LOCAL CULTURE.

Written by Elsa Brown: People out in Rotterdam last Friday night who spotted a glowing, poppy-colored umbrella dome on the street couldn’t resist stopping in for a spontaneous party. The temporary structure housed a full bar and DJ, and over 300 visitors gathered there until 2 am when the police shut things down. Titled the Bucky Bar, the dome was part of a series of unsolicited positive proposals for the future of the city of Rotterdam by DUS Architects and Studio for Unsolicited Architecture.

From the architect/party planners: “The title refers to the great American inventor, Buckminster Fuller, who demonstrated how minimal energy geodesic domes could open a way to a more environmentally sustainable future. Could an umbrella dome lead the way to a more socially sustainable future? The Bucky Bar is a full-scale model of such a future. It shows the power of space for spontaneous gathering, for improvised shelters to host conversations, debates, games or even parties.” Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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CITY INNOVATIONS.

Written by Elsa Brown: Perhaps this is an argument for Travel Health Insurance. Though we generally try to avoid ending up in mental health institutions, Nendo’s recently completed clinic in Japan might be worth feigning maladies to secure a visit. The Japanese firm’s design aims to express the clinic’s philosophy of treatment in its architecture. It transforms a patient’s stay into an entirely encompassing experience.

From Design Boom: “The doors that line the walls of the clinic do not open, and ‘ordinary’ parts of the walls open up into new spaces. The consultation rooms are entered by sliding the bookshelves sideways. The door at the end of the hallway opens onto a window; the amount of light in the hallway is controlled by opening and closing the door.” Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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PLACES TO SEE.

Written by Elsa Brown: How do you take something old, decrepit and forgotten and make people pay attention? Lasers, apparently, are one solution. Mid-February, French lighting studio Creatmosphere set up high-powered lasers along Brighton, England’s skeletal West Pier, and brought new recognition to a struggling local landmark.

According to Fast Company: “Brighton, England’s 1,115-foot-long West Pier has had a tough run lately. Built in 1866, it closed in 1975 and was burned to a crisp by a series of fires in 2003 (arson, say the experts). Plans to rebuild it have been batted around for years, but they’ve always been too expensive.” Click Read More for additional information and photos.

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TRAVEL INSPIRATION.

NEW. YORK. CITY. Love it or hate it you can’t deny its intoxicating spirit. We personally love the place. Whenever we’re short on inspiration we take a quick trip, visit friends and absorb as much of the city’s momentum as possible. It’s hard to explain. That’s why we appreciate the work of Sam O’Hare and his time-lapse film The Sandpit. Using a method called tilt-shift, he visually shrinks the city to provide a compelling overview of New York’s energy. Click Read More to view the video and additional photos.

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ART & CULTURE.

Written by Elsa Brown: On view now at SITE art space in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Hasan Elahi’s Tracking Transience is a painstaking study in self-surveillance. It is also a response to, and provocation of, the politics of privacy and government oversight. Elahi, a Bangladesh-born American, developed the piece after being falsely accused as a 9/11 terrorist accomplice in 2002. He documents every detail of his life in photos: meals before he eats them, toilets before he uses them, and monitors his location with a GPS tracker. The artist has said: “I’ve decided that if the government wants to monitor me that’s fine. But I could do a much better job monitoring myself than anyone else.”

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PLACES TO SEE.

Written by Elsa Brown: Just outside the suburbs about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles, lies an intricate map of deteriorating streets etched lightly in the dirt. The area is called California City, and is all that remains of a late 1950s plan for suburban extension that was never completed. BLDGBLOG describes the under-realized and deteriorating grid as, a suburb abandoned in advance of itself, and, an abstract geoglyph—unintentional land art visible from airplanes. The blog has teamed up with Atlas Obscura for their event Obscura Day: An International Celebration of Curious Places, and is organizing an excursion into the halted development on March 20, 2010. Head over to BLDGBLOG to learn more about California City, and for details on how to participate.

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PHOTOGRAPHY.

We’ve always admired Berlin’s clean lines and simple branding. From building marquees to traffic signs, they get it right. Many photographers attempt to capture the city’s quiet expression, but few evoke the feel of the city like Massju. We took one look at his photo set and instantly wanted to go to Berlin to witness it all. If only we had an address for the places photographed. At least we can check out these photos in the meantime. Click Read More to view a few samples from images of Berlin.

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