Monday 19 November 2018

stampa 3d

In a very impressive proof-of-concept demonstration, an engineering firm and architectural studio collaborated to create a 3D-printed house from recycled demolition-site debris that a robot-plotter completed in under a week, and was a pavilion for a Milano design fair. In part of a series of investigative reports that revisit some of these worthy and innovative experiments in sustainable living, Dezeen has returned to the project to document it more fully and examine the careful thought and planning that went into the exposition and execution. Check it out and find related coverage of laudable advances in architecture at the link above. 

liminal beings

Having grown accustomed to immersive experiences with franchised and syndicated universes where consistency and canonicity are inviolate, we really appreciated this reflection on Peter S Beagle’s fantasy The Last Unicorn on the occasion of fifty years since its first publication. There’s refreshingly little world-building, pedigree to the characters or deference to rules or mythology—as compared to the digest of saga that many ascribe to—yet the book and later adaptations are enduring and perhaps ever more resonant. I recall alternately identifying with and being rather haunted by (animated) rather bitter Molly Grue, who eloped with the brigand leader Captain Cully allured by the romance of becoming a woodland fugitive, cursing the Unicorn, “Where have you been? Damn you! Where have you been?” demanding of the creature why she hadn’t come to her when she younger and fairer.
The Unicorn herself would have probably never left her enchanted grove were it not resigned call of a group of hunters, realising that they were pursuing quarry that were protected by the Unicorn’s presence, to be careful as she may be the last of her kind. Though the Unicorn rejects this idea at first, eventually gnawing anxiety drives her out of the safety of the forest and on a quest to find the others. The Unicorn realises that most humans fail to recognise her as something rare and magical and instead see her as a stray mare. Through the indirect counsel of a butterfly, the Unicorn surmises that she must find the Red Bull who has been herding away her kind but is captured by a witch named Mommy Fortuna and made a part of her travelling carnival. Among the menagerie, only the Unicorn and fierce harpy called Celaeno are actual supernatural beings with the rest consisting of regular animals that the witch has enchanted (or the audience) to give the illusion of being legendary. An inept conjurer called Schmendrick (Yiddish for someone out of his depth) travelling with the carnival realises the Unicorn’s true nature and frees who—who in turn frees the other animals and the harpy, who kills the witch while escaping. Schmendrick and the Unicorn continue the journey and approaching the village that supports the castle where the Red Bull is said to reside, Schmendrick is captured by the second-rate band of outlaws that Captain Cully leads. The Unicorn comes to rescue him and attracts the attention of his wife. “It would be the last unicorn that came to Molly Grue,” she sniffed. The trio continues to the castle—and without giving away too much, our misfits end up happily ever after. Maybe this sort of fractured fairy tale is the kind we ought to attend to, not epic but rather applicable.

Sunday 18 November 2018

attachรฉ with a view

From Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals, we learn about shutter-bug Major Martin Manhoff, who during his two year posting as military support to the US diplomatic Mission to the Soviet Union during the early 1950s, took full advantage of his time and access there to capture Stalin’s Moscow and beyond Red Square.
Suspected of espionage in 1954, Manhoff was expelled from the country and returned to the US Pacific-Northwest with hundreds of reels of film and thousands of photographs, forgotten until it was rediscovered by a Seattle-based archivist. Most famous for his unique, unfiltered perspective on the funeral procession of Josef Stalin, shot from a balcony of the Embassy with exclusive close-up footage, this collection curated and exhibited by Radio Free Europe (previously) in four parts showcases that unofficial documentation as well as many lesser known photographic forays.

faรงade

The always captivating Spoon & Tamago directs our attention to a social media account that specialises and has amassed an impressive following on the subject of exterior walls in Japan.
It presupposes a certain aesthetic understanding and appreciation to properly frame and convey the complex compositions of gritty pipes and cladding that scale our buildings—and is certainly resonant with thousands hanging their contributions to the label #ใ‚ถๅฃ้ƒจ (the wall club). I suppose I had never considered beforehand that hashtags weren’t the exclusive domain of one script at the exclusion of others. More to explore at the links above.