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 While much has been made of the so-called "home plate" formation – pictured above – recently discovered on Mars, there are equally intriguing, and beautiful, geological formations right here on Earth beside us.  Australia's " Great Sandy Scars," for instance, look like a huge rooster, or a mythical gryphon, bleached into the surface of the planet. "In a small corner of the vast Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia," the actual explanation reads, "large sand dunes – the only sand in this desert of scrub and rock – appear as lines stretching from left to right. The light-colored fan shapes are scars from wildfires." Or this desert view of Iran – the geology of evil, perhaps.  It's the Dasht-e Kevir, or "valley of desert," the largest desert in Iran, "a primarily uninhabited wasteland, composed of mud and salt marshes covered with crusts of salt that protect the meager moisture from completely evaporating." It looks like god came through with an abrader, geology on hyperdrive, polishing the planet down to stumps and fractal whorls. (USGS global satellite image database discovered via Pruned. See also BLDGBLOG's earlier satellite explorations of alluvial terrains, Libya, and the earth, observed).
 [Image: From Pruned: Paolo Soleri, 1969]. Be sure to stop by Pruned for some amazing new posts and images, including Asteromo, "an outside-inside ellipsoidal earth," designed by Italian architect Paolo Soleri. Soleri, of course, was also the man behind Arcosanti, that monument to dust-covered magazines, old toilets, bureaucratic inactivity and failed utopias in the otherwise beautiful Arizona desert. In any case, Pruned compares Asteromo to other plans "using actual asteroids" as spacebound earth-surrogates, rescuing humans from a poisoned biosphere.  [Image: As Pruned quotes: "Man, standing head toward the axis of rotation, will be enveloped in a solid ecology” – surely a haiku if there ever was one. Or perhaps this is haiku as rediscovered by Aleister Crowley, a Tarot card for the Space Age. (Illustration by Roy G. Scarfo)]. An earlier idea, for instance, by "futurologists Dandridge Cole and Donald Cox," would have created a nomadic pseudo-earth by "fusing and sculpting" domestic space inside a captured asteroid. This would be done using "heat from solar mirrors." The result would be a "gigantic geodesic interior chamber," created "in much the same way as a glassblower shapes a small solid lump of molten glass into a large empty bottle." Yes – someone apparently thought that would work. (See here for loads more information about outerterrestrial bio-escape utopias).  [Image: Vent-Based Alpha; illustration by Kenn Brown & Chris Wren/ Wired]. Then, however, I was cleaning house last night when I found an old copy of Wired – I must be living in Arcosanti – which I promptly wasted more than an hour and a half reading in its entirety. But therein I re-discovered Phil Nuytten's plans for Vent-Based Alpha, an undersea hot-vent microtopia powered by geothermal energy. From the article: "'Essentially, it's like taking a cruise ship with several hundred people and parking it at the bottom of the ocean,' Nuytten says. 'After three or four generations, inhabitants would ask, Are there really people who live on the surface?'" Which is fair enough – the place will have gardens, for instance, and everyone will get exercise somehow, etc. – but, even aside from the obvious questions of population growth and a need for more space, I can't help but picture those people a bit further down the line, once several generations have been bred in the darkness, devolving into a state of permanent dementia, confused brains hardened from lack of sunlight and vitamins, stumbling through the pressurized halls of their own undersea prison, wearing stained clothing and listening to Mozart, talking to reflections, teeth yellow, repeating things, forgetful, screwing their own children, half-insane. Vent-Based Chainsaw Massacre. Screenplay by BLDGBLOG.
From A.R.T. Jonkers, Earth's Magnetism in the Age of Sail: "In 1904 a young American named Andrew Ellicott Douglass started to collect tree specimens. He was not seeking a pastime to fill his hours of leisure; his motivation was purely professional."
 [Image: David Maisel, from Timber: Clearcutting and the Undoing of the Western Forest].
"Yet he was not employed by any forestry department or timber company, and he was neither a gardener not a botanist. For decades he continued to amass chunks of wood, all because of a lingering suspicion that a tree's bark was shielding more than sap and cellulose. He was not interested in termites, or fungal parasites, or extracting new medicine from plants."
 [Image: Bjørn Sterri, untitled; Oslo, 1997].
"Douglass was an astronomer, and he was searching for evidence of sunspots."
 [Image: Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy].
