Autoprogettazione?

Enzo Mari is legend amongst furniture designers -- a cranky old radical, chewing over cigars and long Italian syllables as he lacerates the current state of design. Now 85, according to the Wikipedias, he is still best known for his 1974 book Autoprogettazione ?, a DIY instruction manual detailing 19 simple pieces of furniture. Setting out harsh constraints for himself, Mari used only common dimensional lumber fastened with nails, avoiding cuts, joinery, and finishes. The results are severe in form, stripped to an irreducible degree (much like the zip-tie). Pre-internet, Mari then released the designs as a simple, (initially free) book instead of as actual products, in the hope that folks would learn about carpentry, design, and the expression of quality through the process of building.

William HolmanOctober 13, 2013Autoprogettazione, enzo mari, guerilla, furniture, DIY, design education Comment

Station North Tool Library

A few weeks ago, through work, I was introduced to Piper Watson and John Shea, two local artists who live in the Greenmount West neighborhood. In the summer of 2012, they took a 10,000-mile motorcycle trip across America, visiting tool libraries. Though not a new concept, tool libraries have been catching on -- Wikipedia lists 47 in the U.S., and dozens in other countries.

Research complete, they put together some grant money and opened the Station North Tool Library this past April. They took a first-floor space in Area 405, a bustling studio space and gallery at 405 East Oliver Street, right around the corner from the new Design High School and up the street from the City Arts building. Their operation has been growing steadily ever since, with over two hundred members and a swelling collection of tools. Most have been donated by members; others come from estate sales or educational organizations. Once cleaned up, repaired, and put on the floor, they are available to members for check-out one week at a time.

William HolmanOctober 5, 2013station north tool library, tool library, station north, piper watson, john sheaComment

Zip-Tie Joinery

Henry Petroski is a professor of engineering at Duke University, and the author of a great many books. One of those books, The Evolution of Useful Things, examines the history of paperclips, zippers, Big Mac packaging, and other small artifacts of modern life. Each case study presents a similar story: small need-based inventions, patiently iterated, have been refined down to a perfect, simple form. The paperclip, for instance, was the end point of innovations in wire manufacture, steel milling, and the inadequacies of straight pins.

In 1958, Mauras Logan was working at Thomas and Betts, an electrical-products company. Manufacturing bombers for the air force, workers knotted together bundles of loose wires with waxed nylon cord. It was inefficient and sometimes crippling to worker's hands. In response, Logan invented the cable tie: a grooved metal strap, fed through a small, stamped-metal pawl, created an instant, irreversible knot. Fifty years later, the zip-tie has progressed according to Petroski's Law, evolving into a spare nylon machine. The design of zip-ties has been solved to an irreducible degree.

William HolmanSeptember 29, 2013zip ties, zip tie, cable tie, cable ties, henry petroski, mauras logan, furniture, architecture Comments

Tractor Stools

This summer, on our road trip out west, the lady and I were on the lookout for old cast-iron implement seats. The classic, butt-cupping shells were first used on horse-drawn equipment in the 1850's. Prior to that, most farm implements were walk-behind. The term tractor seat came into use as farms were mechanized in the early 20th century, but serious collectors insist the proper name is farm implement seat, as unwieldy as that might be. For ease of use, I will refer to them as simple tractor seats throughout this post.

Wall Hunters

This past week, City Paper published a front-page article, Urban Artillery , profiling the Wall Hunters, a group of activists and artists who use wheat-paste posters to shame slumlords into cleaning up derelict properties in Baltimore. Both Wall Hunters and Baltimore Slumlord Watch have been getting a lot of press lately, even cropping up in the Baltimore Sun. Press is just what they're after, and they are bringing a lot of ruckus to an already raucous conversation about vacant housing in the city.

Jones Falls

I have lived in Baltimore for one out of the last ten years, plus a few month's worth of summer breaks. In the course of reacquainting myself with the city, I have taken to walking, an old habit that soothes my mind and settles my bones. My first effort was a transect, cutting down Falls Road and back, an easy loop of about 2-1/4 miles. This walk mirrored, and at times veered into, the Jones Falls, a historic waterway that reveals much about Baltimore's past, its present, and provides a startling vision of one possible future.

