Salingaros' Message to Students of AHO

Nikos A. Salingaros on tall buildings:

How students of the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) envision Oslo year 2111:

Oslo year 2111?

Very important new article by James Howard Kunstler:

• Back to the Future

The vision of the students of AHO is utopia:

• The End of Tall Buildings

Skyscrapers are fetishes:

• Uninhabitable high-rises

Article in Aftenposten:

• Byfortetting? «Look to Shanghai

Hjelp "The Salingaros Group" til å hjelpe Norge!

Etter mitt tidligere blogginnlegg har jeg blitt kontaktet av The Salingaros Group, som har fattet interesse for det som skjer i Oslo og Norge innen byutvikling og arkitektur. De ønsker nå å etablere ei gruppe av filosofer, politikere, skribenter etc., som kan samarbeide med The Salingaros Group og ISB i Italia. Jeg tar den frihet å gjengi fra en email jeg mottok av Nikos A. Salingaros:

As we discussed, the problem is that the public has been intentionally misinformed for several decades, and thus needs to be educated today through a massive and determined effort. We are capable of building hypermodern buildings and urban spaces that match the healing and human qualities of the best examples from the past. But the architectural press and academia continue to insist with their inhuman forms, and to promote their favorite international architects who can only destroy cities.

The Gruppo Salingaros is ready to help Norway, but we need to work with a group of Norwegian  writers, thinkers, and politicians. I hope this can be organised soon.

Here are some relevant writings that should be translated into Norwegian:

• Neuroscience, the Natural Environment, and Building Design
• Life and the Geometry of the Environment
• ARTICLES ON ARCHITECTURE, COMPLEXITY, PATTERNS, AND URBANISM
• Twelve Lectures On Architecture; Algorithmic Sustainable Design

 - Nikos A. Salingaros

Jeg vil oppfordre de som leser dette om å vurdere å bli med i denne kampen for en ny og menneskevennlig arkitektur. Tenk også på om du kjenner noen som kan passe til oppgaven.

Kontaktperson for The Salingaros Group i Nord-Europa er Massimo Locci, alle som kan/vil bidra bes å kontakte han på email: rom_an_dk@yahoo.dk (for tida benytter han email: robertomadison@hotmail.com ).

Mer enn 300 nye arter oppdaget på Filippinene

Da kona er fra Filippinene og dattera mi er halvt filippinsk, er dette gode nyheter! Filippinene er en av verdens virkelige "hot-spots" når det kommer til endemiske arter og unikt dyreliv, hvorav 64 prosent av landpattedyrene, 77 prosent av amfibiene og minst 31 prosent av fuglene er endemiske for landets 7100 øyer. Selv har jeg hatt gleden av å snorkle utenfor Balicasag, min største naturopplevelse ved siden av fuglefjellene utenfor Røst.

Balicasag Island 

Dessverre er landet truet av befolkningsvekst, palmeoljeplantasjer (75 prosent av landets opprinnelige skoger har gått tapt) og koralldød, med en befolkning som har passert 102 millioner med en økning på to prosent i året, er det nå det folkerikeste landet i Sør-Øst Asia etter Indonesia.

Les artikkelen fra Science Daily: More Than 300 New Species Discovered in the Philippines.

Back to the Future

James Howard Kunstler

Very important new article!!!!

Back to the Future
A road map for tomorrow's cities
By James Howard Kunstler
Published in the July/August 2011 issue of Orion magazine

From the article:

I depart from a lot of current thinking on the subject. For instance, many people seem to think that there will be more of everything — more people, taller skyscrapers, greater suburbs, bigger airplanes, larger metro regions, or even super-gigantic slums. I don’t go along with this bundle of bull, except for the slums, which I think will be short-lived, contrary to the vision of popular author Mike Davis’s Planet of Slums. Of course, trends won’t proceed with the same timing everywhere in the world. But I think the general theme going forward, certainly in the U.S., will be the comprehensive contraction of just about everything.

Read the whole article here.

Visit his blog kunstler.com here.

Visit KunstlerCast here.

James Howard Kunstler: Audio of Live Web Event July 2011.

See James Howard Kunstler at his Ted Talk: The tragedy of suburbia!



Related:

• A Lesson for Our Future – the Cuban Experience (video)
• Chris Martenson's Crash Course (video)
• John Michael Greer's "A Theory of Catabolic Collapse" (pdf)
• The Fractal Frontier (pdf)
• An Inaccurate Attack On Smart Growth

Vandana Shiva x3

In this interview for CSSC Encounters, Dr. Vandana Shiva gives the history of her engagement and explains the situation we are in now, facing a new fascism as corporations and governments merge. Still, she is always using an optimistic tone, in spite of corporate grabs of our common heritage, the natural world — a world caught in a system where the ecology and the economy are fierce enemies, when they should have been best friends. How to reunite them? Vandana gives the answer, through true community!