Stars leave their imprints everywhere; even "getting a tan" is an interaction with astronomy played out on the level of skin. If you want news of the universe, in other words, simply look at the people around you: stars leave scars on bodies.
 This is just one of several extraordinary photographs taken in Guangxi Province, China. Scroll through the rest and see huge terraces that look as if carved from the earth with a fretsaw; agriculture everywhere imposes its own geometry. (Discovered via gravestmor).
 [Image: An architectural "super-prosthesis" by Santiago Cirugeda Parejo]. Quite a while back I got an email from Wes Janz, who runs something called onesmallproject, a fascinating look at standards of housing and urbanism – including the absence of the former – around the world. What does home look like elsewhere? How do people find shelter? Are we perhaps approaching a planetary urbanism? Etc.  Arguably, this would all begin a series of questions that could lead back to Heidegger; for instance: is architecture an appropriate response for those who dwell in a state of homelessness – Heidegger's state of "harassed unrest"? Is dwelling always an architectural activity? What of "those buildings that are not dwelling places" – or those dwelling places that are not buildings? And so on. In any case, here are some statistics from the project's facts pages to consider: • by 2030, 1 person in 4 will be a slum dweller • every day, 200,000 people move to cities worldwide (which is 73 million people urbanizing every year) • half the population of Istanbul lives in slums • Caracas has 5 police forces, wearing 5 different uniforms • 10-30% of U.S. waste comes from architectural demolition and construction Where it gets interesting, however, is in offering solutions, proposing something, offering ideas. Everyone knows how to complain; imaginative responses are welcome for their sheer infrequency.    The images I'm showing, for instance, are by Santiago Cirugeda Parejo, a member of onesmallproject, taken from Parejo's own website.  Parejo's work explores a kind of do-it-yourself tactical urbanism, using modular frame structures and prefabricated building units in a way that "exploits gaps in administrative structures, governmental bodies’ supervisory energies, official procedures, and where the law falls short." In the process, Parejo transforms vacant lots and peripheral spaces into what he calls "subversive urban occupations." This has included working with scaffolding: constructing nest-like "urban reserves" in the spaces defined by construction scaffolds, enlarging houses parasitically. The architectural prosthesis, in fact, is something Parejo frequently explores by constructing temporary, unofficial extensions to existing buildings – including this capsule on stilts, "installed orthopaedically... as a spatial and functional prosthesis," in a place called the Finland Pavilion.  There is a lot more information – including dozens of projects – at both Parejo's site and at onesmallproject. Of course, as a side note, even as I write this a new exhibition continues apace at the NLA, called Prefabulous London.  There, you can gaze all you like at plans and photos of affordable, high-density urban construction techniques using prefabricated structures, including a few parasite-like microbuildings. If you're not sure you want to go, or live elsewhere – attempting to dwell while located otherwise – you can always download the exhibition's catalog here (1.8MB PDF); or click through some other coverage of the show at Inhabitat (who link to an interesting article in Building Design) or the London-based City of Sound.
A few comments at the end of a recent post reminded me of something from David Toop's Ocean of Sound, an excellent and highly recommended survey of "sonic history," focusing on ambient music, post-Debussy.  Roughly midway through Toop's book we find this review by composer Paul Schütze: "Recently listening to Thomas Köner's Permafrost," Schütze writes, "I found that by the end of the disc my sense of aural perspective was so altered that the music seemed to continue in the sounds around me. Tube trains passing beneath the building, distant boilers, the air conditioning, and the elevator engines had been pulled into the concert. This effect lasted for about forty minutes during which I could not get anything to return to its 'normal position' in the 'mix' of my flat." What would have been yet more fascinating, however, is if Schütze had been wrong. What if the disc, in other words, had still been playing – and he didn't live anywhere near the Tube, nor did his building have elevators...? What if those subtle and distant architectural sounds had actually been part of the CD? This would be music as the illusion of architecture.You could move into a house without a basement – so you purchase this CD, or download these tracks, and you uncannily achieve the sonic effect of having more floors below you. Or perhaps you want an attic, or even a next-door neighbor: you would buy soundtracks for architecture, architecture through nothing but sound. For instance, think of the Francisco López album, Buildings. Buildings is "a work composed entirely of sound fragments López procured while wandering around big buildings in NYC," recording the "sounds of elevators, air conditioning systems, cables, pipes, air ducts, boilers, clocks, thermostats, video cameras, and so on." (You can actually listen to a brief excerpt). So instead of an addition, or a home renovation – you would commission a piece of music; and for as long as that music is playing, your house has several thousand more square-feet... and a Tube line nearby... and distant boilers... (With thanks to Dan Hill at City of Sound for pointing me toward Buildings).