Guerilla Road Trip Pt. 2

After the mysteries of West Texas, me and the lady packed the 'rolla tight and wound our way through New Mexico and onto my former home, Arcosanti. I had an overpowering sense of deja vu descending from Flagstaff and seeing the Arco skyline from the highway: the overturned boat hull of the Vaults, the white roofs of the East Crescent, all studded with tall cypress and gnarled olive trees.

William HolmanAugust 14, 2013Comment

Guerilla Road Trip, Part 1

Object Guerilla has been dark for a few weeks because I've been on the road. The lady and I undertook a twenty-day, 5,500 mile trip across the American West, visiting national parks, scenic wonders, artistic oddities, and architectural phenomena. It was a guerilla trip, light and cheap. We spent very little, mostly on gas and food, couch-surfing, tent-camping, and AirBnB-ing to save cash. Upon our return to Chicago, we packed up and moved to Baltimore to pursue some new adventures in design and life.

On July 6th, we struck out bright and early for St. Louis, arriving in mid-afternoon, time enough to see the Arch and downtown before supper. After the touristy bits were dispensed with, we met up with my ReBuild colleagues Dayna Kriz and Rae Chardonnay at Blair House in Hyde Park.

William HolmanAugust 5, 2013guerilla, object guerilla, road trip, camping, rebuild st. louis, buckminster fuller, carbondale, marfa, dan flavin, donald juddComment

Object Guerilla: The Book

Sunday, June 30th, I printed, wrapped, and FedEx-ed the first draft of my first book to my editor. I can't release all the details just yet, but it will have Guerilla somewhere in the title and will come out a little over a year from now. It aspires to be a field guide to building furniture out of scavenged materials, illustrated with 35 case studies of my own projects. Many of these projects have never been published before, while some are more detailed, better-documented versions of my most popular Instructables.

William HolmanJuly 4, 2013 Comment

Breakdown Table

Before moving up to Chicago, in the spring of 2011, I put together a small breakfast table. The legs were mortised into the top (a move I used to better effect a year later) and removable, making for a simple, lightweight, knock-flat table. Each leg was a simple, tapered 2x4, run through with a dowel that reinforced the mortise. At about 30" square, it fit perfectly into our little studio apartment, under the kitchen window.

After nearly two years of faithful service, however, the Breakdown Table is showing some signs of wear. The top, an old laminate desk that I spray-painted primary yellow, is peeling, and the black rubber rim around the perimeter brings an institutional flavor to our meals. My lateral-stability scheme, based on drywall screws through the dowel "ears" at the top of each leg, is also failing The top has a particle board core, which has gradually lost its grip on the screws in each leg.

William HolmanJune 20, 2013break down table, breakdown table, mortise, tenon, walnut, mapleComment

Trailer Homes, Revisited

In recent years, the internet has been abuzz with Tiny Houses: generally defined as sub-500 square foot (usually to avoid having to comply with building codes) and wheeled, these new trailer homes have sprung up in the wake of the Great Recession like seedlings after a forest fire. The web may have taken a shine to them because they are so meme-worthy, being so small and adorable and Pinterest-y. While not an altogether recent phenomenon, the zeitgeist is the zeitgeist, and their time has come. In an era of dwindling home values, rampant foreclosures, job insecurity, rising energy prices, and shrinking retirement funds, the tiny house makes sense. An abundance of online resources are available for planning one, and the small scale makes it possible for an amateur to knock one together with little time or money.

William HolmanJune 10, 2013 Comment

Fort Pulaski

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently found myself back in the South. On our way to Alabama, the lady and I stopped over in Savannah, where my mother grew up and my uncle still lives. He took us on a tour, and we motored over the bridge to Fort Pulaski. Halfway between Savannah and Tybee Island, the fort overlooks the only deep-water route into the city. James Madison ordered construction of the fort, and dozens of others like it, after the War of 1812 exposed the vulnerabilities of America's most economically important ports.

Finished in 1847, the fort cost $1 million and took fourteen years to complete. The brick walls are 11 feet thick, and at the time, were thought to be impenetrable. However, only 15 years after its completion it was rendered obsolete by a 30-hour Union barrage from nearby Tybee Island. The Yanks used new rifled cannon, which bored through the masonry structure from a distance greater than the range of the Rebel's smoothbore weapons. Unable to retaliate, they surrendered. Union forces then occupied the fort for the duration of the war, using it to blockade cotton exports and weapon imports.

