flynn050

"Everybody talks about the future of transportation - we don't." One is tempted to think that is developers adaptation of the nineteen-seventies slogan of the German Rail in which it claimed "everybody talks about the weather - we don't". Parking everywhere, even on waterfront piers How else to explain all the cranes towering over buildings sitting on top of giant parking garages which keep on being constructed either above or below ground, frequently even with those efficient sloping floors which prevent any other use than driving and parking cars on it. When asked about the dead investment that these garages represent, developers usually shrug their shoulders and refer to the banks who just want to see parking before funding a project. In a recent exchange between a Baltimore design review panel and a developer panelists asked if a 10 floor 550 space garage was really needed for the proposed 20 story office building. The developer said: "You need to s...

The Car of the Year designation bestowed by automotive magazines feels just as anachronistic as beauty queens or the Man of the Year title that the Time awarded before they discovered that women are people, too. But this year and last year the car of the year has been electric, a fact that urban planners need to pay attention to, no matter that the car in general has long been pushed from its pedestal as the sole driver of development supremely shaping everything in its path. Cities need to prepare better for electric cars. Car of the Year 2017: An all electric Tesla 3 (Photo: Automobile ) The magazine Automobile gave the crown of Car of the Year to the Tesla model 3, a nod to hipsters and tycoons alike and a nod to a hyped brand whose stock value is higher than that of General Motors. The Tesla legend has reached new heights since February 6 when a Tesla Roadster began navigating through space atop SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. A feat that is derided as the ultimate obscene stu...

Customs Road in Calicut, Kerala is short, beginning at a T intersection with Beach Road at the Arabian Sea and ending at another T junction just two blocks inland. Its name stems from British colonial times when there must have been secondary custom functions here related to international trade in spices. The local nickname is Kashtam, Malaylam for "what a pity", a not entirely inept description in spite of a promising lighthouse on the foot of the street marking the coastline. Calicut (Kozhikode), the 45' lighthouse from 1903 which replaced a 90' older lighthouse (Photo: Philipsen) Regardless whether one sees the road as one to be pittied, or one that goes back to times when Calicut at the Beypore river was a global port and trade center for spices, it was elevated to being an object for research as part of a project for architecture students from Baltimore's Morgan State University conducted together with students from the local MES architecture school. Research...

Modern with historic touches This is the third in a series of reports from a three week study trip to Kerala and Tamil Nadu in southern India The tour of the Chettinad houses began with chai in a modern home, so new that the final coat of paint had still to be applied. Mutthaiah Kathiresan (or short: KT) stands proudly among the colorful walls of the house he had designed for his parents. This is the first Indian house our travel group sets foot in,  not counting the apartment building in which we reside for our stay in Kozhikode, Kerala. We, that is a group of architecture students from Morgan State University in Baltimore, their professor and I. We had taken the trip from Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu to Karaikudi to see the houses of the Chettinar. After leaving our shoes in the yet to be tiled front entry area we are welcomed with coffee, tea and warm water.  Like many new homes in southern India, this new structure is modernist in a way that reminds of the Bauhaus but could al...

This article is second in a series of reports from a three week trip through Kerala and Tamil Nadu in Southern India.  Some say, that you either love or hate India the moment you step out of the plane. Equally the announcement of a trip to India is met with disbelief ("why India?"), horror stories ("all my friends who traveled there had terrible diarrhea"), and occasional enthusiasm ("India will change you, if you let it, and you will come back as a better being"). Indian and US architecture students collaborating on urban research in India Out of stories about India over the years formed an amalgam that is worse than absolute ignorance: A thicket of bias, half information and news accumulated over a lifetime can easily give the impression of knowledge when it is far from it. Most Americans haven't been in India and don't really care to know much about the far away place. I was one of those who didn't see a particular need to change whatever id...