Macallen Building - LEED Gold

The Macallen Building, Boston, MA

LEED GOLD

Boston's first LEED certified condo development. This building implements a green roof, uses steam from the stormwater lines to heat the water and captures rainwater for irrigation. It is saving 600,000 gallons of water annually and uses 30% less electricity as compared to a conventional building.

best car driver ever..

Ken Block is the shit.

love sucks.

No I'm still not over you, but right now.. this is how I feel:

Collapse

I am currently reading the book, Collapse. It talks of how societies choose to fail or to succeed and highlights past societies that have failed, such as Easter Island, the Anaszi and the Mayans. It also talks of past societies that have survived and current societies in peril. The author highlights the five factors that are involved with any societal collapse. Four of the five factors that may or may not prove significant to societal collapse are:

• Environmental Damage
• Climate Change
• Hostile Neighbors
• Friendly Trade Partners

But the one that ALWAYS proves significant is:

• The society's responses to its environmental problems.

Here are some quotes from the book that really are significant and open your eyes to our current situation:

• "When the Easter Islanders got into difficulties, there was nowhere to which they could flee, nor to which they could turn for help; nor shall we modern Earthlings have recourse elsewhere if our troubles increase. Those are the reasons why people see the collapse of Easter Island society as a metaphor, a worst-case scenario, for what may lie ahead of us in our own future."
• Talking of the Anasazi Society: "Despite these varying proximate causes of abandonments, all were ultimately due to the same fundamental challenge: people living in fragile and difficult environment, adopting solutions that were brilliantly successful and understandable "in the short run", but that failed or else created fatal problems in the long run, when people became confronted with external environmental changes or human-caused environmental changes that societies without written histories and without archaeologists could not have anticipated."

Milwaukee Art Museum

Only seeing this building from the highway driving to the airport, it was truly amazing. I did some research on this architecture phenomenon and hope to visit next time I'm in Wisconsin.

Quadracci Pavilion

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The graceful Quadracci Pavilion is a sculptural, postmodern addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum completed in 2001, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.

Calatrava, inspired by the “dramatic, original building by Eero Saarinen, …the topography of the city” and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie-style architecture.

"Thanks to them, this project responds to the culture of the lake: the sailboats, the weather, the sense of motion and change.”

The structure incorporates both cutting-edge technology and old-world craftsmanship. The hand-built structure was made largely by pouring concrete into one-of-a-kind wooden forms. It is a building that could have only been done in a city with Milwaukee’s strong craft tradition.

Architecture highlights

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Windhover Hall is the grand entrance hall for the Quadracci Pavilion. It is Santiago Calatrava’s postmodern interpretation of a Gothic Cathedral, complete with flying buttresses, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and a central nave topped by a 90-foot-high glass roof.

The hall’s chancel is shaped like the prow of a ship, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking over Lake Michigan.

The Museum’s signature wings, the Burke Brise Soleil, form a moveable sunscreen with a 217-foot wingspan. The brise soleil is made up of 72 steel fins, ranging in length from 26 to 105 feet. The entire structure weighs 90 tons. It takes 3.5 minutes for the wings to open or close. Sensors on the fins continually monitor wind speed and direction; whenever winds exceed 23 mph for more than 3 seconds, the wings close automatically.

According to Santiago Calatrava, “in the crowning element of the brise soleil, the building’s form is at once formal (completing the composition), functional (controlling the level of light), symbolic (opening to welcome visitors), and iconic (creating a memorable image for the Museum and the city).”