There's an interesting competition afoot to design a house for an ecologist, specifically "a live/work dwelling for an ecologist in residence at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)," in Shephedstown, West Virginia, on a site near the Potomac River measuring 350' x 250'.  "The ecologist in residence, a fictitious position, will be an annual fellow who will receive a stipend and expenses to live and conduct research on site and in the field." Such research will include "working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people." Some ideas? I think we should try learning from Dubai, and build the house underwater: the ecologist can then go to sleep watching fish swim by. Or the house should be partially floating, with reinforced glass foundations through which terrestrial and aquatic events can be observed. And it needs a roof garden. And maybe it could do this:  [Image: Holl House by Andrew Maynard]. A lot more information, including maps and images, can be downloaded from the AIA competition homepage. Registration deadline is 1 March 2006, however – so be quick.
I'll be serving as a jury member for Your Hidden City, a photo contest sponsored by Tropolism. So submit early, and submit often... Tropolism's official press release for the contest reads as follows:  "After a week of very subtle buildup, Tropolism is pleased to announce the first open-sourced architectural contest, Your Hidden City. The contest is simple: post your photos (with a caption) to our public Flickr pool (or email them to us for posting), and our jury will select their favorites in five categories. The winners will be posted to Tropolism. The theme of the contest is uncovering the Hidden City, your Hidden City, the one you see every day. It may be in plain sight of everyone else, but it is your eye that finds the extraordinariness in a particular street corner, a unique stair, a crazy intersection, a visually arresting approach, or a particular tree in the city. The photographs can be of a beautiful (and perhaps unpublished) park, or as simple as the sun hitting a particular building at a particular time of day. Please include a caption, or a Flickr annotation, about what makes it extraordinary to you. The entries should have one thing in common: they demonstrate, to you, the pleasure of living in the city. The jury is a set of bloggers who write about architecture, urbanism, and landscape design. They are: • Lisa Chamberlain of Polis, who also covers real estate for the New York Times • David Cuthbert of architechnophilia• Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG • Shawn Micallef of Toronto Psychogeography Society Blog • Miss Representation • Jimmy Stamp of Life Without Buildings The 5 Categories are: • Best Hidden Place • Best Density • Best Natural/Urban Overlap • Best Unofficial Landmark • Best Building We will keep the contest open until March 10, 2006, and post winners the week of March 20. Good Luck!"
In Crystallography, poet Christian Bök describes "a medieval treatise on the use of mirrors." This treatise, Bök tells us, suggests that when two mirrors reflect one other, the endless abyss of mirrors-in-mirrors created between them might form a kind of spectral architecture.  Further, the medieval treatise says, "any living person who has no soul can actually step into either one of the mirrors as if it were an open door and thus walk down the illusory corridor that appears to recede forever into the depths of the glass by virtue of one mirror reflecting itself in the other. The walls of such a corridor are said to be made from invulnerable panes of crystal, beyond which lies a nullified dimension of such complexity that to view it is surely to go insane. The book also explains at length that, after an eternity of walking down such a corridor, a person eventually exits from the looking-glass opposite to the one first entered." And it gets more interesting: The treatise's author, Bök explains, "speculates that a soulless man might carry another pair of mirrors into such a corridor, thereby producing a hallway at right angles to the first one, and of course this procedure might be performed again and again in any of the corridors until an endless labyrinth of glass has been erected inside the first pair of mirrors, each mirror opening onto an extensive grid of crisscrossing hallways, some of which never intersect, despite their lengths being both infinite and perpendicular." The author of the treatise warns, however, that one could become "hopelessly lost while exploring such a maze" – for instance, "if the initial pair of mirrors are disturbed so that they no longer reflect each other, thus suddenly obliterating the fragile foundation upon which the entire maze rests." In which case whole crystal cities of mirrored halls, in right-angled topologies of non-self-intersecting self-intersection, would simply disappear – along with anyone exploring inside them.  A kind of rogue experiment might ensue, aboard the International Space Station: an astronaut, crazed with loneliness, sets up two mirrors... and promptly escapes into a hinged labyrinth of crystallized earth-orbiters, his radio crackling unanswered in the control panel left behind.
