Conversation yields links.
Spend some time on this linked site. It’s really wonderful.
John Whitehead on the death of the American farm
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Monthly Archives: January 2009
A different “buying the farm”
Reminded of a different meaning of “buying the farm” and now counting down…
Buying the farm
Cabling network system of the Kona Blue aquaculture Sea Station
I have this tremendous desire to buy a farm, a specific farm. After decades of vacationing in the area, after a decade (while vacationing) of making a daily pre-breakfast bike tour around the lake and admiring the setting, views, changing light, and topography of the farm, and the great collection of colorful tractors the farmer had, the place came up for sale.
The use of the property has been changing with the age of the farmer. Formerly a vibrant orchard, more of the land has been converted to corn as the task of maintaining the trees became more difficult for the owner. The remnants of the orchard are now maintained by one neighboring farmer, and the corn is grown as feed by another neighbor who raises cattle.
We’d been close to purchasing other properties in the area but, in the overheated market of just the recent years, it’s been difficult to reconcile price with place. Our interest in this one is not only because it’s a wonderful site, and because it’s possible to imagine a life of serenity there, but also because the area is quickly transforming, subdividing, and becoming suburbanized, and not in a very thoughtful or even attractive way. This is one of those areas where everybody wants to live because of its beauty, but then transforms properties into a replica of the worst of the downstate burbs.
This could be one of the last good-sized properties in the area to stay agricultural, and there is pressure in the community to change the zoning ordinance to allow smaller lot sizes.
We made an offer, now about a year ago, that seemed to be right for the market. It was rejected. The farmer is at a turning point in his life. He is too old to take care of the place and his kids are not interested in it. The real estate agent they chose, engaged before the dramatic turn in the market, gave the farmer hopes of being able to achieve a fortune in its sale to a developer, and has been marketing the property as a development site.
We’ve tried to persuade the agent and his client of the importance of the property as an agricultural site, important not only because of its beauty, but also as an asset giving value to the surrounding communities and the region. But we’ve been told that once a farmer gives up farming he could care less about the land. So, ever since our initial offer, we’ve been dreaming more anxiously about the place and trying to imagine other ways of financing and affording it.
Even while rejecting the notion of its development, my own thoughts have been in imagining a different kind of development, a different kind of settlement in and on this land. Is it possible to design and develop in a way that is not only appropriately sustainable, but aesthetically “compatible”? I have only little particles of ideas emerging, yet, so maybe I’ll come back to this in the future.
In the meantime, this competition brief is an inspiration, from [bracket].
Once merely understood in terms of agriculture, today information, energy, labour, and landscape, among others, can be farmed. Farming harnesses the efficiency of collectivity and community. Whether cultivating land, harvesting resources, extracting energy or delegating labor, farming reveals the interdependencies of our globalized world. Simultaneously, farming represents the local gesture, the productive landscape, and the alternative economy. The processes of farming are mutable, parametric, and efficient. From terraforming to foodsheds to crowdsourcing, farming often involves the management of the natural mediated by the technologic. Farming, beyond its most common agricultural understanding is the modification of infrastructure, urbanisms, architectures, and landscapes toward a privileging of production.
She was a bear to sail…
Coming across some great sailing shots recently, I remembered a stir caused around the Great Lakes about 30 years ago. Tim Coleman, a Brit, of the mustard fortune, brought what I remember as an amazing boat to attempt to set the world speed record on water.
I never saw it in action, but I remember descriptions of a trimaran hull. The innovation in its design was that the two outboard pods rode on a beam that was not fixed. That is, as the boat tacked, the beam would slide across the deck of the center hull. Members of the crew, riding in the outboard hulls as ballast, described the fright, as well as the thrill of being suddenly thrust into into the air as the boat changed course or the wind shifted.
The boat was a big one, called Slingshot. Imagine the experience–
The crew consisted of helmsman, jib sheet tender, and two mainsheet tenders; grinder and tailer. She was a bear to sail for many reasons, and it was not uncommon for her winch grinders to be hauling away, right through the speed course…It was virtually a signature of these big Macalpine-Downie boats that they threw hardly any spray, and never looked like they were trying very hard. (from Big Boat Speedsailing)
These images of sailing on a different scale are wonderful.
(Thanks to the always delightful Coudal Partners.)
Coast Guard video of the Hudson River landing
The US Airways ditching on the river, and the amazing pace of the following events:
more about “Coast Guard vide of the Hudson River …“, posted with vodpod
1/18/09 I thought I’d add this really delightful 3-D flight path graphic, and its “voices from the plane.”
