the TINY HOUSE gallery

ok, so we've all gotten tired of MCMANSIONS... but there is a LITTLE MOVEMENT going on behind the scenes that many would call ridiculous. but i call it RIDICULOUSLY SWEET!!! this is the TINY HOUSE MOVEMENT, roughly defined as home under 750 sq. ft. I knew one day the MICRO MACHINES generation would rule the world. HA!


actually, ive been thinking about building a little house for some time. there are some vacant lots in my neighborhood, and i figure with school loans ill never buy a "regular" house, but why not have a tiny house on a little lot? i mean, my APT is 650 sq. feet. and i dont even REALLY this much space. ive been thinking of using an old shipping container.

anyways, without further ado, here is a gallery of some of the tiny houses i have found online. like em?? CHECK THE LINKZZZ!



from MICRO COMPACT HOMES

(the MODERN CABANA house. great slideshow!)

the Z-GLASS house from TUMBLEWEED

(its another from MODERN CABANA in red bluff, CA)

the weeHOUSE! (this one's in MN)

anyone have ideas on building a shipping container house? ill leave that for the next entry... ENJOY!

WOONERF!!!

(...no, it's not just a cheer for foamy balls)

image from BRAND AVENUE a nifty place/space/identity blog

according to my trusty dashboard dictionary, WOONERF is "a road in which devices for reducing or slowing the flow of traffic have been installed." this definition, however, seems to follow a lot of CONSERVATIONIST TALK, that is to say, its about what you CAN'T do, rather than what you now CAN do. has anyone been to GOLDEN GATE PARK on a SUNDAY???

(yes, this is a roller skate dance party)


(a good idea of the street life with no cars)

anyways, the point is, there is SO MUCH LIFE there on a sunday, solely because there are NO CARS ALLOWED.
now, completely banning automobile traffic is not the ideal goal, but in fact, it's sad that people are not so active in the park every day. .. i imagine it has to do with their fear of being RUN OVER. lets look at a more literal translation of WOONERF:

WOONERF: a street for living, a living yard.

this is more like it. woonerf isn't about restricting anyone, its about INVITING EVERYONE to enjoy the public space equally.
don't get me wrong, drivers have rights, as well as bikers, skaters, strollers, walkers, dancers, prancers, and low-budget fancy-pantsers. but imagine a city that had thoroughfares for driving, but in between these high-speed throughways, there were streets designed for a VARIETY of ACTIVITIES!!!

(a dutch woonerf sign. i like how they STRUT)
it might make driving a little more difficult. but heck, why not put a bunch of easy to access underground parking lots at the outskirts of a congested area, and the put a bunch of EL TRAINS, MONORAILS, even TROLLIES to truck people in a bit further? in this scenario, you could still drive in if you absolutely needed to, you would just have to drive SLOWLY. and that might not be the end of the world its really not that outlandish at all. in fact, its a common concept in many places in europe. i know we created the complicated road system to embody american freedom, but what's freedom if you can't roller-skate-dance?!?! (yes, that is a RHETORICAL QUESTION) hey, speaking of the end of the world:
The End of the World
watch this. its HILARIOUS!!!
if you want some more info on WOONERF, start here.

thats all about woonerf for now. i am le tired.

recipe for fixin' a TASTY CHICAGO BROWNFIELD!

(take this...)


"What became known as Stearns Quarry opened sometime in the late 1830s and supplied lime and crushed stone for concrete, fertilizer, and roads until it closed in 1970, at a final depth of 350 feet below street level. The City of Chicago bought the giant hole in 1970 for 9 million dollars to use as a dump for construction and demolition debris (CDD) and for ash from the Northwest incinerator on the West Side which burned Chicago’s garbage for 26 years. Incinerator ash stopped being accepted in 1987, but CDD continued to come in, much of it made, of course, of lime and crushed stone, in shapes"


(add this...)


"The Chicago Park District is now reconstituting the site as an unprecedented type of urban park, with dramatic topography, a fishing hole, a sledding hill, a “natural” amphitheater, and an elaborately engineered water management system. This system includes an underground pump to remove existing leachate draining toxins from the buried incinerator ash, and an overground sequence of ponds that collect and filter surface rainwater and prevent it from contributing to the leachate below."


(get... this?)


looks different, huh?. well, go check out the landscape architecture firm behind it: D.I.R.T. Studios (stands for "design investigations reclaiming terrain") THIS PLAN IS BADASS. if you look closely, it contains a large wetland area designated for water filtration, and a pond for fishing as well as rainwater retention. im not sure exactly how i feel about the large hump/spiral in the center (just because it looks SO much like a landfill) but behind barbed wire, anything looks like prison camp. anyway, D.I.R.T. is worth checking out, i am inspired by some of their work around the country, mostly reworking brownfields.

