Sales offices for condominium developments are usually nondescript, temporary structures. But in the artsy West Queen West neighborhood of Toronto, the London-based architect Will Alsop has created an Urbancorp/Landmark showroom that looks like a speckled red box. Made of marine plywood, it has amoeba-shape windows and an egg-shape conference room. The office will be used to sell apartments in two buildings designed by Baird Sampson Neuert Architects and a tower by Mr. Alsop. Once the apartments are sold, the 3,000-square-foot office will have a second life as an art gallery run by Ben Woolfitt, an artist and art-supply store owner. Mr. Woolfitt lent the project's developer, Alan Saskin, the land for the sales office; in exchange, he gets to keep the building.
Favorite Articles
- Air Repair
Redesigning New York City's skies, in WIRED. - The Long View
James Corner and the future of landscape architecture. - Saint Brad
In New Orleans with architecture's most important patron. - Local Cities, Global Problems
What do we do with Jane Jacobs? - The Elementalist
A profile of architect Brad Cloepfil. - Rare Bird
At the park with the plane spotters, for the New Yorker. - IDEO’s Urban Pre-Planning
The famous design firm graduates to cities. Poof. From Metropolis - Art Capturing Art Capturing Art Capturing...
Jonathan Safran Foer, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Richard Serra and Tadao Ando mix it up in the New York Times. - Storm Center
Thom Mayne gives NOAA's satellite guys a new home. Which they sort of like. A saga in Wired. - Lifestyle Centers
New malls that lie about how public public space really is. A polemic in Slate.
On the Radio
- Design and Architecture
Apple Worship: Creating a Brand. - To the Point
The Internet and the human brain. - Marketplace
The possibility of an Internet shutdown in the US? Hard to fathom. - WNYC - All Things Considered
NYC gets serious about retrofitting green buildings. - NHPR's Word of Mouth
Are cities bad for your brain? Can landscape architecture help? - NHPR's Word of Mouth
Green urbanism. - AIASF's Street Cred
With Thom Mayne talking about the San Francisco Federal Building. - NHPR's Word of Mouth
Green campuses. - KCRW's DnA
What does the Dreamliner have to do with the iPhone?
Talk of the Town
- George W. Bush Builds His Dream House
The greenest ranch in Texas. - Rare Bird
At the park with the plane spotters.
Wired
- Surreal Estate
Eric Clough turns a Manhattan apartment into a puzzle palace. - Air Repair
The key to eliminating U.S. flight delays? Redesign the sky over New York City. - Sigma DP
How-to pack an SLR into a pocket cam. - Intel Cash Register
Knows who you are, what you want. - This Is a Skate Park
What boarders teach architects. - Instant Suburb
Prefabs at MoMA. - Impossibly Starck
Talking plastic with Philippe Starck. - Heaven for Hells Angels
Pentagram's Harley-Davidson Museum. - Ocean Current
Climb aboard the world's first marine-energy test bed. - 7 Days Later
Green subdivisions are the vaporware of the home-building industry.
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Welcome
- You've reached the website of Andrew Blum, author of "TUBES: A Journey to the Center of the Internet," the first ever book-length look behind the scenes of our digital lives, at the physical heart of the Internet itself. TUBES will be published in June 2012 by Ecco/HarperCollins in the US, and Viking in the UK (where it carries the theatrical subtitle, "Behind the Scenes at the Internet"). For press inquires or to request a review copy, please contact Joanna Pinsker at HarperCollins in the US (joanna.pinsker at harpercollins.com) or Lija Kresowaty at Viking in the UK (Lija.Kresowaty at uk.penguingroup.com). Or pre-order from your favorite bookseller! Otherwise, what you'll find on this site isn't a blog, but rather a collection of my published articles since 1999, on technology, infrastructure, architecture, urbanism, design, art and travel. I'm a correspondent at WIRED and a contributing editor at Metropolis. You can find loose themes along the sides, an archive of articles here, more bio here, and me in Brooklyn, New York. For editorial inquiries please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency. Thanks for visiting.
Urbanism
- In Praise of Slowness
Thoughts on writing about the future of the city, on Urban Omnibus. - WNYC - Cityscapes
A month-long blog about NYC's built environment. - The Dream Life of Cities
Libeskind and the future of Toronto. - Fake Cities
The mall goes undercover. - Jane Jacobs in an Age of Global Change
Local cities, global problems. - IDEO does Cities
Exchanging the idea of place for place itself. - Planning Rwanda
An urban planner's dream. An urban planner's curse.