Things to come back to
Design Observer offers a list of 10 things that need to be redesigned. I be a lot of us have our own nominations. Yours? (I’ve also noticed that the top posts in anybody’s blogs are top 10′s, etc.)
And on that theme, as the Obama’s consider a new designer for their quarters in the White House, others have gone further. And then there’s this floor plan history. Oh, and while we’re in the neighborhood, what about that street they live on?
Stealing stuff.
Something to explore, a topic to come back to: What I learned in 2008
See you later.
Gorgeous to look at and lovely to touch
Gary Hamel, in his “Management 2.0” blog in the Wall Street Journal, references “Detroit-itis” to describe the failures of industries other than autos to use design to transform their products and, as a result, their industries, as Apple did.
We have a sense that “Detroit,” as the representative term for the American automotive industry, has made significant but unrecognized advances in styling, in design, and in performance.
There may be many reasons why this is not yet acknowledged in Congress, in the press, and in consulting blogs, but there could also be a substantial reason in consumer perception. That is, shopping, buying, and owning an automobile in most cases still carries the stigma, if not the reality, of uncomfortable and unsatisfying experiences.
Apple’s key transformation from similar cultures in the computer industry was not only with their product design and performance, but also in the retail experience. Apple’s transformation includes an alignment of place with product in all of its aspects—the physical environment iterating the brand attributes, its people acting as consultants rather than salesmen, the Genius Bar elevating not only what is offered but also the status of the owner—and contributes to the perception of quality, the attribution of value to the brand, and the development of an enthusiast culture in the extension of the customer’s relationship.
And then there’s the App Store. An extraordinarily exuberant marketplace formed around the iPhone created by Apple and suppliers who provide customized mini-modules fitting the iPhone platform, but selectable and customizable by any user.
There are at least six businesses inside an auto dealership—new car sales, used car sales, service, parts and accessories, finance and insurance. Individually and collectively they provide rich opportunities to Apple-ise the experience.
But as the market and products shift from the familiar conventions of internal combustion, to electric, hybrid and hydrogen propulsion systems, and as the “skateboard” potential of emerging vehicle architecture allows greater customization, what we call a car and who we are as consumers becomes very different. As new vehicles with new embedded technologies emerge, these legacy businesses may be joined by opportunities to engage differently in the dealership environment—to offer training, personalization, maintenance and upgrades, and other consulting services. These new businesses will provide a context for transformational retail models. Rather than simply a setting for objects, the dealership can become a place for an extended and satisfying experience.
The Apple model provides a great example to explore for a shift in who a dealer is and what a dealership looks like. It offers an opportunity to use physical and experiential design to draw car buyers for, as Hamel call it, “the sheer, stupid joy of interacting with something that was gorgeous to look and lovely to touch,” and more.
How many does it take?
This is the place where bad times get sent to make them belong to somebody else, thus, it seems easy to agree about Detroit because the city embodies everything the rest of the country wants to get over.
(link)
It is odd, to have had in my career in this area, some projects in which we asked the question, “How big is too big?” Now, of course, we are all interested in whether the now small is too small or, more hopefully, if there is a critical mass that can be found to achieve stability and catalyze growth.
Just a small note* to this speculation by Ryan Avent in The Bellows (found by way of CEO’s for Cities)—I propose that in Detroit it may take just one: A leader who can articulate an unselfish set of principles—whether civic or corporate—and provide a vision that will rally, unite and motivate the very many still here who have cared but have been unable to break through a wall of self-centered power.
*Not intended as a pun, but I understand this whole conversation of Ryan’s began over a Twitter tweet, evolving to this challenge: how many people have to move to Detroit before growth becomes self-sustaining?
Earlier:
I always like and fear this
The Feltron Annual Report, that is.
Trying to find momentum
In the meantime…
I remember an early lecture in architecture school about America’s “kleenex” culture—the use-once-and-throw-away characteristic of our society. Here‘s the UN and its membership entry.
Continuing the discussion on what in design is more authentic as the economy changes—democratic ecology, intelligent design, longevity…and the burbs.
So, maybe about 30 years ago, I scribbled some graphic notes in my sketchbook representing sound levels in the city. I was interested in what might give a different topography to the city, and what considerations might generate a different kind of architecture. I was also interested to discover if activity levels correlated with financial speculation. That is, did the architectural topography of place (assumed to be financial) have any relationship with the social (my noise level/graphic equalizer map) topography. Fund to find other explorations.
And I can’t remember where this came from, but thanks for the delightful A History of Visual Communications.
