Canon Announces the EOS 6D

Nathan Ingraham, reporting for The Verge:

Nikon threw the photography world for a loop last week by announcing the D600 — a full-frame DSLR that hits a reasonably affordable price point. Apparently, Canon has its sights on the exact same market, as the company has just introduced the EOS 6D: the lightest, smallest, and least expensive full-frame DSLR the company has ever produced. Canon’s latest entry not only compares favorably with the D600, it also provides a compelling alternative to photographers who don’t have $3,500 to spare — but are nonetheless enamored with the 5D Mark III’s stacked spec sheet.

Having just upgraded to full frame myself I can say that the difference is real. The clarity, the bokeh, the high iso performance - these are all vastly better with the full frame cameras. The 6D, as well as the D600 on the Nikon side, seem like really great options to break into the full frame world.

Preorders for the Canon EOS 6D are available at Amazon

Gotham

Jimmy Stamp, on what Batman’s Gotham tells us about cities:

New York, Dubai, Tokyo, Moscow, Gotham. Every city in every atlas—real and fictional— has a unique character shaped by history and geography. More than a mere sense of place derived from architecture and planning, cities have a feeling that pervades the consciousness of those who live there until they they themselves become a a piece of the urban fabric, a fractional embodiment of the city itself. Perhaps more than any other person—real or fictional—Batman is integrally linked to his city, the city he has sworn to protect. In every sense of the word, he is a true avatar of Gotham. And Gotham City itself is an avatar, not only of the dreams of its fictional architects, but of our collective urban paranoia.

One of my favorite plots in the Batman comic was a storyline titled “Destroyer” published in 1992. Written by Alan Grant, the premise is sure to please any disgruntled architect or uncompromising disciple of Howard Roark: an overzealous architecture historian/Navy SEAL bombs abandoned and derelict “soulless concrete” buildings that obscure the Neo-gothic architecture of the city’s original architect, and the subject of the mad bomber’s thesis, Cyrus Pinkney. While carefully planting explosives, our antagonist’s inner monologue is rampant with polemics decrying the conformity induced by the contemporary architecture of Gotham. “Live in a box, shop in a box, die in a box. Robots, that’s what they want. Not people. Robots that consume. Straight lines – sharp angles – square boxes. No wonder the city’s gone mad.” If there was ever a better critique of Modernism, I haven’t heard it.

So starts an exceptionally interesting treatise on how we shape our cities and our cities shape us.

Duany's Vision of the Future

Rick Hampson, writing for USA Today, on the future of cities according to Andres Duany:

Global warming will be a fait accompli in 30 years, and so these urban Americans will raise their own food, in fields and on rooftops, and build structures to withstand everything from hurricane winds to Formosan termites.

They will walk and ride more and drive less. And they will like it.

Duany sees five trends:

1. Urban retrofit of suburbia


2. Gardener on the roof


3. Government goes hyper local


4. Buildings that look cool and safe


5. Mormon settlers as models

The article includes a few token criticisms of the New Urbanist movement that deserve some mention:

Duany and the New Urbanists have their critics. Demographer Joel Kotkin of Southern California’s Chapman University argues that the convenience of the car and the suburb ensures their continued dominance over mass transit and city centers.

There is ample evidence that a large segment of the population prefers walkable neighborhoods. This convenience argument doesn’t address a whole host of issues. How is traffic and gridlock convenient? How is having to drive everywhere more convenient than having options? New Urbanism doesn’t look to eliminate cars but instead looks to diminish the role of the car in the decision making process. New Urbanism’s basic premise is how do we design for people but accommodate the car as well. Any argument that starts with “people like cars” ignores that basic fact.

And British architecture critic Jonathan Glancey has called New Urbanism “holier-than-thou” in its presumption that planners know best.

I don’t think New Urbanists believe planners know best - maybe that good planners know better than bad planners. Much of the work of New Urbanism seeks to undo the negative consequences of decades of bad planning. Powerful planning is the paradigm we live in so New Urbanists seek to use strong planning as a tool to improve our places. Planning exists. The question is whether it is good planning or bad planning. But New Urbanists also know that great places were created in the absence of planning for thousands of years.

Twice for Transit

Tanya Snyder, reporting for StreetsBlog:

When asked what would solve traffic problems in their community, 42 percent of Americans say more transit. Only 20 percent say more roads. And 21 percent would like to see communities developed that don’t require so much driving. Two-thirds support local planning that guides new development into existing cities and near public transportation.

It’s interesting that transportation funding is so lopsided towards roads when the general public expresses a desire for more transit.

The Magic of the Turn

MG Siegler, writing for TechCrunch, on Apple’s relentless pursuit of perfection:

While it lacks the pomp and circumstance of a Prestige on stage at some big event, this interaction is much more intimate, and as such, much more powerful. You may not perceive it directly, but the care and craft of The Turn percolates through your hands and eyes. Within minutes or even seconds, you just know this is something different. Something far beyond what others are doing with their false magic. You want this. You need this.

For a device that is used daily, the magic is in the interaction. The quality of materials, the craftsmanship, the attention to detail - these things matter.

