Featurism is fat…and not the good kind

Lessons on consumerism from the organic food movement

A month or so ago I attended a conference in Portland, Oregon held by the APDF where I caught a presentation by Benjamin Linder from Franklin W. Olin’s College of Engineering. Among the slides in Linder’s lecture was one which re-imagined Michael Pollan’s bestseller In Defense of Food as “In Defense of Product”. This idea struck me so violently; I stood up, walked out of the auditorium, went directly to Powell’s and bought a copy.

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Architects without borders

I am sitting in the small mustard yellow office of Global Visionaries. The room is decorated with ethnic masks in a community center on top of Beacon Hill. It’s a far contrast to the secured, C-3 cool gray office with a panoramic view of the Cascade Mountains that I was just working in an hour ago.

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Michael Jackson died, and I’m pretty much okay with it

Death of a legend, it’s happens; frankly it has to. What’s more arresting than the actual expiration of The Gloved One is the fact that for an instant, our world stopped, dead in rotation. All roads, most leading nowhere on the information superhighway, were gridlocked. This, my good friends, is some serious news. Or, is it?

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Over the top is so last season

For all you fashion fans out there, the pre-collections are upon us. Hip, hip, kursnoooooze. Wunderkinds Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough, the masterminds behind Proenza Schouler, just dropped their Spring 10’ pre-collection at Pitti W to rows of delighted European fashion hounds, c-celebs and so-called socialites. The applause pretty much stopped there, for me anyway.

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Seattle is the most creative city in the world

Yeah, you read that right, Jet City is #1. According to Fast Company we boast the ingredients that will bring our communities, and country, back to prosperity: smarts, foresight, social consciousness, creative ferment. There were a few other cities mentioned, but who really counts past one these days anyway. Unfortunately, with praise comes pressure, just look at the list of ingredients!

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Ironic symbolism

A real life experience…I was cycling to work from Brooklyn to Manhattan one fine morning a few years back, and as usual, joined a busy Broadway at around 8:50am. I had a very close shave when a Hummer H2, being driven by a young female driver, narrowly missed my bike and caused me to crash as it powered passed to the left of me. The elevation of the cab, visibility for the driver and crowded nature of a Monday morning in Manhattan makes for a dangerous combination.

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Emily Carr grad design show highlights

Every year, Emily Carr University of Art, Design & Media presents the work of the year’s graduates in early May. It’s a huge party as the city converges on Granville Island for the night. If you need an excuse to visit Vancouver, BC, this is a good one.

Generally, the work from this year’s graduating Industrial Design students leads me to believe that the department is finally owning it’s strong conceptual tendencies. The standout projects were Corners by Misha Olynyk, Nice Fit by Tobias Ottahal & Jeff Werner, Fahem / Modular Tile by Hamza Vora & Raneen Nosh, and The Bathroom by Lydia Cambron & Michelle Fu. Other work worth mentioning: Is this Spoon (?) by Joshua Doherty is an expansive exploration of spoons crossing forms and materials; and the Door Knob Rediscovery project by Jennifer Lee which rethinks door knob shapes to accommodate how we actually use them (sorry, no photos).

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