new grands projets?

Paris is a constantly evolving canvas for urban planning & architectural innovation. just as Mitterand had his Grands Projets (and a century before that, Napoleon III brought on Haussmann’s rather brilliant redesign), President Sarkozy has stepped up with his own “post-Kyoto” project.

The proposals unveiled this month have some interesting & some appalling ideas. in the latter category, Christian de Portzamparc’s proposed elimination of the Gare du Nord & Gare de l’Est, pushing all connections out to the suburbs. ach! on the other hand, while i don’t always agree with Jean Nouvel’s designs, his proposals for the Grand Paris project hit all the right notes (more here, on his ideas)

But it’s not only ‘starchitects’ weighing in…there are some lesser-known names in the bunch, including Djamel Klouche. a nice summary of the projects, here, by NYTimes’ writer Nicolai Ouroussoff.

bike warrior

i’m looking forward to spring, but dreading the inevitable onslaught of bikes on Toronto sidewalks. i’ve never lived in a city with such impatient bikers (i ride a bike in Paris, but even notoriously rude Parisians are gems of patience & civility compared to Toronto bikers)

so how to resolve the cyclists vs pedestrians dilema–and both groups vs cars?  a beautifully-articulated NYTimes article by Robert Sullivan examines how we might all benefit from living more politely together.

(my local Velib station in Paris…waiting patiently for spring)

moss as art

graffiti moss is everywhere in blogs, but not so visible in the real world. i’m waiting for spring to give it a try. here’s a link about London-based artist Helen Nodding’s recipe & concept.

i spent a while living in B.C., which is really a fantastic place for moss…probably could have grown the stuff inside the apartment, let alone in the garden. same can be said for Paris. Toronto seems a bit cold & not damp enough, but it might be worth a try out on the terrass wall, just the same.

Cited: Don Blanding

When I have a house… / as I sometime may…/

I’ll suit my fancy in every way. / I’ll fill it with things that have caught my eye /

In drifting from Iceland to Molokai.

- Don Blanding

Recycled expressway: the Big Dig House

Boston’s Big Dig highway project (the 10-year process of burying the I-93 expressway) created masses of construction debris; this “Big Dig House”, built by Single Speed Design, incorporates more than 600,000 pounds of steel and concrete salvaged from the waste.

the original owner & engineer of the house is a civil engineer who worked on the Big Dig; his wife is a water resources engineer who designed a rainwater collection system that waters the two roof gardens. a few details that intrigue me: the radiant heat flooring is actually reused concrete roadway; a 27-inch girder from the expressway now braces the roof; and the basic framing of the house took only two days. more photos & more story, click on the photo above for the architect’s point of view or visit Apartment Therapy Boston for the current owners’ decorating choices.

so…a new way to look at the Gardiner in Toronto: a potential massive source of recycled building material?

Cited:Joan Didion

You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.

- Joan Didion

Dream house: Florida

Martie Lieberman is a passionately advocate for the modern buildings of Florida, especially in the Sarasota area. and every now and then, she sends me word that a 1950s home is on the market. she knows i’m not planning to move to Sarasota…but i love dreaming about the buildings.

this week, i’m in love with a 1956 home by Gene Leedy that’s for sale on Dexter Street in Winter Haven (where Leedy built a slew of houses in the 1950s). i like houses that take the environment into consideration–and this low-lying  stripped-down design really works wonderfully with the incredible plants of Central Florida.

i like the way the house opens itself to the outside world, with practical louvered windows & shade-creating overhangs, so there’s no need to live in a sealed air conditioned box.

this link is Martie talking about meeting Gene Leedy, and the challenge of preserving modern buildings when they’re on the market. more photos of the house, here. meanwhile, i’m going to imagine how wonderful this room would be as a home office…complete with that beautiful daybed for day-dreaming…

difficult exteriors

Toronto green architect Carolyn Moss, of Moss Sund, recently renovated a High Park home, and i had the pleasure of visiting it last week. i wrote about the project for blogTO and i’m fascinated by people’s comments about the home’s new exterior.

it’s difficult to know how the finished project is going to look–i photographed the home during a snowstorm (welcome to home visits in Toronto in January) & the green roof will only be installed in the spring.

i think the planted roof of the entrance area is going to really soften the feel of the home. (below, a photo of the original house, then Moss’ computer sketch, then my photo of the current house)

renovating the outside of a building is a tricky proposition. on the one hand, there’s the community to consider–will the new look fit in, will it upset the neighbours, will it endure? and on the other hand, there’s the purpose of the renovation–more space, more environmental responsibility, more value for the owners.

what’s exciting about the High Park renovation is how Moss has balanced all of these considerations. the neighbours have been enthusiastic about the reno; the house roofline and basic window positions remain the same as neighbouring houses; and the green improvements in the house are extensive. (below, the back of the house during construction)

the most obvious exterior change is the stucco exterior–and it’s a heck of a change. i’m not crazy about the colour–very bland, especially in grey Toronto winter. but the stucco does insulate the house, a major green improvement. the original brick walls were notorious for their lack of insulation…the only way to change the original masonry is to add insulation on the inside (diminishing the square footage of the home–and the rooms are already small by contemporary standards) or add the insulation to the outside–which is what the home-owners and Moss decided to do.

to create a more functional entranceway for the house, Moss created a small rectangular addition for the front of the home, using stone interspersed with windows and a translucent glass panel. i immediately fell in love with the personable grey Eramosa marble, quarried here in Ontario. Moss also used it for the interior floors.

“I wanted the sun to penetrate as far as possible into the house,” says the homeowner. And even during a snowstorm, the house was light and refreshing…with gloriously warm floors, heated by the geothermal loops that Moss has buried in the front yard.

The White House

in honour of the inauguration of Barack Obama today, a few facts about his new Georgian  Neoclassical address.

first off, he might want a map: the place has 132 rooms.

the original building was designed by James Hoban, an Irishman who may have based his contest-winning plan on Leinster House in Ireland (now home to the Irish Parliament). the painting by N.C.Wyeth shows Washington and Hoban discussing the construction.

the building was begun in 1792 and built of  Virginia sandstone, quarried by slaves & free workers. Scottish stone workers, alongside Irish and Italian brick workers, did much of the detail work on the building.

in 1800, John Adams moved in, though the interior wasn’t yet finished. during the war of 1812, the building was burned down by British/Canadian soldiers. the damage led to a white-washing of the stonework…which is why the building came to be known as “the White House”. the name only became official in 1901 under Teddy Roosevelt.

to bring all this up-to-date, the Obamas have already chosen their decorator–Michael S. Smith from Santa Monica will redo the private rooms for the First Family. this living room is from Smith’s book of interiors…he’s known for child-friendly combinations of formal antiques & more contemporary fabrics, which sounds like a sensible combo for the White House.

for their decor, the Obamas will be able to wade through the 40,000 sqft warehouse of White House furnishings; since the Kennedy administration, nothing has been thrown out. that must be quite the warehouse!

home & tiny memoir

“The local is not a place but a place in a given man — what part of it he has been compelled or else brought by love to give witness to his own mind. And that is THE form, that is, the whole thing, as whole as it can get.”  (Robert Creeley, “a Note on the Local” in A Quick Graph)

i found this quote on rob mclennan’s blog, where it’s part of the kick-off for his memory project “house: a (tiny) memoir” (he’s been working on these short pieces for a while, but i only just discovered them.)

in his intro to the project, rob writes: “What makes up home? Home is a series of recollections, of distances, as easily remembered as mis-remembered, and a blending of events that can sometimes never be confirmed.”