 [Image: Keith Kin Yan/ Overshadowed]. While researching my post for Inhabitat – on light pollution and other forms of photonic trespass – I came across this account of the Tribute in Light, those blazing towers of floodlit clouds and sky used by Manhattan to memorialize the fallen World Trade Center: "The beams were visibly filled with birds for their entire height, looking like clouds of bugs. Their twittering was audible. There were so many birds, it was impossible to track any one individual for any length of time. I did see one bird that circled in and out of the uptown beam six times before I lost track." The birds, in other words, had been fatally mesmerized, often spiraling thereafter to the ground – or into the windows of nearby buildings. A kind of bird-tornado.  [Image: Keith Kin Yan/ Overshadowed]. This circular disorientation of birds – winged animals thrown athwart by the optical effects of architecture – also makes an appearance in W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz. Here, the narrator recounts a friend's visit to the new Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris: "The four glazed towers themselves, named in a manner reminiscent of a futuristic novel... make a positively Babylonian impression on anyone who looks up at their facades and wonders about the still largely empty space behind their closed blinds. (...) And several times, said Austerlitz, birds which had lost their way in the library forest flew into the mirror images of the trees in the reading-room windows, struck the glass with a dull thud, and fell lifeless to the ground." Other species, killed by the mirrored archives of national history. None of which is meant to imply that I didn't enjoy the Tribute in Light – without it, in fact, I would not have eaten roast pigeon for three weeks... In any case, perhaps this could serve as a new form of avian predation, a duck-hunter's paradise: you build a well-lit public memorial – then throw open some nets. Conversely, of course, the birds might obliterate the city. Hitchcock's revenge. I'm reminded of the beautifully descriptive title of an old (and fairly awful) song by Coil: Red Birds Will Fly Out of the East and Destroy Paris in a Night. Against whose murderous flocks Paris deploys a mirrored library...
 [Image: A house that "sits in front of a baseball/soccer field in the small town of Amenia, New York," and whose owners probably don't sleep too well; photo by David Allee]. With apologies for BLDGBLOG's recent silence – very few posts in at least as many days – I also want to point out something I've written for Inhabitat, and which went up today, about light pollution, urban astronomy, the mating habits of glowworms, hunting by floodlight and some photographs by David Allee. And I'll start posting again on BLDGBLOG soon...
 [Image: The fractal soilbeds and hydro-geological basins of northern Maharashtra, a merge of these two maps]. I recently stumbled upon " the soil maps of Asia" – not just some soil maps, mind you, or merely a few soil maps: these are the soil maps of Asia, originally produced under the direction of the Thematic Mapping Organisation. Leaving me to wonder if they take special orders. In any case, these maps are amazing:  [Image: The soils and terrestrial capabilities of central India, a merge of these two maps. See also this eye-popping 3.5MB version of the right-half of that image].  [Image: The soils of Gujarat; a merge of these two maps].  [Image: Soil map and land capability of southern India, including the Andaman Islands; see also this 2.5MB version]. Here, the Thematic Mapping Organisation explains its own origins, complete with avant-garde uses of English grammar: "The first national Atlas of India in Hindi popularly known as Bharat Rastriya Atlas having a multi-colour maps with a scale of 1:5 million portraying a comprehensive physical and socio-cultural structure of the country was published in 1957 and was acclaimed the world over as a unique publication. Consequent upon the success of as Bharat Rastriya Atlas, the organization has decided to prepare an ambitious project containing 300 plates. It covers all the aspects of the land, people, economy of the country. This atlas is being issued in 8 volumes, which is available for sale." Finally, for those of you with a lot of time to kill: you can search equally colorful and totally mind-boggling soil maps of Africa (2000+), Canada, Central and South America, including the Caribbean (as well as hydrological maps of the Amazon River), Europe (here's the UK), the rest of Asia, and the United States. (Earlier on BLDGBLOG: The topographic map circus. Further note: I just discovered [12 Feb 06] that Cartography, the weblog of the Canadian Cartographic Association, featured these soil maps back in January).
