things that make me feel smart, part 2

Psycho-geography.
Future ruins.
Experimental landscapes.
Urban spelunking.
Spatial theoretics.
Sonic architecture.

If UNIVERSE had enough indie cred to prevent me from seeming like a total geek, then this list of topics surely bursts that bubble. Well, I'm fine with that, because they're damn fascinating. So, while I know that we'll probably be seeing more food than architecture, it still seems appropriate that on the eve of our trip to New York I'd introduce you to one of my favorite urban spaces/architecture sites, BLDGBLOG.

Written by Geoff Manaugh, a Senior Editor at Dwell magazine (hey, that makes this sort of hip, right?), BLDGBLOG presents consistently thought-provoking ideas about the built environment and what if... scenarios for the future. When you start following the items and jaw-dropping photography (like this image of drainage spelunking in Canada) that Manaugh covers, you begin to realize that architecture is a lot weirder than you ever imagined.

Take for instance this story from the Guardian about a plan to construct a warehouse for unwanted books. To continue preserving books that no one is using, British libraries are constructing vast, windowless buildings in the industrial outskirts of London. Not for access, mind you, just for archival.

Or how about this urban design proposal that has been circulating for a few years now: What should Philadelphia do with it's overgrown, abandoned urban lots? Put them into production growing the city's food, of course. Enter Farmadelphia, a plan to revisit the agrarian past of Philly. But this project didn't just imagine a network of run-of-the-mill community garden plots; the designer's renderings proposed a full-scale agriculture of grazing livestock, rotational crops and wheat fields!

So, for a good sense of just how weird our constructed landscape is, take a look at:
- One of the posts that got me hooked on this site: San Francisco's foundations are built on abandoned, scuttled ships
- The construction of ultra-luxe zoos and their promises for future suburban development
- The role of environmental toxins in aging
- Olympic security in Beijing, CCTV, and the future of reality film-making
- The calls of city songbirds are actually changing their cadence and pitch
- First the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, and now Dubai has purchased the rights to recreate and the city of Lyons

You might be able to speculate on it, but you just can't make this stuff up.