Candy Chang’s installation I Wish This Was offers residents of devastated New Orleans an opportunity to physically express their desires and demands for their community – through the language of the ever familiar and tactfully unthreatening HELLO, MY NAME IS sticker format.

From a grid of sticker tags on the front of an abandoned buildings (“I wish this was…a community garden, a grocery, Footlocker, not so scary looking”), one begins the realize the abundance of available real estate, and the desperate urge to rebuild the community – not physically, but rather through the implementation of necessary community fundamentals to fill these structures.

The image of getting on a plane, traveling to a barren, neglected, and ultimately less fortunate community to is a familiar one – dare I say, one romanticized in the minds of many of my generation. Getting your hands dirty, hauling, heavy lifting and two weeks later, leaving such a community with a brand new School or Hospital – is that not the greatest sense of contribution one can have?

Last week, I half overheard an interview on CBC with Daniela Papi, a young and very seasoned American volunteer-er who insists that a lot of the programs set up for young kids with good intentions – specifically Gap Year programs – are misguided. Papi is careful not to diminish undeniable value of these opportunities to the kids who are the volunteers – building their confidence, a sense of world-saving, contributing to the less fortunate – but perhaps this good intention is perilously misguided?

As a person who has painted murals of underwater scenes at a post-Hurricane orphanage in Tegucigalpa, contracted heat stroke while landscaping the front of a community Health Centre on a Residence in Nova Scotia, and inadvertently offered my time to a quietly Catholic home builder in the States, it made me question the naivety of my own efforts.
Most interestingly, Papi mentions the abundance of programs which emphasize construction; school building, especially:

“Schools don’t teach kids, people do. There are empty buildings all across Cambodia. Empty health centres, empty schools with people’s names on them – why? Because we invest in things, because it’s easy for us to build something and it’s easy for us to see that it happened. You can see a picture with a school with your name on it, and you know that it’s there”.

Listen to Papi’s CBC interview here

(all images from Candy’s website)

“Somewhere to Hang Your Hat”

“Off the Hook”

“The Hook-up”

“Hooked on You”

“Captain Hooks”

“Hook Line and Sinker”

Ok, just kidding… these are my favourite design-sexy coathooks of the moment.

molo’s cork peg, magnetized cork cylinders w/ magnetic mounting board.

Points for versatility.

Kirsty Whyte’s Limpet Hooks, handcrafted wood.

Rob Southcott’s Paper Airplanes Hooks, powder coated steel.

Loyal Loot’s Monsieur Dressup, maple.

Points for those boots.

Vote for your favourite or post your own coathook cliche title in the comments.

One measure of an excellent building is whether it’s one you want to wander into.  Those examples scattered across the city that have you cocking your neck, wondering what’s inside?  That’s Teeple Architects.  (see: U of T’s Early Learning Centre or East End Community Health Care if you don’t already know what I’m talking about.)

The 60 Richmond Housing Cooperative is rife with Teeple signatures: exceptional detailing, an expressive palette, green street cred…  Most importantly, it’s the logical consequence of a strong concept.

The intersecting volumes have clear functional roles: the positive volumes define the corner of Richmond and Berti and the negative volumes carve out the green spaces, fostering a mini eco-system within the central artery.

It takes courage to build conceptually and in times of ubiquitous glazing Teeple brought back the framed view.

I’m reminded of Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky’s dissection of transparency.  Transparency isn’t just an inherent quality of material.  Transparency is an organization of space: a simultaneity and fluctuation of space.  60 Richmond is the transparent antidote to the monotony of Toronto glass tower projects.

So congratulations to the home team for their recognition in ArchDaily’s buildings of the year awards.  Toronto’s 60 Richmond won the housing category this year.  And thanks to the folks at Teeple for yet another city site we’d like to trespass on.

More praise for 60 Richmond:

Alex Bozikovic

ArchDaily

Watch Stephen Teeple on the difference between architecture and a “collage of niceties”

photos: Shai Gil

This is a Flint city polygon, read Wes Janz’s haunting description of a disintegrating city here.

Drawing on worldwide revolutionary fever, Parisians take to the streets (surprise, surprise) to protest the most oppressive regime of all: the new Gehry authored Louis Vuitton cultural centre’s (read: Bernard Arnaud’s personal art collection) takeover of a kids park.

With angered Parisians hoping to raze it to the ground, local archi-god Jean Nouvel defends Gehry and calls out Parisians on their skimpy suits.  A strong statement from someone who, according to a reliable source of mine, has no qulams with showing up to events in skin tight black leather.  But let’s not be shy, this is a fashion story.  Arnaud’s local triumph would have really stuck it to rival Francois Pinault’s collection, currently housed in the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, or so says the Telegraph.

Speaking of whom… the devils of bad translation and hearsay may have been at work on this story:  Can anyone tell me exactly where and when Frank Gehry called Parisians philistines?  It’s the popular line in every reproduction yet I can’t find any evidence of it anywhere.  Trust me, I’d like to.

Sexy rich fashion stars, sexy rich starchitects, battling out their ambitions on Paris’ urban landscape, it couldn’t be juicier… but is it bigger than #BIG?  If you don’t think so read Justin Davidson’s coverage of W57 here.

I love southern Lebanon.  Where else do the kindly old men selling phoenician (or phoenician-like) trinkets invite you to see the byzantine castle behind their shop that at one point doubled as a fortress for the French?

I love the southern Lebanese.  And here’s why, sure it was a byzantine castle, and sure, the french used it as a fortress, but that’s not stopping anyone from re-appropriating a rock or two here and there to reno their porch. I’m not an anti-preservationist.  I would be truly sad should the fabric of this unique city disappear.  That said, immobility creeps me out.  There is a comfort in knowing that there are some places that never stop evolving.  Tyre is a living city.

Thanks to Ahmad, the best impromptu guide a girl could ask for.

Well, in less than 3 hours, I’ll be having a conversation with the great Vito Acconci for Bad Day Magazine. It’s pretty funny that one of my questions is about how our increasing reliance on computers is affecting design and I’ve decided to forgo my old school microphone and tape recorder in lieu of some recording program that I downloaded on my laptop.
Can someone quickly please define “ephemeral architecture” for me?
This dude is a legend, wish me luck.

Check him out

Slingshot bridge: Driving across it kind of feels like being on swing.  The concept of suspension translates, which i guess makes sense, that’s the function of a bridge.  The lighting is completely weird, I didn’t get it at all.  The detailing also lacked, but over all: success.

Limestone: Reminded me of the pines – or anywhere where you have some interesting people and everyone is building in the same material, you end up with some really creative residential forms.  Some were absurdly good, some were just absurd.

Good Ideas:  I saw some brightly coloured curtains hanging behind these beautiful old wrought iron art nouveau screens set in concrete.  It was exciting.

I also bought some Palestinian wine and a stuffed camel.

Many thanks to Linda, Nasser, and the whole Mutawi family for their generous hospitality and all around good times.

(Apologies for forgetting to taking photos- terrible at documenting!)

-Rachel