblivious to the dialogue happening stories above them.