The Unibody iPhone

Don Lehman, did some great technical analysis of the design changes of the then only rumored new iPhone:

Overall this design is a major improvement over the 4/4S. Functionally, it’s worlds better, and aesthetically, I think it’s stunning. At first glance it doesn’t appear to be dramatically different from its predecessor, but when you really dig into it, there are a ton of changes that make it appreciably nicer. If you aren’t excited about it now, you will be when you see one in person. Classic Apple design refinement.

If you are interested in design that is more than skin deep, take a look.

The Value of Walking to School

Jennifer Keesmaat gave an excellent Tedx talk on the value of walking to school:

I thought the whole talk was interesting but I particularly liked the last section where she discussed the “Fact Based” and “Fear Based” reasons for her daughter not wanting to walk to school. So often we are prevented from doing things that would actually be good for us by paralyzing fear. Sometimes the fear is irrational and sometimes it is rational. Either way, I thought the way Jennifer handled it was good - just acknowledge that the fear is there but decide it won’t control what you do. The truth is that danger exists in different forms everywhere. By deciding to walk to school, her daughter exchanged one type of danger for another.

via Dan Pearce

What Pinterest Says About Architecture

Pinterest, the online social pinboard service, is an interesting phenomenom to me. It has been said, perhaps only a little unfairly, that the only people on Pinterest are planning a wedding or wishing to plan a wedding. While planning and dreaming about weddings and other events are a large part of Pinterest, there is a lot of activity around planning your next (or dream) vacation, finding recipes to (maybe someday) try, finding motivation to lose weight or accepting your body (depending on which side of that fence you are), furnishing your (existing or dream) home, and just generally feeling creative (sometimes, as the frequently repinned e-card says, without actually doing anything). The Pinterest demographic does certainly skew towards creative females and this is exactly what I find intriguing. A quick survey of popular pins that relate to architecture and place reveals an interesting trend - there is a much higher percentage of traditional leaning design than you find in other design centered forums. What does this mean? I think it has several implications.

First, I think that the disconnect between the pins on Pinterest and the celebrated designs of other forums suggests a lack of engagement from the architectural profession. I think that Pinterest is much more representative of the general population than most design specific communities in that it is neither curated nor specifically about design. It is normal people pinning things that interest them, inspire them, or relate to a specific project or event they are involved in. Architecture is such a limited part of Pinterest precisely because it is normal people. Normal people have weddings to plan. They have parties to plan. They have vacations to dream about and homes to decorate. And those last two categories start to touch on what people look for in place and building. From what I have observed, the places and buildings that inspire these regular people are quite a bit different from the places and buildings that are celebrated in architectural magazines and design focused web sites and are not anything like the projects that collect professional awards. This belies a fundamental disconnect between the profession and the people the profession serves - a design elite out of touch with the public.

Next, I would categorize the overall feeling of what gets pinned as being very human by which I mean they appeal to our humanity. The quaint, the cute, the handmade, the homey - these are all feelings we get about the essential humanity of the places, buildings, and objects we interact with. The things that seem to inspire the Pinterest community are things that speak to our fundamental humanity - our desire for places and buildings that nurture, that connect us to our place and each other, that ground us in our community and our planet, that speak to our souls and have character, that are loveable. What I think this shows is a desire to be intimate with our surroundings - to not just exist in anonomous space but to thrive in a place. This intimacy, this connection with the places, buildings, and objects we interact with, can only be accomplished through a celebration of humanity that embraces the local cultures, climate, and traditions.

Finally, I think that the pins you find when you expand beyond the realm of design only serve to reinforce the previous two points. The photography section is full of pins celebrating humanity - human emotions, human experiences, sometimes just the human form. The travel section is full of interesting and vibrant human places. Each section, in its own way celebrates some aspect of being human.

Pinterest is a vibrant community of people celebrating life and the human spirit. Whether it is finding the inspiration for your next hairstyle or planning your next vacation, Pinterest is a collection of the little daily celebrations of life - the reminders of our humanity. Though I don’t fit the stereotype, I am on Pinterest and I enjoy using it. I am mostly a repinner, but I have found some really interesting and beautiful things. Feel free to follow me as I pin and repin my own celebrations of humanity, particularly the humanity of place.

Warned

Sarah Goodyear, for The Village Voice:

We were nearly halfway over the Brooklyn Bridge when he changed the subject.

As we crossed the river, on a bright sunny day very much like the day that awaited us two months in the future, he said, “You know, I am leaving the country and going home to Egypt sometime in late August or September. I have gotten e-mails from people I know saying that Osama bin Laden has planned big terrorist attacks for New York and Washington for that time. It will not be safe here then.”

Imagine being told of the attacks before they happened but dismissing the warning as unlikely.

A Steep Price

David Caruso and David Porter, writing for the Associated Press, on the World Trade Center Memorial’s Steep Price:

With its huge reflecting pools, ringed by waterfalls and skyscrapers, and a cavernous underground museum still under construction, the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center is an awesome spectacle that moved and inspired some 4.5 million visitors in its first year.

But all that eye-welling magnificence comes with a jaw-dropping price tag. The foundation that runs the memorial estimates that once the roughly $700 million project is complete, the memorial and museum will together cost $60 million a year to operate.