DeafSpace
The acoustics of a building are a big concern for architects. But for designers at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, it’s the absence of sound that defines the approach to architecture. Gallaude...
22 Maalis 201212min
Queue Theory and Design
In the US, it’s called a line. In Canada, it’s often referred to as a line-up. Pretty much everywhere else, it’s known as a queue. My friend Benjamen Walker is obsessed with queues. He keeps sending m...
9 Maalis 201210min
The Bathtubs or the Boiler Room
Tucked away in a basement mechanical room are two surviving marble bathtubs from a much more elaborate era of congressional life. Installed around 1860, the tubs were carved from Carrara marble in Ita...
26 Helmi 201211min
US Postal Service Stamps
Somebody might be able to do a great painting that’s 20 x 30 inches, but you take that down to 1 x 1.5 inches, and it’s a challenge to make it work. -Ethel Kessler, Art Director for USPS Stamp Service...
10 Helmi 201212min
Vulcanite Dentures
Before the 1850s, dentures were made out of very hard, very painful and very expensive material, like gold or ivory. They were a luxury item. The invention of Vulcanite hard rubber changed everything....
27 Tammi 20129min
Immersive Ideal
Beauty Pill is band I really like from Washington DC. They have released two EPs (The Cigarette Girl From the Future and You Are Right to be Afraid) and their last album, The Unsustainable Lifestyle, ...
18 Tammi 201212min
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
The Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis became most famous at the moment of its demise. The thirty-three high-rise towers built in the 1950’s were supposed to solve the impending population crisi...
6 Tammi 201211min
Accidental Music of Imperfect Escalators
“There’s a secret jazz seeping from Washington’s aging Metro escalators – those anemic metal walkways that fill our transit system…they honk and bleat and squawk…why are you still wearing those earbud...
19 Joulu 20117min
