roadside architecture

On 8th street in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, a single stair leads to a raised, red and white tile platform. This trash-strewn urban ruin is tucked into the corner of a large parking lot within sight of the neon marquees of the Broadway theatre district. It is what remains of Taco House, one of LA’s iconic hamburger stands, which are quickly being erased from this rapidly transforming city.

Los Angeles is, of course, inextricably associated with the automobile, and it was here that many suburban building types – from modernist homes to fast-food restaurants – were pioneered. But it is changing: five transit lines are being built, and cranes loom over the city’s boulevards. The epicentre of this transition is the once moribund downtown, where a denser and wealthier city is displacing, among other things, one of its old, car-oriented icons.

The hamburger stand is part of southern California’s rich tradition of roadside architecture. These buildings are typically 100 square-foot boxes, with an outdoor window to order and pick up food. Next to the structures are rudimentary dining areas, often consisting of no more than a plastic tarp and a few fold-up chairs and tables. To compensate for their diminutive size, the stands sometimes have large signs and, in more elaborate cases, are decorated to resemble everything from a log cabin to a traditional Korean house.

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Gete-okosomin

In 2008, on a dig in the First Nation’s Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, archaeologists made a small but stunning discovery: a tiny clay pot.

Though it might not have seemed very impressive at first glimpse, this little piece of pottery was determined to be about 800 years old.

And inside that pot? Something that changes how we’re looking at extinction, preservation, and food storage, as well as how humans have influenced the planet in their time on it.

It’s amazing to think that a little clay pot buried in the ground 800 years ago would still be relevant today, but it’s true! It’s actually brought an extinct species of squash that was presumed to be lost forever. Thank our Indigenous Ancestors! Even they knew what preservation meant. They knew the importance of the future, Is it not amazing that they are affecting our walks of life even to this day?

Here it is! The pot was unearthed on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, where it had laid buried for the past 800 years

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Dorm room restaurant

A Columbia University student who is hoping to earn A's in the classroom may also have to worry about securing top marks from the NYC Health Department due to the restaurant in his dorm room.
Jonah Reider, 21, opened a New American restaurant called Pith in his dorm room and he serves his customers five- to eight-course meals that he prepares in the kitchen in his suite at Hogan Hall.
Diners, who typically fork over about $15, have to book at the college senior's trendy establishment with Yelp and Reider has reservations that will keep the restaurant packed through Christmas.

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Farm Containers

On a vacant lot near Boston's Logan Airport, Cooney is using four former freight containers -- plus one at another location -- to grow some 30,000 heads of lettuce, herbs and other leafy greens.

"I'm not really a farmer," said the 61-year-old Cooney, who ran software companies before starting Corner Stalk farms in 2013. "But it's more interesting than a desk job."
If 30,000 heads of lettuce sounds like a lot, it is -- and it's the reason why he's able to run a successful farm in one of the country's most expensive cities.
The containers come from Freight Farms, a Boston-based startup that outfits the boxes with lights, growing racks and irrigation systems -- creating what are essentially super efficient growing machines.

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Brownsville mobile farmer's market

Brownsville’s first mobile farmer’s market has begun to make its rounds around the city this month.
The market rotates between the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, the Citrus Gardens, Brownsville Independent School District, Villa Del Sol, and all 10 of the housing authorities in the city.
The goal is to expose people to healthy living, said David Vasquez, mobile market coordinator.

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Innovations at the Nexus of Food + Energy + Water Symposium.

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Department of Architecture is hosting INFEWS: Innovations at the Nexus of Food + Energy + Water Symposium. The event will join distinguished researchers and design professionals from across the U.S. with faculty and students from KU departments to study issues related to the health of interrelated food, energy and water systems and the built environment. These have been subjected to increasing pressure from climate change, population growth and resource depletion. The event will start Jan. 21 and ends at noon Jan. 23. The third annual Water Charrette for students is part of the symposium, as is a three-hour workshop on green roofs sponsored by Tremco. It is the third year in a row the department has put on an event related to these topics.

- See more at: http://news.ku.edu/architecture-dept-hosting-food-energy-water-symposium#sthash.rkXPXMuO.dpuf

more fun with food

domenic bahmann personifies everyday objects as whimsical scenes

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Vertical Farming..design

The Beenleigh Hills is an experimental architectural design typology integrating densified cohousing, vertical farming, solar farming and boutique agricultural fields. Sustainable design must build vertically and become part of the eco-system. An eco-system has no waste, just another resource for another system to plug into. Building vertically must expand past our traditional way of thinking about living and working, it should include growing our food which currently uses 1/5th of the Earth’s available land area. Vertical farming is the solution to feeding a growing global population and halting deforestation. Advancements in energy, robotics and low cost aeroponic modular systems are first required for vertical farming to be feasible.

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Food Architecture

Creative Food Architecture and Sculpture Designs

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