In the process of writing the previous post, I learned about Libya's Great Man-Made River, "an enormous, long-term undertaking to supply the country's needs by drawing water from aquifers beneath the Sahara and conveying it along a network of huge underground pipes."     [Images: The concrete skeleton of Libya's future river, the "8th wonder of the world," being trucked into place; photographed by Jaap Berk].Not only does Libya bear the distinction of holding the world record for hottest recorded temperature ( 136º F), but most of the country's terrain is " agriculturally useless desert" that receives little or no rainfall. The Great Man-Made River may not even successfully irrigate Libya's governmentally-specified agricultural zones, but due to the region's complete " absence of permanent rivers or streams" – and because the country's "approximately twenty perennial lakes are brackish or salty" – the River's expected 50-100 year lifespan is at least a start. Indeed, Libya's "limited water is considered of sufficient importance to warrant the existence of the Secretariat of Dams and Water Resources, and damaging a source of water can be penalized by a heavy fine or imprisonment." George Orwell would perhaps call this watercrime.  However, I have to say that the prospect of spelunking through the Great Man-Made River's subterranean galleries in 125 years, once those tunnels have dried-up, makes the brain reel. Imagine Shelleys of the 22nd century wandering through those ruins, notebooks in hand, taking photographs, footsteps echoing rhythmically beneath the dunes as they walk for a thousand kilometers toward the sea...  Yet some are skeptical of the project's real purpose. Precisely because the Great Man-Made River consists of "a stupendous network of underground tunnels and caverns built with the help of Western firms to run the length and width of the country," some consultants and engineers " have revealed their suspicion that such facilities were not meant to move water, but rather to conceal the movement and location of military-related activities." The fact that water is flowing through some of the pipes, in other words, is just an elaborate ruse... In any case, the Great Man-Made River Authority – "entrusted with the implementation and operation of the world's largest pre-stressed concrete pipe project" – is already seeing some results. The network will criss-cross most of the country –  – and Phase III is under construction even as this post goes online. Meanwhile, for more information on deep desert hydrology see UNESCO's International Hydrological Programme or even Wikipedia. Of course, you could also turn to J.G. Ballard, whose twenty year-old novel The Day of Creation is: 1) not very good, and 2) about a man who is "seized by the vision of a third Nile whose warm tributaries covered the entire Sahara." That river will thus "make the Sahara bloom." The book was modestly reviewed by Samuel Delany, if you want to know more. On the other hand, I would actually recommend Dune – assuming you like science fiction.  [Image: A new river is born, excavated from the surface of the desert: soon the pipes will be installed and the currents will start to flow...].
 [Image: A satellite view of "two huge sand dune seas in the Fezzan region of southwestern Libya." These are "sprawling seas of multi-storey sand dunes known as 'ergs'. The Erg Ubari (also called Awbari) is the reddish sand sea towards the top of the image. A dark outcrop of Nubian sandstone separates the Erg Ubari sand from the Erg Murzuq (also called Murzuk) further south." See earlier for more satellite imagery].
"A mediaeval cathedral was a sort of permanent and unchangeable TV programme that was supposed to tell people everything indispensable for their everyday life, as well as for their eternal salvation." So says Umberto Eco, speaking at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt, 2003.  [Image: Cathedral at Bourges, by Arnaud Frich].This makes me wonder if everyone on Earth could take everything they know and carve it into a cliffside somewhere – or a mountain – sculpting all that rock into a cathedral; and, then, if they could take that hulking monolith of information and minerals and break it off, launch it into orbit, send it drifting through space... It'd be a kind of moving table of contents for the human species. A knowledge-object. Would that have a better chance than NASA's so-called Golden Record, that got sent out with Voyager, of explaining the Earth and human history to distant civilizations?  [Image: NASA's Golden Record, "intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials." The record is really "a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth," including the sound of "surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals," and a signed letter from then-president Jimmy Carter. A Menudo video was reportedly removed at the last minute].Or, instead of demolishing old buildings, perhaps we should detach them from the Earth's surface and send them into space as lessons for alien species. Like that Michael Crichton novel. You could learn about the Earth by studying its architecture – because the planet flings buildings everywhere. Constantly. Archipelagoes of abandoned shopping malls pulled slowly toward distant planets. There goes the Mall of America... A new film directed by Jerry Bruckheimer.
