Category: Uncategorized

One of the many delights of traveling is to become aware of vernacular building typologies. Many local building traditions can pass by unnoticed. Until you tune into them. Then you realize they are all over. Yesterday, upon landing in Arequipa, Peru, we were awakened to a delightful building tradition: let’s give this the inelegant name, Glass Box On Heavy Masonry.
As the photos below show, the visual effect is stunning. Very light, glassy, and thin structures are built over massive concrete and stone buildings. These glass spaces function as living spaces, as well as the enclosure of stairways. And they are all over the city. The glass structures are wonderful to be in, as we have one on the roof of the Airbnb that we are staying in.
These compositions are done surely without architects. Yet any one of these beat close to the heart of most any architect. The challenge is to be awake to the vastly rich and varied kaleidoscope of images that pass by.

This is a photo of our son Hans, flying his Navy F18E Super Hornet, in a training exercise taken only a few days ago by a fellow pilot, who was flying an F16. With the world at levels of tension that we have not seen in decades, we can only hope that cool minds will ultimately prevail to de-escalate the Ukrainian conflict, as well as all conflicts. We offer this sentiment of peace in light of all of our sons and daughters, from Cooperstown to the rest of the world, who are on deployment. We are in the business of visualization, and we are visualizing Peace.

Another Otsego County springlike feature is what happens to the roads. This is what Sibley Gulf Road looked like yesterday. It is difficult to believe that the innocent, small stream of water there on the left managed to take out an entire road swath. Just another springlike condition.

We call this Springlike Conditions. This has been a family joke for nearly 30 years. In the beginning, when we were taking our kids up to Lapland to XC ski, there was always a message board outside the ski hut. The owner at that time was Olavi Hirvonen, former US Olympic skier. And when it got to be late winter / early spring, he would always write, in big letters SPRINGLIKE CONDITIONS!!! At it really is true. There is a springlike smell in the air. Birds are chirping. Geese fly over. Springlike.

This is a beautiful sight. We were only able to start skiing yesterday. All the conditions came together: it was cold enough, it didn’t start raining immediately after the snow fell so as to wash it away, etc. We have never had to wait until January 16 to start the season’s skiing. Now that it looks like the snow will be here for awhile, winter, for us at least, has finally started.

Time was, when we did not have an empty nest, our kids would drag the tree across the fields to the house. In those days, to build character, you drag the tree by hand. Now that we are older, we think that we have enough character. So the photo shows our new Yuletide tradition. Peace to you in this season of renewal.

Virginia, our daughter, ran the NYC Marathon yesterday with a time of 4:26. The photo was taken just after she finished, with Teresa, who has run two NYC Marathons. As you may know, Virginia is an architect working for a boutique firm in the City. We are very proud of her dedication, as well as her fundraising efforts which were required for her to run in the race.

Riding our bikes around Montreal, one daylong loop took us unexpectedly past Habitat. This is the housing complex designed by Moshe Sadie for Expo 67. While in previous trips to Montreal we have dutifully made pilgrimages to this holy shrine of architecture, yesterday, it hit us with a fresh delight.

Everywhere we travel, new housing is being built. Typically, these buildings are 5-10 stories and are configured in a long, low form. And they all look the same. The materials are the same. The ins and outs of the facades are basically the same. New housing in Louisville looks exactly like that being built in Montreal. The sameness makes it all mediocre and boring.

Which only throws the concept of Habitat into a whole new light. This was built in 1967. That’s 50 years ago! While all of the units are identical, there is a fantastic organic quality to the form. It looks like it grew that way, and possibly may be still growing. There is visual interest. All have rooftop terraces. It is a response to the creation of a sense of community for human beings. The organicism is designed to promote human to human interaction. And all of the units were prefabricated, which is a response to efficiency, cost and technology.

Much has been written about Habitat, most of which can be found online. Not everything that you read will be positive. What continues to endure for us is the fusion of human need with technology, thereby creating a human centered environment for living.

Lawn Drawing is done with a mower. You inscribe a pattern, or shape, into your lawn. As the grass grows over the summer, your creation is enriched. We started doing this a couple of summers ago. And on bike rides thru the countryside, we see that others most likely have been doing this for longer than we have.

When you employ Lawn Drawing, you achieve two things right off the bat. First, you have an interesting thing to look at rather than just a boring lawn. And second, you immediately reduce your carbon footprint: the less grass you cut, the less pollution you give off.

So we thought it would be fun to start to document these Lawn Drawings. These few, initial, examples are to be seen only as a starter. Please feel free to send to us other examples of Lawn Drawings, which we will add to what we hope will be a compendium of this expressive format.

Teresa and I have now ridden our bicycles around all of the Finger Lakes. This has been a 14 year project. Our first lake was Keuka, which we circumnavigated in 2007. That was so much fun that it occurred to us that we could ride around all of them. As time and desire permitted, we would then drive out and ride around another lake. This past weekend, we finished with Hemlock Lake.

We absolutely love the Finger Lakes region. There is an incredible mix of working farms, local traditions, and urban centers. Generally, you are in continual visual contact with the lake. And most of the rides take you to high elevations, where you see the landscape rolling to the distance. Each lake ride has its own feel. Some are very developed with lake house after lake house. Others are predominantly rural and agricultural. Hemlock Lake, for example, has no visible development because it is surrounded by State lands.

And we love the history that has taken place in the region, which includes Women’s Suffrage, the Burned Over District, etc.

We rode around each lake contiguously. Most lakes took a day. Some, we did two lakes in one day. And Cayuga, as it is a 90 mile ride, we took two days, which involved the complex logistics of dropping off stuff at the hotel in Ithaca, driving to Seneca Falls at North end of the lake, riding down to Ithaca, spending the night, riding back up the next day to the car, and then driving back down to Ithaca to get our stuff.

The absolute best way to see a landscape is by bicycle. We were continually stopping to take photos of buildings and forms. A bicycle makes stopping, snapping a photo, and then continuing very easy. We have hundreds of reference photos from these rides.