Words I Like...

“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute”
George Bernard Shaw

Urban Nomad Shelter for the Homeless.

Urban Nomad Shelter's vivid colors and biomorphic forms contradict a stereotype of cardboard-box vagrancy by Cameron McNall, Damon Seeley, partners at Design Electroland (Los Angeles)

It was conceived as both a "humanitarian act and as a social provocation." The idea is to distribute thousands of those inflatable structures to foster a dialog between the invisibility and marginalization of the homeless. It provides an easy-to-carry and inexpensive protection from cold, rain and hard sidewalks.

Both esthetically pleasing to passersby and occupants, the Urban Nomad Shelter uses a self-conscious "design culture" aesthetic (think Target or Ikea) to re-brand the homeless and re-map urban real estate. The neon-colored cocoons work like soft pushpins on a city plan, making it impossible not to see the homeless and not to see them as human.

The larva-like shelter is rather an advocacy tool subtly making the point that this is transitional housing—so transitional that it doesn't allow for any kind of personalization. These walls would collapse if you tried to pin anything on them. But no one on the jury defended makeshift construction or confused personal liberty with decor.

Urban Nomad Shelter has just won the first prize of the I.D. Magazine 51's Annual Design Review, in the Concept category.

If were Boss of the World... I would highly recommend these be utilized in our cities.

This probably makes too much sense to be realized...

I think I've found the answer for the people of New Orleans... Amphibious houses!

The Dutch are gearing up for climate change with amphibious houses. If rivers rise above their banks, the houses rise upwards as well.

Drive-in from Waterstudio. 37 "swimming" houses are already strung along a branch of the Maas.

At first glance, they seem quite unremarkable. The cellar, in this case, is not built into the earth, but on a platform. The hollow foundation of each house works in the same way as the hull of a ship, buoying the structure up above water. To prevent the houses from floating away, they slide up two steel posts - and as the water level sinks, so they sink back down again.

"The columns have been driven deep into solid ground," explains Dick van Gooswilligen from the construction company. "They are even strong enough to withstand currents you would find on the open seas. As global warming causes the sea level to rise, this is the solution."

One of the leading architects in maritime architecture is Koen Olthuis. His office has designed houseboats with a parking deck for the car and lower deck storage for a motorboat. Now, his team is coming up with plans for office buildings a hundred meters in height that "swim."

The key is a technique whereby the foundation of the construction can be transformed into a float. A foam core is encased in concrete, with steel cables securing it against the pull of potential currents. Individual pontoons can be joined to one another like Lego blocks. "This construction model is built to last at least one hundred years," Olthuis says. If anything should happen to the foundation, the whole thing can be taken to the dockyard.

The first town based on this model, numbering 12,000 houses, might conceivably be built close to Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

If I were Boss Of The World... the FIRST town based on this model would be New Orleans.

(aside to G-Men: "Get right on this, will ya?)