William HolmanJune 2, 2013tybee island, fort pulaski, military architecture, arcologyComment

Hale County Revisited

After last week's discussion of some of the challenges facing Hale County, Alabama, I thought I'd follow up with some of the progress underway in Greensboro and the surrounding towns. I had the chance to revisit my former home for the first time in almost two years last week. The lady and I stayed at Spencer House with some old Rural Studio friends, and got a tour of the latest projects.

Like many small rural towns, a lot has changed and yet everything has stayed the same. Our first stop was Mac's House, the 20K I built with Penny Hagberth, Clem Blakemore, and Danny Wicke in 2010. The house was holding up well -- the siding was in great shape, the woodwork weathered but shipshape, the underside chicken netting unmolested by creatures great and small. I hadn't seen it without the various trailers removed from the yard and the grass grown back, and it was quite handsome all grown into the landscape. I was curious to see how some of the interior details were holding up, but that'll have to wait for another visit. Unfortunately, Mac wasn't around, so we took some photos, left a note, and headed north to Greensboro.

William HolmanMay 25, 2013rural studio, youthbuild, hale countyComment

Hale County and the Poverty-Industrial Complex

In the spring of 2009, I was accepted into the Rural Studio's Outreach Studio, a one-year, post-graduate program for young architects. Two teammates and I spent a year designing and building a house on a budget of $20,000, the ninth in a series of 20K Houses. This research project is ongoing, year-to-year, with different student teams, all trying to address the under-served problem of rural affordable housing. The default paradigm for that population is a trailer home -- a rapidly depreciating, off-gassing, near-impossible-to-insure albatross slung around the necks of already economically stressed people. We finished our house in June, 2010, for MacArthur Coach, a retired construction worker living on Social Security.

After my stint at the Rural Studio, I stayed in Greensboro, Alabama, the county seat of Hale County, for another year. I worked at a small non-profit called YouthBuild, a job-training and GED program for young adults. The students were paid a small stipend (~$80 a week) to attend 20 hours of GED classes and 12 hours of vocational instruction in carpentry. Most of them had left high school for various reasons, or were court-ordered to attend our program. They ranged in age from 16 to 24, and that $80 represented a significant part of their household income.

"SSI", "alabama", "chana joffe-walt", "great recession", "greensboro", "job training", "rural studio", "youthbuild"wholmanMay 12, 2013Comment

Trainsect

A transect is defined as :

1. (verb) to cut or divide crossways

2. (noun) a sample strip of land used to monitor plant distribution, animal populations, etc, within a given area

In biology, a transect is a path along which one counts and records occurrences of the phenomena of study (e.g. plants).

In 1998, conservationist and endurance junkie Michael Fay undertook the MegaTransect, an epic walk across the densely forested interior of Africa. He undertook a comprehensive recording of the uninhabited lands, eventually leveraging that information to a create a string of 13 protected national parks. The effort damn near killed him. He has now taken his National Geographic salary on up to Alaska, contemplating a similar project that will cover the temperate rainforests of Alaska and British Columbia.

Wind Wagons

Stumbling around the web this week, seeking a respitefrom terrorists and exploding fertilizer plants and rising floodwaters, I came across an article on Harper's about Peppard's Folly. Back in 1860, 26 year-old millwright Samuel Peppard built a prototype wind wagon. No images of his craft survive, but it was a rather narrowfour-wheeled cart with a seven-foot mast and a canvas sail. He and some friends set out from Oskaloosa, Oklahoma on May 9th, making it 500 miles before a small tornado destroyed the craft just short of Denver. Eventually, Sam gave up on gold mining, served in the Union Army, got married, and settled down back in Oskaloosa.

He wasn't the only land sailor, either -- a number of others gave it a shot over the years, trying to sell their creations to the military or to investors for moving freight. I imagine it made more sense when the prairies were literally an inland, grassy sea, uncut by rails, roads, or fences. Reports from antiquity claim the Chinese had similar contraptions for crossing their vast western lands. Here in America, the utility of windwagons was somewhat limited by the prevailing winds -- west-to-east -- which were generally contrary to the desired direction of travel.