Leilighetsbarn er tvangsrøykere!

Passiv røyking (eller bedre, tvungen røyking) blant barn er et mye større problem enn tidligere antatt, særlig gjelder dette for barn som vokser opp i leilighetsbygg, konkluderer en ny studie fra the University of Rochester Medical Center, USA. Den bygger på data fra nær 6000 barn som fikk målt kontinin-verdiene i blodet, en markør for nikotineksponering.

Av barn som vokser opp i flerfamiliebygg viser blodprøvene at mer enn 84 prosent eksponeres for tobakksrøyk. Afroamerikanske barn i leiligheter er 45 prosent mer eksponert for tobakksrøyk enn gjennomsnittet for afroamerikanske barn. For hvite barn som vokser opp i leilighetsbygg er disse hele 207 prosent mer eksponert for tobakksrøyk enn gjennomsnittet blant hvite amerikanske barn!

Det er all grunn til å anta at situasjonen er like ille her til lands, både fordi vi har en høy andel kvinnelig røykere og fordi vi neppe bygger bedre boliger enn amerikanerne. Men samme hvor bra vi bygger, det eksisterer ikke ventilasjonsanlegg som er avanserte nok til å eliminere problemet med passiv røyking i leilighetsbygg. Dette ifølge en rapport fra U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona.

Denne rapporten, med tittelen The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, konkluderer med at det ikke finnes noen nedre risikofri grense for tvungen (passiv) røyking. Surgeon General Carmona, vice admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service, understreker at tvungen røyking er mye mer enn en irritasjonsfaktor og utgjør en alvorlig helserisiko, langt større enn tidligere antatt.

Jeg vil sitere fra Science Daily:

"We are starting to understand the role that seepage through walls and through shared ventilation may impact tobacco smoke exposure in apartments," said Karen Wilson, M.D., MPH, author of the study and an assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center's Golisano Children's Hospital. "We see that children are being exposed in ways we are not picking up, and it's important, for their health, that we figure out where this exposure is taking place, and work to eliminate it. Multi-unit housing is one potential source, but a very important one.

Why We Need Demurrage

Demurrage = An economic proposal by Silvio Gesell to make bills lose their value gradually. Read more here, here, here, here and here.

Street fight: Landscape Urbanism versus New Urbanism

Modernism has turned "green" and more seductive than ever!

Read the article: Street fight: Landscape Urbanism versus New Urbanism.

Anyway, in this discussion we must NOT forget the eternal truth of the Alexandrine pattern 104, to be found in A Pattern Language!

Conflict
Buildings must always be built on those parts of the land which are in the worst condition, not the best.

Resolution
On no account place buildings in the places which are most beautiful. In fact, do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living eco-system. Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, conformable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which are least pleasant now.

Related:

• GLASS AND GRASS
• LANDSCAPE URBANISM BULLSHIT GENERATOR

Generation OS13: The new culture of resistance

What's fascinating about Generation OS13, and about the new culture of resistance in general, is that it's trying to carve out a new ideological niche that is firmly critical of our present world order without falling into the trap of the old-fashioned socialist or communist clichés. After all, we need new critiques, new narratives, new inspiration. - Jérôme E. Roos

Økonomisk vekst er limet i vårt samfunn



Det er derfor klart at stopper den økonomiske veksten opp, går samfunnet opp i limingen!

Economic growth is part of the glue that holds together the social contract between the rich and poor, and between citizen and state. It stands behind our expectations of technology, the rise of China, population growth, and pensions. Growth shaped the specialisation of our occupational roles and the forms of social relations. It acclimatised us to increasing wealth, both personal and in the goods and services we expect from society and the state. We are now claiming as rights, services that only fifty years ago would have been considered miracles. It shaped our identity as the tormented consumer and the anxious lover. - David Korowicz

Er det noe rart at våre politikere "digger" økonomisk vekst? Les hele artikkelen: In the world, at the limits to growth.

GDP is a good measure of the throughput of resources in an economy, or more bluntly, the rate of converting natural resources into waste. - Brent Blackwelder

Allikevel, er det ikke tross alt bedre at samfunnet går opp i limingen enn at økosystemene gjør det? Lytt til det alvorlige budskapet fra forfatteren bak bestselgeren  Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, av Jared Diamond.

Relatert:

• From an Economics of Power and Greed to an Economics of Compassion and the Common Good
• Bernard Lietaer and Christian Arnsperger on reinventing the financial system
• Book of the Week: Charles Eistenstein’s Sacred Economics is out!
• Off the pedestal: creating a new vision of economic growth
• Unifying the Value Universe
• Share the worlds recourses