Two different myths are set to collide in space as NASA's THOR project targets the surface of Mars with a huge copper sphere.  "The idea behind THOR (Tracing Habitability, Organics, and Resources) is to fly an observer spacecraft to Mars and, hours before it reaches the planet, release an 'impactor' ball. It could be up to 230 kilograms in mass and would be aimed at a region about 40° north or south of the equator." While thus testing the Martian landscape for signs of water, THOR is nothing less than "a brute force way to gain access to the subsurface of Mars." So BLDGBLOG is now taking bets: Mars triumphant or Thor planet-slayer, destroyer of worlds...? Which myth will win?
Russia, we read has "plans to build a permanent base on the Moon within a decade and to start mining the planet for helium 3, a sought-after isotope, by 2020."  "Russian scientists have come up with the idea of using 'lunar bulldozers' to heat the Moon's surface in order to get at the resource," adding that "Moscow is keen to institute regular cargo flights of helium 3 back to Earth as soon as possible."  If you'll pardon a lengthy quotation: "'There are practically no reserves of helium 3 on Earth. On the Moon, there are between one million and 500 million tons, according to estimates.' Much of those reserves are reported to be in the Sea of Tranquillity. [Nikolai Sevastyanov, of Energia Space Corporation] predicted that nuclear reactors capable of running on helium 3 would soon be developed and said that just one ton of the isotope would generate as much energy as 14 million tons of oil. 'Ten tons of helium 3 would be enough to meet the yearly energy needs of Russia,' he added. However, Russia is not the only country interested in the technology. American scientists have expressed interest in helium 3, arguing that one shuttle-load of the isotope would be sufficient to meet US electrical energy needs for a year." So: from the Red Sea to the Sea of Tranquillity – what future lunar wars may bring...  [Image: An unrelated example of a helium 3 mining unit from the Lunar Base Design Workshop. "Mining itself is done by robots that scoop up lunar regolith for processing. This base consists of three spheres that roll, with the structure moving from site to site."] Earlier on BLDGBLOG: Lunar urbanism 4.
Through her job with the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, BLDGBLOG contributor Nicola Twilley has put together something that should hopefully get more people thinking about urban design, sustainability, quality of life, public transport, pedestrianization... Whatever sounds good. And though BLDGBLOG is not involved, I thought I'd give it a plug here, and try to drum up some interest.  In a nutshell, the program is called the Ben Franklin Coffeehouse Challenge, and it's sponsored by Starbucks. The idea is that you get some people together, discuss something you'd like to see happen in your community – more benches, a new park, some fresh paint on the neighborhood bus stop, a film society, a mural or two, a NASCAR track, fewer potholes, some roof gardens, a new running path – meet a few more times to refine the idea, then you organize it into a coherent, workable plan. That plan is then submitted to the Tercentenary, who review it with a panel of urban designers, community groups, etc. – and if whatever magical buttons need to be pushed are pushed, then Starbucks will give you $3000 and you can get the project off the ground. That's right: cash money. It's all about the Benjamins. For now, though, it's only in Greater Philadelphia (with south Jersey up to Princeton, parts of Delaware, and central PA all the way to Penn State included, hint-hint) – but I'm sure you could convince everyone involved that the desire for urban improvement is nationwide. Park benches in Minneapolis, roof gardens in San Francisco, running paths in Tucson. Better street lighting in Denver. A public performance space in Silverlake. Well-marked pedestrian crosswalks in Tallahassee. As the official program graphic itself asks: "How do I plant a lawn on my roof?" "I want a say in how my town grows." So whether you like their coffee or not, I think it's pretty cool that Starbucks appears to want to fund roof gardens. We need more roof gardens. If you've got some suggestions – like a UFO landing strip in Austin – send a few in to BLDGBLOG; I'd love to see what you're thinking.  (Quick PS: BLDGBLOG contributors Nicola Twilley and Geoff Manaugh also helped organize a small, Franklinian beer competition last September in Denver, the results of which – Poor Richard's Ale – are now available to drink! So go have a pint for Ben Franklin, think about urban design – and perhaps someday you'll be drinking a BLDGBLOG Architectural Stout... BLDGBLOG Piranesian Ale. Oil Derrick IPA. Offshore Utopia Pale Ale. Manmade Archipelago Doppelbock. London Topological Bitter. BLDGBLOG Geotechnical Weissbier...)
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