Although the CITY OF CHICAGO claims that the project has been completed for a few years, you can tell by the barbed wire look and vacant construction machines inside the park that it is actually fairly far from it. when it will ACTUALLY be completed remains to be seen, but needless to say, i am happy to have it around the corner from my apartment. here's to making MOUNTAINS out of LANDFILLS!

CRUSH your CANS for the ENVIRONMENT

its amazing what moving to a new place will do to you. your whole value system will change. you'll start eating off styrofoam, with plastic forks, and not even shed a shiver. yeah, I LIVE ON THE SOUTH SIDE. now, chicago has a lot of "g" rhetoric, much of it is impressive, and in fact, a lot of it is realized. (check out the GREEN ROOF INITIATIVE to get an idea) or look at this:




that's the CITY HALL ROOF... so like i said, in some ways, especially in ways that like to be photographed, we are MAKIN MOVES.

But seriously, there is NO RECYCLING in my neighborhood. im not kidding, there is NO. RECYCLING. i mean, i could theoretically bike the a few miles with the goods on my back to recycling center, but, that's my only option until the south side gets municipal recycling in 2011. so.. realistically, there's not much recycling going on. (although, on the positive side, we're not adding to the GREAT TRASH ISLAND either.

so, it may sound primitive, but i've resorted to COMPACTING my TRASH

it feels pretty good actually. especially because i bet a lot of it ends up here: (HA! I CANT FIND A SINGLE PICTURE OF THE LANDFILL IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD... THEY SAY ITS A PARK NOW!!!) welllll, imagine:
(yikes, all the images have been removed.. .GO GREEN! YA!)

oh well. i live near a giant fucking landfill that they are covering up, not to mention a big-ass power plant.

anyways, the point is, its a whole new game of scale. that being said: BUY CANS, NOT BOTTLES, AND CRUSH 'EM GOOD!

thats all from me for now. i think ill go drink some CHARTRUESE.

check it: WALKSCORE.COM!

SERIOUSLY GO TO WALKSCORE.COM this is a website that is devoted exclusively the rating the 'WALKABILITY' of your neighborhood. it basically gives you a GOOGLE MAP, covered with all of the thing that are useful to everyday life and within walking distance of your home. while it isn't perfect (like GOOGLE maps themselves) it is a really fun way to look at your new (or old) neighborhood in a new way. CHECK IT OUT! im excited that websites like this one are actually out there. for my neighborhood in SOUTH SIDE CHICAGO, i got a 69 out of 100. ya! GET YOUR WALKSCORE!

truck DRIVIN'

(image from techEBlog.com which is filled with cool geeky tech stuff)

so.... I just moved to CHICAGO from SF a few minutes ago.. . and i DROVE. (i know, i know, im SO anti... well, suck it) yes, i had a tough choice to make, but decided that the choice to drive out in a rental van became a better choice than to toss and replace my things, and seemed acceptable in consideration of my lifestyle otherwise. besides, i had to get my bike there somehow.

but this entry is not about my drive, but rather, my companions on the road. yep, the road (HIGHWAY 80 from SF to CHI) was completely filled with TRACTOR-TRAILER TRUCKS. i mean completely. there were very few other passenger vehicles on the road for LOOOONG stretches between major cities, and even there, the traffic was dominated by the trucks.

while it did seem a little inconvenient for cruising purposes, the real impact of the trucks hit me on a certain stretch of the highway in NEBRASKA. i entered the highway from a rest area, and immediately thought the van was going to break down. I frantically checked the sensors to see if anything seemed wrong, but everything checked out ok. i continued to be concerned until i merged into the left lane to pass a truck. upon hitting the left lane, the freaky rumbling coming from my engine stopped, and the steering wheel became steady in my hands.

that's when i realized the IMPACT that TRUCKS must have on our HIGHWAYS

(image from qcsdirect.com although i don't get exactly what they do....)

the interesting thing here is that for a long time it has been recognized that a major problem with the US train infrastructure is the fact the freight and passenger trains run on the same tracks. this results in tracks that are constantly torn up by the heavy pressure of freight trains passing over them, resulting in the slower passage of passenger trains over rougher tracks, as well as more delays to track repair on freight damaged sections.
well, it seems we are facing the same impact on our highways. we all know that highways take millions and millions of government revenue dollars for repairs each year, and imagine how much of this could be avoided if freight was not ALSO MOVED ON HIGHWAYS!! call me crazy, but sending an individual truck, even if it does haul three containers at once, does not seem like it could hold a candle against the efficiency of a miles-long, hundreds-of-containers hauling freight train.

so IF WE CAN'T GET THEM ON THEIR OWN TRACKS, CAN WE AT LEAST GET THEM OFF THE ROADS?!?! i understand that a lot of people have trucking jobs, but with a little help from VAN JONES, can't we move past the PONY EXPRESS OF FREIGHT DELIVERY??
so.... what's yer favorite jasmine-flower based asian tea? why, its jasmine tea, of course!