Por varios meses, he intentado de empezar un grupo de conversación en español, y estoy muy satisfecho que hoy hemos hecho el primer “Tertulia” de Biloxi. KC, Yvonne, Dylan, y Will han venido y fue muy interesante de hablar con varias personas con varios niveles de español (incluyendo mi español podrido…). Creo que vamos a hacerlo cada viernes aldredor de las seis de la tarde; esta vez lo hicimos a Kokopelli’s y era muy bien. ¡Que exciting!
This is mostly a picture post – click below for more! I also wanted to quickly elaborate on some of the themes that came out of the conference: Top-down vs. bottom-up: There was a lot of discussion about top-down (centralized) versus bottom-up (grassroots) approaches to planning and architecture. One strong point of view held that bottom-up work best engages the community and produces the most useful results. However, I think a large number of people also realized that architects and planners are uniquely able to mediate between top-down and bottom-up approaches. This theme came out in Teddy Cruz’s talk as …
Structures for Inclusion was AMAZING. The conference was eye-opening for a lot of people. It was certainly the first conference of its kind to take place at Harvard, and the students at the GSD put a lot of effort into setting it up and making it run smoothly. We had a great representation from Biloxi: nine from the GCCDS, three from Architecture for Humanity, five Mississippi State students, one Minnesota student, and one Hands On volunteer. I finally met the other Design Corps Fellows: Betsy Ramaccia, Megan Clark, Eric Goldman, Jared Hueter, and Ella Scheuer. We more or less got …
Back from Boston! No sooner do I pull out of the airport than my car gets rear-ended by an inattentive Chevy Tahoe. The accident crumples the trunk, smashes some taillights, and causes enough damage to the frame that the car is totaled. Nooo! My poor little car… I wish I could save it, but I can’t afford to. The other person’s insurance will pay me the market value of the car, but I’d have to shell out an extra $2000 to get it repaired. Man… Anyway, Boston and the Structures for Inclusion conference were great, and I’ll have words and …
I’m very excited about going to Boston tonight for the Structures for Inclusion conference this weekend. Biloxi is sending a large contingent — 9 from our studio, 3 from Architecture for Humanity, and 6 students. I’ll report back — and I may even have a new camera, as my old one is broken.
OK in 1994 john henry toney was plowing my garden and plowed up a turnip root that had a face in it . 2 eyes a nose and a mouth , looked just like a man . so he drew a picture of it and gave it to me and i gave it to frank turner who ran a dinky junk shop in Pittsview , and he stuck it in his window as a joke and put a $50 dollar price tag on it . well in about a week some folk art collector came along and bought it . …
http://www.gccds.org/buildings/lendell/lendell.html Yay first new house built!
It has been a week or two since I last walked around the inside of Lendell’s house, and a lot has changed. It looks like an actual house now! Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia has been doing great work, and it looks like they’re doing subcontractor trim-outs, bringing in furniture, and getting ready to finish up. Everything seems to be working out well. I particularly like the kitchen clerestory window space (above).
An update on the landscaping at Patty’s house for Sergio & students and anyone else interested. We roughly distributed several tons of fill dirt and gravel and created a front walk leading up to the concrete stair landing. There is some gravel left for the parking space (to the right, out of the frame) which we will spread out after Mississippi Power digs the trench for the power line.