New York City Streetlamp

August 31, 2009

In 2004, an international design competition was launched to create a new standard streetlight for the City of New York. A design by the Office for Visual Interaction (OVI) was selected after a two-stage competition process, and will be added to the city’s existing catalogue of fixtures to light streets, sidewalks, and parks within New York’s five boroughs.

In creating a streetlamp that will surely become a new classic, OVI asked themselves, “What is the light source of the future?” Hi-flux LEDs emerged as an outstanding solution. With their small size, low wattage, intensity, and extremely long life of over 50,000 hours, LEDs are preeminent as an energy efficient, minimal-maintenance source.

Rethinking the aesthetic potential of LED technology was a driving force for the streetlight’s elegant form. In contrast to the bulky cobra-heads associated with high-pressure sodium lamps, the streetlight takes on a slim, elongated profile enabled by the tiny size of its light source, which does not require a hefty decorative enclosure. Instead, the thin arc of the luminaire itself provides the necessary surface area for housing and cooling the LEDs. The revolutionary aesthetic of the streetlight is specifically derived from the requirements and possibilities of LED technology.

Reprinted here from the Office of Visual Interaction website

+ www.oviinc.com

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre

August 31, 2009

Several months ago I was asked to shoot a story about the economic ruin of Detroit, specifically focusing on architectural ghosts that were directly related to the automotive industry. I am not a native of Detroit, and aside from half a dozen visits to the city, I have not spent much time there.

I recently came across the photography of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. Among their Ruins of Detroit project, there are several excellent photographs. I particularly appreciate the one pictured above, which is an image of the ballroom inside the Fort Wayne Hotel. There are many striking images, and I personally think that the magazine should have purchased photos from Yves and Romain rather than having asked me to create new ones. In any case, it is worth your time to visit the Marchand and Meffre site in order to take a good look at some powerful work.

Detroit will always be a mystery to me.

+ www.marchandmeffre.com

Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

August 31, 2009

Here are a few photographs from a visit Paris and I made to the Shaker village at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. I have many more photos of the village which will show up on Flickr eventually. The grounds are perfectly kept, and the architecture of course is stunning. I am very fond of the Shaker’s design sensibility, particularly because of the balance they struck with form and function. Their entire body of work is brilliant.

+ www.shakervillageky.org

Ruhrgebiet by Ulrich Mack

August 30, 2009

Utilizing a recently developed printing system from Dieter Kirchner, the Munich publisher Moser Verlag has just released Ruhrgebiet from legendary photographer, Ulrich Mack. The new printing system provides a remarkably vast tonal range with the deepest ink-on-paper black range to date.

In 1959, Ulrich Mack left Hamburg with his Leica to roam the industrial region between the rivers Ruhr and Emscher for several weeks. He proceeded to photograph the industrial architecture which consumed the landscape.

With adoration and fascination as his ambition, he gazed at the expansive horizon of factories and coal processing plants, their mammoth form breaking the skyline as they sat heavy upon the earth. Soaked in the diffuse light of an ever-gray autumn sky, the structures shimmer with a dull and toxic gloss, frequent among 20th century industrial landscapes.

Perched high atop the ironwork, Mack peers from elevated vantage points, composing his frame with genuine curiosity, celebrating every sweeping arch and sharp right angle. If only I could leaf through the pages of this masterwork every evening before bed, but alas, to fetch the plates would cost some five hundred Euros, but hey, a guy’s gotta have a dream right?

+ www.schaden.com