Interesting Architecture Blog

Check out the Tiny House Blog.

What caught my eye was a fun post on "gypsy" (the preferred term, I gather, is "Romany") caravans.    

Image borrowed from Tiny House Blog

Boy!  Do I want one of my very own.  Ever since as a kid I read the chapter in Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows where Mr. Toad has one:

`There you are!' cried the Toad, straddling and expanding himself. `There's real life for you, embodied in that little cart. The open road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling downs! Camps, villages, towns, cities! Here to-day, up and off to somewhere else to-morrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing! And mind! this is the very finest cart of its sort that was ever built, without any exception. Come inside and look at the arrangements. Planned 'em all myself, I did!'

The Mole was tremendously interested and excited, and followed him eagerly up the steps and into the interior of the caravan. The Rat only snorted and thrust his hands deep into his pockets, remaining where he was.

It was indeed very compact and comfortable. Little sleeping bunks--a little table that folded up against the wall--a cooking- stove, lockers, bookshelves, a bird-cage with a bird in it; and pots, pans, jugs and kettles of every size and variety.

`All complete!' said the Toad triumphantly, pulling open a locker. `You see--biscuits, potted lobster, sardines--everything you can possibly want. Soda-water here--baccy there--letter- paper, bacon, jam, cards and dominoes--you'll find,' he continued, as they descended the steps again, `you'll find that nothing what ever has been forgotten, when we make our start this afternoon.'

Wind in the Willows illustration by Arthur Rackham, public domain

You can read Wind in the Willows at online-literature.

Set Designer's Day - Visit From the Future

Now and then you get a little nudge from the future - in the form of a call or email from a director or producer asking, "How's that design coming along?"

The play's opening may not be for months...  But the design is suddenly NOW!  It's that Time Shortage again.

The vintage blackboard calendar (public domain), courtesy of Happy Hearts at Home 

Creative Time Management

 I'm getting writing done.

Can't talk too much about that project though.  Have you noticed how the inspiration tank seems pump out the same amount of creative juice either into the project or into talk about the project?  What spills to the world never fuels the work?  Annoying but apparently true.  So my creative motor is running... and to keep it that way, the radio must stay off.

But I can report that my new Creative Time Management System TM (CreaTuMS for short) seems to be helping!  At least I'm both exercising - right after breakfast - and writing - right after exercising.  No internet or other distractions until their appointed hour.  Not much else seems to be getting done though.  Sigh.
I think my clock just has fewer hours on it than I need.

Can I get my time-tank topped up?

Set Designers' Days - Free-wheeling

As a designer you like to think that you have a set worked out in every detail before it is even built, but, in fact, you can still tweak (and more than tweak) right up to the last second.

It's part of the design process that, as you learn more, you revise what you previously decided upon.

I was recently on another set designer's stage where a lucky dumpster find of handsomely upholstered curtain pelmets threw every other decision into question.  (Pelmets are hard to describe: kinda like curtain "hats"? Box-like-things-at-the-top-of-the-window?  That's an awkward phrase.)  This found curtain thing was so cool it just demanded to be used!

Public domain image, messed with

I too have been known to rework a design to use an unexpected fun-thing.  Or - on the dark side - to change all a set's colors to suit a wrong-sofa.  Just as I once did to for a great sofa on this same stage.  (Sofas!)

Today's Lesson: "More of any design is improv than the audience knoweth."

Latest Book Sale

Those guys at Lulu.com sure like a good sale!  Here's chance to save cash on my set design how-to book  Alice Through the Proscenium:

Blogging As Essay

Blogging comes as a surprise.  Not sure what I'd expected... crassly, I guess, just a way to megaphone to the world "Read my Book!"   And it has helped (a teeny tiny little fraction of) the world take notice.  (Sales!  Boris, sales!)  But I hadn't realized the utility of these little essays to me: writing clarifies thought, as Francis Bacon and Michel de Montaigne proved.  A blog post is, I think, a lineal descendant of the essay.

What's shocked  me is that people read what I'm writing.  Readership is UP... reaching scary numbers now.

Thank you, Gentle Readers.  I'll try to make your visits worth your time.

Why read blogs - this or any other?  (Or click on the "follow" button on your right?  Dare ya.)

Well, it's gotta be for either information, opinion, or sheer enjoyment of the writer's voice.  What I like about the essay/blog form, as a reader, is its informal sharing of information and thought.  But what makes me return is its mirroring of the writer: their wisdom, perhaps, but certainly their funny quirks, failings, and odd-ball world view...  As the writer of a blog, this is the terrifying part!  Why attempt this scary thing?  ("Essay" means "attempt.")  Why does my weird opinion matter the least bit?

I comfort myself with Montaigne:

"A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them."

Maybe all our "bent" viewpoints matter...
Can we can average 'em together to figure out the "straight" truth?

Film Fest - Paul

Paul is just one more example of that classic genre, the spoofy, vulgar-funny alien and buddies on a road trip film.  Well, it ought to be a genre.

Only a sci-fi film fan can appreciate this film properly, can catch all the Star Wars or Aliens or Close Encounters of the Third Kind quotes... but if you can, it's a lot of silly fun.  (Too potty-mouthed for young kids.)  Here's a link to Paul's film trailer.

Taking Best Advantage of a Building Site

On a recent visit to Fort Worth I got a chance to walk around the new Tarrant County College east campus, which has its grand opening October 1.

Gorgeous.

I was very excited - months ago - when I drove past the campus on my way out of downtown Fort Worth and I caught a glimpse of the terrific view that the designers opened up.  The north end of downtown, by the County Courthouse, sits on a high bluff that drops down to a loop of the Trinity River - but all this has been hidden for decades by buildings.  When laying out this new college campus, Bing Thom Architects designed a pair of long parallel buildings with a long thin courtyard between them that cuts a descending view through to the river and the historic Stockyards part of town beyond.  Breathtaking.

Tarrant County College, East Campus - view to north

The buildings are interesting, with some nice features like metal fins for shading, though the budget seems extravagant for these austere times.  (No doubt the money was appropriated years ago.)

I do wonder why the buildings had to be gray?  A nice color, sure, and very Architectural, but at this end of Fort Worth the other buildings are mostly Texas pink granite or rosy brick.  I suspect that the architects coming from Vancouver might be a factor in this - northern architects almost always choose darker and grayer materials than local ones, evidence the dark ironstone brick of Dallas' Arts Magnet High School.  Sorry, but North Texas is a tan kinda place.  Prairie?  Context?  (Sorry, this is a thing of mine.)

But the "big" design here - the parti - is very strong.  There are a few awkward details (view above cafe ceiling?), but overall these buildings are nicely realized.  I hope people discover just how cool this place is and adopt it...

Tarrant County College, East Campus - east wing, facing north

The Glory of the place is that canyon of a courtyard, with its amphitheater-like steps, trees,  and wonderful water feature - part fountain, part water-wall or -fall part... rocky mountain stream, burbling between boulders.  Wonderful!

Tarrant County College, East Campus - fountain

I can't tell from what I've found whether the landscaping was done in-house at Bing Thom Architects or if another landscape firm was involved: whoever deserves the credit... deserves credit!