visual acoustics

Visual Acoustics from wes on Vimeo.

trailer for a film about julius shulman, narrated by dustin hoffman

the aiasf is showing this film sep 30th

old city of dubrovnik

dining by design reminder

Photo by Matthew Millman

Just a quick reminder. If you have not yet signed up, our Architecture and the City Dining by Design event is this Thursday evening, September 24th, at Coffee Bar.

We'd love to have you join us. Registration is required. For more information and to register, click here.

Price includes meal with wine pairing.

Coffee Bar

Mariposa and Florida Streets

San Francisco, CA

map

Thursday, September 2004, 2009 7:00 - 9:00 PM

We hope to see you there!

cold war cathedrals

the united states spent millions of dollars in the 50s and 60s building missile bases in remote areas. in the mid 60s, they were decommissioned, sold back to farmers and / or privatized. VBS.tv went to investigate a few and found miles of underground tunnels, silos and domes. they wind up visiting a guy in kansas who lives in one.

reality vs abstract

i have always loved transit maps. primarily because they are mix of reality and the abstract. the natural dents and bumps are overlaid with clear lines.

apparently BART is releasing new maps where they have straightened their lines out even more...

the old map:

the new map:

for the most part i like it. i assume with these you set rules to adhere to... how "short" a straight segment can be, how far apart the stops should be to accurately reflect elapsed time, etc... but when the end of the line (millbrae, for instance) is graphically 13 miles further south than it actually is, perhaps the rules need to be tweaked. SFO which sits north of millbrae out in the water is shown in the middle of san mateo. when san francisco is geographically 7 miles x 7 miles, that discrepancy (along with the lack of curvature through SF) might confuse some...

...but i guess they're tourists.

so i started thinking about this and remembered i had downloaded an iphone app for bart and that it had a pretty cool looking map. the map on the app was designed by peter mclelland, and i find it much better... so why isn't bart using it?

the app is called iBART, and here is their system map:

granted, this is zoomed in, but the overall system map cleans it up and remains accurate.

the zoomability of handhelds are going to make any and all maps superior... powers of ten...

i asked concrete what it wanted to be

and it answered, "the roof of the kimbell"...